He fought with gusto that horrified even his hard-boiled audience. Continually he plunged in, head down, not blindly like a bull, but with his eyes open—except the one the mate had closed—hammering the luckless bucko like a blacksmith pounding an anvil. Richardson was bleeding like a stuck pig, and spitting pieces of broken teeth. He was blowing like a porpoise and in his one good eye there was a desperate gleam.
“Who’s that?” demanded Harrigan aghast. “Where’d he come from?”
“We sighted him just as the fog lifted,” said the bos’n, spitting carefully to leeward. “He was driftin’ along in a open boat, balin’ and cussin’ somethin’ fierce. His boat sunk under him before he could get it to the ship, and he swum for it. A shark tried to scoff him on the way, but he kicked its brains out or bit it in the neck, or done somethin’ atrocious to it. That’s Wild Bill Clanton!”
“The hell it is!” grunted the captain, staring with new interest. Then he swore as Clanton bashed Mr. Richardson on the snout with appalling results. “They’re bleedin’ all over my clean deck!”
“Well,” said the bos’n, “as soon as he clumb over the rail he seen the mate and went for him. From the remarks they passed before they was too winded to cuss, I gathered that Buck stole a gal from Clanton once. I went after you, but you seemed busy, so I just let ’em fight.”
Bam! Mr. Clanton’s left mauler met Mr. Richardson’s midriff with an impact that sounded like the smack of a loose boom against a wet sail. Bam! A mallet-like right-hander to the jaw and Mr. Richardson went reeling backward and brought up against the rail with a crack that would have fractured the skull of anybody except a bucko mate on a trading schooner.
Clanton went for him with a blood-thirsty yell—then his eyes encountered Raquel, poised in the ratlines. He stopped short, batted his eyes, his mouth wide open as he glared wildly at the ivory-tinted vision posed against the blue, in a sheer wisp of pink silk that tempted even as it concealed little.
“Holy saints of Hell!” breathed Clanton in awe—and at this instant Mr. Richardson, a bloody ruin, lurched away from the rail with a belaying pin. Bam! It crashed on Clanton’s head and that warrior bit the deck. Mr. Richardson croaked gratefully and bestowed himself lovingly on his victim’s bosom, naively intent on beating his brains out with his trusty belaying pin. But Clanton anticipated his design by drawing up his legs, after the manner of a panther fighting on its back, and, receiving the hurtling mate on his feet and knees, he catapulted Mr. Richardson over his head.
The mate smote the deck headfirst and reverberantly, and this time the impact was too much even for his adamantine skull. But Clanton, bounding up, observed some faint signs of life still, and sought to correct this oversight by leaping ardently and with both feet on the mate’s bosom.
“Grab him!” yelled Harrigan. “He’s killin’ the mate!”
As no spectacle could have pleased the crew better than Mr. Richardson’s violent demise, they made no move to obey. Harrigan ran forward blasphemously and tugging forth an enormous revolver thrust it under the nose of Mr. Clanton who eyed it and its owner without favor.
“Are you the cap’n of this mud-scow?” Clanton demanded.
“I am, by God!” gnashed Mr. Harrigan. “I’m Bully Harrigan! What are you doin’ on board my ship?”
“I’ve been keepin’ a damned sieve of a boat afloat for a day and a night,” retorted the other. “I was mate aboard the Damnation, out of Bristol. The cap’n didn’t like Americans. After I won his share of the cargo at draw poker, he welshed and put me afloat—with the aid of the crew.”
Harrigan broodingly visualized the battle that must have required!
“Carry the mate to his bunk and bring him to,” he ordered the men. “And for you, Clanton, you’ll work for your passage! Get for’ard!”
Clanton ignored the command. He was again staring at the vision clinging to the ratlines. Raquel peeped at him approvingly, noting the clean-cut muscular symmetry that was his.
“Who’s that?” he inquired, and all turned to stare. Harrigan roared like a sea-lion with awakened memory.
“Drag her down!” he yelled. “Tie her to the mast! I’ll—”
“Don’t touch me!” shrieked Raquel. “I’ll jump and drown myself!”
She didn’t mean that, but she sounded as though she did. Clanton reached the rail with a tigerish bound, caught her wrist, and whipped her down onto the deck before she knew what was happening.
“Oh!” she gasped, staring at him with dilated eyes. He was bronzed by the sun of the Seven Seas, and his torso was ridged with clean hard cords of muscles. In fierce admiration his gaze devoured her from her trim ankles to the foamy burnished mass of her hair.
“Good work, Clanton!” roared Harrigan, striding forward. “Hold her!” Raquel wailed despairfully, but Harrigan, reaching for her, had his hand knocked aside, and he paused and goggled stupidly at Clanton.
“Avast!” roared Clanton gustily. “That’s no way to treat a lady!”
