“Want ter fight?”
“Yes,” I said, launching out my fist straight towards his bullet head and giving him a cropper on the mouth that sent him tumbling backwards on the deck, all of a heap; “I do.”
‘Ugly’ rose slowly to his feet, his face streaming with blood; and he was just about making a rush at me like a mad bull at a gate, while I put myself in a posture of defence in proper pugilistic fashion, when an interruption, though but of a temporary character, came to these proceedings.
The ubiquitous Larrikins was the intervener.
“Lor’, you be green ’uns!” he cried, sinking his voice to a cautious pitch. “Don’t you fight here; why, the ‘crushers’ will nab yer afore yer can strike a blow comfortably! If fight yer must, coom up here on the fo’c’s’le, and then you can fight away theer to yer ’art’s content, without nobody not a-hinterfeerin’ with yer!”
Chapter Six.
A Knotty Point!
I led the way towards the forecastle of the old ship, where the high bulwarks, I saw, would screen us well from observation; although the place, of course, was on the open deck, and visible from aloft, had anybody been there on the look-out, anxious to take a peep at us.