"How did he get that way?" asked Uncle Dick, while the boys ranged themselves behind him so that they could hear all that passed, "and why is he trying to desert?"
The mate stepped back and moved his hand toward the rescued man, as if to say that he would tell his own story, and the latter said:
"I don't want to desert my ship, cap'n. I am an able seaman, know my duty and am ready to do it, if I can only have plenty to eat and am allowed a wink of sleep now and then. I am trying to get ashore for protection ag'in' them tyrants aboard the Tycoon, and I hope you won't send me back to them, sir."
"Go on," said Uncle Dick. "What has happened aboard that ship?"
"She is nearly two years out of Nantucket, on a whaling course, sir," said the man, "and there isn't a foremast hand aboard of her that she brought out with her. They've all deserted. She has to get a new crew at every port, and when she can't get 'em honest, she kidnaps 'em, sir. I shipped aboard of her, along with a lot of others, at Callao. We've been out only four months, and two of the men jumped overboard rather than stand the hard treatment they received. On the first day out the officers began on us and never let up. They kept us at work till we were ready to drop, brought us out of bed at night and made us walk the deck, and if we fell asleep as we walked, they knocked us down with a handspike or belaying-pin. They starved us almost to death, and then, because my boat's crew were too weak to save a whale we made fast to, they put us all in irons and pounded us with ropes' ends till we were insensible."
This was only the introduction to the long story the man had to tell, and to which his auditors listened with breathless interest. According to his account, the Tycoon was a horrible place, and the cruelties that were practised by the officers upon the defenceless seamen, were shocking. The man certainly bore unmistakable evidence of brutal treatment, and added weight to his story by declaring that he was not only willing but anxious to meet his persecutors in a court of justice. Everybody who listened to him was indignant.
"The men on board that vessel have a remedy in their own hands—two of them, if they only knew it," said Frank. "Why didn't they demand an interview with the American consul at the first port at which they touched?"
"It wouldn't have done no good, sir," said the sailor. "The cap'n wouldn't never let 'em see him, sir."
"He couldn't help himself," returned Frank. "The law compels him to allow his men to go ashore at every port at which the ship may touch to lay their complaints, if they have any, before our representative; or, if there is any good reason why the men cannot go ashore, the captain must bring the consul aboard to see them, if they demand it."
If there was anything in which Frank was particularly well posted, it was the law governing the duties of consuls, as some of our representatives in foreign countries are called. The attorney with whom he had been studying in Lawrence, had political aspirations, and had at one time expected to be appointed consul for some port in the Mediterranean. If he had succeeded in his object Frank would have gone with him as assistant and clerk. He did not wish to accept any situation with whose duties and responsibilities he was not familiar, and in order to fit himself for it, he had obtained a copy of the Consular Regulations, which he had thoroughly mastered. It is a part of the consul's duty to care for destitute, discharged and deserting seamen, to stand between foremast hands and tyrannical officers, to protect officers from and punish mutinous sailors, and Frank knew the law bearing upon every case that could possibly arise.