is 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 Valbue 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 Valbue. "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 Oleron. 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 Valbue 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.

"The Law of Oleron," said the Judge to him, "acquits you, for the
Huguenot sailor was in the wrong to draw his knife, when you struck
him only with your fists. But it is a bad law and must be changed."

Here he turned to young Jean Bart and the good Sauret.

"As for you two," said he, "I most highly commend you for protesting
against the brutality of this captain. Would that all the sailors of
France were as good as both of you. If t