The captain couldn’t help laughing.  Then he began to swear ... “that fellow’s going to give us a lot of trouble,” he prophesied.

Several sailors, grinning, had joined in the chase.  They had caught the fellow and were dragging him forward by the back and scruff of the neck, while he deliberately hung limp and let his feet drag as if paralysed from the waist down.

The captain stood over the group, that had come to a halt below.  The captain was in good humour.

“Bring him up here.”

The shanghaied man stood facing Schantze, with all the deference of a sailor, yet subtly defiant.

The captain began to talk in German.

“I don’t speak German,” responded the sailor stubbornly.

Yet it was in German that he had called out he must see the captain.

This did not make the captain angry.  Instead, like a vain boy, he began in French....

“I don’t speak French ...” again objected the sailor, still in English.

“Very well, we’ll speak in English, then ... bring him down into the cabin ...” to the men and mates ...  To the sailor again, “Come on, Englishman! (in derision), and we’ll sign you on in the ship’s articles.”

They haled him below.  The captain dismissed the sailors.  The captain, the two mates and I, were alone with the mutineer....  I stepped into the pantry, pretending to be busy with the dishes.  I didn’t want to miss anything.

“Now,” explained the captain, “what’s happened has happened ... it’s up to you to make the best of it ... we had to shanghai you,” and he explained the case in full ... and if he would behave and do his share of the work with the rest of the crew, he would be treated decently and be paid ... and let go, if he wished, when the Valkyrie reached Sydney....

“Now sign,” commanded the mate, “I never heard of a man in your fix ever being treated so good before.”

“But I won’t sign.”

“Damme, but you will,” returned Miller, the first mate, who, though German, spoke English in real English fashion—­a result, he later told me, of fifteen years’ service on English boats....

“Take hold of him, Stanger,” this to the second mate, a lithe, sun-browned, handsome lad who knew English but hated to speak it.

They wrestled about the cabin at a great rate ... finally they succeeded in forcing a pen into the mutineer’s hand....

Then the man calmed down, apparently whipped.

“Very well, where shall I sign?”

“Da,” pointed the captain triumphantly, pointing the line out, with his great, hairy forefinger ... and, with victory near, relapsing into German.

But, just as it reached the designated spot, the fellow gave a violent swish with the pen.  The mates made a grab for his hand, but too late.  He tore a great, ink-smeared rent through the paper....

Whang! Captain Schantze caught him with the full force of his big, open right hand on the left side of his face.... Whish! Captain Schantze caught him with the full force of his open left, on the other cheek!