“I beg your pardon, sir, it was the wind that took off Bill’s hat,” I started to explain.
“So you will excuse his devilish trick, hey?” he shouted even more furiously. “Well, let me tell you he shall be whipped, and what is more, you shall give him the blows yourself. Here, men, tie that fellow to the mast there.”
The last words were addressed to two sailors who stood near him and they sullenly obeyed.
“Bring me the cat,” the angry officer commanded when poor Bill, with his back stripped bare, had been bound to the stick.
One of the sailors soon appeared with the ugly lash, and the skipper, turning to me, remarked with a satanic grin:
“Here, take this, Master Dunn, and for every blow you give that does not draw blood on yonder fellow’s back, you yourself shall receive two.”
My blood boiled within me, but I answered him calmly enough:
“Never, sir! You may lash me, kill me, as you please, but Bill is innocent and not a blow will I strike.”
There was an instant hush, as the sailors, aghast at my temerity, held their breath, and the wind itself lulled as though anxious to know the outcome of my defiance. Then with the roar of a maddened bull, Captain Weston leaped toward me.