hief object of the picture was, of course, the figure of the
unhappy chief mate, who, naked to the waist, stood firmly lashed to the
grating, with arms and legs wide spread in the orthodox attitude of a
man about to be flogged. Opposite him, and some four or five feet
distant, stood Thomson, his coat and vest laid aside, his shirt-sleeves
rolled above his elbows, and the cat in his hand, with the knotted tails
prone upon the deck. Around these two figures, in a compact ring, stood
the gentlemen passengers and the captain of the ship, a group of
unwilling spectators of the outrage about to be inflicted; whilst
outside them again, and completely hemming them in beyond all
possibility of escape, crowded the half-drunken mutineers, armed to the
teeth, and bandying brutal and obscene jests back and forth. Then there
was the huge bulk of the disabled ship, surging madly forward like a
hunted creature dizzy and reeling with terror, her spacious decks
knee-deep in the water which was incessantly pouring in over her
bulwarks as she rolled gunwale-under; and for a background the
mountainous seas careering swiftly past, with their lofty crests
towering high and menacingly all round the ship, and the leaden-hued,
stormy sky.

The deep and painful silence which prevailed was broken by Rogers' harsh
voice remarking--

"Now, Thomson, you knows your dooty, which is to give the pris'ner on
the gratin' five and twenty lashes, _well laid on_. So go ahead, my
man, and let's see if you can't make him yell a bit louder than you did
poor Dicky Rudd."

Thomson glanced at the speaker and nodded. The hope which he
entertained of an eventual escape from death had thrown him into a state
of terrible excitement, bordering almost upon madness; his ghastly
pallor had vanished, and was now superseded by a deep purplish tinge,
resulting from the violent rush of blood to the head; the veins upon his
forehead stood out like cords, his eyes glowed like those of a wild
animal, and his jaws were flecked with foam streaked with blood, which
trickled from a wound in his lower lip, where in his terrible excitement
he had unconsciously bitten it through.

This frenzied creature nodded his comprehension of Rogers' command, and,
gathering himself up like an animal about to make a spring, he drew the
tails of the cat slowly through his closed left hand, measured his
distance carefully, and, making a quick bound forward, brought the nine
knotted lashes do