“Oh, dear, no,” I answered. “He’s only resting.”
“What is all this about?” he demanded.
I told him how it had come about, but when I repeated the insulting expression which had been twice made use of, Van Laar sat up and said:
“It vhas true, but I will fight no more mit you. I allow dot you are der better man. I said, ’Dere better der man, dere better der mate,’ and dat shall be as Cott pleases.”
“Go to your cabin, sir!” cried Greaves, looking at him with disgust; but, on Van Laar turning his face, the captain’s countenance relaxed.
The Dutchman’s eye was closed, and it painted upon his countenance the fixed expression of a wink; otherwise he was not hurt. I had known how to fell him without greatly injuring him or drawing blood, and the worst of the knockdown blow I had administered lay in the shock of the fall of his own weight.
“Go to your cabin, sir,” repeated the captain, “and keep to it. Consider yourself under arrest. Your brutal conduct now determines me to clear the ship of you, and you shall be sent home by the first vessel that I can speak.”
“You vhas in a hurry,” said Van Laar, getting on to his legs, and beginning to pick up his clothes: “had you vaited you would have foundt me first. It vhas me,” he roared, striking his fat chest, “who tell you, and not you who tell me, dot I leave for goot dis footy hooker. But stop,” cried he, wagging his fat forefinger at the captain, “till I see Mynheer Tulp. Den I vhas sorry for you,” and thus speaking he went to his cabin, bearing his clothes with him.
I put on my coat and waistcoat, and exclaimed, “I am truly grieved that this should have happened. Yonder lad Jimmy witnessed the fellow’s treatment of me.”
“There is nothing to regret,” said Greaves. “Yes, I regret that you did not punish him more severely. He knows that you have been insensible for three days, and the coward, no doubt, counted upon finding you weak after your illness.”