een
bending over Mr Russell, to try and make out by touch how he was,
started up in horror, for, from the direction of the moored vessel,
there came a burst of cries, as if someone was being tortured in a
terrible way.

"What's that?" cried Mark, in an excited whisper.

"What I wanted to hear, sir," replied Tom Fillot in the same tone. "It
might ha' been as that warn't a slaver, after all; but that there noise
settles it."

"Then you think it was the poor wretches crying out?"

"Sure on it, sir; as sure as I am that there's somebody going to shout
at 'em to be quiet, or he'll come and chuck some of 'em overboard."

Even as the man spoke, footsteps were heard, and then there was a sharp
sound like the banging of the top of the hatch with a capstan bar,
followed by a fierce shout delivered in a threatening way.

Then came a low, piteous moaning and sobbing, mingled with the crying of
children, and once more the top of the hatch was banged.

"Guess I'm coming down to give it to some of you. Stop that! Do yer
hear?"

These words came clearly enough over the water in the silence of the
tropic night, and once more all was still again, and there was a low
whistling, as if someone were walking back to the cabin-hatch, where he
stood for a few minutes, and then went below.

"Tom," said Mark, "that's the slaver skipper."

"Yes, sir, so I s'pose. Nobody else wouldn't bully like that."

"I mean the skipper of the schooner we took."

"Think so, sir?" cried the man, excitedly.

"I'm sure of it. I know his voice again. That's the man who had me
thrown into the boat."

"That's right, then, sir. I couldn't tell, because my head was all dumb
with the crack I got; but you weren't hit, and of course you'd know."

Just then there came a low, piteous, half-stifled wail from the vessel,
which went so home to Mark's feelings, that his voice sounded changed
and suffocated, as he whispered,--

"I've often said that I was sorry I came to sea, Tom Fillot, so as to be
sent on this horrible slavery business, but I'm glad now."

"That's right, sir."

"And we'll have that schooner back, and set those poor creatures free if
I die for it."

"That you shall, sir," cried Tom Fillot. "No, no, that you shan't, I
mean."

"Not take her?" said Mark, half aloud in his surprise.

"Hist! No, no, sir. I didn't mean that; I mean not die for it."

"Oh, I see."

"You shall take her, sir, as soon as you give the word; but, beggi