tongues and grievances, were passed over in silence or
hushed with the lash. Indeed, the whip alone was the emblem of La
Estrella's discipline; and in the end it taught me the saddest of
lessons.

From the beginning there was manifest discontent among the slaves. I
endeavored at first to please and accommodate them by a gracious
manner; but manner alone is not appreciated by untamed Africans. A few
days after our departure, a slave leaped overboard in a fit of
passion, and another choked himself during the night. These two
suicides, in twenty-four hours, caused much uneasiness among the
officers, and induced me to make every preparation for a revolt.

We had been at sea about three weeks without further disturbance, and
there was so much merriment among the gangs that were allowed to come
on deck, that my apprehensions of danger began gradually to wear away.
Suddenly, however, one fair afternoon, a squall broke forth from an
almost cloudless sky; and as the boatswain's whistle piped all hands
to take in sail, a simultaneous rush was made by the confined slaves
at all the after-gratings, and amid the confusion of the rising gale,
they knocked down the guard and poured upon deck. The sentry at the
_fore-hatch_ seized the cook's axe, and sweeping it round him like a
scythe, kept at bay the band that sought to emerge from below him.
Meantime, the women in the cabin were not idle. Seconding the males,
they rose in a body, and the helmsman was forced to stab several with
his knife before he could drive them below again.

About forty stalwart devils, yelling and grinning with all the savage
ferocity of their wilderness, were now on deck, armed with staves of
broken water-casks, or billets of wood, found in the hold. The
suddenness of this outbreak did not appal me, for, in the dangerous
life of Africa, a trader must be always admonished and never off his
guard. The blow that prostrated the first white man was the earliest
symptom I detected of the revolt; but, in an instant, I had the
arm-chest open on the quarter-deck, and the mate and steward beside me
to protect it. Matters, however, did not stand so well forward of the
mainmast. Four of the hands were disabled by clubs, while the rest
defended themselves and the wounded as well as they could with
handspikes, or whatever could suddenly be clutched. I had always
charged the cook, on such an emergency, to distribute from his coppers
a liberal supply of scalding water upon