The crew applauded this address, which seemed reasonable enough; but Rumbold whispered to me, that he would lay his life upon it that either Le Chiffon Rouge, or Jerry, had some cause of spite against the Portuguese; otherwise, said he, the whole ship’s company might hack the flesh off each other’s bones without interference. ‘Now then,’ continued the scowling captain, ‘some of you fetch Vasco, of Lisbon, hither, and Doctor, do you bring up Shambling Ned.’ So, in a few minutes, the Portuguese, with his hands tied behind him, was hurried along the deck, and the wounded man came out of the cabin, leaning upon the surgeon, and looking very pale, his blood still clotted in jelly-looking masses among his long hair. Vasco, in spite of his great name, seemed to me to be as hang-dog looking a rascal as ever I saw, with a low flat forehead, and only one eye. He was a lithe, slightly made young fellow, with a thin, ragged beard and drooping moustache. When he was confronted with the captain and Jerry, the latter cast a look upon him so full of hate and spite, that I soon perceived that Rumbold was in the right in his conjecture. The Portuguese never appeared to notice the wounded man at all. ‘Now, then,’ the captain began, ‘you, Shambling Ned, ‘tell us how you came by that trench upon your forehead.’ But Shambling Ned, who was, as I have said, a stout seaman, but with a hitch in his gait, from whence he obtained his nickname, gave but a very confused account of the transaction. What between the quantity of wine which he had drunk, and the quantity of blood which he had lost, his wits appeared to be still gone a wool-gathering, and all that he could say was, that he had been playing dice for small stakes with the Portuguese, when they had a quarrel about a cast, and that blows had passed; but who had struck first he really did not know; that in the middle of the scuffle, however, when they were staggering about among their comrades and tripping over the masses of goods and stores which lay upon the deck, he suddenly saw a knife in the hand of his adversary, and, almost at the same instant, he had received the violent cut upon his head, from which the hot blood came pouring down; that after that he knew nothing, until he was brought to himself by the smart of the surgeon’s instrument sewing up the wound. The evidence of several of the seamen was then taken, but they all gave different accounts; some maintaining that Vasco had begun the fray, and others that Shambling Ned had first seized up a knife himself, so that I saw very plainly that the whole affair was the effect of a drunken squabble, in which one was probably as much to blame as another. At last, however, the young man who had recognised Rumbold, stood forth, and I saw very plainly the glance of intelligence which passed between him and Jerry.