‘That’ll have extinguished the brimstone in him!’ exclaimed Captain Barrett, giving another great laugh. ‘Is the idea yours?’ ‘No,’ answered the doctor. ‘I took the idea from a female convict ship which I went on board of at Sydney.’ By this time the half-drowned youth within had recovered his breath and was roaring out curses again. The doctor waited three minutes; then signed. The wrinkled sailor tilted the bucket, and the coffined wretch was soused for the second time. Once more Captain Barrett laughed loudly, and a rumble of laughter came from the seamen, who hung about in groups forward. I had imagined that two buckets would have done the fellow’s business for him, yet in five minutes he began to curse and swear once more, whereupon a third bucket was upset over his head. This proved effectual. No more noise proceeded from the inside of the box. The doctor, having waited some time, spoke to Captain Barrett, who crossed to the sentry at the quarter-deck barricade-gate and delivered certain instructions. Shortly afterward, Mr. Stiles came into the cuddy and ordered me to the pantry. I afterwards heard that the fellow in the box was silent whilst he stood in it, and that when he was let out and taken below he looked the most miserable, soaked, scowling, shame-faced, shivering wretch that was ever clothed in felon’s garb. CHAPTER XXVI SHE ATTENDS CHURCH SERVICE AND WITNESSES A TRAGEDY At lunch that day the doctor congratulated himself warmly upon the success of the ducking punishment. ‘I never doubted,’ said he, ‘that it would fail in the case of female convicts. Two buckets they told me sufficed for the most clamorous of the foul-mouths. But I had my misgivings as to its efficacy with male prisoners. I am satisfied. The fellow below seems to have been soaked into repentance. I spoke to him in the prison a little while since, and he humbly begged my pardon and promised never to use another oath again.’ ‘It’s a goosefleshing discipline,’ said Captain Barrett! ‘but they’ll make a joke of it in the tropics.’ ‘Is this box arrangement your only punishment, Ellice?’ said the subaltern. ‘We have thin water-gruel,’ answered the doctor. ‘I know a man who became sincerely religious after two days of thin water-gruel. Then there are the irons which I have struck off, with or without the addition of handcuffs. Then there is the prison. Separation works wholesomely. Loneliness is good physic for the felon mind. Finally, there’s a black-list, in which I enter the offender’s name for submission to his Excellency the Governor at the end of the voyage.’ The subject was then changed. To this brief talk I listened greedily, forgetting Will’s hint that I should carry a deaf face. I met the doctor’s eyes, but my duties dismissed me to the galley, and I was out of the cuddy while the meal lasted.