The lieutenant remained alone with his disgusting and unwelcome visitant, and the two hours following he described as the most painful of his life. It was less the fear of death than the destined mode of it which tortured him: not that he was insensible or indifferent to the blessing of life, for he was by nature of a happy, joyous temperament, and fair prospects of advancement were before him; but in "war-time" existence was held on such a precarious tenure that the idea of death in battle would scarcely have troubled his equanimity. Two hours waiting to be hanged, however, is a far different trial for courage, and we have never read or imagined any thing more painful than the description which the aged admiral gave us of that (to him) endless period of time. As if to add to the horror of his position, the silence on board was so great that it appeared as if he could hear the pulsation of his own heart, while the low snoring of the drunken man struck with painful distinctness on his ear. At last the bell struck the fatal hour, and steps were heard on the ladder. His door opened; he rose prepared to show no symptoms of faltering courage, when the leaders of the party advancing, told him "that the people had taken his case into consideration, and as they believed he individually had no ill-feeling toward them, and as he had recently given proof that he cared for the men, they had changed his sentence from death to _flogging!_ He must therefore prepare to receive three dozen on the following morning." My kinsman, with the ready humor that never deserted him, returned thanks with mock gravity for their clemency, and begged them to carry his compliments to the gentlemen who sent them, and assure them that he could not have believed he should ever have felt so much satisfaction at the prospect of a whipping. The men, always susceptible of fun, laughed. From that moment he was safe! Falstaff wisely despairs of gaining the love of Prince John, "because he could not make him laugh;" the young lieutenant acted as if he possessed Shakspeare's knowledge of human nature when he awoke by his jest the slumbering sympathies of the sailors. He was detained a prisoner, but no further notice was taken of the threatened flogging.