ive craft, I never knew.
They were some days unloading and stripping the ship, and they had big
quarrels over the division of the spoil. I think the fellows with boats
did our natives out of their share, beyond what fell into their hands
when they first attacked us. However, at last it was all done; then two
chiefs came and had a look at us, and one took me and Tom Longstaff,
and another took the other two.

"We had not done badly for eating while we were on shore, for there was
several barrels of pork and biscuits among the lot we had landed, and we
were free to take as much as we wanted. The other bales and boxes were
all broken open and the contents made up into packets, and Tom and I and
about sixty niggers, each with as much as he could stagger under,
started away from the shore. It wasn't a long march, for their village
lay only about six miles away. We knew it could not be far, because the
women and children had come down to the beach two or three hours after
the fight was over. We stopped here about a month, and then one morning
the chief and four of his men started off with Tom and me. We made three
days' marches, such marches as I never want to do again. Tom and I did
our best to keep up; but the last day we were quite worn out, and if it
hadn't been that they thumped us with their spears and prodded us up, we
should never have done it.

"The place we got to was a deal bigger than the first village. We were
left outside the biggest hut with the four fellows to guard us, while
the chief went inside. Presently he came out again with a chap quite
different to himself. He was brown instead of being black, and dressed
quite different; and having been trading up in the Persian Gulf I knew
him to be an Arab. He looked us over as if we had been bullocks he
intended to buy, and then went into the hut again. A few minutes later
our chief came out and made signs to us that we belonged to the Arab
now, and then went away with his men, and we never saw him again. We had
an easy time of it for the next week, and then the Arab started with a
number of carriers laden with goods for the interior.

"You would scarcely believe, lads, what we went through on that 'ere
journey. Many a time Tom and I made up our minds to bolt for it; and we
would have done it if we had had the least idea which way to go or how
we were to keep alive on the journey. We had agreed when we started that
we would do our best, and that we would not put