I looked the captain straight in the eye.

“Sir, I did not do it, and I won’t be whipped!”

“Wha-at!” ejaculated Schantze, astonished at my novel behaviour.

“I didn’t touch the syrup.”  Karl looked at me, astonished and incredulous at my audacity, through his tear-stained face.

The captain stepped back from me.

I must be telling the truth to be behaving so differently.

“Get to your bunk then!” he commanded.

I obeyed.

“Who is he?” ...  I heard the little customs man ask the skipper; “he doesn’t talk like an Englishman.”

“He isn’t.  He just a damn-fool Yankee boy I picked up in New York.”

* * * * *

They had rounded Franz up and locked him away.  The captain was determined to frustrate his little scheme for reimbursement, which he had by this time guessed.

I lie.  I must tell the truth in these memoirs.

I had told on him.

But my motive was only an itch to see what would then take place.  But when I saw that the issue would be an obvious one:  that he would merely be spirited forth to sea again, and this time, forced to work, I felt a little sorry for the man.  At the same time, I admit I wanted to observe the denouement myself, of his case ... and as I now intended to desert the ship, it would have to take place in Sydney.

So, on the second night of Franz’s incarceration, when nearly everybody was away on shore-leave, I took the captain’s bunch of keys, and I let the shanghaied man, the mutineer, the man from Alsace-Lorraine—­out!

It was not a very dark night.  Franz stole along like a rat till he reached the centre of the dock.  There he gave a great shout of defiance ... why, I learned later....

The Lord Summerville, which had, after all, beat us in by two days, despite Captain Schantze’s boast, was lying on the other side of our dock.  And her mate and several sailors thus became witnesses of what happened.

The shout brought, of course, our few men who remained on watch, on deck, and over on the dock after Franz ... who allowed himself to be caught ... the dock was English ground ... the ship was German ... a good point legally, as the canny Franz had foreseen.

His clothes were almost torn from his body.

Miller accidentally showed up, coming back from shore.  And he joined in.

“Come back with us, you verfluchte Alsatz-Lothringer.”

The Englishmen from the Lord Summerville now began calling out, “Let him alone!” and “I say, give the lad fair play!”

Some of them leaped down on the dock in a trice.

“Who the hell let him out?” roared the mate.

I stood on deck, holding my breath, and ready to bolt in case Franz betrayed me.  But nevertheless my blood was running high and happy over the excitement I had caused by unlocking the door.