Hardly had my chum made this observation, so highly expressive of his unconcealed delight, ere `Ugly,' wiping away the blood from his face with the sleeve of his jumper, and clutching hold of the lanyard round his neck, to the end of which his knife was attached, made a spring at me from the knee of his second, where he had sat dazed for half a moment, giving vent to a cry that was more like the howl of a wild animal than anything else. I put up my hands mechanically, though I had hardly then imagined he would have come so soon at me again; intending, however, more to guard his attack than hit him any blow, for I really thought he had received quite enough punishment already. But he beat down my guard as easily as if my arms really had been made of pipeclay, and then I felt a stinging sensation through one of these and my left side, just as if I had run foul of a jelly-fish when swimming off the `Hot Walls,' as I have done sometimes when bathing. "Begorrah, the thafe's stabbed ye!" exclaimed Mick, putting his arms round me as I fell back. "Whare now is ye hoort, Tom, alannah?" "Oh, it's nothing," I said with a laugh, as soon as I got back my breath, which had been knocked out of me by the rush `Ugly' made, the knife having only grazed my ribs, while it had given an ugly gash to my arm; though, probably, had I not guarded the blow, the sharp weapon with which my antagonist had only been supplied, like the rest of us, that very morning, would as likely as not have `settled my hash,' as father used to say. "Pray don't make a fuss of it, Mick, or any of you fellows. It will all rub off when it's dry!" Larrikins and the other first-class boy had meanwhile collared `Ugly' and taken the knife from him, to prevent his doing any further mischief with it; and, as fighting was prohibited on board, and they might possibly have been brought up on the quarter-deck as accomplices, should the affair get wind and come to the notice of the ship's police, the two, who no doubt were old and tried hands at the game, thought it best to take my advice and `keep the matter dark,' as they said. "I doesn't like that yere knifin', though," said Master Larrikins, when Mick had bound up my arm with his handkerchief, taking it off his neck for the purpose; and we had all turned to sneak below out of observation before `quarters' should be sounded and the fellows come tumbling up from dinner, `Ugly' concealing his battered face by dragging down his cap over his eyes, and pulling up his collar as if he had toothache, which no doubt was not very far from the truth. "Don't yer try on that yere bloomin' game agin, you Reeks, I tell yer, my joker, or else yer 'ad better git yer coffin ready afore yer comes aboard this ship. Lor'! W'y, if the `Jaunty' or `Jimmy the One' knowed it, yer'd be strung up at the yard-arm this very minnit!"