The master-at-arms caught them in the act, and brought them up to the mast. The Captain advanced.
“Please, sir,” said poor Rose-water, “it all came of dat ’ar bumping; May-day, here, aggrawated me ’bout it.”
“Master-at-arms,” said the Captain, “did you see them fighting?”
“Ay, sir,” said the master-at-arms, touching his cap.
“Rig the gratings,” said the Captain. “I’ll teach you two men that, though I now and then permit you to play, I will have no fighting. Do your duty, boatswain’s mate!” And the negroes were flogged.
Justice commands that the fact of the Captain’s not showing any leniency to May-day—a decided favourite of his, at least while in the ring—should not be passed over. He flogged both culprits in the most impartial manner.
As in the matter of the scene at the gangway, shortly after the Cape Horn theatricals, when my attention had been directed to the fact that the officers had shipped their quarter-deck faces—upon that occasion, I say, it was seen with what facility a sea-officer assumes his wonted severity of demeanour after a casual relaxation of it. This was especially the case with Captain Claret upon the present occasion. For any landsman to have beheld him in the lee waist, of a pleasant dog-watch, with a genial, good-humoured countenance, observing the gladiators in the ring, and now and then indulging in a playful remark—that landsman would have deemed Captain Claret the indulgent father of his crew, perhaps permitting the excess of his kind-heartedness to encroach upon the appropriate dignity of his station. He would have deemed Captain Claret a fine illustration of those two well-known poetical comparisons between a sea-captain and a father, and between a sea-captain and the master of apprentices, instituted by those eminent maritime jurists, the noble Lords Tenterden and Stowell.
But surely, if there is anything hateful, it is this shipping of the quarter-deck face after wearing a merry and good-natured one. How can they have the heart? Methinks, if but once I smiled upon a man—never mind how much beneath me—I could not bring myself to condemn him to the shocking misery of the lash. Oh officers! all round the world, if this quarter-deck face you wear at all, then never unship it for another, to be merely sported for a moment. Of all insults, the temporary condescension of a master to a slave is the most outrageous and galling. That potentate who most condescends, mark him well; for that potentate, if occasion come, will prove your uttermost tyrant.
CHAPTER LXVII.
WHITE-JACKET ARRAIGNED AT THE MAST.
When with five hundred others I made one of the compelled spectators at the scourging of poor Rose-water, I little thought what Fate had ordained for myself the next day.