Cautiously I spoke to the cook about what Karl and I were doing.  For he knew, of course, that I knew of his marauding ... and of the mates’ and sailmaker’s ... so it was safe to tell him.

“You’d better be careful,” the cook admonished me.

“But what could Captain Schantze want with so many bottles of syrup and soda water aboard?”

“The English custom’s officer who comes aboard here is an old friend of Schantze’s, and a teetotaler ... so the captain always treats him to soda water.”

“But Karl and I have drunk it all up already,” I confessed slowly.

“You’ll both catch a good hiding then when he calls for it and finds there is none.”

The next day the customs man came aboard.

“Have a drink, Mr. Wollaston?” Schantze asked him.

“Yes, but nothing strong,” for probably the tenth occasion came the answer.

Then offhandedly, the captain—­as if he had not, perhaps, said the same thing for ten previous voyages:  “I have some fine French soda water and syrup in my private locker, perhaps you’d like some of that, Mr. Wollaston?”

Mr. Wollaston, whose face and nose was so ruddy and pimply anyone would take him for a toper, answers:  “Yes, a little of that Won’t do any harm, Captain!”

“Karl!—­Johann!” We had been listening, frightened, to the colloquy.  We came out, trembling.

“Look under the cushions in my cabin ... bring out some of the syrup and soda water you find there.”

“Very well, sir!”

We both hurried in ... stood facing each other, too scared to laugh at the situation.  The captain had a heavy hand—­and carried a heavy cane when he went ashore.  He had the cane with him now.

After a long time:  “You tell him there is none,” whispered Karl.

“Well, what’s wrong in there?” cried Schantze impatiently.

“We can’t find a single bottle, sir!” I repeated, louder.

“What?  Come out here!  Speak louder!  What did you say?”

“We can’t find a single bottle, sir!” I murmured, almost inaudibly.

Then Karl, stammering, reinforced me with, “There are a lot of empty bottles here, sir!”

“What does this mean?  Every voyage for years I have had soda and French syrup in my locker for Mr. Wollaston.”

“Oh, don’t mind me,” deprecated the little customs man, at the same time as furious as his host.

Karl had already began to blubber in anticipation of the whipping due.  The captain laid his heavy cane on everywhere.  The boy fell at his feet, bawling louder, less from fear than from the knowledge that his abjectness would please the captain’s vanity and induce him to let up sooner.

“Now you come here!” Schantze beckoned me.

He raised the cane at me.  But, to my own surprise, something brave and strange entered into me.  I would not be humiliated before a countryman of my mother’s, that was what it was!