As a boy he had enlisted in the British navy, and for two score years and more served faithfully and well.  Names, dates, commanders, ports, ships, engagements, and battles, rolled from his lips in a steady stream, but it is beyond me to remember them all, for it is not quite in keeping to take notes at the poorhouse door.  He had been through the “First War in China,” as he termed it; had enlisted with the East India Company and served ten years in India; was back in India again, in the English navy, at the time of the Mutiny; had served in the Burmese War and in the Crimea; and all this in addition to having fought and toiled for the English flag pretty well over the rest of the globe.

Then the thing happened.  A little thing, it could only be traced back to first causes:  perhaps the lieutenant’s breakfast had not agreed with him; or he had been up late the night before; or his debts were pressing; or the commander had spoken brusquely to him.  The point is, that on this particular day the lieutenant was irritable.  The sailor, with others, was “setting up” the fore rigging.

Now, mark you, the sailor had been over forty years in the navy, had three good-conduct stripes, and possessed the Victoria Cross for distinguished service in battle; so he could not have been such an altogether bad sort of a sailorman.  The lieutenant was irritable; the lieutenant called him a name—­well, not a nice sort of name.  It referred to his mother.  When I was a boy it was our boys’ code to fight like little demons should such an insult be given our mothers; and many men have died in my part of the world for calling other men this name.

However, the lieutenant called the sailor this name.  At that moment it chanced the sailor had an iron lever or bar in his hands.  He promptly struck the lieutenant over the head with it, knocking him out of the rigging and overboard.

And then, in the man’s own words:  “I saw what I had done.  I knew the Regulations, and I said to myself, ’It’s all up with you, Jack, my boy; so here goes.’  An’ I jumped over after him, my mind made up to drown us both.  An’ I’d ha’ done it, too, only the pinnace from the flagship was just comin’ alongside.  Up we came to the top, me a hold of him an’ punchin’ him.  This was what settled for me.  If I hadn’t ben strikin’ him, I could have claimed that, seein’ what I had done, I jumped over to save him.”

Then came the court-martial, or whatever name a sea trial goes by.  He recited his sentence, word for word, as though memorised and gone over in bitterness many times.  And here it is, for the sake of discipline and respect to officers not always gentlemen, the punishment of a man who was guilty of manhood.  To be reduced to the rank of ordinary seaman; to be debarred all prize-money due him; to forfeit all rights to pension; to resign the Victoria Cross; to be discharged from the navy with a good character (this being his first offence); to receive fifty lashes; and to serve two years in prison.