"And did you?" Henry demanded, his hand unconsciously clinching by his side.
"What could a poor stranger in a strange land do? It was some armful of pretty girl-"
The next fraction of a second Francis had sprung to his feet and blocked before his jaw a crushing blow of Henry's fist.
"I … I beg your pardon," Henry mumbled, and slumped down on the ancient sea chest. I'm a fool, I know, but I'll be hanged if I can stand for-"
"There you go again," Francis interrupted resentfully. "As crazy as everybody else in this crazy country. One moment you bandage up my cracked head, and the next moment you want to knock that same head clean of? of me. As bad as the girl taking turns at kissing me and shoving a gun into my midrif."
"That's right, fire away, I deserve it," Henry admitted ruefully, but involuntarily began to fire up as he continued with: "Confound you, that was Leoncia."
"What if it was Leoncia? Or Mercedes? Or Dolores? Can't a fellow kiss a pretty girl at a revolver's point without having his head knocked off by the next ruffian he meets in dirty canvas pants on a notorious sand-heap of an island?"
"When the pretty girl is engaged to marry the ruffian in the dirty canvas pants."
"You don't mean to tell me," the other broke in excitedly.
"It isn't particularly amusing to said ruffian to be told that his sweetheart has been kissing a ruffian she never saw before from off a disreputable Jamaica nigger's schooner," Henry completed his sentence.