The commander bit his lips and looked round at the men, who, upon hearing these bold words, uttered a murmur of pity.
"Silence!" he roared. "Boatswain, do your duty."
Shever and his mates had stationed the black-list men at the fall, on the other side of the deck and upon receiving these instructions he helped the prisoner to mount the platform. When he had taken his stand upon the horizontal grating, the boatswain and his assistants secured his lower limbs. As they were doing this, Byrne evidently prayed, as his lips moved, and every now and then he reverently bowed his head. Then upon a signal from the captain, Shever fitted the cap, and having adjusted the fatal noose, slipped off the grating, and stood beside Puffeigh.
The captain nodded assent. "Hoist away!" piped the boatswain, and the same was repeated by his mates. The gunner's-mate fired the gun which protruded from the port under the platform where the wretched man was standing, and Byrne was run aloft in the smoke. The rope was so adjusted, that upon the body nearly reaching the yard-arm a seizing parted, and the man fell about three feet below the yard, the drop breaking his neck most effectually.
The black-list men hurried over the ship's side into their boats, and the Stinger steamed slowly out of the harbour with the body of the late able seaman swinging from the yard-arm. After steaming for an hour in the direction of Cap-sing-moon Passage, the boatswain was directed to cut the body adrift. Shever went aloft, and out upon the yard-arm like one about to perform a noble action. Upon arriving at the end of the yard he drew forth a knife, and leaning over severed the rope by which Byrne was suspended, upon which the body shot down like a plummet, and disappeared beneath the water. Shever peered down after it, shading his eyes with his hands, to see if it rose again; but beyond a few bubbles over the spot, there was nothing to be seen, the body possibly being seized by sharks.
"He's gone, and be hanged to him!" said the boatswain. Upon which he looked down upon the up-turned faces of the crew and grinned like a baboon, then reclosed his knife, placed it in his pocket, and descended to the quarter-deck, where he reported the business to Crushe.
"I think we did that werry scientific," observed the brute to his superior.
"Very well indeed, Mr. Shever," sneered the first lieutenant. "When they want a hangman on shore, you'd better volunteer for the appointment."
The boatswain smiled and saluted, as if a great compliment had been paid him. After which he went below—drank freely, and was finally put to bed for sunstroke, brute as he was, the morning's work being too much for his nerves.
Report says that the ghost of Byrne duly haunted the ship, and from time to time appeared to sundry sailors and small boys, whom it frightened out of their wits, but it never seemed to trouble the captain, or any of its former persecutors, possibly thinking it had enough of those worthies' attention when in the flesh, without troubling itself about them when in the spirit. We leave this mythical point to be settled by spiritualists.