Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/285

Rh that night, and we had some pretty hard words. We both took the lid off our feelings, and right in the middle of the rumpus the skipper's steward happened to come into the cabin. The skipper heaved something at the man, who vanished, but not before he'd heard enough to know there was likely to be trouble between us.

"A minute or two afterwards Murdock made a bull rush at me. He wasn't much of a fighter, but he was nearly as strong as an elephant. He had his fist bunched up, and if he'd got it home I should have been laid out. It's a serious thing to scrap with a ship's captain afloat, and I had no idea he was going to start a rough house. But he was like a crazy man. There was no stopping him with words, so, in self-protection, I let him have it on the point of the chin.

"It wasn't much more than a tap, as blows go in fighting, but he lost his balance and toppled over, striking his head against a sharp corner.

The moment it happened I saw there was trouble for me, because I guessed Murdock would lay it on as thickly as possible to get even, and he had the steward as a witness that there had been a row between the pair of us. I had no fancy for going to prison for protecting myself against the beast. Then it struck me that he looked horribly still, and I made a hasty examination of him. His head was split open, and his heart must have been beating