favourable impression, he hastily proceeded to add--

"Furthermore, let me remind you that I am an officer and a gentleman,
the wearer of his Most Gracious Majesty's uniform, and in virtue of that
fact I may claim--I _do_ claim--to be in some sort his Majesty's
representative, on board this ship. Any violence or indignity offered
to me, therefore, is tantamount to offering the same to the king
himself; and, as you are all fully aware, to offer indignity or violence
to the king's person is high treason, a crime punishable with death. I
hope, therefore, that you will pause and consider well the consequences
of any hasty action which your present temporary assumption of power
might betray you into, and that, before it is too late, and before you
have too deeply inculpated yourselves, you will see the advisability of
restoring to me my freedom."

If he expected this appeal to be of any benefit to him he was sorely
disappointed, for the gloomy, repellent expression on the faces of his
judges, was only deepened by his ill-advised address.

A moment or two of complete silence followed the utterance of his
closing words; and then Rogers, looking him straight in the face, said--

"Well, pris'ner, have yer quite finished?"

"Surely I have said sufficient to demonstrate to you the impolicy, as
well as the injustice, of making me suffer for the faults of others?"
exclaimed Walford.

"Glad you think so," replied Rogers, with a sardonic grin. "Howsoever,"
he continued, "you may keep y'ur mind easy about one thing; we ain't
goin' to make yer `suffer for the faults of others,' as you calls it;
you'll only be made to suffer for faults of y'ur own; and bad enough
you'll find that, I reckon. Now, Ben, what's the charge agin this one?"

"I charges him," answered Talbot, "with havin' wilfully spoke the words
what got poor Dicky Rudd two dozen lashes at the gangway, when the poor
feller was 'most too sick to stand upright. If he hadn't spoke as
likely as not the skipper had never ha' thought of it, and, so far as
that goes, I believes that all hands of us is agreed that he wouldn't.
Therefore I charges this here pris'ner with bein' the man what acshully
got poor Dicky his floggin'."

"You hears, pris'ner, what the crew has against yer; what have yer got
to say to it?" interrogated Rogers.

Walford had evidently either forgotten all about his ill-advised
suggestion, or had believed the crew to be ignorant of it: he seemed to
ha