Harry!" he exclaimed, looking at me hard. "I am delighted to see
you my boy. The negro sailor told me that there was a young Englishman
on board, but I did not expect to find you. You will be welcome on
board the `Triton,' and if you have a fancy for continuing at sea, I
think the captain will be able to enter you as a supernumerary, and get
you regularly appointed when we return to England."

I told him that above all things it was what I should like.

I now accompanied him to the "Triton," carrying with us the surviving
officers of the slaver. They were treated with scant ceremony, but
without any undue harshness, on board, and berthed together in a cabin
run up on the lower deck. I was, however, able to speak a good word for
the officer who had treated me kindly, and been the means of saving my
life, and I was pleased to hear the captain thank him, and afterwards
the officers, to show their sense of his conduct, invited him to mess
with them. He declined doing so, however. He afterwards told my cousin
Jack that in consequence of the scenes he had witnessed he had resolved
to have nothing more to do with the slave trade.

"It was a great temptation," he said. "I expected to make my fortune in
a short time, and that induced me to engage in the accursed traffic."

The corvette now took the schooner in tow. As soon as the sea was calm
enough hands were sent on board her to rig jury-masts, and a course was
steered for Sierra Leone. The slaver, as may be supposed, was
condemned, the slaves liberated, and the whole of them settled in the
colony. Paul entered on board the "Triton," and I was placed as a
midshipman on her quarter-deck.

We cruised for a short time longer on the coast, and captured another
slaver, and then, as the corvette had been her due time on the station,
she was ordered home.

Jack, from having been at sea, had not heard of the misfortunes of my
family.

As soon as the ship was paid off he insisted on accompanying me and Paul
back to Liverpool. We reached the house where I had left my sisters
under Mammy's care. Flowers bloomed before the windows, and there was
an air of neatness and comfort about the little abode which looked very
pleasing.

I begged Jack and Paul to remain outside while I went in to prepare the
inmates for their arrival. Mammy opened the door. She seized me in her
arms the moment she saw me, and I did not at all mind the kisses she
bestowed on my cheeks, though