“But the right is on his side,” interrupted the good Antoine Sauret.
“You wait and see what I do to this cur of a Huguenot,” snarled Captain Valbué. “And no more talk from either you or Jean Bart. Hear! Six out of eight of the crew agree that this Lanoix has wounded me and has slain one of his ship-mates—without proper provocation—I will now fix him.”
And this he did in the most approved manner.
Lashing his victim’s arm to a sharp sword tied to the windlass, he knocked the unfortunate Lanoix upon the deck with a hand-spike. Then, tying him—still alive—to the dead sailor whom the Huguenot had killed when the crew rushed upon him,—he cried out:
“Throw ’em both to the fishes!”
They were seized.
“One! Two! Three! Heave Away!” sounded from the throats of the Frenchmen.
Lanoix and the dead sailor spun out above the blue water. A splash. A gurgle of white foam, and the Atlantic closed above them.
Seamen—you witness—were brutes, in these merry days of privateering. But hear the sequel of the gruesome story!
Jean Bart and the good boatswain Sauret had, from that moment, no high opinion of the Laws of Oléron. So, when the vessel touched at Calais, upon the coast of France, they walked up to the captain, saying: