“I hope your lordship is feeling better;” and then, surveying her from head to foot, with a broad grin on his features, “I declare, you look the picture of health, if I ever saw it.  How old are you?”

Mary quickly responded, “Fourteen years.”

“Fourteen,” returned Bradhurst:  “well, I don’t think you will shed much blood.  You look more like a deuced handsome girl than any man I ever saw.”  At this the men all laughed, and were very impertinent in the free and easy manner of such gentry, most of whom were professional adventurers, with every finer sense dulled and debased by years of vice.

These fellows, half of them tipsy, now gathered about Mary to inspect her personally, each on his own account.  Their looks and conduct were very disconcerting, but they did nothing insulting until one fellow gave her a slap on the back, accompanying it by an indecent remark.  Brandon tried to pay no attention to them, but this was too much, so he lifted his arm and knocked the fellow off the poop into the waist.  The man was back in a moment, and swords were soon drawn and clicking away at a great rate.  The contest was brief, however, as the fellow was no sort of match for Brandon, who, with his old trick, quickly twisted his adversary’s sword out of his grasp, and with a flash of his own blade flung it into the sea.  The other men were now talking together at a little distance in whispers, and in a moment one drunken brute shouted:  “It is no man; it is a woman; let us see more of her.”

[Illustration]

Before Brandon could interfere, the fellow had unbuckled Mary’s doublet at the throat, and with a jerk, had torn it half off, carrying away the sleeve and exposing Mary’s shoulder, almost throwing her to the deck.

He waved his trophy on high, but his triumph was short-lived, for almost instantly it fell to the deck, and with it the offending hand severed at the wrist by Brandon’s sword.  Three or four friends of the wounded man rushed upon Brandon; whereupon Mary screamed and began to weep, which of course told the whole story.

A great laugh went up, and instantly a general fight began.  Several of the gentlemen, seeing Brandon attacked by such odds, took up his defense, and within twenty seconds all were on one side or the other, every mother’s son of them fighting away like mad.

You see how quickly and completely one woman without the slightest act on her part, except a modest effort to be let alone, had set the whole company by the ears, cutting and slashing away at each other like very devils.  The sex must generate mischief in some unknown manner, and throw it off, as the sun throws off its heat.  However, Jane is an exception to that rule—­if it is a rule.

The officers soon put a stop to this lively little fight, and took Brandon and Mary, who was weeping as any right-minded woman would, down into the cabin for consultation.