Somers."

"Neat, if not Christian," I said when I had read the letter over.

"Yes," replied Stephen, "but perhaps just a little bombastic in tone. If
that gentleman did arrive with three hundred armed men--eh?"

"Then, my boy," I answered, "in this way or in that we shall thrash him.
I don't often have an inspiration, but I've got one now, and it is to
the effect that Mr. Hassan has not very long to live and that we shall
be intimately connected with his end. Wait till you have seen a slave
caravan and you will understand my feelings. Also I know these gentry.
That little prophecy of ours will get upon his nerves and give him a
foretaste of things. Hans, go and set this letter in that cleft stick.
The postman will call for it before long."

As it happened, within a few days we did see a slave caravan, some of
the merchandise of the estimable Hassan.

We had been making good progress through a beautiful and healthy
country, steering almost due west, or rather a little to the north of
west. The land was undulating and rich, well-watered and only bush-clad
in the neighbourhood of the streams, the higher ground being open, of
a park-like character, and dotted here and there with trees. It was
evident that once, and not very long ago, the population had been dense,
for we came to the remains of many villages, or rather towns with large
market-places. Now, however, these were burned with fire, or deserted,
or occupied only by a few old bodies who got a living from the overgrown
gardens. These poor people, who sat desolate and crooning in the sun, or
perhaps worked feebly at the once fertile fields, would fly screaming
at our approach, for to them men armed with guns must of necessity be
slave-traders.

Still from time to time we contrived to catch some of them, and through
one member of our party or the other to get at their stories. Really it
was all one story. The slaving Arabs, on this pretext or on that, had
set tribe against tribe. Then they sided with the stronger and conquered
the weaker by aid of their terrible guns, killing out the old folk and
taking the young men, women and children (except the infants whom they
butchered) to be sold as slaves. It seemed that the business had begun
about twenty years before, when Hassan-ben-Mohammed and his companions
arrived at Kilwa and drove away the missionary who had built a station
there.

At first this trade was extremely easy and profitable, since the
raw mat