vessel, that another of his best hands was rendered useless--for several
weeks to come at all events--by a bad attack of fever, which might very
possibly spread through the ship. He returned on board after nightfall,
still more provoked and vexed. He had met with the greatest difficulty
in his attempts to fill the places of his missing men. There were, as
the reader has been told, very few whites on the island, and none of
them were sailors. The blacks were very unwilling to engage, except
upon exorbitant terms, and hardly one of those with whom he spoke
appeared good for anything. He had at one time all but given up the
matter in despair. But late in the afternoon he was accosted by a
dark-complexioned man, lean and sinewy as a bloodhound, who informed him
that the vessel in which he traded between the South African ports and
the West Indian Islands, had been driven on the Cape Verdes and totally
wrecked. But the crew had escaped, he said, and were willing to engage
with Captain Wilmore for the voyage to Calcutta.

The captain hesitated. He had little doubt that the lost vessel had
been a slaver, and he had an instinctive abhorrence of all engaged in
that horrible traffic. Still there seemed no other hope of successfully
prosecuting the voyage, and after all it would be a companionship of
only a few months. He resolved to make one effort more to obtain less
questionable help, and if that should fail, to accept the offer.
Desiring the stranger to bring his men to the quay in an hour's time, he
once more entered the town, and made inquiries at all the houses to
which sailors were likely to resort. His success was no better than it
had been before, and he was obliged to close with the proposal of the
foreign captain. He liked the looks of the crew even less than those of
their captain. There were eighteen of them, however, and all strong
serviceable fellows, if they chose to work. He must hope for the best;
but even the best did not appear very promising; and if the Yankee
captain, who had been the prime cause of the mischief, had been
delivered into his hands at that moment, it is to be feared he would
have met with small mercy.

In this frame of mind he regained the _Hooghly_, and shortly after his
arrival was informed by the first lieutenant of the escapade of the
three boys, with the gratuitous addition that he had himself delivered
them the captain's message--that no one was to be permitted to leave t