When Singapore was well out of sight Crushe mustered the deserters, kept until that time below in irons. Thirty-five men and one boy answered to their names, and were paraded before him. Among them were many of his pets, who, until their attempt at desertion, had been considered reliable fellows. These he surveyed with unmitigated disgust, as much as to say, "You brutes, after I have loaded you with favours, you turn upon me and desert, like the rest of them." The boy was no other than "the son of Bill Jordun," who, in spite of the guardianship of Old Jemmy, had contrived to reach the shore in an empty water-tank, there to be duly collared and returned to the kind care of the humane lieutenant. Crushe determined to flog the child, as an example to the other boys: consequently, when the deserters were mustered, he singled out the lad, and bullied him in a most unmerciful manner.

"What is that little beast\'s name?" he demanded of the ship\'s corporal.

"Bill Jordun, sir," replied the man, touching his cap several times, to show his profound humility.

"Come here, you little hound. How dare you desert? I\'ll have you flogged over the breech of a gun, you son of a dog! Do you hear me—curse you?" exclaimed the first lieutenant.

"I can hear you, sir."

"Then why don\'t you answer me, you vermin?"

The boy bit his lips, and swallowed the insult; determined not to irritate his tyrant by replying; but upon glancing up, and seeing the sneering look of Crushe directed towards him, as if he were dirt beneath his feet, he fearlessly observed,

"I didn\'t answer, as you didn\'t give me a chance—\'sides, I don\'t want to be killed, like Dunstable was. I ain\'t afraid of you, though, although I knows my life ain\'t worth much in your eyes."

"Stop! you mutinous little blackguard, you shall get your deserts. I wish to Heaven I could give you four dozen. Ship\'s corporal, take the little beast down below."

The boy, now driven to desperation, replied in a mocking way,

"Yes! take him below, take him down below—that\'s what the devil will do to you some day—see if he don\'t."

Shever, upon hearing this unwarrantable abuse of his superior, stepped before the ship\'s corporal, saying, "Allow me to handle this brute," seized the undaunted infant by the throat, and lifting him off the deck, carried the precocious child below, where Master William used anything but proper language. The boy had often heard the men indulge in profanity when being put in confinement, so he considered it the correct thing to do; and it must have been very horrible, as, upon his return to the quarter-deck, the boatswain reported that "he had to shut his ears, it was so awful."

While the lad was being attended to, Crushe stood beside the capstan, and amused himself by taunting the prisoners, and on the slightest word from them would exclaim, "Silence, you brutes! by Jupiter I\'ll make some of you hold your tongues with a cat, if you don\'t shut up your jaw. You imagined you could give me the slip, did you? bless you. I\'m glad some of you have tried it on; particularly you, Mr. Byrne.[Pg 65] You\'re fond of praying, now pray for a miracle, as you\'ll get four dozen crosses on your back in spite of your faith. You\'re all right this time, and the devil himself won\'t save you. I\'m only sorry I can\'t flog the lot of you."

When Crushe had exhausted his spleen upon the deserters as a body, he directed Cravan to have them brought singly before him. Some, like the boy Jordun, were mutinous; these he determined should be flogged: while others held their peace, and escaped with various light punishments, from "one month\'s pay or grog stopped," to "black list for a week," or "watered grog for an unlimited period."

"In the old times we could have flogged all of the brutes," he observed to Cravan, "but it would not do to try it on now; besides, the old boy would be afraid to sign the warrants."

"You might flog them into mutiny," replied Nosey. "That fellow Byrne muttered something about better strike for their rights like men, than be treated like dogs."

"Did he?" exclaimed Crushe.

"Yes, and two or three of those you have set down for flogging seemed half inclined to be mutinous; besides, did you not hear that little whelp Jordun allude to Dunstable, just as if you murdered him?"

"That was a joke. I murder him, ha, ha!" laughed Crushe.

"Ha, ha!" echoed Cravan, but the merriment on both sides, was forced. They remembered how the poor idiot looked when he lay dead in the sick-bay, and the first lieutenant felt the words, "murdered him," stir even his dull conscience.

Captain Puffeigh was brought on deck during the day, and the seven men were duly reported to him. Without the slightest inquiry, upon the word of his first lieutenant, he sentenced two to receive four, and five of them three, dozen lashes upon their bare backs. Small boy Jordun was then paraded, and when he found all chance gone of obtaining justice from the gallant captain, he became very insolent; observing that the skipper would get a thundering good pounding if ever he showed his strawberry nose in Portsea, and that Crushe had better look out for hisself, when his father heered he had been flaked.

"The depravity of the little fiend! To speak to me in that audacious manner upon my own quarter-deck! He ought to be keelhauled. Don\'t you think so, Crushe?"

Of course the first lieutenant agreed with his commander.

Keelhauling, gentle reader, was a frightful torture invented in a brutal age, and it is still sighed after by creatures like Puffeigh and Crushe. The punishment consisted in slinging a man in a peculiar manner, by a rope suspended from one yard arm, and running under the ship up to the other yard. Thus the victim was drawn down into the water, under the ship (which sometimes lacerated him in a frightful manner), and then run up to the yard arm on the other side. If he survived this he was lucky, as generally the operation finished the victim. Puffeigh felt sorry that he could not break the insolent boy\'s spirit by these gentle means, as the child\'s tender frame was admirably adapted to bear such a punishment.

The commander shook his elegant signature upon the foot of each "warrant for punishment." He was not a learned judge, nor had he "patiently and carefully gone into each case," according to admiralty orders.

Upon the morning after Puffeigh signed the warrants, the Stingers were all turned out at daylight. It was lovely weather, and as the ship steamed up the China sea everything around her looked calm and peaceful, while on board all was terror, discontent, and unhappiness.

William Jordun, boy of the second class, was the first victim: and as small lads are tied over the breech of a gun, and flogged on a corresponding portion of their own[Pg 66] anatomy, there was no grating to rig; consequently the preliminaries were of a primitive and unostentatious kind; the only persons to be present being Crushe, the assistant surgeon, and the ship\'s boys. Master William knew that in a manner the eyes of the fleet were upon him, so he determined to take his punishment like a stoic. The worthy and innocent lads who swarmed round the gun across which he was secured did all in their power to keep up his spirits, and until the dreaded first lieutenant made his appearance a casual observer might have imagined the boys were mustered to assist at some pleasing kind of ceremony.

"Don\'t you holler, young Bill, and I\'ll give you a plug of genewine Wirginny," observed one small specimen.

"I\'ve got a tot of grog stowed away for you, chummy, if you gives plenty ov lip," consolingly remarked another.

"The way that ere lad do keep up \'is pluck, agin all odds!" mumbled Old Jemmy, who was surveying the infants much as a dog fancier might a lot of bull pups.

"You shall have that \'ere pair ov trousers wot\'s too small for me if you jaw all the time, and don\'t sing out," put in a long specimen, who was on the look-out for the appearance of Crushe and the assistant surgeon up the after-companion. At last he cried, "Here\'s the sangvenary tyrunt; hold yer jaw, all ov yer."

As the boy was lashed to the foremost starboard gun, the lieutenant and doctor had to walk almost the vessel\'s length; so by the time they reached the group the lads were as quiet as mice, and looking at the prisoner in a virtuously superior manner.

"All the boys here, ship\'s corporal?"

"Yes, sir."

Upon this Crushe read the warrant, and without more ceremony ordered the boatswain\'s mate to "do his duty."

When the corporal removed the frock which hitherto had covered the boy\'s person, the lad blushed, and shut his eyes for a moment, his position being a most ignominious one. Price advanced cat in hand, and was about to administer the first cut; but seeing the boy\'s fair skin with its faint blue veins, he threw down the cat, and folding his arms, looked at his superiors like one bewildered.

The first lieutenant stared at the boatswain\'s mate for a moment, then demanded in a severe tone if he had been drinking; adding, if he did not wish to be disrated, he had better go on with the flogging, and mind he did his duty effectually.

Price looked at Crushe, then at the boy, and at length murmured "Can\'t do it, sir—darn me if I can—I\'d rather be flogged myself," saying which he picked up the cat, and threw it overboard.

"Go aft and stand between two guns, you miserable old fool; I\'ll disrate you for that, you drivelling idiot," bellowed the first lieutenant.

"Boatswain, do your duty."

"Yes, boatswain, do your duty," mimicked the impudent little victim; "do your duty, it\'s a pleasure to you, ain\'t it?"

Mr. Shever flogged boy Jordun in a highly expert and savage manner, but the lad being wonderfully tough-skinned, he merely succeeded in inducing him to use some very powerful language for such a small child. Not a groan or tear, but with true nautical freedom, did he bless Crushe and the rest of his enemies, asserting as the tails curled round his defenceless body that he should "live to see the lot of \'em swing for murder afore he died, so help his never, he would."

When a man or boy is actually undergoing punishment he may give vent to his feelings in any way he pleases—say his prayers, or worse—generally worse, we are sorry to state; and Master William Jordun, boy of the second class, feeling he was[Pg 67] being looked upon as a sort of martyr by his fellows, endured the pain, and slanged his superiors like a grown up sailor. It was a fitting prologue to the performance which followed.

Having received his two dozen lashes, he was cast off considerably worse in body and mind, and sent aft to remain in the sentry\'s charge until sunset. We know he was a foul-mouthed little monkey, but what made him so? The example of his superiors; and it is not surprising he was bad, considering the beautiful and edifying language he constantly heard on the part of Crushe, Shever, and others.

By the time the foregoing was completed Puffeigh had made his appearance with the officers and engineers upon the quarter-deck, where the grating was already rigged for punishment. The same performance was gone through as upon the occasion of Clare\'s sentence being carried out, with this exception, the boys mingled with the men, and as the first victim was "seized up," six others, among whom was Byrne, were brought forward "to be improved" until their turns came. Three of them bore their punishment without a word, and were sent below to have their backs dressed by the surgeon. One man cried and roared like a child under chastisement. Another fainted, and was flogged during the time he was insensible (some of the crew observed that he took it "like a lamb"), while the other two victims, driven almost out of their senses, cursed and swore in a fearful manner, Byrne vowing he would murder Puffeigh, Crushe, or Shever. "I\'ll have revenge on one of you devils," he yelled, as the last stroke of the lashes scored his back like so many knives.

"Iron him; see he doesn\'t do any damage," quavered Puffeigh, when he saw they were casting the man off. "Put him below under a sentry\'s charge until we arrive at Hong-Kong. I\'ll try you by court-martial for that threat, you brute."

The man showed fight, breaking from his keepers, and endeavouring to get at Puffeigh, who thereupon beat a retreat to his cabin, saying he was tired. After a desperate struggle the sailor was secured, gagged, double-ironed, and placed below under charge of a sentry, who was instructed to "keep his eye on him, and not to allow any one to speak to him." For three days the prisoner remained perfectly quiet; upon the fourth, thinking the threats he had made were mere empty talk, he was released by order of the commander, Crushe having requested the same might be done, as he wanted the man\'s services.

It is customary when a ship is in the Chinese sea to keep a number of loaded arms in a rack under the charge of a sentry, as in case of falling in with a pirate they may be required at a moment\'s notice. Byrne had been freed from confinement, and was standing by the arm rack, waiting until the ship\'s corporal had replaced his irons below, after which the prisoner was to be taken before the first lieutenant, and officially dismissed to duty. The sentry had gone on deck to report the time, and no one was in the steerage. At this juncture Crushe called down the hatchway directing (as he thought) the ship\'s corporal to "make haste and bring up the prisoner." At the sound of the hated officer\'s voice, Byrne darted to the arm rack, seized a loaded musket, rushed up the main hatchway, and seeing an officer standing near, fired. The ball entered the back of his victim, who immediately fell upon the quarter-deck as if shot dead. The assassin threw down his weapon and gave himself up to the sergeant of marines, who was the nearest man to him at the time, e............