Bob was so great a criminal in the eyes of the watchman that, to prevent his escape, he had been placed in the stocks.
He was seated on a hard bench, his ankles fastened securely through holes in a movable board in front of him.
It was impossible for him to stand up, and as his seat was loose, if he wriggled about much the bench would be overturned, and he would fall on his back, with his feet, still imprisoned, above his head.
"Bob, what means this?" asked Vernon.
"I'm glad your honor came; but, sir, the watch tells me I'm to be hanged at daybreak. Not that I minds death—a powder-monkey ought not to be afeared—but I'd like to meet it on the deck of the Lively Bee, sir, and I'd like an English bullet to take me off rather than American rope."
"What are you talking about? What have you been doing?"
"Nothing, sir. Nothing."
Now this was a strange thing. Here was a boy in the stocks, told he was to die at daybreak, and yet declaring that he was guiltless of all crime.
"But with what are you charged?" asked Tempest.
"Lor', your honor, they didn't charge me anything. I'd have paid if they'd let me, but they said I must die."