“Good for you!” “I bet on the little one!” “He’s got pluck!” was heard from the sailors.
Perhaps the most astonished person on deck was Jack Rodman himself. Evidently he had made some mistake in his calculations. He had gone in for an easy victory, and expected that his first blow would prove a crusher. But, instead of this, his own nose was bleeding, and his small antagonist stood facing him, as cool and composed as if, instead of being an actor in the contest, he had only been an indifferent spectator.
How did it all happen? That was what puzzled Jack. He took a fresh look at Harry, to make sure that he was right in his first impression, as to his inferior size and strength.
“Give it to him, Jack! Don’t let him get the best of you!” called out a backer.
“No, I won’t,” growled Jack. “I’ll chaw him up.”
Our hero listened to this threat without being discomposed. He had made a critical survey of his antagonist, and formed an estimate of his ability. He saw that Jack was his superior in strength, and if they should come to a close contest that he would get the worst of it. But he saw also that of scientific fighting Jack knew nothing. His course was to keep him at arm’s length, and conduct the contest on scientific principles.
Jack rushed in again with the same headlong precipitation as before, and his reception was about the same as before. This time our hero planted a blow in his left eye, which caused Jack to stagger back with a howl of dismay and rage. By this time his blood was up, and he was driven on by a kind of blind fury, aggravated by the mortification he experienced at being worsted by a smaller boy in presence of the ship’s crew. His reputation was at stake. He knew that if he retired from the contest defeated, he would never hear the last of it. A coward and a bully by nature, he never would have made the first attack, had he anticipated that Harry would prove so powerful an antagonist; but now he was in for it his blood was up, and he determined, as the boys say, “to go in and win.”
He made another furious dash, and tried hard to seize Harry around the middle, when he would have found it an easy task, in consequence of his superior strength, to throw him down, and take vengeance upon him for the personal damages he had already received. But our hero understood very well his purpose, and braced himself for what he instinctively felt would be the final contest. He eluded the grasp of his furious adversary, and planted two blows quick as lightning, one in his breast, the other in his face. While Jack was staggering under them, he gathered up his strength, and put it all into one final blow, which finished the work effectually. Jack fell on deck heavily, and so bewildered was he that he lay there motionless, and did not at first attempt to rise.
This quite turned the tide in favor of our hero. Sailors admire pluck, especially when it is shown by a little fellow contending against odds. There was a chorus of approving exclamations, expressed in the characteristic sailor dialect, and Harry, standing in the centre of the ring, his face flushed with the excitement of the contest, was transformed in the eyes of all into a hero. The most delighted of all was Tom Patch, who swung his hat, and called out for three cheers for the victor. The result was the more gratifying to him, because wholly unexpected. The supercargo, also, standing aloof from the ring, had witnessed the contest, and his sympathies also had been with our hero, for he had already formed an opinion far from favorable of Jack Rodman, whom he had another reason for not liking.
But there was one to whom the result of the contest was in the highest degree unsatisfactory. This was Captain Brandon. He had been far from anticipating such a denouement, and a frown gathered on his face.