They looked as ruefully as Don Quixote after his battle with the shepherds, and bore as many marks of the prowess of their opponents.

But, unlike "the Knight of the Rueful Countenance," they seemed heartily ashamed of their exploits, and promised better behavior in future.
Nevertheless, a few days after this affair, Jim Bilton, one of the men who had figured so conspicuously in the row, and owed Wilkins a grudge for the black eye he had received in the melee, challenged his shipmate to a "fair stand-up fight!" The challenge was accepted; but as the main deck of the brig was still "lumbered up," and the forecastle furnished a field altogether too confined for such recreations, it was agreed that this "stand-up fight" should take place while each of the combatants were sitting astride a chest! Accordingly a large chest was roused up from below, and placed athwart-ships on the forecastle, between the bowsprit bitts and the cathead.

The parties took their seats on the ends of the chest, facing each other, and the business was to be settled by hard knocks.
The men faced each other boldly, some weighty compliments were interchanged, when Bilton, to avoid a favor from his antagonist which in all probability would have finished him, slipped off the end of the chest, to the disgust of his shipmates and his own everlasting disgrace.
One of the crew, however, who was ingenious at expedients, and determined to see fair play, by means of a hammer and a tenpenny nail fastened both parties firmly to the chest by the seats of their canvas trousers.

There being no longer a possibility of BACKING OUT, the battle was resumed, but did not last long; for Bilton soon received a blow on his left temple, which, in spite of the tenpenny nail, knocked him off the chest, and decided the contest..