The blow was given back, and returned with interest, with expressions not fit for ears polite, till the noses of both heroes were streaming with blood, and their voices were hallooing away at the highest pitch. Dicky was rubbing his hands in high glee at the successful result of his experiment, when the captain, aroused by the hubbub, rang his bell to know what was the matter. This sound, like that of Oberon's magic horn, instantly paralysed the combatants; and the sentry having put his head into the cabin, and made some report which apparently satisfied the skipper, the two warriors, like a couple of lions growling defiance at each other, retired to their berths, to staunch their bleeding wounds, and wash away the stains of the fight from their faces. Here the first thing which met the eye of the boatswain, as he stooped to pick up the fragments of his glass, was the missile which had inflicted the injury. Now, as the officers generally choose the long ribs of beef for roasting, for which they pay one pound in six for the good of the ship's company, and the boatswain had actually seen the carpenter's servant carrying a piece of rib-beef for his master's dinner, he felt perfectly satisfied who had thrown the bone. Seizing it, therefore, in his hand, with the fragments of his glass, and his nose still bleeding, he rushed on deck, and halted, quivering with rage, on the quarter-deck, in presence of the first-lieutenant. "By Jupiter, what a wigging I shall get," whispered Dicky, in a terrible funk. "I say, D'Arcy, my boy, don't 'peach, though." I cocked my eye, and, pointing to the masthead,--"Six hours a day for the next week, eh!--pleasant, Dicky," I answered. Master Dicky dared not show his face, lest his consciousness of guilt might betray itself; for, though unable to resist doing a piece of mischief when the temptation came in his way, he had not got the brazen front of a hardened sinner. I also, anxious as I was to learn the result of the trial, was afraid of showing too great an interest in it, lest suspicion should fall on me, and therefore walked the quarter-deck at a respectful distance, picking up what information I could on the way. "What is this you have to complain of, Mr Trundle?" asked the first-lieutenant, as he stood at the capstern-head, with the enraged boatswain before him. "Why, sir, as I was a-cleaning myself just now in my cabin, a-thinking no harm of nobody, Mr Ichabod Chissel, the carpenter of this here ship, sir, and my brother officer, thinks fit to heave this here rib-bone right across the steerage against my nose and my glass, and breaks both on 'em. If that ain't enough to aggrawate and perwoke and--and-- and--(he stopped for a word) flabbergast any one, I don't know what is, sir, you'll allow." "Very much so, I grant," observed Mr Du Pre, taking the bone between his fingers and holding it behind his back. "Send Mr Chissel here." The carpenter soon made his appearance.