lled frigate, flying the English ensign.

Colonel Bishop halted to consider her, shading his eyes with his fleshly
hand. Light as was the breeze, the vessel spread no canvas to it beyond
that of her foresail. Furled was her every other sail, leaving a clear
view of the majestic lines of her hull, from towering stern castle to
gilded beakhead that was aflash in the dazzling sunshine.

So leisurely an advance argued a master indifferently acquainted with
these waters, who preferred to creep forward cautiously, sounding his
way. At her present rate of progress it would be an hour, perhaps,
before she came to anchorage within the harbour. And whilst the Colonel
viewed her, admiring, perhaps, the gracious beauty of her, Pitt was
hurried forward into the stockade, and clapped into the stocks that
stood there ready for slaves who required correction.

Colonel Bishop followed him presently, with leisurely, rolling gait.

"A mutinous cur that shows his fangs to his master must learn good
manners at the cost of a striped hide," was all he said before setting
about his executioner's job.

That with his own hands he should do that which most men of his station
would, out of self-respect, have relegated to one of the negroes, gives
you the measure of the man's beastliness. It was almost as if with
relish, as if gratifying some feral instinct of cruelty, that he now
lashed his victim about head and shoulders. Soon his cane was reduced,
to splinters by his violence. You know, perhaps, the sting of a flexible
bamboo cane when it is whole. But do you realize its murderous quality
when it has been split into several long lithe blades, each with an edge
that is of the keenness of a knife?

When, at last, from very weariness, Colonel Bishop flung away the stump
and thongs to which his cane had been reduced, the wretched slave's back
was bleeding pulp from neck to waist.

As long as full sensibility remained, Jeremy Pitt had made no sound.
But in a measure as from pain his senses were mercifully dulled, he sank
forward in the stocks, and hung there now in a huddled heap, faintly
moaning.

Colonel Bishop set his foot upon the crossbar, and leaned over his
victim, a cruel smile on his full, coarse face.

"Let that teach you a proper submission," said he. "And now touching
that shy friend of yours, you shall stay here without meat or
drink--without meat or drink, d' ye hear me?--until you please to tell
me his name and business." He