“Pick up that knife, Lingall,” said Raimundo, as soon as he was able to speak.
He pointed to the knife which the boatman had dropped during the struggle; and Bark picked it up.
“Now throw it overboard,” added the second master. “We can handle these men, I think, if there are no knives in the case.”
“No; don’t do that!” interposed Bill Stout. “Give it to me.”
“Give it to you, you coward!” replied Raimundo. “What do you want of it?”
“I will use it if we get into another fight. I don’t like to tackle a man with a knife in his hand, when I have no weapon of any kind,” answered Bill, who, when the danger was over, began to assume his usual bullying tone and manner.
“Over with it, Lingall!” repeated Raimundo sharply. “You are good for nothing, Stout: you had not pluck enough to touch the man after your friend had him down.”
Bark waited for no more, but tossed the knife into the sea. He never “took any stock” in Bill Stout’s bluster; but he had not suspected that the fellow was such an arrant coward. As compared with Raimundo, who had risen vastly in his estimation within the last few hours, he thoroughly despised his fellow-conspirator. If he did not believe it before, he was satisfied now, that the gentlest and most correct students could also be the best fellows. However it had been before, Bill no longer had any influence over him; while he was ready to obey the slightest wish of the second master, whom he had hated only the day before.
“See if you can find the other knife,—the one the young man had,” continued Raimundo.
“I see it,” replied Bark; and he picked up the ugly weapon.