.
So, telling Elsie to compose herself and go off to sleep again, as
everything was going on all right and there was nothing to be alarmed
about, beyond the snoring of Monsieur and Madame Boisson at the further
end of the cabin, I, feeling greatly relieved, returned on deck.

"I looked round for Cato at once, naturally, for our forces were not so
strong that one would not be missed, especially such a one as he!

"But my faithful negro was nowhere in sight! Captain Alphonse said,
too, he had not seen him during my absence below, nor indeed, for some
time prior to my going down to the cabin.

"I then searched the wheel-house aft without discovering him.

"`Cato!' I called out, `where are you? Come here immediately!'

"My poor servant did not answer, but that black fiend, the pseudo
`marquis' advanced from the forepart of the deck, sheltering himself,
you may be sure, from my aim in the rear of the windlass bitts, which
were in a line between us.

"`You will have to call louder,' he cried with a mocking laugh like that
of a hyena, and full of devilish glee. `I assure you, much louder, my
friend, before that spy slave of yours will ever be able to answer you
again!'

"Heavens! I feared the worst then. Poor Cato! They had caught him
reconnoitring.

"`What have you done with him, you son of Satan?' I yelled out, full of
rage and anger, and with a terrible foreboding. `If you have hurt a
hair of his head I will make you pay dearly for it, I can tell you, you
fiend!'

"The malicious, murdering wretch only replied to my threat with another
mocking laugh, which his companions echoed, as if enjoying a joke, while
I noticed them dragging at a shapeless mass from the forecastle
forwards.

"`Kick the carrion aft!' I heard the inhuman brute say to his
followers. `Let the "white trash" see the dog's carcass! He will then
believe what I have said, Name of God! and know what is in store for
himself!'

"My God! Senor Applegarth and you, gentlemen, I can hardly tell you
what followed. It is all too horrible.

"The sight of what I saw will haunt me to my grave!

"For the shapeless mass I had observed slowly raised itself up from the
deck, and I saw that it was my poor Cato. The savages had hacked the
unfortunate man to pieces with their knives!

"He recognised me, poor creature, and appeared to try to speak, but only
made an inarticulate noise between a sob and a groan that rings in my
ears now, while the b