It was on the waterfront that two jovial men got into conversation with him, invited him to the alehouse and bought him drink. Later he had a misted memory of walking between his two new friends toward the docked ships, but no recollection at all of how he came to be aboard the Elsie Jones. He woke the next morning to the painful strike of the bosun’s rope end. “Git up, you stinkin Indan beggar brat.” He was a green hand on the Elsie Jones bound to London with a cargo of spars and masts. “You cannot do this! I know my rights. You cannot keep me against my will.” “What! Are you a sea lawyer?
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