While the "sky-larking" was at its height, one of the fore-top-men--an ugly-tempered devil of a Portuguese, looking on--swore that he would be the death of any man who laid violent hands upon his inviolable person.

This threat being overheard, a band of desperadoes, coming up from behind, tripped him up in an instant, and in the twinkling of an eye the Portuguese was straddling an oar, borne aloft by an uproarious multitude, who rushed him along the deck at a railroad gallop.

The living mass of arms all round and beneath him was so dense, that every time he inclined one side he was instantly pushed upright, but only to fall over again, to receive another push from the contrary direction.

Presently, disengaging his hands from those who held them, the enraged seaman drew from his bosom an iron belaying-pin, and recklessly laid about him to right and left.

Most of his persecutors fled; but some eight or ten still stood their ground, and, while bearing him aloft, endeavoured to wrest the weapon from his hands.