"Hit 'im in de eyeball, Bim!" cried one of the dark ladies, who indeed was the cause of the fray, as generally is the case, I have been told, when menfolk fall out. "Yah, yah! Mash um face fo' um, de imperent man-o'-war buckra!" "Go it, Mick!" cried we. "Land him one in his bloomin' bread-basket!" A very pretty bit of sparring now ensued, the two being well matched; for, though the mulatto was the taller and had the longer reach of arm, Mick had a better guard, holding his right well out across his chest, and dodging in his left every now and then, keeping moving about on his pins as lightly as an opera-dancer. Once `Mr Bim' got in a roundabout blow that landed on Mick's left cheek, which drew blood, and sent him all of a stagger into the corner where the signalman and I stood officiating as bottle-holders. This raised a wild yell of excited enthusiasm from all the assembled darkeys, both ladies and gentlemen alike. "Golly, dat fetch um, Bim!" they shouted. "Gib um goss, Bim! 'Badian too brabe; um beat all de buckra sailor trash in de whole world, you bet!" "Stow that, you ugly black devil!" interposed one of our men, fetching the mulatto's partisan a crack on the shins with the cutter's boathook, which he held in his hand, he being bowman and left in charge of the boat. "You just keep out o' the ring if ye know what's good for you!" "By gosh!" cried the poor nigger, hopping about on one leg and rubbing his shin, writhing with pain at being thus assaulted on his tenderest point; grabbing up some missile or other from the roadway, whither he retreated, "I'se crack yo' tam skull wid um rockstone, fo' suah!" Mick did not `come up smiling' as he advanced to meet his foe after the knock-down blow he had received; but, from the look on his face, with his lips tight set and his eyes fixed on the mulatto, I could see he `meant business.' He did. Parrying another wild whirl of `Mr Bim's' arms, which he swung out right and left, Mick dropped his; and with a step forward he grasped the mulatto round the waist, when, going down on one knee, he sent him flying over his shoulder completely outside the ring. Fortunately for the poor beggar, his head went plump into one of the baskets of fruit, squashing its contents together into the semblance of jam, which probably saved the mulatto's life; for, had he fallen headlong on the stone jetty, his cranium would most likely have resembled the bananas and ripe melons in the black lady's basket that he had spoilt, and his neck, as likely as not, broken. As it was, `Mr Bim' had enough of it, coming up quite dazed when he recovered his senses; then retiring from the combat without a single further word, either of apology or of defiance. His compatriots bore no malice to Mick or ourselves, as might have been expected from their champion having got the worst of it.