KING: Yes, Frederic, from to-day you rank as a full-blown member of our band. ALL: Hurrah! FREDERIC: My friends, I thank you all, from my heart, for your kindly wishes. Would that I could repay them as they deserve! KING: What do you mean? FREDERIC: To-day I am out of my indentures, and to-day I leave you for ever. KING: But this is quite unaccountable; a keener hand at scuttling a Cunarder or cutting out a White Star never shipped a handspike. FREDERIC: Yes, I have done my best for you. And why? It was my duty under my indentures, and I am the slave of duty. As a child I was regularly apprenticed to your band. It was through an error — no matter, the mistake was ours, not yours, and I was in honour bound by it. SAMUEL: An error? What error? (RUTH rises and comes forward) FREDERIC: I may not tell you; it would reflect upon my well-loved Ruth. RUTH: Nay, dear master, my mind has long been gnawed by the cankering tooth of mystery. Better have it out at once. SONG — RUTH RUTH: When Frederic was a little lad he proved so brave and daring, His father thought he'd 'prentice him to some career seafaring. I was, alas! his nurs'rymaid, and so it fell to my lot To take and bind the promising boy apprentice to a pilot — A life not bad for a hardy lad, though surely not a high lot, Though I'm a nurse, you might do worse than make your boy a pilot. I was a stupid nurs'rymaid, on breakers always steering, And I did not catch the word aright, through being hard of hearing; Mistaking my instructions, which within my brain did gyrate, I took and bound this promising boy apprentice to a pirate. A sad mistake it was to make and doom him to a vile lot. I bound him to a pirate — you! — instead of to a pilot. I soon found out, beyond all doubt, the scope of this disaster, But I hadn't the face to return to my place, and break it to my master. A nurs'rymaid is not afraid of what you people call work, So I made up my mind to go as a kind of piratical maid- of-all-work. And that is how you find me now, a member of your shy lot, Which you wouldn't have found, had he been bound apprentice to a pilot. RUTH: Oh, pardon! Frederic, pardon! (Kneels) FREDERIC: Rise, sweet one, I have long pardoned you. (Ruth rises)