Quietly putting himself into an easy position of defence, with his right arm guarding his face and body, Jan Steenbock, throwing out his left fist with a rapidity of movement quite unexpected in one of his slow, methodical demeanour, caught the blustering Yankee, as he advanced on him with hostile thoughts intent, full butt between the eyes, the blow being delivered straight from the shoulder and having sufficient momentum to have felled an ox.
At all events, it was enough for Mr Flinders.
Whack!
It resounded through the ship; and, uttering a half-stifled cry, the mate measured his length along the deck, the back of his head knocking against the planks with a sound that seemed to be the echo of the blow that brought him low, though softer and more like a thud—tempered and toned down, no doubt, by the subduing effect of distance!
This second assault on his thick skull, however, instead of stunning him, as might have been imagined, appeared to bring the mate back to consciousness, and roused him indeed to further action; for, scrambling up from his recumbent position, with his face showing unmistakable marks of the fray already, and his eyes not glaring quite so much, for they were beginning to close up, he got on his feet again, and squared up to Jan Steenbock, with his arms swinging round like those of a windmill.
He might just as well have tried to batter down a stone wall, under the circumstances, as endeavour to break down the other’s guard by any such feeble attempt, although both were pretty well matched as to size and strength.
Jan paid no attention to his roundabout and random onslaught, fending off his ill-directed blows easily enough with his right arm, which was well balanced, a little forward across his chest, protecting him from every effort of his enemy.
He just played with him for a minute, during which the Yankee mate, frothing with fury and uttering all sorts of terrible threats, that were as powerless to hurt Jan as his pointless attack, danced round his watchful antagonist like a pea on a hot griddle; and then, the Dane, tired at length of the fun, advancing his left, delivered another terrific drive from the shoulder that tumbled Mr Flinders backwards under the hood of the booby hatch, where he nearly floored Captain Snaggs, on his way up from the cuddy—the skipper having been also aroused by the tumult, the scene of the battle being almost immediately over his swinging cot, and the concussion of the first-mate’s head against the deck having awakened him before his time, which naturally did not tend to improve his temper.
“Hillo, ye durned Cape Cod sculpin!” he gasped out, Mr Flinders’ falling body having caught him full in the stomach and knocked all the wind out of him. “Thet’s a kinder pretty sorter way to come tumblin’ down the companion, like a mad bull in fly time! What’s all this infarnal muss about, hey?”
So shouting, between his pauses to take breath, the skipper shoved the mate before him out of the hatchway, repeating his question again when both had emerged on the poop. “Now, what’s this infarnal muss about, hey?”