THE LASH 41 



punishment among them. I remember but one instance 

 of it occurring during our voyage out from Rio Janeiro, 

 and that was under peculiar circumstances. 



One of the boatswain's mates, who had recently been 

 promoted to that office, was a man of arrogant deport- 

 ment, and too fond of exercising his authority over men 

 his equals in everything but rank. Upon one occasion 

 he called one of the men on the forecastle a lazy lubber, 

 and other opprobrious epithets, and threatened to start 

 him ; ^vhereupon the man, not being able to keep his 

 temper, struck him with his fist, and knocked him dowm. 



Now, to strike your superior officer is death by the 

 articles of war, which the captain took care to have read 

 every Sunday on the quarter-deck. Uj^on this affair being 

 rej)orted, the man was immediately j)ut in irons ; and 

 the next day at noon all hands were piped for punishment 

 and the offender was brought to the gangway by the 

 master-at-arms. He was ordered to strip, which he did 

 without a word, and was seized up ; when the captain, 

 who was not by any means a Tartar, animadverted 

 strongly on the offence that he had committed, by which 

 he had subjected himself to the greatest penalty known 

 to martial law ; but in consequence of the character he 

 bore, he had commuted his punishment, and therefore 

 ordered him to receive two dozen lashes, for, he added, 

 he should not be doing his duty were he to pass over 

 such a breach of discipline. 



He, who was as good a seaman as any in the ship, 

 received the amount of his sentence without flinching, 

 and without a word being spoken by any of the officers, 

 who one and all deeply sympathized with the sufferer. 



