for the chance of stealing them. Generally, two or three league
together, and while one engages _Old Coffee_ in some interesting
conversation touching his wife and family at home, another snatches the
first thing he can lay hands on in the oven, and rapidly passes it to
the third man, who at his earliest leisure disappears with it.

In this manner had the Down Easter lost his precious pie, and afterward
found the empty pan knocking about the forecastle.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

A FLOGGING.

If you begin the day with a laugh, you may, nevertheless, end it with a
sob and a sigh.

Among the many who were exceedingly diverted with the scene between the
Down Easter and the Lieutenant, none laughed more heartily than John,
Peter, Mark, and Antone--four sailors of the starboard-watch. The same
evening these four found themselves prisoners in the "brig," with a
sentry standing over them. They were charged with violating a
well-known law of the ship--having been engaged in one of those
tangled, general fights sometimes occurring among sailors. They had
nothing to anticipate but a flogging, at the captain's pleasure.

Toward evening of the next day, they were startled by the dread summons
of the boatswain and his mates at the principal hatchway--a summons
that ever sends a shudder through every manly heart in a frigate:

"_All hands witness punishment, ahoy!_"

The hoarseness of the cry, its unrelenting prolongation, its being
caught up at different points, and sent through the lowermost depths of
the ship; all this produces a most dismal effect upon every heart not
calloused by long habituation to it.

However much you may desire to absent yourself from the scene that
ensues, yet behold it you must; or, at least, stand near it you must;
for the regulations enjoin the attendance of the entire ship's company,
from the corpulent Captain himself to the smallest boy who strikes the
bell.

"_All hands witness punishment, ahoy!_"

To the sensitive seaman that summons sounds like a doom. He knows that
the same law which impels it--the same law by which the culprits of the
day must suffer; that by that very law he also is liable at any time to
be judged and condemned. And the inevitableness of his own presence at
the scene; the strong arm that drags him in view of the scourge, and
holds him there till all is over; forcing upon his loathing eye and
soul the sufferings and groans of men who have familiarly consorted
with him