ntend making slaves of us."

"That at least," quietly assented Harry.

"Sartin," said the sailor. "They've let me know as much a'ready. There
be two captains to their crew; one's the smoke-dried old sinner as
brought yer in; the other a big nayger, as black as the ace o' spades.
You saw the swab? He's inside the tent here. He's my master. The two
came nigh quarrelling about which should have me, and settled it by some
sort o' a game they played wi' balls of kaymal's dung. The black won me;
an' that's why I'm kep by his tent. Mother av Moses! Only to think of a
British tar being the slave o' a sooty nayger! I never thought it wud a
come to this."

"Where do you think they'll take us, Bill?"

"The Lord only knows, an' whether we're all bound for the same port."

"What! you think we may be separated?"

"Be ma sang, Maister Colin, I ha'e ma fears we wull!"

"What makes you think so?"

"Why, ye see, as I've telt ye, I'm booked to ship wi' the
black,--'sheik' I've heerd them ca' him. Well: from what I ha'e seed and
heerd, there's nae doot they're gaein' to separate an' tak different
roads. I did na ken muckle o' what they sayed, but I could mak oot two
words I hae often heerd while cruisin' in the Gulf o' Guinea. They are
the names o' two great toons, a lang way up the kintry,--Timbuctoo and
Sockatoo. They are negro toons; an' for that reezun I ha'e a suspeshun
my master's bound to one or other o' the two ports."

"But why do you think that we are to be taken elsewhere?" demanded Harry
Blount.

"Why, because, Master 'Arry, you belong to the hold sheik, as is plainly
a Harab, an' oose port of hentry lies in a different direction,--that be
to the northart."

"It is all likely enough," said Colin; "Bill's prognostication is but
too probable."

"Why, ye see, Maister Colin, they are only land sharks who ha'e got hold
o' us. They're too poor to keep us; an' wull be sure to sell us
somewhere, an' to somebody that ha'e got the tocher to gie for us.
That's what they'll do wi' us poor bodies."

"I hope," said Terence, "they'll not part us. No doubt slavery will be
hard enough to bear under any circumstances; but harder if we have to
endure it alone. Together, we might do something to alleviate one
another's lot. I hope we shall not be separated!"

To this hope all the others made a sincere response; and the
conversation came to an end. They who had been carrying it on, worn out
by fatigue, and watchfulness long protra