"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.
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