Crumpling it up in a ball I made as if to rise to a sitting posture, and in doing so managed to slip it into a side pocket. The next moment I found myself pulled over on my back by Hughes, who asked excitedly if we were both mad that we thus courted inquiry by fighting like a couple of wild cats. If the sound of scuffling or firing were heard to come from the hulk an alarm would, he said, be raised, the coastguardsmen would row out to discover the cause, and everything would be lost, as Mullen and I would be called upon to give an account of ourselves, and he (Hughes) would forfeit his post. Mullen was evidently of the same opinion, for though he was livid to the lips, and was trembling with hate and rage until his teeth chinked in his head like a carelessly-carried tray of china, he gave no sign of wishing to continue the contest. Nor was I inclined to shut my eyes to the wisdom of Hughes’ counsel, for I was already conscious of the fact that by taunting Mullen and provoking him to blows I was doing my best to spoil my own game. There was all the difference in the world between his presence on board the hulk being discovered by the police as a result of a brawl, and his being arrested on information given by me and supported by proof of his identity. Mullen was the first to speak. He was now no doubt convinced that he had not acted with his customary discretion, for he had even stronger reasons than I to wish to avoid a visit from the police. So long as it was a question of brains he might hope to hold his own, but let him once fall into their hands and they would hold him by the brute force of number, whereas in me he was pitted against a single foe whom it might not be difficult to outwit. “I beg your pardon for what happened just now,” he said, “but before we go any further tell me where and when I have seen you before.” “I saw you in the Southend train once. You ’ad a row with a bloke wot stunk the carriage out with a fusee,” I answered, doing my best to sustain the _rôle_ I had assumed. “Ah!” he said, looking very much relieved and with a wonderfully pleasant smile, “that explains everything. To tell the honest truth, my good man, I knew I had seen you before, the moment I set eyes on you, and the fact is I thought you were a detective who has been hunting me down for a long time, and who has played me one or two tricks too dirty and too cowardly even for a detective to play, and for which one day I mean to be even with him.” He was smiling still, but the smile seemed to have shifted from his eyes to his teeth, and the effect had ceased to be pleasant. He swung himself round and away from me, and, with hands clasped behind him and bent head, commenced pacing backward and forward--evidently deep in thought--in the scanty space the cabin afforded.