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The big fellow struck twice, and both blows were met by a ready guard. Biff! biff! biff! First with the right, and then twice with the left Frank struck the big plebe. None of them were heavy blows, but they all stung, and the angry blood surged to Bascomb's face, as he saw Merriwell leap back beyond his reach, laughing a bit. "Mosquito bites!" said Bascomb, derisively. "But they count."
Bascomb really fit to be trusted?" Prescott propounded. "Mr. Prenter seems to think so, and he is a capable judge of men," Tom rejoined. "It is the combination of all these circumstances taken together that makes me so curious over Mr. Bascomb's being willing to bail the fellow." "Oh, well, it's too much of a puzzle for us," said Harry, shrugging his shoulders.
"I noticed," said Lieutenant Prescott, in a low tone, "that you didn't mention the conversation between Bascomb and Evarts." "I hadn't any right to," Tom said simply. "If Mr. Bascomb once had trouble in his life, but is living honestly now, it would be criminal of me to expose such a secret that he wouldn't want known. Mr. Bascomb's past is none of my business."
The spectators of the little bout had been given something to talk about, for, up to that moment, they had not dreamed there was any one in the academy who could stand up before Bascomb's "wicked left" and not be unmercifully hammered.
It was just about midnight when, according to Bascomb's reckoning, the ship reached the latitude of Cartagena, when she was hove-to.
Then, with his bare first, he struck straight and hard at Frank Merriwell's face! Bascomb's movement had been noted by the spectators, and a cry of astonishment and warning broke from many lips. "Look out!" shouted Bart Hodge. Frank had seen the movement, and he needed no warning. Like a flash, he ducked to the right, and Bascomb's bare fist missed his face and shot over his shoulder.
At length the tigerish determination of Bascomb's foe began to drive the big fellow back again. Several times he clinched Frank, but his hold was quickly broken on each occasion. Three times both went down; but the strength of neither seemed sufficient to get the advantage and hold the other.
"Then you don't believe that Mr. Bascomb's evil record of past years affects his honesty now?" Dick went on after a long pause. "I don't believe it," Tom answered with unusual emphasis. "If I did it would be as much as if I said that a fellow who once makes a wrong step must never hope to get back into the right path again. Mr. Prenter, I am certain, is an honest man and an unusually keen one.
Pacheco, with his hands lashed behind him and a halter round his neck, the end of which was in Dick's hand, led the way, marching between Chichester and Stukely, the latter having come ashore in Bascomb's boat, bringing his case of instruments and a pocket case of drugs with him.
Bascomb would now be a poor man and Evarts would have spent all of Bascomb's money. Heretofore, I imagine, Evarts hasn't been able to blackmail his relative for anything much more substantial than a good job. I hear that Evarts has been drawing good pay from the Melliston Company for something more than four years -and Evarts isn't a very useful man, at that."
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