Will was as stout a young fellow as ever buttoned a pea-jacket over his chest. He struck, and the man dropped like a shot from the hand. Excitement and fright had carried me out of the sail. I grasped the broom-handle and was in the very act of rushing to help Will, when the fellow was dropped by my cousin’s fist. ‘What’s going on down there?’ roared a hurricane voice through the hatch. I sprang back upon the sail and covered myself. ‘Here’s a drunken scoundrel, bo’sun, pitched headlong down here and refuses to turn out!’ cried Will. The burly figure of the boatswain came in a sprawl down the ladder. Then followed a real forecastle scuffle. The boatswain went to work with legs and hands, kicking and hauling. The drunken Irishman blasphemed most horribly. Heads collected at the hatch, and the fellows up there roared to their wrestling, drunken, cursing shipmate to fight it out and die game. But Will and the boatswain between them proved too much for the ruffian, and, after a fierce struggle, they dragged him up through the hatch, with his old coat in ribbons. Will then descended for the lantern. He breathed very hard, and looked my way as though he would speak. I sat up and passionately waved to him to depart. He saw my gesture by the light he held, flourished his hand, and, climbing the hatch, put the cover on. This was a terribly narrow escape, and I felt all the weakness of my sex’s nature as I sat in the blackness and realised that had the other drunken sailors tumbled below I should have been discovered and my hopes ruined. After this I passed some wretched hours, for I never knew but that the drunken Irish sailor had told the others there were casks under the forecastle full of strong drink, for all he could guess, and I kept on fearing that amongst them they’d lift the hatch and descend. However, nothing of the kind happened; I got more heart as time went on and the hatch remained untouched. I heard a great deal of thumping overhead, and treading of feet as of men coming and going, and then I felt once more the same straining sensation in the ship I had before taken notice of; I supposed we were under way, in which case the _Childe Harold_ had fairly begun her voyage.