‘Lay on now!’ he hoarsely bawled, and then whack! whack! whack! whack! sounded upon the unhappy Muffin’s spine as rhythmically as the tapping of a land-crab’s claws upon a polished floor. Every fellow administered his single blow with a will, one or two spitting on their hands before their turn came. The sufferer writhed pitifully to the very first stroke, and to the fourth howled out like a dog. The sight half-sickened me, and yet I found myself laughing--though, I dare say, there was something of hysteric nervousness in my merriment--at the preposterous spectacle of the staggering, twitching, dodging, almost nude figure of Muffin, throwing out into strong relief the huge blanketed form of Cutbill, who, with arms extended, his head with its adornment of oakum nodding gravely from side to side, as if bestowing approbation on each man for the blow he dealt, strode backwards on majestic legs, carefully turning out his toes as though he were giving Muffin a lesson in dancing, and sliding along the lines of knotted, hairy faces, with the air of some court functionary marshalling the progress of royalty. As the echo of the last whack rose hollowly off Muffin’s back, the skin of which was unbroken, though it was barred with white lines that resembled flakes of peeled onion, Cutbill whirled him round again, choking the yell he was in the act of delivering into a moan, and ran him back to where he had first started. The ropes’ ends were now dropped; every man seized his bucket, and as Muffin moved, slowly confronted as before by Cutbill, who barricaded the way with outstretched arms, striding backwards once again with Cape-Horn graces, he received a deluge full in his face one after another till I thought the very breath would have been washed out of his body. ‘Now cut down below and dry and clothe yourself,’ roared Finn, as the last bucket was emptied over the shivering creature, ‘and the next time, my lad, ye try any of your pranks upon e’er a man aboard this wessel, whether he lives forward or whether he lives aft, we’ll send ye aloft to that yardarm there with a rope round your neck.’ Cutbill whipped off his blanket and tore the oakum and cap off his head. In a few brief moments the decks resounded with the slapping of sailors swabbing up the wet; buckets were stowed away in their places, the rope’s-ends collected, and in an incredibly short space of time all was as though no such incident as I have related had happened, the planks drying fast, some seamen aft spreading the awning, other fellows at their several jobs in the rigging or on deck, just a grin now and again passing amongst them, but no laughter and no talk, and the yacht softly pushing forwards under the increasing glory of the sun fast approaching his meridian. ‘We shall hear no more of Muffin, I think,’ said Wilfrid, showing nothing of the excitement I had expected to find in him.