‘Ah, you can be penitent enough now, chicken-heart!’ says Captain Jem; whilst I, having splintered the dice with a blow, we discovered a small bent piece of lead, very neatly inserted in one of the specks of the deuce side of the cube, not, however, drilled perpendicularly into the ivory, but artificially deposited in a sort of burrowing hole, running along just under the surface of that side of the square. It was evident, that to prepare a dice in this fashion required a hand very skilful and well accustomed to the work. The men crowded round to see it, uttering furious menaces against the convicted sharper, who never moved from his knees, but continued to supplicate most piteously for mercy.
‘Mercy!’ exclaimed Captain Jem; ‘mercy, forsooth. Thou art one of the first privateersmen I ever heard of cheating his comrades, and thou shalt smart for it, or I no longer command this schooner.’
‘Do not flog me—for mercy’s sake, do not flog me!’ the fellow bawled; ‘I cannot bear flogging—it will kill me—it will be murder if you flog me. I was flogged once, and the doctor said it all but killed me;’ and so, crying and howling, the pitiful creature cast him down upon the deck, and bemoaned himself in the most abject misery of spirit.
‘Flogged before,’ said the boatswain. ‘Ay, I warrant thee. Aboard what ship?’
‘Aboard no ship at all,’ roared the culprit. ‘On shore. Oh dear!—oh, dear!’
‘On shore,’ answered the boatswain. ‘At the cart’s tail I presume?’
‘Yes, yes,’ cried Bell; ‘but I give you my word of honour, sir—my sacred word of honour, that I was not guilty then. It was another man.’
‘Not guilty then,’ says Nicky Hamstring. ‘No; no more than you are now, I dare affirm.’
The miserable devil gave no answer, but made as though he would catch the legs of the men about him, and cling to them. In all my life I never saw such a pitiful hound.
‘Keel-haul the fellow,’ says one of the men, ‘and see whether the brine won’t wash the roguery out of him.’ And the others joined in the cry: ‘Yes, yes, keel-haul him.’