Short called some of the men to take Smallbones below, in which act they readily assisted; they washed him all over with salt water, and the smarting from his various wounds brought him to his senses.  He was then put in his hammock.

Vanslyperken and the corporal looked at each other during the time that Short was giving his directions—­neither interfered.  The lieutenant was afraid, and the corporal waited for orders.  So soon as the men had carried the lad below, Corporal Van Spitter put his hand up to his foraging cap, and with his cat and seizings under his arm, went down below.  As for Vanslyperken, his wrath was even greater than before, and with hands thrust even further down in his pockets than ever, and the speaking-trumpet now battered flat with the blow which he had administered to Smallbones, he walked up and down, muttering every two minutes, “I’ll keel-haul the scoundrel, by heavens!  I’ll teach him to bite my dog.”

Snarleyyow did not re-appear on deck; he had received such punishment as he did not expect.  He licked the wounds where he could get at them, and then remained in the cabin in a sort of perturbed slumber, growling every minute as if he were fighting the battle over again in his sleep.

Chapter V

A consultat on in which there is much mutiny.

This consultation was held upon the forecastle of his Majesty’s cutter Yungfrau, on the evening after the punishment of Smallbones.  The major part of the crew attended; all but the Corporal Van Spitter, who, on these points, was known to split with the crew, and his six marines, who formed the corporal’s tail, at which they were always to be found.  The principal personage was not the most eloquent speaker, for it was Dick Short, who was supported by Obadiah Coble, Yack Jansen, and another personage, whom we must introduce, the boatswain or boatswain’s mate of the cutter; for although he received the title of the former, he only received the pay of the latter.  This person’s real name was James Salisbury, but for reasons which will be explained he was invariably addressed or spoken of as Jemmy Ducks.  He was indeed a very singular variety of human discrepancy as to form:  he was handsome in face, with a manly countenance, fierce whiskers and long pigtail, which on him appeared more than unusually long, as it descended to within a foot of the deck.  His shoulders were square, chest expanded, and, as far as half-way down, that is, to where the legs are inserted into the human frame, he was a fine, well-made, handsome, well-proportioned man.  But what a falling off was there!—­for some reason, some accident, it is supposed, in his infancy, his legs had never grown in length since he was three years old:  they were stout as well as his body, but not more than eighteen inches from the hip to the heel; and he consequently waddled about a very ridiculous figure, for he was like a man razeed