Jim’s opponent was Phil Ryan, a smart young sailor, six or seven years his senior.  The fight was short but lively, and the onlookers had not one word of comment to offer after the first round.  The men gazed at Done with a ludicrous expression of stupid reproach.  He had deceived, betrayed them; he had posed as a quiet, harmless man, with the manners of an aristocrat, when he might have been ship’s champion at any moment by merely putting up his hands.

Phil went down five times.  The fifth time he remained seated, gazing straight before him, with one sad, meditative eye, and another that looked as if it could never be of any use as an eye again.

‘Get up, Ryan!’ urged Phil’s second.

Phil did not move; he gave no indication of having heard.

‘Ryan, get up, man!’ The second prompted him with his toe.

‘Meanin’ me?’ said the vanquished.

‘To be sure.  Be a man!  Get up and face him.’

‘Divil a fear o’ me!’ said Ryan.  ‘I’m never goin’ to get up agin till you put that wild man to bed.’  He pointed at Jim.

‘Are you licked, then, Ryan?’

’Licked it is.  Any man is li’ble to wander into error, maybe, but there’s wan thing about Phil Ryan, he’s open to conviction, an’ he’s had all the conviction he wants this blessed night.’

‘Then we’ve had enough?’ said the second, with an uneasy eye on Jim.

‘We have that,’ continued Ryan, ’onless some other gintleman would like to resoom th’ argumint where I dthropped it.’  The fallen hero ran his good eye eagerly from face to face.

But Done had already returned to his bunk, and the others seemed indisposed to put him to further trouble.  No more jokes were played upon the Hermit.  The cynics and the wits developed a pronouncedly serious vein, and it was resolved that for the future Jim Done should take his own road, and behave in his own peculiar way, without provoking objection from the company.

‘Tis a curtyis an’ gintlemanly risolution,’ said Ryan, tenderly caressing his inflated eye, ‘an’ a great pity it is we forgot to think iv it sooner.’

The respect the forecastle had acquired for Done was vastly increased by his rescue of Lucy Woodrow.  Conduct that had previously been ascribed to mere conceit was now accounted for by most romantic imaginings, for it is a cardinal belief amongst men of their class that the true fighter is superior to all little weaknesses and small motives.  When the girl crossed the moonlit deck to Done’s side, the sailors drifted away out of earshot, and inquisitive eyes could not turn in Jim’s direction without provoking a profane reproof.

Done’s heart beat heavily as the slim, dark figure faced him, extending a trembling hand.

‘I am Lucy Woodrow,’ she said in a voice little above a whisper.

‘Yes,’ he answered simply.

Her hand closed upon his fingers, and she was silent for a moment, evidently deeply agitated.  Her head was bent, hiding her face from his eyes; and he noticed curiously the moonlight glimmering like tiny sparks in her red-brown hair.