excitement
and adventure; and when we succeed in outwitting you gentlemen the
profits are handsome enough to amply repay us for all our risk and
trouble. It is like playing a game of skill for a heavy wager; and I
contend that no man who is not sportsman enough to bear his losses
philosophically should engage in the game. But that is not precisely
what ails the skipper; he takes his ill-luck grievously to heart it is
true, but he insists that he has other grievances against the English as
well; and, whatever they may be, they seem to have partially turned his
brain."

"Partially!" I objected. "Why, the man is as mad as a March hare. He
absolutely loses all control of himself when he allows his temper to
master him, and becomes more like a savage beast than a man!"

"Ay, that is true, he does," agreed Leroy. "But, hark ye, monsieur, let
me give you a friendly hint--you have escaped unharmed thus far,
therefore I believe you may consider yourself reasonably safe; but in
case of any further outbreaks on the captain's part, take especial care
that you give him no reason to suppose that you are afraid of him; that
is the surest road to safety with him."

"Upon my word I believe you are right," said I. "At all events that is
the road which I took with him just now, for I pinned him down to the
cabin deck, and threatened to beat his brains out. Yet here I am,
alive, to speak of it."

"Good!" ejaculated the mate. "If you did that you are all right; I
believe that if there is one thing he admires more than another it is
absolute fearlessness. Show him that you do not care the snap of a
finger for him and he will forgive you anything, even the fact that you
are an Englishman."

I walked the poop with Monsieur Leroy for a full hour, chatting with him
and learning many things very well worth knowing; and while I was
chatting with him I kept my eyes about me, carefully noting all the
particulars and peculiarities of the barque, with a view to future
contingencies. Among other things I learned that she was named _La
Mouette_; that she was of three hundred and sixty-four tons register;
that she mounted fourteen twenty-eight pound carronades on her main-deck
and four six-pounders on her poop; that she carried a complement of one
hundred and seventy men; and that she was then bound into the river
Kwara for a cargo of slaves to be conveyed to Martinique, or Cuba, as
circumstances might decide.

At the end of about an