The second mate, his face somewhat disfigured, limped aft for assistance, and Fred turned to me.
"God!" he said brokenly. "I'm glad you're here."
"Yes, but what brought you here?" I answered. "Shanghaied?"
"Yes, I suppose so," he chuckled. "Fact is, I went on a dreadful bat the night I left you. Wonder what the folks at home'll think—and the commandant at the academy?"
He did not seem to feel his position, and I answered coldly: "Looks as though your prospects were done for."
Then, along came the first mate, carrying wrist irons, and the skipper, with a pistol.
"Where's this man killer?" demanded the mate, stalking up to us. Fred did not flinch; he looked him squarely in the eye. But I, spying the skipper's gun on a level with my head, stepped back into the forecastle. Our combined attitude influenced the mate.
"You!" he snarled at me. "Come out of that."
He sprang to the door, the manacles swinging over his head, and before I could dodge he had laid my cheek open with the blow.
Though I had done my deep-water sailing under American mates—the harshest in the world—I had never yet, in my whole nine years at sea, received a blow; and, as second mate in big schooners, I had not found need to strike one. The pain and the shock of this assault upon my person and dignity drove out of me every sentiment and attribute of a civilized man trained to respect authority—all regard for law except the great first law, and for a few moments I was an animal. And in those few moments the mate died.