kipper
if he wishes to kill us by inches, and I'll tell him he'll never land
either of us if we are kept shut up in this hold and treated worse than
the negroes. They are born to it, as it were, and we are not, and have
been accustomed to pure air all our lives."

I did not quite agree with Tubbs as to negroes being born to be shut up
in the hold of a slave ship, but I did not just then contradict him. By
a faint gleam, like the light of a glow-worm, which came down from
overhead, we knew that it was morning, and soon afterwards we felt the
ship heel over to larboard, or port as it is now called. In a short
time the increasing motion also showed us that the sea had got up. We
heard sounds which indicated that sail was being shortened. We stood
on, it might have been an hour, on the same tack, when the ship was put
about, and now she heeled over more often, and pitched and tumbled about
in a way which showed that it was blowing fresh. The cries of the
wretched slaves, unaccustomed to the motion, reached our ears, while the
tossing stirred up the bilge water and almost stifled us. Two or three
hours passed, when the ship became somewhat steadier. Tubbs averred
that the helm had been put up, and that we were running before the wind.

"There's something taking place, although I cannot make out just what it
is to a certainty; but I've a notion that there is some craft in sight
which the `Vulture' wants to escape; and if so, I hope she won't."

"So do I, indeed," murmured Harry. "I shall die if we remain here much
longer."

Another hour of suffering and anxiety passed, when Tubbs roused Harry
and me--for we had dropped off in a kind of stupor--by exclaiming--

"Holloa! What was that? A shot, or I'm a Dutchman."

As he spoke I distinctly heard the sound of a gun, though it seemed to
be at a great distance. We listened with bated breath. Again there
came a faint boom, and at the same instant a crash, which told us that
the shot had struck the ship.

"Hurrah! I thought so," cried Tom; "there's a man-of-war in chase of
us, and it is pretty evident that the `Vulture' has no wish to engage
her, or she would not have been trying to get away, as she has been for
some hours past."

We waited now with intense anxiety. We knew that the "Vulture" was a
fast craft, and that it was too likely she had just passed within range
of her pursuer's guns, but might escape notwithstanding. Except by the
motion of the vessel