al history
craft before, and he wouldn't believe it. That's what they are here
for, sir, trying to put a stop to the slave trade. We come upon one in
the _Naaera_ once--the nearer and dearer we used to call her, sir. Just
about such a sloop as that is. It wasn't our business, but we boarded
her, the slave ship, I mean, in a calm, and the blackguards aboard of
her showed fight and beat our boat off in trying to get away with their
sweeps. They were making for one of these swampy rivers out eastward,
rowing as hard as they could, and bringing up a lot of the poor niggers
from below to help pull at the sweeps. Sweeps, indeed! Nice sweeps
they were! And if they once got into the river we should have lost
them."

"Well?" said Rodd. "And they beat you back?"

"That they did, sir. Took us quite by surprise. We never thought they
would have the cheek to resist; and we lay off, rubbing our sore ears
and growling and spitting like angry cats, not knowing what to do,
feeling that we should get worse off if we pursued, and ashamed to go
back to face our old man; and just as we were feeling at our worst we
knew that our skipper had been watching us all the time with his glass,
and there was our launch coming full swing, chock-full of men showing
their teeth. That set us all up again, and we were like new men. Round
went our boat's head, and we were off in full pursuit of the slaver, the
lads pulling so hard that we got alongside before the launch could
overtake us, swarmed over her low gunwale, and went at the slaver's crew
tooth and nail, so savage that every man of us showed them the cutlass
practice in fine style, driving them back step by step till if we had
had strength enough we should have driven them overboard or down below;
but they were too strong for us. Put half-a-pound weight in a scale,
sir, if there's a pound in t'other it is too much for it, and so it was
here, sir. We boarded her from the starn, and had driven them right up
into the bows, but being a bit india-rubbery, when they could get no
farther they bounced back on us and we were being driven step by step
along the deck, farther and farther aft, till they gathered theirselves
together with a rush, yelling like demons, and the next thing would have
been that such of us as could stand would have been driven over into our
boat again. But there was a regular hearty British cheer when we least
expected it, for we had forgotten all about our other bo