"In Dunquerque harbour?" said the other.
"Why not?"
"Why not?" said the master. "Because, Mr. Birkenhead, I serve a King de jure and not de facto. That is why not. And if you want another reason----"
"Well?"
"I am not aware that His Majesty has raised you to the Bench," the master answered sturdily.
"Oh, you have turned sea-lawyer, have you?"
"Law is law," said the shipmaster. "England, or France, or the high seas."
"And owling is owling!" the other retorted with passion. "And smuggling, smuggling! You are a fine man to talk! If you will not hang him--as they will hang Fenwick, so help me, never doubt it!--what will you do with him?"
"Give my men a bag of sand apiece, and let him run the gauntlet," the captain answered, with a phlegm that froze me. "Trust me, sir, they will not leave much of a balance owing."
It was terrible to see how Birkenhead, vain, choleric and maddened by disappointment, jumped at the cruel suggestion. For me, I shrank into the bunk into the farthest corner, and cried for mercy; I might as well have cried to the winds. I was hauled out, the word passed up, and despite my desperate struggles, prayers and threats--the latter not unmingled with the name of Shrewsbury, which did but harden them--I was dragged to the foot of the ladder. Thence I was carried on deck, where, half-dead with fear and powerless in the hands of three stout seamen, I met none but grinning faces and looks of cruel anticipation. Few need to be told with what zest the common herd flock to a scene of cruel sport, how hard are their bosoms, how fiendish the pleasure which all but the most humane and thoughtful take in helpless suffering. Small was the chance that my pleas of innocence and appeals for a hearing would gain attention. All was ready, the men bared their arms and licked their lips, and in a moment I must have been set for the baiting.