righten than to actually hurt their fourth prisoner, and
having, moreover, a trifling personal grudge against the man who had
secured for him his flogging, he determined to have a little amusement
at Walford's expense before according to him the pardon which he knew
his shipmates expected of him. When, therefore, Walford staggered up to
the side of the berth, and began eagerly and incoherently to stammer
forth the most abject apologies and the wildest prayers for forgiveness,
Rudd simply growled forth an oath and impatiently flung himself over in
the berth with his back to the petitioner. This had the intended effect
of causing Walford's apologies and prayers to be reiterated with
increased eagerness and incoherence, to the hearty amusement of the men
in the saloon.

At length Talbot opened the state-room door, and, thrusting in his head,
said roughly--

"Here, come out of that, mister; you've worried poor Dicky quite long
enough. If he won't forgive yer, why, he _won't_, and that settles it.
You've had a fair chance to see what you could do with him, and you've
failed; we decided to give yer a quarter of a hour, and the time's up;
so out you comes; d'ye hear?"

The next moment Walford was seized by the collar, and was being dragged
roughly enough out of the state-room, when Rudd, pretending to relent,
called out--

"There, take him away, Ben; but don't be too hard on him; I forgives him
just this once, and I hopes he won't never do it again."

Walford, upon hearing these words, which seemed to him a reprieve from
the very jaws of death, broke away from Talbot's grasp, and, rushing
back to the side of the berth, seized Rudd's hand, kissed it wildly, and
burst into an uncontrollable passion of tears, in the midst of which he
was hustled unceremoniously out on deck.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

A DOUBLE TRAGEDY.

A moment or two in the open air sufficed to settle in some measure
Walford's disordered faculties and to restore to him his reason, of
which he had been pretty nearly bereft by the terror of the preceding
half-hour.

He found himself in the midst of the--by this time--more than
half-intoxicated seamen, none of whom appeared to be paying much
attention to him, for they were all talking loudly together, discussing
and arranging the details of the punishment of those whom they chose to
regard as the two chief offenders.

The men were all greatly excited by the potations in which they had
freely indulged dur