ncealment. I remonstrated with him upon this desecration of the
colours that he had once fought and hoped to win fame under; but of
course my remonstrance was quite useless, the rascal only laughed at me.

Having arrived within the above-named distance of the ship, Mendouca
ordered the sweeps to be laid in, and the slaves to be driven below and
secured. This done, to my disgust his next order was to hoist out the
boats--of which the _Francesca_, unlike most slavers, carried three; and
as soon as they were in the water, the entire crew were armed, and the
whole of them, except my especial enemy, Jose, and an Englishman--a very
quiet, inoffensive fellow, whom I was surprised to find among a crew of
such ruffians--were ordered down over the side. This completely upset
my plans, for, of course, the only way now of reaching the stranger was
by means of the boats, or by swimming; and while I would gladly have
gone in one of the boats, and taken my chance of reaching the stranger's
deck alive, I was not quite prepared to throw away my life in an
unsuccessful effort to swim to the ship--for that is what it would have
meant, the water being alive with sharks that had followed us, day after
day, with alarming persistency, ever since we had taken to the use of
the sweeps. Besides which, I should of course not have been permitted
to make the attempt. Of course, had I chosen to tell a deliberate
falsehood, and declared my readiness to throw in my lot with Mendouca
and his crew, it is possible that I might have been given the command of
one of the boats; but not even for the purpose of effecting my escape
did I consider that such a course would be justifiable. So I had
perforce to remain where I was, under the jealously watchful eye of
Jose, if not of the Englishman also; Mendouca asking me ironically, as
he went down the side last of all, whether I had no letters for home or
elsewhere that I would like to forward by means of the stranger.

Now that the sweeps were laid in, and their everlasting grind and roll
and splash were no longer heard, the silence of nature seemed so
profound as to be almost awe-inspiring; there was literally not a sound
to be heard save such as were caused by human agency, such as the
movements and voices of the men in the boats, or the gasping sighs of
the unhappy negroes cooped up below in the stifling hold. Occasionally
a slight murmur of sound reached us from the distant ship; the call of
an office