Page:Paine--Lost ships and lonely seas.djvu/422

376 seamen of the Sparrow-hawk, for in seventeen years he had heard no other language than Korean.

The friendly governor of Quelpert was succeeded by an unpleasant old tyrant who made life so uncomfortable that the stubborn Dutchmen resolved to escape to Japan, sink or swim. The pilot and six sailors stole a junk, but luck was against them. The rotten mast went over the side as they were sailing out to sea, and so they were carried back for punishment. Their hands were tied to a heavy log of wood, and they had to lie in a row flat upon their stomachs while a sturdy Korean jailer flailed them with a heavy cudgel, twenty-five blows each upon that part of a Dutchman's back where his baggy breeches were the most voluminous. So cruel was this chastisement that several of them lay a month in bed.

So long as they were content to submit to circumstances, the Koreans were inclined to treat them with a certain good humor and toleration. After several months they were conveyed to the mainland and lodged in the capital city, where the king had his palace. He enrolled them in his body-guard, and they received wages of seventy measures of rice per month. Armed with muskets, they drilled under the command of Jan Wettevri. Henry Hamel, the purser, relates: