"That youngster must be an older hand than I thought him. He's actually sleeping like a baby."
Herc pretended to feel very sleepy when the master-at-arms shook his shoulder and indicated a smoking dinner of cornbeef and cabbage, flanked by bread and butter and a big mug of coffee.
"Here, wake up and eat this," commanded the officer; "you ought to be alive to your luck. The other prisoners only get full rations once a day. They have to dine on bread and water."
The boy stretched his arms as if he was only partially awake, and, after what he judged to be a proper interval of feigning sleepiness, fell to on his hot dinner. Empty as he was, the food heartened him up wonderfully, despite the scowls that his two companions leveled at him as he ate. When the master-at-arms arrived, just before two bells—one o'clock—to take his prisoners to the tribunal at the mast, Sam felt better prepared to face his ordeal than he had a few hours previously.
The captain's "court" convened just forward of the stern awnings, and a little abaft the towering "cage" aftermast.
The "old man," in full uniform, with a sword at his side, Lieutenant-Commander Scott, and several of the officers stood in a little group chatting, as the prisoners were brought aft. All wore side arms and what the Jackie calls "quarter-deck faces"—meaning that they looked as stern and uncompromising as flint.
"I guess I'll get life," muttered Herc to himself, as he heard the stern doom, of stoppage of five days' pay and ten days in the brig, without future shore leave, pronounced on three sailors who had been found guilty of coming on duty in an intoxicated condition, at New York.
"You men are to understand that the United States navy has no place for men who wilfully indulge in such practices," the captain had said, with blighting emphasis, as the men trembled before him. "Clean men, clean-living men is the material the government wants, and such as you are better out of the service. The navy is better off without you if you go on as you have been doing."
Herc felt his cheeks blanch as pale as had the countenances of the guilty ones as he heard this stern speech.