r, I would gladly overlook your crime."

Just as Dick was expecting to hear his sentence pronounced, he was
conscious that some one, who had come up, was standing by his side, and
glancing round, he saw Ben Rudall.

"Beg pardon, Captain Moubray, for speaking, but I makes bold in this
here case to come for'ard, as I knows more about the desertion of this
lad than any one else," said Ben, giving a pull at his hair. "I put him
up to it, as I had been the cause of his being taken, and as I knowed
that he is the only son of his father and mother, they would be main
glad to have him back again; and I had made up my mind to go too, as I
have a wife and children at home waiting for me, but I was taken and
brought back."

"Then you merit the punishment more than he does," said the captain.

"That's just it, sir; and I axes the favour of being flogged instead of
him. My hide is tough, and can bear it; but his is young and tender,
and ain't been accustomed to hard blows."

The captain looked greatly puzzled. He was struck by Ben's magnanimity,
if so it could be called, in being ready to sacrifice himself, and was
therefore unwilling to punish him; yet the crime of inciting another to
desert was greater even than the act of desertion, and he felt, as the
man had acknowledged it, that he ought to be punished as a warning to
others.

The first lieutenant relieved him of his dilemma by observing that,
"That man has already been flogged for attempting to desert, and I may
venture to think that it would not do to punish him again for the same
crime."

"You are right, Mr Curling. The discipline of the ship will not
suffer, should I overlook this lad's offence in consideration of the
gallantry he has displayed."

"I feel sure of it, sir. It would do more harm to punish than to pardon
him."

"Go forward, my man," said the captain, addressing Rudall. "I have
heard what you say about this lad, and let it be known among the men,
that although he is let off this time, I will not again pardon any
attempt at desertion, whatever may be the excuse offered."

Ben, pulling a lock of his hair, obeyed the captain's orders, and went
forward, exhibiting very little trace of the lawless, vaunting smuggler
he had appeared to Dick on board the _Nancy_.

"And now, Richard Hargrave," said the captain, addressing Dick, "you
made a bad commencement by committing a grave crime, but you have shown
that you are capable of performing your duty