losing her, and is _very_ anxious to get her back again--not as a
slave, but as a friend, for no slavery is allowed in English settlements
anywhere, and I am sure that Maraquita hates slavery as much as I do,
though she is not English, so I intend to take her and Kambira and Obo
to the Cape, where Maraquita is living--or will be living soon."

"Ye don't stick at trifles, sir," said Disco, whose eyes, on hearing
this, assumed a thoughtful, almost a troubled look.

"My plan does not seem to please you," said Harold.

"Please me, sir, w'y shouldn't it please me? In course you knows best;
I was only a little puzzled, that's all."

Disco said no more, but he thought a good deal, for he had noted the
beauty and sprightliness of Maraquita, and the admiration with which
Harold had first beheld her; and it seemed to him that this rather
powerful method of attempting to gratify the Portuguese girl was proof
positive that Harold had lost his heart to her.

Harold guessed what was running in Disco's mind, but did not care to
undeceive him, as, in so doing, he might run some risk of betraying the
trust reposed in him by Lindsay.

The captain of the schooner, being bound for the Cape after visiting
Zanzibar, was willing to take these additional passengers, and the
anxious lieutenant was induced to postpone total and irrevocable
despair, although, Maraquita being poor, and he being poor, and
promotion in the service being very slow, he had little reason to
believe his prospects much brighter than they were before,--poor fellow!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Time passed on rapid wing--as time is notoriously prone to do--and the
fortunes of our _dramatis personae_ varied somewhat.

Captain Romer continued to roam the Eastern seas, along with brother
captains, and spent his labour and strength in rescuing a few hundreds
of captives from among the hundreds of thousands that were continually
flowing out of unhappy Africa. Yoosoof and Moosa continued to throw a
boat-load or two of damaged "cattle" in the way of the British cruisers,
as a decoy, and succeeded on the whole pretty well in running full
cargoes of valuable Black Ivory to the northern markets. The Sultan of
Zanzibar continued to assure the British Consul that he heartily
sympathised with England in her desire to abolish slavery, and to allow
his officials, for a "consideration," to prosecute the slave-trade to
any extent t