At this the culprit sat up upon the deck and looked earnestly in the faces of the men through his tears. I do not think he understood what keel-hauling meant.
‘Anything,’ says he, whining like a hungry cat; ‘anything sooner than flogging.’
‘Very good,’ says Captain Jem. ‘Be it so. Truly, on second thoughts, it would be degrading hemp to put it to any other use about such a scoundrel, except hanging him.’
Meantime, half a dozen of the men, in great glee at the anticipated ducking, went about the preparations without loss of time.
The punishment of keel-hauling, I premise, that we borrowed from the Dutch. Its name describes its nature. The prisoner is fastened to a rope led under the vessel’s keel, and hauled beneath her bottom, as often as his guilt seems to require. It is evident that this is a punishment the severity of which depends greatly upon the size of the ship, and the frequency with which the process is repeated. To be hauled under the keel of a great ship of war is a very different thing from being hauled under the keel of a small sloop; but in order to give the punishment its requisite severity on board small craft, the culprit is often hauled all along the keel, being let over the bows, and taken up at the stern; a process by which he is sure to be at least half drowned and half scraped to death by the rough barnacles and jagged shell fish which generally encase a ship’s bottom. In the present case it was determined, however, that Bell should undergo the easier mode of punishment, and be hauled from bulwark to bulwark, but the dose was to be administered twice, giving him a breathing-time between. Accordingly, by the help of a sounding lead, first a thin line and afterwards a stout cord were conducted under the ship’s keel, Mr. Bell watching the process with great anxiety.
‘What—what are you going to do with me?’ at length he cried, beginning to comprehend the nature of his punishment. ‘You do not mean to drag me under the ship?’
‘You have hit it my hearty,’ says the boatswain; ‘hit it to a tee. Yes; we will give you an opportunity of inspecting the run of the schooner, and if you fail to observe all its beauties the first time, don’t break your heart, you will have another chance immediately after.’
At this the cowardly animal began to howl and blubber again.
‘You will drown me, you will; it’s murder. There were sharks about the ship all yesterday. I will never come up alive! Have mercy on me! I have a wife and family in England. I would rather be flogged than put overboard. I would rather be flogged, indeed I would.’
At this moment Captain Jem came up.