Shever, upon hearing this unwarrantable abuse of his superior, stepped before the ship's corporal, saying, "Allow me to handle this brute," seized the undaunted infant by the throat, and lifting him off the deck, carried the precocious child below, where Master William used anything but proper language. The boy had often heard the men indulge in profanity when being put in confinement, so he considered it the correct thing to do; and it must have been very horrible, as, upon his return to the quarter-deck, the boatswain reported that "he had to shut his ears, it was so awful."
While the lad was being attended to, Crushe stood beside the capstan, and amused himself by taunting the prisoners, and on the slightest word from them would exclaim, "Silence, you brutes! by Jupiter I'll make some of you hold your tongues with a cat, if you don't shut up your jaw. You imagined you could give me the slip, did you? bless you. I'm glad some of you have tried it on; particularly you, Mr. Byrne. You're fond of praying, now pray for a miracle, as you'll get four dozen crosses on your back in spite of your faith. You're all right this time, and the devil himself won't save you. I'm only sorry I can't flog the lot of you."
When Crushe had exhausted his spleen upon the deserters as a body, he directed Cravan to have them brought singly before him. Some, like the boy Jordun, were mutinous; these he determined should be flogged: while others held their peace, and escaped with various light punishments, from "one month's pay or grog stopped," to "black list for a week," or "watered grog for an unlimited period."
"In the old times we could have flogged all of the brutes," he observed to Cravan, "but it would not do to try it on now; besides, the old boy would be afraid to sign the warrants."
"You might flog them into mutiny," replied Nosey. "That fellow Byrne muttered something about better strike for their rights like men, than be treated like dogs."
"Did he?" exclaimed Crushe.
"Yes, and two or three of those you have set down for flogging seemed half inclined to be mutinous; besides, did you not hear that little whelp Jordun allude to Dunstable, just as if you murdered him?"
"That was a joke. I murder him, ha, ha!" laughed Crushe.
"Ha, ha!" echoed Cravan, but the merriment on both sides, was forced. They remembered how the poor idiot looked when he lay dead in the sick-bay, and the first lieutenant felt the words, "murdered him," stir even his dull conscience.
Captain Puffeigh was brought on deck during the day, and the seven men were duly reported to him. Without the slightest inquiry, upon the word of his first lieutenant, he sentenced two to receive four, and five of them three, dozen lashes upon their bare backs. Small boy Jordun was then paraded, and when he found all chance gone of obtaining justice from the gallant captain, he became very insolent; observing that the skipper would get a thundering good pounding if ever he showed his strawberry nose in Portsea, and that Crushe had better look out for hisself, when his father heered he had been flaked.