and
both, as if by instinct threw forward the muzzles of their muskets.

"Oh! come in, come in, make your minds easy," cried Disco, in a
half-savage tone, despite the warning he had received; "we're all
_friends_ here--leastwise we can't help ourselves."

Fortunately for our mariner the men did not understand him, and before
they could make up their minds what to think of it, or how to act Harold
rose, and, with a polite bow, invited them to enter.

"Do you understand English?" he asked.

A frown, and a decided shake of the head from both men, was the reply.
The poor negro girl cowered behind her keepers, as if she feared that
violence were about to ensue.

Having tried French with a like result, Harold uttered the name,
"Yoosoof," and pointed in the direction in which the trader had entered
the woods.

The men looked intelligently at each other, and nodded.

Then Harold said "Zanzibar," and pointed in the direction in which he
supposed that island lay.

Again the men glanced at each other, and nodded. Harold next said
"Boat--dhow," and pointed towards the creek, which remark and sign were
received as before.

"Good," he continued, slapping himself on the chest, and pointing to his
companion, "_I_ go to Zanzibar, _he_ goes, _she_ goes," (pointing to the
girl), "_you_ go, and Yoosoof goes--all in the dhow together to
Zanzibar--to-night--when moon goes down. D'ee understand? Now then,
come along and have some rice."

He finished up by slapping one of the men on the shoulder, and lifting
the kettle off the fire, for the rice had already been cooked and only
wanted warming.

The men looked once again at each other, nodded, laughed, and sat down
on a log beside the fire, opposite to the Englishmen.

They were evidently much perplexed by the situation, and, not knowing
what to make of it, were disposed in the meantime to be friendly.

While they were busy with the rice, Disco gazed in silent wonder, and
with intense pity, at the slave-girl, who sat a little to one side of
her guardians on a mat, her small hands folded together resting on one
knee, her head drooping, and her eyes cast down. The enthusiastic tar
found it very difficult to restrain his feelings. He had heard, of
course, more or less about African slavery from shipmates, but he had
never read about it, and had never seriously given his thoughts to it,
although his native sense of freedom, justice, and fair-play had roused
a feeling of indign