"I'll tell you who he is, shipmates," was the answer. "He's a boy that the mate has entrapped on board without his own consent."
"Isn't he the mate's nephew?"
"No more than I am, though the mate chooses to call him so. He's got a mother living in Boston, and he's her only boy. She doesn't know what has become of him. Now, shipmates, he seems to be a fine lad, and I'm going to stand by him for his sake and his mother's."
Sailors are generous when you reach their hearts, and there was a murmur of approbation when Bill concluded.
But there is no rule without an exception, and that exception was the scowling sailor who has already been mentioned. Few knew much about him. This was his second voyage on board the Bouncing Betsey. Next to Bill Sturdy he was the stoutest and most athletic sailor on board the ship. During the previous voyage he had been the bully of the crew, taking advantage of his personal strength. Now they were relieved from his tyranny. In Bill Sturdy he had more than found his match. No one, comparing the two men, could doubt, that in a contest, the odds would be decidedly in favor of Bill. Antonio, for this was his name, for he was a Spaniard by birth, could not help seeing the changed state of affairs. Now no one likes to be eclipsed, and to see the authority passing from his hands into those of another. Certainly Antonio did not behold this transfer with indifference. He could not brook holding the second place, where the first had been his. But how could he help it? Very evidently the opinions of the crew favored Bill Sturdy; not only because they believed him to excel Antonio in physical qualities, which hold a high value in the eyes of a sailor, but because he had, as yet, shown no disposition to abuse his power. Antonio was resolved not to yield without a struggle, and therefore determined to take the first occasion to pick a quarrel with his rival, as this would give him an opportunity to measure his strength with him. Antonio did not see, what was evident to all else, that his rival was undeniably his superior in prowess. People are generally slow to admit their own inferiority. That is only natural. He hoped, therefore, that he should be able to re-establish his supremacy by coming off a conqueror in the contest which he had determined to do all in his power to bring about.
Antonio's attention had not been especially called to our hero, until he heard Bill Sturdy avow his determination to take him under his protection. Then, in a spirit of perverseness, and because he thought it would open the way for the trial of strength which he courted, he resolved to oppose him, and openly espouse the other side.
Accordingly, when the murmurs of applause, which had been elicited by his rival's frank and generous appeal to the sympathies of the crew, had subsided, Antonio looked round on the rough faces which surrounded him, and growled,—
"Well, shipmates, are you going to submit to what this fellow says? He dares you to touch this snivelling milk-sop of a boy."
Some of the faces grew dark and threatening at this representation. Nothing stirs up a sailor's heart to opposition so readily as anything which resembles a threat.
Bill Sturdy hastened to reply.