ut this business, which is--unless Mr Purchase is
altogether mistaken, which I do not for a moment believe--that the
_Psyche_ was last night cut adrift from her anchors and wrecked by
somebody who must have a lurking-place in this immediate neighbourhood;
and I intend to have a hunt for that somebody to-morrow."

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE BATTLE OF THE SAND SPIT.

As the evening progressed it became evident to me that our new captain
had developed a very preoccupied mood; he fell into long fits of
abstraction; and often answered very much at random such remarks as
happened to be addressed to him. He appeared to be turning over some
puzzling matter in his mind; and at length that matter came to the
surface and found expression in speech.

"Mr Purchase," he said, "I have been trying to put two and two
together--or, in other words, I have been endeavouring to find an
explanation of the puzzle which this business of the wreck of the
_Psyche_ presents. I can understand quite clearly that poor Captain
Harrison was deliberately deceived and misled by certain persons in
Sierra Leone in order that the ship might be cast away. But why _here_
particularly? For if my theory be correct that the supposed decoy
schooner actually sailed out of this river with a full cargo of black
ivory, there must certainly be a barracoon somewhere close at hand from
which she drew her supplies; and the people who planned the destruction
of the sloop could scarcely have been so short-sighted as to have
overlooked the fact that such a happening would leave us here stranded
in close proximity to a slave factory which, presumably, they would be
most anxious should remain undiscovered by us. That is the point which
I cannot understand; and I have come to the conclusion that my theory
with regard to the schooner must be altogether wrong, or there must be
something else in the wind--that, in short, the wreck of the sloop is
only a part instead of the whole of their plan."

"But what about the barracoon which you destroyed to-day, sir?" asked
Purchase. "Might not that be the place from which those fellows draw
their supplies of slaves?"

"It might, of course," admitted the skipper; "but, all the same, I do
not believe it was. For the people who supplied Captain Harrison with
false information would surely know enough of him and his methods to be
certain that, failing to find anything in the nature of a slave factory
at King Olomba's town, we shoul