Читать книгу Pirate Princes and Yankee Jacks онлайн

12 страница из 30

"Look out, Alexander," I cried, dancing over the pair in a frenzy, "he's trying to gouge you, man!"

"Unfair! Unfair! No gouging!" the other sailors shouted, while the rest of the onlookers stood by with their sense of justice absorbed by their interest.

Steve's finger was buried in Alexander's shock of hair, and his thumb crept closer to my brother's eye. I was about to stoop in an attempt to break the brutal grip when Alexander released his hair by a desperate jerk that left a wisp between the ruffian's fingers, rolled Steve over, held him face downward in a grip of iron, and rubbed his nose on the planks of the dock until blood spurted from it. Then, lifting the bully up at arm's length, Alexander cast him against the palings with a force that stunned him. If someone had not grabbed Steve then, he would have rolled over into the river and few would have mourned him if he had sank and never bobbed up again.

Steve's friends advanced, pretending great indignation at Alexander's roughness, but paused as Ezra Wilcox, Black Peter, Muldoon, and Swansen came forward itching to take up the battle.