esent except the captain regarded me with
lively curiosity, mingled with varying degrees of incredulity. Powers
did not betray the slightest interest or emotion.

"We have heard the statement of the prisoner," he said. "Whether it is
or is not true is irrelevant. The fact remains that the prisoner, while
serving as a seaman in the service of His Majesty King George, did
strike a midshipman in said service, the same being his superior
officer."

"Sir, may I suggest the doubt of the prisoner's sanity, in mitigation of
his crime?" interposed the judge-advocate.

"Remove the prisoner," commanded the captain.

I was led out and kept waiting for half an hour, while my life hung in
the balance. At last they led me back to receive the decree of the
court. By now I was in a half stupor of agonized despair, my thoughts
fixed upon Alisanda and all I was to lose. The terrible word "Death!"
roused me to consciousness of my surroundings.

The judge-advocate paused, drew a deep breath, and continued the reading
of the sentence: "But, it being testified to by Surgeon Wilbur Cuthbert
that said prisoner was not at the time of the committance of his crime
rational or sane, said sentence of death is hereby commuted to the
sentence of one hundred lashes--"

"Hold! hold!" I cried. "Not that! Shoot me!--murder me! But spare me
that shame!"

This time when they dragged me out and down to the foul prison
black-hole they had no need of a gag. After that one wild protest, I
fell dumb. I had seen two floggings of twenty strokes of the cat since
coming aboard. With the words of my sentence the memory had come back to
me, and with the memory of those shameful floggings had returned the
remembrance of all my life aboard the _Belligerent_.

When, an hour or so after my sentence, Dr. Cuthbert came to condole with
me, I recognized him and his kindness, but sat in sullen misery when he
sought to question me. The trial was over--sentence imposed. Why should
I accept the sympathy of these brutes?

He may have divined my frame of mind, for presently he fell to deploring
the rigors of the times, brought about by the boundless ambition of
Bonaparte. England, he argued, alone interposed by means of her navy a
barrier against the world-wide domination of the Corsican adventurer.
That navy was the hope of the world. Yet, thanks to the French
privateers and Bonaparte's strength upon the Continent, Britain had lost
much of her commerce to the United Sta