dful attributes, fixed his eyes severely upon the crew, when
suddenly a lane formed through the crowd of seamen, and the prisoners
advanced--the master-at-arms, rattan in hand, on one side, and an armed
marine on the other--and took up their stations at the mast.

"You John, you Peter, you Mark, you Antone," said the Captain, "were
yesterday found fighting on the gun-deck. Have you anything to say?"

Mark and Antone, two steady, middle-aged men, whom I had often admired
for their sobriety, replied that they did not strike the first blow;
that they had submitted to much before they had yielded to their
passions; but as they acknowledged that they had at last defended
themselves, their excuse was overruled.

John--a brutal bully, who, it seems, was the real author of the
disturbance--was about entering into a long extenuation, when he was
cut short by being made to confess, irrespective of circumstances, that
he had been in the fray.

Peter, a handsome lad about nineteen years old, belonging to the
mizzen-top, looked pale and tremulous. He was a great favourite in his
part of the ship, and especially in his own mess, principally composed
of lads of his own age. That morning two of his young mess-mates had
gone to his bag, taken out his best clothes, and, obtaining the
permission of the marine sentry at the "brig," had handed them to him,
to be put on against being summoned to the mast. This was done to
propitiate the Captain, as most captains love to see a tidy sailor. But
it would not do. To all his supplications the Captain turned a deaf
ear. Peter declared that he had been struck twice before he had
returned a blow. "No matter," said the Captain, "you struck at last,
instead of reporting the case to an officer. I allow no man to fight on
board here but myself. I do the fighting."

"Now, men," he added, "you all admit the charge; you know the penalty.
Strip! Quarter-masters, are the gratings rigged?"

The gratings are square frames of barred wood-work, sometimes placed
over the hatchways. One of these squares was now laid on the deck,
close to the ship's bulwarks, and while the remaining preparations were
being made, the master-at-arms assisted the prisoners in removing their
jackets and shirts. This done, their shirts were loosely thrown over
their shoulders.

At a sign from the Captain, John, with a shameless leer, advanced, and
stood passively upon the grating, while the bare-headed old
quarter-master, with g