I thought, Hans is right, we are in a nest of slave-traders, and
this Hassan is their leader.

We rowed past the island, on which I observed the ruins of an old
Portuguese fort and some long grass-roofed huts, where, I reflected, the
slaves were probably kept until they could be shipped away. Observing my
glance fixed upon these, Hassan hastened to explain, through Sammy, that
they were storehouses in which he dried fish and hides, and kept goods.

"How interesting!" I answered. "Further south we dry hides in the sun."

Crossing a narrow channel we arrived at a rough jetty where we
disembarked, whence we were led by Hassan not to the village which I now
saw upon our left, but to a pleasant-looking, though dilapidated
house that stood a hundred yards from the shore. Something about the
appearance of this house impressed me with the idea that it was never
built by slavers; the whole look of the place with its verandah and
garden suggested taste and civilisation. Evidently educated people had
designed it and resided here. I glanced about me and saw, amidst a grove
of neglected orange trees that were surrounded with palms of some
age, the ruins of a church. About this there was no doubt, for there,
surmounted by a stone cross, was a little pent-house in which still hung
the bell that once summoned the worshippers to prayer.

"Tell the English lord," said Hassan to Sammy, "that these buildings
were a mission station of the Christians, who abandoned them more than
twenty years ago. When I came here I found them empty."

"Indeed," I answered, "and what were the names of those who dwelt in
them?"

"I never heard," said Hassan; "they had been gone a long while when I
came."

Then we went up to the house, and for the next hour and more were
engaged with our baggage which was piled in a heap in what had been the
garden and in unpacking and pitching two tents for the hunters which I
caused to be placed immediately in front of the rooms that were assigned
to us. Those rooms were remarkable in their way. Mine had evidently
been a sitting chamber, as I judged from some such broken articles of
furniture, that appeared to be of American make. That which Stephen
occupied had once served as a sleeping-place, for the bedstead of iron
still remained there. Also there were a hanging bookcase, now fallen,
and some tattered remnants of books. One of these, that oddly enough was
well-preserved, perhaps because the white ants or other cre