Crushe had just turned out, and was walking the starboard side of the quarter-deck, conversing with Cravan about Dunstable, when the latter made his appearance. Crossing over to the port side, he cursed the smiling idiot as a "useless thing"--"a dirty, beastly hound"--"a son of a dog, unfitted to live;" and turning to Cravan, asked what there was against the fellow. "Absence from muster, skulking below in his watch on deck, insulting his superior officer (the boatswain), and not going on deck when directed by his superior officer," saying which Cravan pointed to the grinning object, as he would to some loathsome reptile, and added, "Yes, and the beast is filthy, and wants holy stoning." Crushe then indulged in a flow of shameful abuse. His victim--fool as he was--clenched his fists, ground his teeth, and replied in language no less foul; but after a time he faltered, and wound up with, "Well, thank goodness for everything!" "What did you say, you yahoo?" roared Crushe. "I said, Thank goodness for everything, amen. Can't I say my prayers in a man-o'-war?" "Mr. Shever, give this hound a scrubbing with sand and canvas, and clean his mouth out with it," said the gallant officer and gentleman. Unable to keep his tongue quiet, and not realizing the purport of the cruel order Dunstable replied, "You're too good to me, sir; thank goodness again! who'd have thought I'd have found such a good friend in a man-o'-war?" However, seeing Shever advance to seize him, the imbecile began to yell, and tried to run forward, but was quickly secured by the boatswain and his mates, with whom the poor fellow bit and fought in very desperation. "Let me go, you brutes! I won't bother you again if you let me go! I'll take a good long drink if you'll only let me go!" He would have jumped overboard, if they had released him then, but there was no fear of that,--the business they had in hand was too congenial to their taste for them to let him drown himself, so he was bundled and worried about until his few clothes were stripped off, when, to prevent any further noise on his part, Mr. Shever roughly thrust a gag in his mouth. The wash deck tub was filled with salt water, a grating laid across, and Dunstable's hands made fast to it behind, so that he could not rise or struggle without injuring his wrists. The boatswain called for a bucket of coarse sand, took a piece of hard sailcloth, wetted it, dipped it in the sand, and himself commenced to inflict the scandalous torture known as "scrubbing with sand and canvas." His mates fell to with zeal, and these fiends in human shape rubbed and excoriated the person of the wretched Dunstable from head to foot. The sand was mixed with shells, which cut like knives, while the salt water pickled and stung until the victim almost fainted, upon which they cut his hands adrift and ducked him in the water.