ove him like a log along the floor. There
was little noise. A narrow 'ring' was improvised, two or three bits of
candle were found to help the sooty ship's lantern, and the men fought as
they stood.

Jim's opponent was Phil Ryan, a smart young sailor, six or seven years
his senior. The fight was short but lively, and the onlookers had not one
word of comment to offer after the first round. The men gazed at Done
with a ludicrous expression of stupid reproach. He had deceived, betrayed
them; he had posed as a quiet, harmless man, with the manners of an
aristocrat, when he might have been ship's champion at any moment by
merely putting up his hands.

Phil went down five times. The fifth time he remained seated, gazing
straight before him, with one sad, meditative eye, and another that
looked as if it could never be of any use as an eye again.

'Get up, Ryan!' urged Phil's second.

Phil did not move; he gave no indication of having heard.

'Ryan, get up, man!' The second prompted him with his toe.

'Meanin' me?' said the vanquished.

'To be sure. Be a man! Get up and face him.'

'Divil a fear o' me!' said Ryan. 'I'm never goin' to get up agin till you
put that wild man to bed.' He pointed at Jim.

'Are you licked, then, Ryan?'

'Licked it is. Any man is li'ble to wander into error, maybe, but there's
wan thing about Phil Ryan, he's open to conviction, an' he's had all the
conviction he wants this blessed night.'

'Then we've had enough?' said the second, with an uneasy eye on Jim.

'We have that,' continued Ryan, 'onless some other gintleman would like
to resoom th' argumint where I dthropped it.' The fallen hero ran his
good eye eagerly from face to face.

But Done had already returned to his bunk, and the others seemed
indisposed to put him to further trouble. No more jokes were played upon
the Hermit. The cynics and the wits developed a pronouncedly serious
vein, and it was resolved that for the future Jim Done should take his
own road, and behave in his own peculiar way, without provoking objection
from the company.

'Tis a curtyis an' gintlemanly risolution,' said Ryan, tenderly
caressing his inflated eye, 'an' a great pity it is we forgot to think iv
it sooner.'

The respect the forecastle had acquired for Done was vastly increased by
his rescue of Lucy Woodrow. Conduct that had previously been ascribed to
mere conceit was now accounted for by most romantic imaginings, for it is
a cardinal belief am