s more, bedad, than yer howl sthock-in-thrade is
worth! Changee fur changee, black dog fur whoite moonkey, sure, as my
ould fayther used fur to say!"

Whatever mollifying effect the sight of the silver coin might have
produced on the mulatto's mind was entirely swamped by Mick's
unfortunate quotation from his paternal archives.

"Say, you sailor buckra, who dat you call one black dog, hi!" said he,
coming up to my chum in a threatening manner, brandishing his arms and
working his head about like a teetotum in a fit. "I'se no niggah slabe,
you white trash! I'se free 'Badian born, an' 'low no man make joke ob
me!"

Mick roused up in a minute.

"Faith, ye oogly yaller-faced raskil," he cried, putting up his fists in
the scientific way we had learnt from long practice on board with the
gloves under our gymnasium instructor, "Oi'll knock ye into the middle
of nixt Soonday wake, ef ye don't kape a civil toongue in yer hid an'
put yer owld dhrumsticks behint ye!"

Instead of acting on Mick's advice, however, the mulatto, screaming with
rage, and his whole face distorted with passion, made a wild rush at
him, trying to butt him in the stomach.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

"REEF TOPSAILS!"

"A ring! A ring! Form a ring, all you Actives!" shouted out Mr Jones
the signalman, who had come ashore with us, wishing to see the battle
between our representative and the darkey conducted in regular shipshape
fashion, in accordance with the rules observed in polite pugilistic
circles at home. "Form a ring, my lads, and let 'em fight it out fair.
If any of them blooming niggers tries to h'interfere, boys, you jest
fetch 'em a crack on the shins with yer dancing pumps; it's no good
trying to hit 'em on their nobs, as they're made of the same stuff of
the cocoa-nuts, and you might hit at 'em till doomsday without ever
their feelin' on it, jist the same as if ye were hammerin' at the
watertight bulkhead forrud!"

No sooner said than done.

With the help of the other bluejackets who had come ashore with us in
the second cutter, the ring which the signalman suggested was at once
formed, our chaps artfully manoeuvring so as to shut out all the black
and coloured gentry who instantly flocked to the scene of action, the
news of the fight having got abroad in some mysterious way or other.

Before this had been done, however, Mick Donovan received and repulsed
the mulatto's first onslaught in a highly satisfactory manner for our
side.