“You impudent blackguard!” exclaimed Vigors.  “If you say another word, I’ll give you a good thrashing, and knock some of your equality out of you!”

“Indeed!” replied Jack, who almost fancied himself back at school.  “We’ll try that!”

Vigors had gained his assumed authority more by bullying than fighting; others had submitted to him without a sufficient trial.  Jack, on the contrary, had won his way up in school by hard and scientific combat.  The result, therefore, may easily be imagined.  In less than a quarter of an hour Vigors, beaten dead, with his eyes closed and three teeth out, gave in; while Jack, after a basin of water, looked as fresh as ever.

After that, Jack declared that as might was right in a midshipman’s berth, he would so far restore equality that, let who would come, they must be his master before they should tyrannise over those weaker than he.

III.—­The Triangular Duel

Jack, although generally popular on board, had made enemies of Mr. Biggs, the boatswain, and Mr. Easthupp, the purser’s steward.  The latter—­a cockney and a thief—­had even been kicked down the hatchway by our hero.

When the Harpy was at Malta, Jack, wroth at the way the two men talked at him, declared he would give them satisfaction.

“Mr. Biggs, let you and this fellow put on plain clothes, and I will meet you both.”

“One at a time?” said the boatswain.

“No, sir; not one at a time, but both at the same time.  I will fight both or none.  If you are my superior officer, you must descend to meet me, or I will not descend to meet that fellow, whom I believe to have been little better than a pickpocket!”

Mr. Biggs having declared that he would fight, of course, had to look out for a second, and he fixed upon Mr. Tallboys, the gunner, and requested him to be his friend.  Mr. Tallboys consented, but he was very much puzzled how to arrange that three were to fight at the same time, for he had no idea of there being two duels.  Jack had no one to confide in but Gascoigne, a fellow-midshipman; and although Gascoigne thought it was excessively infra dig. of Jack to meet even the boatswain, as the challenge had been given there was no retracting, and he therefore consented and went to meet Mr. Tallboys.

“Mr. Gascoigne,” said the gunner, “you see that there are three parties to fight.  Had there been two or four there would have been no difficulty, as the straight line or square might guide us in that instance; but we must arrange it upon the triangle in this.”

Gascoigne stared.  He could not imagine what was coming.

“The duel between three can only be fought upon the principle of the triangle,” the gunner went on.  “You observe,” he said, taking a piece of chalk and making a triangle on the table, “in this figure we have three points, each equidistant from each other; and we have three combatants, so that, placing one at each point, it is all fair play for the three.  Mr. Easy, for instance, stands here, the boatswain here, and the purser’s steward at the third corner.  Now, if the distance is fairly measured it will be all right.”