“Twenty-nine!” she announced, contemptuously. “Rather different, father dear, from the visages of Columbus, Magellan, and Vasco de Gama, upon whom I operated in centuries gone by.” She now lathered the face of the squirming Christian, laying on the tar with the peculiar slapping sound made by an experienced painter when applying a coat of paint to a flat surface. The patient had by this time resigned all hope, and betrayed little interest when the brush was laid aside for the razor. This was a marline-spike, and the Mermaid gave it an edge—if a round object can be said to have an edge—by stropping it on a capstan bar which one of the crew had placed in the capstan. She then held the cracked hand-glass before Christian’s face, that he might see how he looked, and proceeded to shave him. This was a decided relief, and the man wondered if it was not the end of the performance. Vain hope! Scarcely had the lather been scraped off, when two of the crew advanced to the tub and removed the tarpaulin. They then tipped the chair back suddenly, causing its occupant to slide into the tub, where he was immersed all but the feet. He was quickly drawn out and hustled forward on the port side, directly beneath the fore yard. A bowline had been rigged up at the extremity of the yard-arm overhanging the water, and the ends of the rope hung down to the deck. One end was made fast around Christian just beneath the arms, and a dozen hands grasped the other end amidst the most uproarious hilarity. An old salt with bare feet, brass rings in his ears, and a red cotton handkerchief wound about his head, now ascended to the roof of the forward house and played a wild air upon a wheezy violin. He danced about at the same time, and sang in a hurricane voice and with great gusto, the first verse of a song whose subject was: “The Baptism of Captain Kidd.” Everyone joined in the chorus, even Neptune and his daughter, while the shrieking Christian was hoisted up to the yard-arm. There he remained suspended between sea and sky while the old salt rendered another verse, and then, as all hands took up the refrain, the rope was slackened away. Three times was the Swede ducked in the heaving swell, before being drawn up and lowered on deck again. He was then released, and patted on the back by the Mermaid, who said patronizingly: “My son, you are a lubber no more,—in name at least,—and can now consider yourself a true subject of Neptune.” The new subject was past speech, but he drew a deep breath of relief and got upon the galley roof, where he sat down to dry, as well as to see what befell Oscar and Josef. He had not been hurt in the least, but, as some one has said, “A man might as well be killed as scared to death.”