Accordingly, instead of waiting to be challenged, he deliberately became the aggressor, and set himself to dispense justice as he pleased.
The one who, next to the Irishman, was most dreaded, was a broad-shouldered mulatto, who carried on a petty system of pillage against any one that was not supported, unluckily for him, by any party; and Salve himself had been obliged one evening to put up with having his hammock taken down, and the mulatto's hung in its place.

He had seen him in several fights, and had observed his peculiar tactics; the result of his observations being the conviction that the man had not the strength which he was anxious to make the others think he had.

In pursuance of this policy, he had picked a quarrel with him on the head of that matter of the hammock, and with a similarly decisive result.

The mulatto rejoiced in the name of Januarius, and Salve accordingly requested him to remember that there was something still owing to him for the eleven other months of the year.

He was a cur by nature, and never seemed to have the slightest desire to renew the struggle afterwards, which was not the case with the Irishman, with whom Salve perceived, directly the man came on deck again, that a fresh trial of strength was inevitable.
An opportunity was not long in offering, and Salve seized it at once, so that the challenge might come from him.