The exhibition of prowess went merrily on, Mr. Butterell using the helpless youths like billiard balls, knocking one against the other and frequently making a carom against the rail. But at the main hatch, after a peculiarly successful fist play in which both brothers struck the rail and clung to it, Mr. Butterell turned his head quickly, looked aft with the smirking expectancy of his face, and, finding the audience for which he had performed no longer at the break of the poop, gave over the play, and started aft with his face as sober as my own.
And before he had taken three steps one of the brothers—I could not tell which at the distance—wrenched an iron belaying pin from the rail and hurled it at his head. It missed; but continued on a flat trajectory to the cabin, from which it rebounded after making an inch dent and whirled forward again and over the lee rail. Had Mr. Butterell's head stopped it, he would never have moved or spoken again.
He wheeled when the pin whizzed by him, and with a bound put himself between the two and the forecastle; for each had turned forward.
"Who threw that belaying pin?" he said quietly but menacingly.
"He throwed it; I didn't," answered one, pointing to the other.
"He lies!" retorted the accused one. "He throwed it himself."
"I lie, do I?"
"Yes, you lie!"
And then they were at each other's throats. Forgetting the common enemy, they clenched tightly and whirled about the deck, bending this way and that, striving to trip each other, striking with short uppercuts, and even attempting to bite. But at this the interested men forward crowed aft with sober faces, and Mr. Butterell, sensing their mood, stepped jauntily past the fighters and came aft with an amused smile on his face. Before he reached my vicinity I saw the men part the two and lead them forward.
"Did you," said Mr. Butterell to me, his smile leaving him as he looked at me, "did you, I say, see which one threw that pin?"