"A high-school graduate, captain, nothing more."
"Are you a navigator, as you say?"
"I can take the sun for latitude, that's all."
"I am sorry. It will not do. I need a mate who can stand watch, command the men—for I have a hard crowd—and keep the log."
"I can command the men, if you're thinking of me; but I never saw a log."
"And your friend?"
"A graduate navigator from Annapolis," spoke up Fred. "But I never commanded men."
"You will do. The laws of insurance demand that the first mate be a navigator. You two men must stand trial for manslaughter at the next port. Will you sail to that port as officers of my ship, or do you prefer to remain in irons?"
We gladly chose the former, and gave our words of honor not to attempt an escape at the end of the passage. Thus secured, the captain made me second mate, and Fred first mate, and as he unlocked our irons promised to give us his sympathy and testimony at the trial. For he had witnessed the tormenting of Fred by the second mate, and had verified my protest of noncombativeness.
So Fred, an untried boy of twenty, with only a book-taught knowledge of navigation and seamanship, assumed the duties of first officer in a two-thousand-ton, square-rigged ship, in place of a man I had killed; and I, a schooner second mate, stepped into a like position in this big square-rigger. In place of the man he had disabled—both of us prisoners under the law—for the simple reason that among the crew no others were in any way capable.