“My jaw’s broke!” cried Petrak, struggling to his feet, breathing hard.  Then without warning he sprang on Buckrow’s back with a snarl like an animal, and the two of them went down in the narrow passage.

“Gawd a’mighty!” screamed Buckrow, with every bit of air in his lungs, and I heard Petrak strike again.

“Red—­he got me—­he—­”

“Good!” said Thirkle into my ear, as if speaking to me.  “I never thought the little chap had the innards for it, but he did as long as he could strike from behind.”

Petrak was holding Buckrow down, and his victim was breathing hard and writhing under him, with his face buried in the ground.  He coughed twice, as if there was something caught in his throat, and then was still.

“Did ye get him Petrak?”

“I done for him, Thirkle.  I done for him good.  That’s the last of Bucky.  Mind how I fooled him, Thirkle?  Said my jaw was broke.”

“Good work, Reddy, lad.  Good work, but be sure or he’ll wing ye yet.  Sure he ain’t playing chink with ye?”

“Oh, he’s done right enough.  That leaves two of us—­hey, Thirkle?  Ye know Bucky would a done for ye but for me—­wouldn’t he, Thirkle?  Ye know that’s right—­don’t ye, Thirkle?”

“That’s right, Reddy,” said Thirkle.  “It’s a good job he’s done for—­and now there is two of us, you and me, Reddy.  I never did like Bucky; but I like you, Red.  He wanted his fight, and he got it.  I knew ye wouldn’t take that from him.  No man could stand for such as that in here.”

“That leaves all the more for us—­don’t it, Thirkle?”

“All the more for us, Reddy.  Drag him out, and now we’ll settle this navvy’s job.  It’s one man less in the fo’c’sle mess, and dead men tell no tales; and now we’ll have to do the work a bit short-handed; but we can clean it up between us now, and no more fighting going on.”

Petrak pulled the body out after him, and Thirkle helped him carry it into the brush, where they dumped it without ceremony, and Thirkle found another bottle of brandy and offered it to Petrak.

“I’ll just take a pair of these pistols, Reddy,” he said, relieving him of the belt he had taken from Buckrow.  “You don’t need all those pistols, now that Bucky is done for.”

“But ye was to bear no arms, Thirkle,” grinned Petrak.

“That’s what I told Bucky, but you and me’ll get along better than we did with Bucky; and ye don’t intend to hold me to that—­do ye, Red?”

“I was only joking a bit, Thirkle.  We’re together now on the split, ain’t we?  Well, friends don’t have to make such agreements.  I sail with you, and you sail with me; and no articles signed beyond that, I say.  What, Thirkle?”

“That’s what.  Have another drink, Red.  That was a good job ye did for me with Bucky, even if he did play you mean.”

“He was a bad one, all right,” agreed Petrak, wiping his mouth and giving Thirkle the bottle.  “Bad Buckrow they called him when I first knew him, and bad he was to the end; but I never looked to give to him, leastwise not the way I did, in a hole like that.  Howsome it be, I don’t stand for no smash in the mouth like he give me—­ain’t that right, Thirkle?”