'Then the jester called for two seamen and made them make two ropes fast to the wrists of my arms, and reeved the ropes through two blocks in the mizen shrouds on the starboard side, and hoisted me up aloft, and made the ropes fast to the gunwale of the ship, and I hung some time. Then the jester called the ship's company to behold, and bear him witness, that he made the Quaker hale the king's ropes; so veering the ropes they lowered me half-way down, then made me fast again. "Now," said the jester, "noble Captain, you and the company see that the Quaker haleth the king's ropes"; and with that he commanded them to let fly the ropes loose, when I fell on the deck. "Now," said the jester, "noble Captain, the wager is won. He haled the ropes to the deck, and you can hale them no further, nor any man else."' Not a very good joke, was it? It seems to have pleased the rough sailors since it set them a-laughing. But it was no laughing matter for Richard Sellar to be set swinging in the air strung up by the wrists, and then to be bumped down upon deck again, fast bound and unable to move. The Captain did not laugh either. The thought of his lost money made him feel savage. In a loud, angry voice he called to the boatswain's mate and bade him, 'Take the quakerly dog away, and put him to the capstan and make him work.' Only the jester laughed, and chuckled to himself, as he gathered up the golden guineas from the deck, and slapped his thighs for pleasure as he slipped them into his pockets. Meantime the boatswain's mate was having fine sport with the 'Quaker dog,' as he carried out the Captain's orders. Calling the roughest members of the crew to help him, they beat poor Richard cruelly, and abused him as they dragged him down into the darkness below deck. 'Then he went,' says Richard, 'and sat him down upon a chest lid, and I went and sat down upon another beside him; then he fell upon me and beat me again; then called his boy to bring him two lashings and he lashed my arms to the capstan's bars and caused the men to heave the capstan about; and in three or four times passing about the lashings were loosed, no man knew how, nor when, nor could they ever be found, although they sought them with lighted candles.'