replied at the mast-head. "What!" exclaimed Handstone, with an oath;
"did I not see him this moment, go up by the topsail-tie?"

"No, sir," said the men; "he is now asleep at the mast-head."

"Come down here, you lying rascals, every one of you," said the
lieutenant, "and I'll teach you to speak the truth!"

I, who had by this time quietly resumed my station, was ordered down
along with them; and we all four stood on the quarter-deck, while the
following interrogations were put to us:--

"Now, sir," said the first lieutenant to the captain of the top, "how
dare you tell me that that young gentleman was at the mast-head, when
I myself saw him 'shinning' up by the topsail-tie?"

I was sorry for the men, who, to save me, had got themselves into
jeopardy; and I was just going to declare the truth, and take the
whole odium upon myself, when, to my utter astonishment, the man
boldly answered, "He _was_ at the mast-head, sir, upon my honour."

"Your honour!" cried the lieutenant, with contempt; then, turning to
the other men, he put the same question to them both in succession,
and received the same positive answers; so that I really began to
think I had been at the mast-head all the time, and had been dreaming
I was in the top. At last, turning to me, he said, "Now, sir, I ask
you, on your honour, as an officer and a gentleman, where were you
when I first hailed?"

"At the mast-head, sir," said I.

"Be it so," he replied; "as you are an officer and a gentleman, I am
bound to believe you." Then turning on his heels, he walked away in a
greater rage than I ever remember to have seen him.

I plainly perceived that I was not believed, and that I had lost his
good opinion. Yet, to consider the case fairly and impartially, how
could I have acted otherwise? I had been much too long confined to the
mast-head--as long as a man might take to go from London to Bath in a
stagecoach; I had lost all my meals; and these poor fellows, to save
me from further punishment, had voluntarily exposed themselves to
a flogging at the gangway by telling a barefaced falsehood in my
defence. Had I not supported them, they would certainly have been
flogged, and I should have lost myself with every person aboard; I
therefore came to that paradoxical conclusion on the spot, namely,
that, as a man of honour and a gentleman, I was bound to tell a lie in
order to save these poor men from a cruel punishment.

I am sensible that this is a case to lay