‘Now for Tommy Nixon’s testimony,’said the captain; ‘and I warrant that he will speak more to the purpose than these noddies there, who seem to make no more use of their eyes than if they were boiled gooseberries!’ So Nixon began to speak in a low, whining sort of tone, professing great regret for the disturbance, and particularly that Vasco, whom he said he loved as though he had been his own brother, should have so shamefully outraged all the laws observed by gentlemen adventurers. Still the truth was the truth; and if he must tell what he knew, it was this, that Vasco having tried to cheat Shambling Ned out of the piece of eight which they were playing for, and having been reproached by the latter for his meanness, had straightway hit Ned in the face; and that when Ned had risen to his feet to defend himself, the Portuguese had immediately drawn his knife and struck the blow, swearing at the same time that he would like to do as much for every Englishman on board the ship. At this, the Portuguese, who had hitherto stood, with downcast looks, listening to all the evidence, burst out in violent wrath, sputtering vehemently forth his broken English, and almost screaming in his excitement— ‘That a lie—a lie, a lie!’ he shouted. ‘A lie, Nixon—Jerry tell you say that—you liars both I—I no wish to stab my shipmates, but Jerry hate me, and you Jerry friend—and you lie!’ There was a murmur among the men, for it was not difficult to see that Jerry and Nixon had great influence over them, and many a clenched hand was raised against the Portuguese, who, I believe, had certainly cut open Ned’s head, not, however, with premeditation, but in the scuffle and the heat of blood. Meantime, Nixon turned up his eyes to heaven, and shook his uplifted hands, as who should say, ‘Patience—patience, friends, I can afford to bear the calumny.’ Not so Jerry, however. His nature was different; and so, dashing down his hat upon the deck in his rage, with his moustaches bristling, and his flashing eyes fixed upon the culprit, he roared— ‘Here be a pitiful hound of a Portuguese for you, who dare raise his murdering arm to stab a freeborn Englishman, and then asperse the witnesses of the cruel deed! If he remain unpunished for it, I leave this ship, and I would advise all them who don’t take the part of the white-livered scoundrel to do the same—that is, if they don’t want to feel his murdering knife tickling their ribs!’ ‘Jerry,’ cried out Vasco, all at once, ‘I know what you mean very well. You no care for either blow or stab, that you no get yourself. You stab Nickel, the Dutchman, in Tortugas; you shoot John Cox off St. Christopher’s. You a pretty fellow to talk!’ But here Jerry interrupted him. ‘Now, then,’ he roared, ‘what are you about there, that you don’t clap a marline-spike in the fellow’s jaws? I suppose he intends to bully us out of the ship!’