"You impudent blackguard!" exclaimed Vigors. "If you say another word, I'll give you a good thrashing, and knock some of your equality out of you!"
"Indeed!" replied Jack, who almost fancied himself back at school. "We'll try that!"
Vigors had gained his assumed authority more by bullying than fighting; others had submitted to him without a sufficient trial. Jack, on the contrary, had won his way up in school by hard and scientific combat. The result, therefore, may easily be imagined. In less than a quarter of an hour Vigors, beaten dead, with his eyes closed and three teeth out, gave in; while Jack, after a basin of water, looked as fresh as ever.
After that, Jack declared that as might was right in a midshipman's berth, he would so far restore equality that, let who would come, they must be his master before they should tyrannise over those weaker than he.
III.--The Triangular Duel
Jack, although generally popular on board, had made enemies of Mr. Biggs, the boatswain, and Mr. Easthupp, the purser's steward. The latter--a cockney and a thief--had even been kicked down the hatchway by our hero.
When the Harpy was at Malta, Jack, wroth at the way the two men talked at him, declared he would give them satisfaction.
"Mr. Biggs, let you and this fellow put on plain clothes, and I will meet you both."
"One at a time?" said the boatswain.
"No, sir; not one at a time, but both at the same time. I will fight both or none. If you are my superior officer, you must descend to meet me, or I will not descend to meet that fellow, whom I believe to have been little better than a pickpocket!"