“I have done all I could,—more than perhaps it was safe to do. I told him I could n't answer for the men, if he were to shoot him on board; and he replied to me short, 'I 'll take the fellow ashore with me alone; neither you nor they have any right to question what you are not to witness.'”
“Well, when I get back to Elsinore, it's to a prison and heavy irons I shall go for life, that's certain; but I 'd face it all rather than live the life we've done now for twenty months past.”
“Hush! speak low!” said the other. “I suppose others are weary of it as well as you. Many a man has to live a bad life just because he started badly.”
“I 'm sorry for the boy!” sighed the Dane; “he was a bold and fearless fellow.”
“I am sorry for him too. It was an evil day for him when he joined us. Well, well, what would he have become if he had lived a year or two on board!”
“He has no father nor mother,” said the Dane, “that's something. I lost mine, too, when I was nine years old; and it made me the reckless devil I became ever after. I was n't sixteen when the crew of the 'Tre-Kroner' mutinied, and I led the party that cut down the first lieutenant. It was a moonlight night, just as it might be now, in the middle watch, and Lieutenant Oeldenstrom was sitting aft, near the wheel, humming a tune. I walked aft, with my cutlass in one hand, and a pistol in the other; but just as I stepped up the quarter-deck my foot slipped, and the cutlass fell with a clank on the deck.
“'What's that?' cried the lieutenant.
“'Felborg, sir, mate of the watch,' said I, standing fast where I was. 'It's shoaling fast ahead, sir.'
“'D—n!' said he, 'what a coast!'
“'Could n't you say a bit of something better than that?' said I, getting nearer to him slowly.