"I am not quite certain, but I think that you, Ben, were the very man who did the deed." "Oh no, sir, it wasn't me," answered Ben; "it was Billy Blazes, as we used to call him." "What was it, Mr Higson?" asked Tom and Desmond. "Well, you see, youngsters, we carried pretty taunt masts and square yards; and as several sister brigs of ours had been lost, with all hands, the commander considered it as well to be cautious, so that we might not go and keep them company. It became therefore necessary to make the men sharp when all hands were turned up to shorten sail; and he let it be understood that he intended on such occasions to punish the last man off the lower deck. He was a tall, thin man--so tall that he found his height very inconvenient in a ten-gun brig, and he used to put his looking-glass on deck and his head through the cabin skylight when he wanted to shave in the morning. Billy Blazes, who was a quartermaster, was about as short and stout as the commander was tall and thin. One day, just as the commander came on deck, and was standing near the companion hatchway, seeing a squall coming along the water, he shouted pretty sharply-- "`All hands, shorten sail!' "Now Billy--as I take it for granted that Snatchblock is right in saying it was he--was below, doing something or other, and guessing that he would be late if he came up the main hatchway, he bolted through the gunroom passage, thinking that no one would see him, and up he sprang by the companion hatchway. At that moment the commander turned round, and, receiving Billy's head in the pit of his stomach, was doubled up, and sent sprawling over on the deck, the pain preventing him from seeing who had done the deed. Billy did not, you may be sure, stop to apologise; but up the rigging he sprang, before the commander or any of the officers knew who it was, and you may depend upon it he did not inform them. His messmates kept his secret, and it was not till the brig was paid off that the truth slipped out." "I remember the same system as that you speak of being carried on in a ship I once served in," observed Norris. "The first lieutenant used to put down the name of the last man off the lower deck on a slip of paper, and at the end of three months he took out the slip, and counted who had been most frequently guilty, and they were invariably punished. However, as several good men got punished, the system became very unpopular, and as many deserted in consequence it was given up." On this Tom told some of the stories about black-listing which he had heard from Admiral Triton.