ow, if I was on that business,
say I was on the lookout for these gentlemen, I shouldn't do it here."

"Where, then?" said the lieutenant eagerly.

"Well, I'll tell you. As I said, they're a bit too cunning for you. Of
course you can sail up the rivers and blow the black chiefs' huts to
pieces. Them, I mean, who catch the niggers and sell 'em or swap 'em to
the slave skippers; but that don't do much good, for slavers slip off in
the dark, and know the coast better than you do."

"Yes. Well, what would you do?" said the lieutenant eagerly.

"Do? Why, I'd go across to the plantations, sir, and lay wait for them
there. They wouldn't be half so much on the lookout."

"There's a good deal in what you say, sir," said the lieutenant
thoughtfully. "But where would you watch--round Jamaica?"

"Nay-y-y!" cried the skipper. "I'd study up my charts pretty
thoroughly, and then cruise about those little islands that lie nigh the
Cays. There's plenty of likely places where these folk land their
cargoes; and you'd find them easier to work than the West Coast, where
there's a wilderness of mangrove creeks and big and little rivers where
a slaving schooner can lie up and hide. You go west and try. Why, I
could give your captain half-a-dozen plantations where it would pay him
to go--places where I've seen often enough craft about the build of mine
here."

"Indeed!" cried the lieutenant.

"Yes, sir," said the skipper thoughtfully. "Why, of course; I never saw
before how likely you were to take me for one of 'em. Well, you want to
go, so I'll have one of my boats lowered down and come over to your
brig. I'll ask your skipper for a bit of quinine, and then if he'll lay
out his charts before me, I'll put his finger upon three or four likely
spots where the slavers trade, and if he don't capture two or three of
their fast boats loaded with the black fellows they've run across, why,
it won't be my fault. I should like to see the whole lot sunk, and the
skippers and crews with them. Don't sound Christian like o' me, but
they deserve it. For I've seen them landing their cargoes. Ugh! It
has been sickening, and they're not men."

The skipper's words were broken in upon by the report of a gun from the
_Seafowl_, whose commander had grown impatient from the long delay of
the boat; and hence the imperious recall.

Captain Kingsberry's countenance did not look calm and peaceful when the
boat returned, but the clouds clear