In a couple of hours the strangers had become distinctly visible, and the first faint puffs of the approaching breeze caused the sails to flap lazily against the yards.  Then the canvas filled out, and at last, after nearly a fortnight’s delay, the Good Intent began to slip through the water at three or four knots.

The wind freshened during the night, and next morning the Good Intent was bowling along under single-reefed topsails.  The ships sighted the night before had disappeared, to the evident relief of Captain Barker.  Whether they were Company’s vessels or privateers he had no wish to come to close quarters with them.

After breakfast, when the watch on deck were busy about the rigging or the guns, or the hundred and one details of a sailor’s work, the rest of the crew had the interval till dinner pretty much to themselves.  Some slept, some reeled out yarns to their messmates, others mended their clothes.

It happened one day that Desmond, sitting in the forecastle among the men of his mess, was occupied in darning a pair of breeches for Parmiter.  It was the one thing he could not do satisfactorily; and one of the men, after quizzically observing his well meant but ludicrous attempts, at last caught up the garment and held it aloft, calling his mates’ attention to it with a shout of laughter.

Parmiter chanced to be coming along at the moment.  Hearing the laugh, and seeing the pitiable object of it, he flew into a rage, sprang at Desmond, and knocked him down.

“What do you mean, you clumsy young lubber, you,” he cried, “by treating my smalls like that?  I’ll brain you, sure as my name’s Parmiter!”

Desmond had already suffered not a little at Parmiter’s hands.  His endurance was at an end.  Springing up with flaming cheeks he leaped towards the bully, and putting in practice the methods he had learned in many a hard-fought mill at Mr. Burslem’s school, he began to punish the offender.  His muscles were in good condition; Parmiter was too much addicted to grog to make a steady pugilist; and though he was naturally much the stronger man, he was totally unable to cope with his agile antagonist.

A few rounds settled the matter; Parmiter had to confess that he had had enough, and Desmond, flinging his breeches to him, sat down tingling among his mates, who greeted the close of the fight with spontaneous and unrestrained applause.

Next day Parmiter was in the foretop splicing the forestay.  Desmond was walking along the deck when suddenly he felt his arm clutched from behind, and he was pulled aside so violently by Bulger’s hook that he stumbled and fell at full length.  At the same moment something struck the deck with a heavy thud.

“By thunder! ’twas a narrow shave,” said Bulger.  “See that, matey?”

Looking in the direction Bulger pointed, he saw that the foretopsail sheet block had fallen on deck, within an inch of where he would have been but for the intervention of Bulger’s hook.  Glancing aloft, he saw Parmiter grinning down at him.