“I didn’t dream this, sir,” replied Peter, showing a bruise on his leg.
This was quite unanswerable, and old Pete was allowed to go with the honors of war, and he was followed on the stand by the Irish lad, who was a willing witness and had many remarkable things to tell about ghosts, their natures and dispositions and their actions on the old sod of Ireland, where green-faced ghosts no doubt abounded. As his story confirmed old Pete’s, things looked dubious for Tom and Jo.
Their attorney, however, made an eloquent plea for the life and liberty of the two prisoners at the bar. He said in part:
“I ask your Honors to deal leniently with these two lads and to recall how much they have had to contend with in their short young lives. They have had only the harshest surroundings. Having come under the baleful influence of Captain Bill Broom, the former owner of this vessel, you cannot rightly blame them for their strong sense of humor.
“I think that a reprimand is due them for their infraction of the ship’s discipline and for resisting their superior officer” (a grin from Jim), “but I ask this Honorable Court to remember their tender years and to deal gently with the prisoners. If you do not, I fear that ghosts with green faces will haunt your fevered sleep forever. I leave their fate in your hands.”
Bowing low, the attorney for the prisoners sat down. Then the culprits were sent back to their cabin-cell while the judges took their fate under advisement. There was quite a lengthy discussion. Juarez being influenced by his friend, the engineer, was in favor of having the captain give them a severe call down, and let it go at that. While the captain himself favored the rope’s end and imprisonment in the lazaret that had not been used since old Broom’s day.
It was their resistance to the skipper that added to his severity, for he was a firm believer in discipline. But Jim suggested a more reasonable course that would better favor the ends of justice (which was not the rope’s end)—than that which the other two judges recommended. His plan was finally adopted; then the bound prisoners were summoned before the August Court. (That is a pun the writer will have to make for Jo, as he is not in his normal spirits.)
They stood at the end of the table, looking sullen and defiant, and evidently expecting the worst.
“It is the finding of the court that you, Joseph Darlington and Thomas Darlington,” read Jim with much emphasis and in a sonorous voice, “are guilty on both charges of the specifications, and by the unanimous judgment of the court, you are sentenced,” Jim paused to give due impressiveness to the following words; meanwhile the two boys paled slightly, “sentenced to hard labor, shoveling coal, until Pete and the boy get over their lameness. This sentence to be immediately executed.” And it was.
“I’m glad the sentence is going to be executed instead of us,” said Jo as he was sent below with his comrade in crime to get busy feeding the insatiable furnace. Altogether the boys were pleased to get off without the rope’s end being used on them.