Part 20

Lanoix leaped over the iron rail which separated the forecastle from the after part of the vessel. Then he turned around.

"Follow me here, you coward!" he shouted to the captain, "and I will have the right to crack you through the middle. Consult the Laws of Oléron under which we sail and see if they do not back me up!"

"The laws be blowed!" yelled Monsieur Valbué, now beside himself with rage. And, leaping across the rail he struck the Huguenot two sturdy blows in the face.

Jean Bart, meanwhile, steered the ship: looked on; and said nothing.

R-i-i-p! There was a flash, a blow, and a cry of pain. A large, keen knife was clenched in the strong right hand of Lanoix, and the captain was running red, with a deep gash in his shoulder.

"Down with the Mutineer! Down with the dog!" came from the throats of the members of the crew who had clustered about the two enraged men, smiling at the little affair.

With a rush they were upon the Huguenot; had forced him to the deck; and wrested the knife from his hand. But, before it was wrenched from his fist, the blade had pierced the body of a seaman and had felled him to the boarding.

"Bring up the Laws of Oléron," cried Captain Valbué, when the Huguenot had been secured. "Bring up the Laws of Oléron from my cabin, and let us see whether or no I was right, when I struck this prating Lanoix!"

The cabin-boy dove below and was soon again upon the deck.

"The law shall be read," cried the captain. "Out with it!"

Now, aboard the vessel was one Antoine Sauret--a good, old boatswain--a friend of the father of Jean Bart, and a courageous man.

"The law shows you to be in the wrong," said he.

"Yes," cried Jean Bart from the wheel, which he had not left. "You were, and are, in the wrong." Monsieur Valbué glowered at them.

"I am the law," said he. "Is this not my vessel?"

"But the right is on his side," interrupted the good Antoine Sauret.

"You wait and see what I do to this cur of a Huguenot," snarled Captain Valbué. "And no more talk from either you or Jean Bart. Hear! Six out of eight of the crew agree that this Lanoix has wounded me and has slain one of his ship-mates--without proper provocation--I will now fix him."

And this he did in the most approved manner.

Lashing his victim's arm to a sharp sword tied to the windlass, he knocked the unfortunate Lanoix upon the deck with a hand-spike. Then, tying him--still alive--to the dead sailor whom the Huguenot had killed when the crew rushed upon him,--he cried out:

"Throw 'em both to the fishes!"

They were seized.

"One! Two! Three! Heave Away!" sounded from the throats of the Frenchmen.

Lanoix and the dead sailor spun out above the blue water. A splash. A gurgle of white foam, and the Atlantic closed above them.

Seamen--you witness--were brutes, in these merry days of privateering. But hear the sequel of the gruesome story!

Jean Bart and the good boatswain Sauret had, from that moment, no high opinion of the Laws of Oléron. So, when the vessel touched at Calais, upon the coast of France, they walked up to the captain, saying:

"Sir. We wish to leave you! We cannot sail any longer beneath your orders."

The brutal Valbué scowled.

"Go!" said he. "And good riddance."

But when the circumstances of the death of the two men were reported to the authorities, the captain was tried.