"What's up?" asked Harberth again.

"Why, Funky--that is to say, Warren--knocked you out, and you've got
to give him best and ask for _pax_, or else fight him," said Delorme,
adding hopefully, "but of course you'll fight him."

Harberth arose and walked to the nearest seat.

"He hit me a 'coward's poke' when I wasn't looking," quoth he. "It's
well known he is a coward."

"You are a liar, Bully Harberth," observed Delorme. "He hit you fair,
and anyhow he's not afraid of _you_. If you don't fight him you become
Funky Harberth _vice_. Funky Warren--no longer Funky. So you'd better
fight. See?" The Harberth bubble was evidently pricked, for the
sentiment was applauded to the echo.

"I don't fight cowards," mumbled Harberth, holding his jaw--and, at
this meanness, Dam was moved to go up to Harberth and slap him right
hard upon his plump, inviting cheek, a good resounding blow that made
his hand tingle with pain and his heart with pleasure.

He still identified him somehow with the Snake, and had a glorious, if
passing, sensation of successful revolt and some revenge.

He felt as the lashed galley-slave must have felt when, during a
lower-deck mutiny, he broke from his oar and sprang at the throat of
the cruel overseer, the embodiment and source of the agony,
starvation, toil, brutality, and hopeless woe that had thrust him