conclusive; the prisoners were called up
one by one for their defence, but as they had no time to concoct a
story, they each of them told a different tale. Jack felt very much
inclined to run them all together up to his yard-arm, but as this might
be looked upon as too summary a way of proceeding, he ordered them to be
placed in irons, to undergo a regular trial as soon as he could fall in
with the commodore. He arrived, however, at the conclusion that the
dhow was a lawful prize, and to prevent the risk of her ever carrying
more slaves, he issued an order that she should immediately be set on
fire. Tom, who had been anticipating the result, was very much pleased
when the gunner returned with Jack's orders for her destruction. Light
was set to her fore and aft, and as the boats pulled away, flames burst
out from all directions, the glare, as they rose higher, extending to a
far distance across the ocean.

The Arabs were kept on deck to witness the burning of their vessel. For
a few minutes the fire raged furiously, the flames rising in one huge
pyramid, till on a sudden they disappeared as she sunk beneath the
surface, to which so many of her hapless passengers had lately been
consigned.

"It would have served the villains right if they'd been left on board,"
observed Needham; "and I say, Hamed, just tell them so, and it is to be
hoped they will get their due before long."

Meantime, the _Opal_, with her prizes, sighted the southern end of
Zanzibar. As she ran along the western shore, the flat-roofed
buildings, like palaces with numerous windows, gave the place an
appearance of considerable opulence and magnificence. On either side of
the city stretched away a low coast-line of glittering sand, above which
could be seen cocoanut palms, raising their lofty heads at intervals,
while the country, gradually rising towards the centre, appeared covered
with bright green plantations of cloves, pineapples, and sweetly
blossoming mangoes, the perfume of which Mildmay declared he could
inhale even from that distance.

"Wait till you visit the town, and then you may talk of inhaling
perfumes, though they're not of the sweetest," observed Jos Green. "If
the wind comes off-shore we may get a sniff of spicy odours, but I never
found them quite strong enough to swear to, whatever the poets may say
on the subject."

"Your olfactory powers are too coarse to enjoy them, that's the fact,"
observed Mildmay.

Here and there