was "setting up" the fore rigging.

Now, mark you, the sailor had been over forty years in the navy, had
three good-conduct stripes, and possessed the Victoria Cross for
distinguished service in battle; so he could not have been such an
altogether bad sort of a sailorman. The lieutenant was irritable; the
lieutenant called him a name--well, not a nice sort of name. It referred
to his mother. When I was a boy it was our boys' code to fight like
little demons should such an insult be given our mothers; and many men
have died in my part of the world for calling other men this name.

However, the lieutenant called the sailor this name. At that moment it
chanced the sailor had an iron lever or bar in his hands. He promptly
struck the lieutenant over the head with it, knocking him out of the
rigging and overboard.

And then, in the man's own words: "I saw what I had done. I knew the
Regulations, and I said to myself, 'It's all up with you, Jack, my boy;
so here goes.' An' I jumped over after him, my mind made up to drown us
both. An' I'd ha' done it, too, only the pinnace from the flagship was
just comin' alongside. Up we came to the top, me a hold of him an'
punchin' him. This was what settled for me. If I hadn't ben strikin'
him, I could have claimed that, seein' what I had done, I jumped over to
save him."

Then came the court-martial, or whatever name a sea trial goes by. He
recited his sentence, word for word, as though memorised and gone over in
bitterness many times. And here it is, for the sake of discipline and
respect to officers not always gentlemen, the punishment of a man who was
guilty of manhood. To be reduced to the rank of ordinary seaman; to be