pinions of the two principal disputants were heard running a
thorough-bass.

For some time, no part of the discussion was very distinct, so great was
the confusion of tongues; and there were certain symptoms of an intention,
on the part of Fid and the boatswain, to settle their controversy by the
last appeal. During this moment of suspense, the former had squared his
firm-built frame in front of his gigantic opponent, and there were very
vehement passings and counter-passings, in the way of gestures from four
athletic arms, each of which was knobbed, like a fashionable rattan, with
a lump of bones, knuckles, and sinews, that threatened annihilation to any
thing that should oppose them. As the general clamour, however, gradually
abated, the chief reasoners began to be heard; and, as if content to rely
on their respective powers of eloquence, each gradually relinquished his
hostile attitude, and appeared disposed to maintain his ground by a member
scarcely less terrible than his brawny arm.

"You are a bold seaman, brother," said Nightingale resuming his seat,
"and, if saying was doing, no doubt you would make a ship talk. But I, who
have seen fleets of two and three deckers--and that of all nations,
except your Mohawks, mayhap, whose cruisers I will confess never to have
fallen in with--lying as snug as so many white gulls, under reefed
mainsails, know how to take the strain off a ship, and to keep my
bulkheads in their places."

"I deny the judgment of heaving-to a boat under her after square-sails,"
retorted Dick. "Give her the stay-sails, if you will, and no harm done;
but a true seaman will never get a bagful of wind between his mainmast and
his lee-swifter, if-so-be he knows his business. But words are like
thunder, which rumbles aloft, without coming down a spar, as I have yet
seen; let us therefore put the question to some one who has been on the
water, and knows a little of life and of ships."

"If the oldest admiral in his Majesty's fleet was here, he wouldn't be
backward in saying who is right and who is wrong. I say, brothers, if
there is a man among you all who has had the advantage of a sea education,
let him speak, in order that the truth of this matter may not be hid, like
a marling-spike jammed between a brace-block and a blackened yard."

"Here, then, is the man," returned Fid; and, stretching out his arm, he
seized Scipio by the collar, and drew him, without ceremony, into the
centre of the circle,