They came out upon the green plateau and headed for the stockade and the overseer’s white house.  Pitt’s eyes looked out over Carlisle Bay, of which this plateau commanded a clear view from the fort on one side to the long sheds of the wharf on the other.  Along this wharf a few shallow boats were moored, and Pitt caught himself wondering which of these was the wherry in which with a little luck they might have been now at sea.  Out over that sea his glance ranged miserably.

In the roads, standing in for the shore before a gentle breeze that scarcely ruffled the sapphire surface of the Caribbean, came a stately red-hulled 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 took his foot from the bar.  “When you’ve had enough of this, send me word, and we’ll have the branding-irons to you.”