captain jack paul and his grantully castle see friendly years together. they go to india, to spain, to the west indies, to the mediterranean, to africa. while captain jack paul is busy with the grantully castle, piling up pounds and shillings and pence for owners donald, currie & beck, he is also deep with the books, hammering at french, spanish and german. ashore, he makes his way into what best society he can find, being as eager to refine his manners as refine his mind, holding the one as much an education as is the other. finally he is known in every ocean for the profundity of his learning, the polish of his deportment, the power of his fists, and the powder-like explosiveness of his temper.
it is a cloudy october afternoon when captain jack paul works the grantully castle out of plymouth, shakes free his canvas, and fills away on the starboard tack for tobago. the crew is an evil lot, and a spirit of mutiny stirs in the ship. captain jack paul, who holds that a good sailor is ever a good grumbler, can overlook a deal in favor of this aphorism; and does. on the sixth day out, however, when his first officer, mr. sands, staggers below with a sheath-knife through his shoulder, it makes a case to which no commander can afford to seem blind.
“it was mungo!” explains the wounded mr. sands.
captain jack paul goes on deck, and takes his stand by the main mast.
“pipe all hands aft, mr. cooper,” he says to the boatswain.
the crew straggle aft. they offer a circling score of brutal faces; in each the dominant expression is defiance.
“the man mungo!” says captain jack paul. “where is he?”
at the word, a gigantic black slouches out from among his mates. sloping shoulders, barrel body, long, swinging arms like a gorilla’s, bandy legs, huge hands and feet, head the size and shape of a cocoanut, small, black serpent eyes, no soul unless a fiend’s soul, mungo is at once tyrant, pride and leader of the forecastle. rumor declares that he has sailed pirate in his time, and should be sun-drying in chains on the gibbet at corso castle.
as he stands before captain jack paul, mungo’s features are in a black snarl of fury. it is in his heart to do murderously more for his captain than he did for first officer sands. he waits only the occasion before making a spring. captain jack paul looks him over with a grim stare as he slouches before him.
“mr. cooper,” says captain jack paul after a moment, during which he reads the black mungo like a page of print, “fetch the irons!”
the boatswain is back on deck with a pair of steel wristlets in briefest space. he passes them to captain jack paul. at this, mungo glowers, while the mutinous faces in the background put on a dull sullenness. there are a brace of pistols in the belt of captain jack paul, of which the sullen dull ones do not like the look. mungo, a black berserk, cares little for the pistols, seeing he is in a white-hot rage, the hotter for being held in present check. captain jack paul, on his part, is in no wise asleep; he notes the rolling, roving, bloodshot eye, like the eye of a wild beast at bay, and is prepared.
“hold out your hands!” comes the curt command.
plainly it is the signal for which mungo waited. with a growling roar, bear-like in its guttural ferocity, he rushes upon captain jack paul. the roaring rush is of the suddenest, but the latter is on the alert. quick as is mungo, captain jack paul is quicker. seizing a belaying-pin, he brings it crashing down on the skull of the roaring, charging black. the heavy, clublike pin is splintered; mungo drops to the deck, a shivering heap. the great hands close and open; the muscles clutch and knot under the black skin; there is a choking gurgle. then the mighty limbs relax; the face tarns from black to a sickly tallow. mouth agape, eyes wide and staring, mungo lies still.
captain jack paul surveys the prostrate black. then he tosses the irons to boatswain cooper.
“they will not be needed, mr. bo’sen,” he says. “pipe the crew for’ard!”
the keen whistle sings; the mutinous ones scuttle forward, like fowls that hear the high scream of some menacing hawk..
it is two bells in the evening; the port watch, in charge of the knife-wounded mr. sands, has the deck. the dead mungo, tight-clouted in a hammock, lies stretched on a grating, ready for burial.
captain jack paul comes up from his cabin. in his hand he carries a prayer-book. also those two pistols are still in his belt.
“turn out the watch below!” is the word.
the crew makes a silent half-circle about the dead mungo. that mutinous sullenness, recently the defiant expression of their faces, is supplanted by a deprecatory look, composite of apology and fear. it is as though they would convince captain jack paul of their tame and sheep-like frame of thought. the fate of mungo has instructed them; for one and all they are of that criminal, coward brood, best convinced by a club and with whom death is the only conclusive argument. as they stand uncovered about the rigid one in the clouted hammock, they realize in full the villainy of mutiny, and abandon that ship-rebellion which has been forecastle talk and plan since ever the plymouth lights went out astern.
captain jack paul reads a prayer, and the dead mungo is surrendered to the deep. as the body goes splashing into the sea, captain jack paul turns on the subdued ones.
“let me tell you this, my men!” says he. his tones have a cold, threatening ring, like the clink of iron on arctic ice. “the first of you who so much as lifts an eyebrow in refusal of an order shall go the same voyage as the black. and so i tell you!”
captain jack paul brings the grantully castle into tobago, crew as it might be a crew of lambs. once his anchors are down, he signals for the port admiral. within half an hour the gig of that dignitary is alongside.
the honorable simpson, judge surrogate of the vice-admiralty court of tobago, with the honorable young, lieutenant-governor of the colony, to give him countenance, opens court in the after cabins of the grantully castle. the crew are examined, man after man. they say little, lest they themselves be caught in some law net, and landed high and dry in the tobago jail. first officer sands shows his wound and tells his story.
throughout the inquiry captain jack paul sits in silence, listening and looking on. he puts no questions to either mate or crew. when first officer sands is finished, the honorable simpson asks:
“captain, in the killing of the black, mungo, are you in conscience convinced that you used no more force than was necessary to preserve discipline in your ship?”
“may it please,” returns captain jack paul, who has not been at his books these years for nothing, and is fit to cope with a king’s counsel —“may it please, i would say that it was necessary in the course of duty to strike the mutineer mungo. this was on the high seas. whenever it becomes necessary for a commanding officer to strike a seaman, it is necessary to strike with a weapon. also, the necessity to strike carries with it the necessity to kill or disable the mutineer. i call your attention to the fact that i had loaded pistols in my belt, and could have shot the mutineer mungo. i struck with a belaying-pin in preference, because i hoped that i might subdue him without killing him. the result proved otherwise. i trust your honorable court will take due account that, although armed with pistols throwing ounce balls, weapons surely fatal in my hands, i used a belaying-pin, which, though a dangerous, is not necessarily a fatal weapon.”
upon this statement, the honorable simpson and the honorable young confer. as the upcome of their conference, the honorable simpson announces judgment, exonerating captain jack paul.
“the sailor mungo, being at the time on the high seas, was in a state of mutiny.” thus runs the finding as set forth in the records of the vice-admiralty court of tobago. “the sailor mungo was mutinous under circumstances which lodged plenary power in the hands of the master of the vessel. therefore, the homicide was justifiable, because it had become the only means of maintaining the discipline required for the safety of the ship.”
the court rises, and captain jack paul bows the honorable simpson and the honorable young over the side. when they are clear, first officer sands addresses captain jack paul.
“are the crew to be set ashore, sir?” he asks.
“what! mr. sands, would you discharge the best crew we’ve ever had?” he continues as though replying to his first officer’s look of astonishment. “i grant you they were a trifle uncurried at first. the error of their ways, however, broke upon them with all clearness in the going of mungo. as matters now are, compared to the grantully castle, a dove-cote is a merest theatre of violence and murderous blood. no, mr. sands; we will keep our crew if you please. should there be further mutiny, why then there shall be further belaying-pins, i promise you.”
the grantully castle goes finally back to england, the most peaceful creature of oak and cordage that ever breasted the atlantic. cargo discharged, the ship is sent into winter overhaul.
“as for you, sir,” remarks owner donald, of donald, currie & beck, shoving the wine across to captain jack paul, “ye’re just a maister mariner of gold! ye’ll no wait ashore for the grantully castle. we’ve been buildin’ ye a new ship at our portsmouth yards. she’s off the ways a month, and s’uld be sparred and rigged and ready for the waves by now. we’ve called her the two friends.”
