The Honour of the Flag | Page 5

civility with grape?
Of course; that if it should come to a difficulty he'd have the law on his
side. Not being able to aggravate us into shotting our guns, what must
he turn to and do but load with stone--and look at that flag! Riddled,
mates. I'll not speak of it as spiled, though a prettier and a better bit of
bunting was never mastheaded. Spiled ain't the word: disgraced it is."
"Degraded," said Plum, in a deep voice.
"Ay, and degraded," cried old Joe, with a surly, dangerous nod. "That
there little tailor has degraded the honour of our flag. What's to be done
to him?"
After a pause, Plum said: "Bring him up and sit in examination on him.
Try him fairly, and convict him."
They opened the hatch and pulled little Sloper off the Thames ballast
into daylight. He was exceedingly white, and trembled violently, and
cut, indeed, a very pitiful figure as he stood on the quarter-deck of the
Tom Bowling, surveyed by her owner and crew. He was a short man
and spare, and Tom Tuck grinned as he looked at him.
"I suppose you're aweer," said old Joe, "that in shooting at my flag and
wounding her you've degraded the honour of it? Are you aweer of
that?"
"You came in my way; I was shooting for my hentertainment,"
answered Mr. Sloper.
"You're a retired tailor, ain't ye?" said Joe.
Sloper sulkily answered "Yes."
"Have ye any acquaintance with the laws which are made and purwided
for British seamen when it happens that their flag's degraded by the
haction of a retired tailor?" said old Joe.

Mr. Sloper, instead of answering, cast a languishing eye at the river
banks, which were fast sliding past, and requested to be set ashore.
"It don't answer his purpose to speak to the pint," said Plum.
"Listen, now," said old Joe, shaking his forefinger close into the face of
little Sloper. "When a retired tailor degrades the honour of a seaman's
flag by a shooting at it and a riddling of it, the law 'as made and
purwided sets forth this: that the insulted sailor shall collect his crew
and in the presence of all hands pass sentence after giving an impartial
hearing to what the culprit may have to say in his defence. Now, you
durned little powder-burner, speak up, and own what made you do it,
and then I'll pass judgment."
"What's your game? What d' yer mean to do with me? Where are you
carryin' me to?" cried the owner of Labour's Retreat. "None of yer
nonsense, you know. This is what's called kidnappin'. It's hindictable.
You may find yourself in a very unpleasant predicament over this
business, I can tell yer. You profess to know who I am. D'yer want to
know what I'm worth? Yer'd better put me ashore, I say, and stop this
nonsense. I don't mind a joke, but this is carrying a lark too far. Why,"
he shrieked, "here we are a-drawing on to Northfleet! Yer 'd better let
me go." And so he went on.
Old Joe and the others listened to him with stern faces; in fact, they
received his protests and threats as his defence. When he had made an
end Joe Westlake spoke thus:
"Sloper--I dunno your Christian name and I won't demean myself by
asking of it,--four of your countrymen--and sorry they are that you
should be a countrymen of their'n--have patiently listened to what ye've
had to say. And all that ye've said amounts to nothen at all. The
haccusation made against ye is one of the very gravest as can be
brought agin a retired tailor. You're charged with degrading the honour
of my flag, and ye 've been found guilty, and my sentence is that after a
sufficient time's been granted you for prayer and meditation, ye be
brought up to the place of hexecution, aboard this here cutter the Tom
Bowling, and hanged by the neck till you're dead."

"Murder!" screamed Sloper, and here (so he afterwards swore in court)
the unhappy little tailor fell down upon his knees and begged Joe
Westlake to grant him his life.
"Clap him under hatches," exclaimed the old man-of-warsman, and
Plum and another, lifting the hatch cover, popped Mr. Sloper down
among the ballast again.
By this time the afternoon had very considerably advanced, the wind
had dropped, and it was already dark when the Tom Bowling let go her
anchor off Gravesend. The cabin lamp was lighted, and old Joe and
Plum sat down to a hearty meal, after which they smoked their pipes
and dipped a ladle into a silver bowl of rum punch of Westlake's own
brewing.
"D' ye mean, captain," said Plum, "that the little chap in the hold shall
have