mate fell into chat with a clever lad, who was
hanging lazily over the helm. They spoke of voyages and mishaps, and
this led the sailor to declare his recent escape from a vessel, then
in the Rio Nunez, whose mate had poisoned the commander to get
possession of the craft. She had been fitted, he said, at St. Thomas
with the feigned design of coasting; but, when she sailed for Africa,
her register was sent back to the island in a boat to serve some other
vessel, while she ventured to the continent _without_ papers.

I have cause to believe that the slave-trade was rarely conducted upon
the honorable principles between man and man, which, of course, are
the only security betwixt owners, commanders and consignees whose
commerce is exclusively contraband. There were men, it is true,
engaged in it, with whom the "point of honor" was more omnipotent than
the dread of law in regular trade. But innumerable cases have occurred
in which the spendthrifts who appropriated their owners' property on
the coast of Africa, availed themselves of such superior force as
they happened to control, in order to escape detection, or assure a
favorable reception in the West Indies. In fact, the slaver sometimes
ripened into something very like a pirate!

In 1828 and 1829, severe engagements took place between Spanish
slavers and this class of contrabandists. Spaniards would assail
Portuguese when the occasion was tempting and propitious. Many a
vessel has been fitted in Cuba for these adventures, and returned to
port with a living cargo, purchased by cannon-balls and boarding-pikes
exclusively.

Now, I confess that my notions had become at this epoch somewhat
relaxed by my traffic on the coast, so that I grew to be no better
than folks of my cloth. I was fond of excitement; my craft was sadly
in want of a cargo; and, as the mate narrated the helmsman's story,
the Quixotic idea naturally got control of my brain that I was
destined to become the _avenger_ of the poisoned captain. I will not
say that I was altogether stimulated by the noble spirit of justice;
for it is quite possible I would never have thought of the dead man
had not the sailor apprised us that his vessel was half full of
negroes!

As we drifted slowly by the mouth of my old river, I slipped over the
bar, and, while I fitted the schooner with a splendid nine-pounder
amidships, I despatched a spy to the Rio Nunez to report the facts
about the poisoning, as well as the armament