e into my cheeks, and then felt how pitiful it was
for the miserable, drooping, nearly nude creatures to be sold like that;
but my attention was taken up directly by my father's looks and the
colonel's words as he said, sternly--

"No; six are all I want, and it seems to me that half of these will die
before I have had them long ashore."

"No; they'll soon pick up. We've had a rough crossing," said the slaver
captain, "and the quarters are a bit close. We ran short of water too,
and a tidy lot died, and made the others bad. You give 'em time, and
that lot 'll turn out as cheap as anything you ever bought. You should
have seen them when they first came aboard--lively and spry as could be.
Have the other two. Hi! Below there!" he continued, as he went to the
open hold, and boy-like I stepped forward, full of curiosity, to look
down too.

But I started back in horror, as a hot puff of the revolting odour I had
previously noticed came up from below.

"Ah, not very sweet, youngster," said the slaver captain, with a laugh.
"Going to brimstone it out well as soon as I've made a clearance. Got
two more, haven't you?"

"Ay," came up in a growl.

"Man and woman, eh?"

"Boy and a man," came up.

"Send 'em on deck."

There was a pause, during which I heard from below--"Now then! Up with
you!" and the sound of blows, which made me draw a long breath, and I
was going back once more to the hold when I felt my father's hand upon
my shoulder, and saw as I looked up that he was deadly pale.

"Hoist 'em up there!" shouted the captain, and a rope rove through a
block was lowered down.

"How can you join in this cursed business, Preston?" said my father in a
low tone to our neighbour.

"I was going to ask you that," said the colonel, coldly.

"Me? Ask me?"

"Yes, sir; you have come on board to buy slaves, I suppose, with the
rest of us?"

"I deny it," said my father, flashing out, as he drew himself up. "I
came on board, too late it seems, to try and prevail upon my brother
emigrants--English gentlemen of birth and position--to discountenance
this hateful traffic in the bodies of our fellow-creatures."

"We must have men to work if our colony is to succeed, Captain Bruton."

"Oh!" ejaculated my father, and then in a low voice, as his eyes rested
on the group of poor black wretches huddled together, I heard him say,
"It is monstrous!"

At that moment a couple of sailors began to haul at the rope run through