Noakes spent the night on board Blakely’s ship, a prisoner under strict guard.  Early in the morning Capt.  Ned called in all the sea-captains in the harbor and invited them, with nautical ceremony, to be present on board his ship at nine o’clock to witness the hanging of Noakes at the yard-arm!

“What!  The man has not been tried.”

“Of course he hasn’t.  But didn’t he kill the nigger?”

“Certainly he did; but you are not thinking of hanging him without a trial?”

“Trial!  What do I want to try him for, if he killed the nigger?”

“Oh, Capt.  Ned, this will never do.  Think how it will sound.”

“Sound be hanged!  Didn’t he kill the nigger?”

“Certainly, certainly, Capt.  Ned,—­nobody denies that,—­but—­”

“Then I’m going to hang him, that’s all.  Everybody I’ve talked to talks just the same way you do.  Everybody says he killed the nigger, everybody knows he killed the nigger, and yet every lubber of you wants him tried for it.  I don’t understand such bloody foolishness as that.  Tried!  Mind you, I don’t object to trying him, if it’s got to be done to give satisfaction; and I’ll be there, and chip in and help, too; but put it off till afternoon—­put it off till afternoon, for I’ll have my hands middling full till after the burying—­”

“Why, what do you mean?  Are you going to hang him any how—­and try him afterward?”

“Didn’t I say I was going to hang him?  I never saw such people as you.  What’s the difference?  You ask a favor, and then you ain’t satisfied when you get it.  Before or after’s all one—­you know how the trial will go.  He killed the nigger.  Say—­I must be going.  If your mate would like to come to the hanging, fetch him along.  I like him.”

There was a stir in the camp.  The captains came in a body and pleaded with Capt.  Ned not to do this rash thing.  They promised that they would create a court composed of captains of the best character; they would empanel a jury; they would conduct everything in a way becoming the serious nature of the business in hand, and give the case an impartial hearing and the accused a fair trial.  And they said it would be murder, and punishable by the American courts if he persisted and hung the accused on his ship.  They pleaded hard.  Capt.  Ned said: 

“Gentlemen, I’m not stubborn and I’m not unreasonable.  I’m always willing to do just as near right as I can.  How long will it take?”

“Probably only a little while.”

“And can I take him up the shore and hang him as soon as you are done?”

“If he is proven guilty he shall be hanged without unnecessary delay.”

“If he’s proven guilty.  Great Neptune, ain’t he guilty?  This beats my time.  Why you all know he’s guilty.”

But at last they satisfied him that they were projecting nothing underhanded.  Then he said: 

“Well, all right.  You go on and try him and I’ll go down and overhaul his conscience and prepare him to go—­like enough he needs it, and I don’t want to send him off without a show for hereafter.”