‘Rather be flogged, would he? A minute ago he sang another tune. Why, you discontented thief,’ roared the captain, ‘you would not be pleased even although we were to hang you. Come, men, bear a hand, and have him overboard in a trice.’
Immediately, half a dozen stout fellows flung themselves upon the miserable culprit. He roared, swore, and prayed, all in a breath, kicked out with his legs and arms, and sought to bite and scratch like a wild cat. But he was speedily mastered, his arms pinioned securely, his ankles tied together, and the rope which ran under the keel made fast under his armpits. He was then lifted and carried to the larboard bulwarks, half a dozen men holding the end of the rope, which passed beneath the keel and came up on the starboard side, while two or three hands had charge of the continuation of the line, so as to steady his descent in the first dive, and to pull him back by in the second.
All this time the vagabond never ceased to abuse and swear at us, seeing that cries for mercy availed not. Captain Jem gave the word—
‘Heave and pull,’ and instantly Mr. Bell went with a splash into the sea, struggling for a moment on the surface, and then, as the men on the starboard side hauled the rope, disappearing in the water.
‘Rattle him round,’ says the captain. ‘He must not drown for all he is such a villain.’ The men ran across the deck with the rope; there was a surge and a jerk, when the poor devil struck the projecting keel, but he was instantly dragged beneath it, and the next moment he made his appearance on the larboard side, struggling, panting and coughing up the water, his face all blue and bleeding from having been scraped along the bottom, and his clothes torn by the jagged shells of the barnacles.
‘O, Lord!’ he gasped; ‘murder—it is—murder;’ and then the coughing well-nigh choked him.
‘Down with him again,’ cried the captain. The end of the rope which had been before used as a guy was promptly manned, and Bell again disappeared beneath the water, was again rudely jerked against the keel, and then hauled up the side of the ship, and cast upon deck all bleeding and insensible, with his hands blue and cramped, and his limbs quite limp and motionless. By Captain Jem’s direction he was held up by the legs, when presently he vomited up a great quantity of sea water, and then began to stir and moan, with great fits of coughing. His hands and legs were then released, and he managed to sit up on deck, leaning against the mast, and looking as if he had just wakened out of a dream.
‘Let this be a warning to you, Mr. Bell,’ said the captain, ‘how you play dice in future. I presume you will only stay in this ship until you have a chance of going on board another. None of your own property, however you came by it, will be taken away, but all that you cheated your comrades of must be restored.’
Accordingly, Bell’s chests were opened, a general distribution took place, and that evening Simon Radley appeared in his former attire. As for the sharper himself, we afterwards learned that he had been a well-known rogue in London, and after having been twice flogged at the cart’s tail, had been tried for ring-dropping, and transported to the plantations of Virginia, from which he managed to escape, and after divers adventures in the West Indies—whereof the greater part were more complimentary to his ingenuity than to his honesty—he had shipped on board our schooner at Jamaica, as the reader has seen.