"Nothing," answered the captain; "except that I utterly disclaim your right to sit in judgment upon me or to criticise my actions in any manner whatsoever. Your conduct is in the last degree illegal and unjustifiable. You are a pack of mutinous scoundrels; and I warn you that a terrible punishment will surely overtake you if you persist in your defiance of my authority. If, however, you will return to your duty and deliver up to us, your duly appointed officers, the ringleaders in this disgraceful mutiny, I will undertake to overlook this most serious offence, so far as the rest of you are concerned." "You hear what the prisoner says, shipmates," observed Rogers calmly. "Do you consider as he've made good his defence? Is it your opinion as he've justified hisself? Them as thinks he have, hold up their hands. Them as thinks he haven't, stand up." The self-constituted judges with one accord rose to their feet. "That'll do; you may sit down agin," remarked Rogers. "The prisoner is found _guilty_. The next question to be settled is the matter of punishment. Now, there's a many ways of punishing a man, some on 'em more severe than others. The most severest as I knows is _death_; death by hangin' from the yard-arm. Them as thinks the prisoner Arnold deservin' of this punishment, hold up their hands." Two or three hands were hesitatingly raised, and, after a slight pause, lowered again. "Do I understand as _everybody_ thinks hangin' too severe?" inquired Rogers, glancing slowly round the table. "I do,"--as no hands were shown. "Well then, let's try something else. Perhaps, shipmates, some of yer's got a hidee as you'd like to put afore the court? If so, let's hear what it is." "I thinks as it would be no more nor he desarves if we was to treat him for the rest of the v'yage as he've treated us from the beginnin' of it. He'd know then what it's like, and if he lives long enough to get the command of another ship, maybe he'll then know better how to treat his crew," observed one of the men. "Not at all a bad idee," commented Rogers. "You've heard what Phil says; what d'ye think on't?" "I thinks it's a capical notion," remarked one. "I'm agreeable," intimated another. "Ay; let's see how he likes that sort of thing hisself," remarked a third. And so on; all hands intimating their concurrence in the suggestion. "Wery good," remarked Rogers, when all had spoken. Then, turning to the captain, he said-- "Robert Arnold, the sentence of this here court is that you'm to be turned for'ard and conwerted into a `hordinary seaman,' to do a hordinary seaman's dooties, and to receive just exactly the same treatment as you've sarved out to the hands since this here ship sailed from Hold England, namely, more kicks than ha'pence. And the Lord have mercy on yer miserable carcase!"