rl. They were permitted to see her and
declared she had been kidnapped; but the slaver, not at all put out by
that fact, refused to give her up. Thereupon the blacks paddled swiftly
off after her seller, overtook, and captured him. Presently they brought
him back to the deck of the ship--an article of merchandise, where he had
shortly before been a merchant.

"You won't buy me," cried the captive. "I a grand trading man! I bring you
slaves."

But no scruples entered the mind of the captain of the slaver. "If they
will sell you I certainly will buy you," he answered, and soon the
kidnapped kidnapper was in irons and thrust below in the noisome hold with
the unhappy being he had sent there. A multitude of cases of negro
slave-dealers being seized in this way, after disposing of their human
cattle, are recorded.

It is small wonder that torn thus from home and relatives, immured in
filthy and crowded holds, ill fed, denied the two great gifts of God to
man--air and water--subjected to the brutality of merciless men, and
wholly ignorant of the fate in store for them, many of the slaves should
kill themselves. As they had a salable value the captains employed every
possible device to defeat this end--every device, that is, except kind
treatment, which was beyond the comprehension of the average slaver.
Sometimes the slaves would try to starve themselves to death. This the
captains met by torture with the cat and thumbscrews. There is a horrible
story in the testimony before the English House of Commons about a captain
who actually whipped a nine-months-old child to death trying to force it
to eat, and then brutally compelled the mother to throw the lacerated
little body overboard. Another captain found that his captives were
killing themselves, in the belief that their spirits would return to their
old home. By way of meeting this superstition, he announced that all who
died in this way should have their heads cut off, so that if they did
return to their African homes, it would be as headless spirits. The
outcome of this threat was very different from what the captain had
anticipated. When a number of the slaves were brought on deck to witness
the beheading of the body of one of their comrades, they seized the
occasion to leap overboard and were drowned. Many sought death in this
way, and as they were usually good swimmers, they actually forced
themselves to drown, some persistently holding their heads under water,
others