dog, though, properly speaking, the vessel
herself belonged to me--or, at any rate, more to me than to him.
As for A. G., he didn't count. We filled up and weighed anchor on
August 12, having on board 420 blacks--290 men and 130 women--all
chained, and all held under by us twenty-two whites, of the which
nineteen were women. The weather turned sulky almost from the start,
and after ten days of drifting, with here and there a fluke of wind,
we found ourselves off the Gaboon river. From this we crept our way
to the Island of St. Thomas, three days; watered there, and fetched
down to the south-east trades. The niggers were dying fast, and
between the south-east and north-east trades, six weeks from our
starting, we lost between one and two score every day. I will say
that all the women worked like horses. We reached Barbadoes short of
our complement by 134 negroes and one of Klootz's wives. This last
did not trouble him much.

He kept mighty cheerful all the way, although the speculation up to
now had turned out far from cheerful; and all the way he kept singing
scraps about the Kays of Mortallone in a way to turn even a healthy
man sick. I had patched up a kind of friendship with A.G., and we
allowed that, for all his heartiness, the old man was enough to
madden a saint. The slaves we landed fetched about nineteen pounds
on an average. They cost at starting from two pounds to three
pounds; but the ones that had died at sea knocked a hole in the
profits.

At Barbadoes Klootz left the womenfolk in a kind of boarding-house,
and hired a pinnace, twenty tons, to take us across to the main,
pretending he wanted to inquire into the market there. Klootz and I
made the whole crew, with A. G., who could not navigate. January 17,
late in the afternoon, we ran down upon Mortallone Island and
anchored off the Kays, north of Gable Point. Next morning we out
with the boat and landed. Time, about three-quarters of an hour
short of low water.

The Kays are nothing but sand. At low water, and for an hour before
and after, you can cross to Gable point dry-shod. We spent that day
getting bearings; dug a little, but nothing to reward us. Next day
we got to work early. Had been digging for two hours, when we turned
up the first body. It turned A. G. poorly in the stomach, and he sat
down to watch us. Half an hour later we struck the first of the
chests. It did not hold more than five shillings' worth, and we saw
that