e signs that I would try and save her, and I wrapped her up
in some shawls which had been brought from below. The officers and crew
were, I saw, trying to lower the boats. Whether they succeeded or not I
could not tell, for the seas were sweeping over the ship, and I knew too
that she was sinking, as the dhow had done. While I was standing by the
lady's side, looking for one of the boats into which to help her, a huge
sea separated us, carrying me off my legs, and I found myself struggling
amid the foaming waves. I had caught sight of a dark object floating
near, far larger than a boat. By what means I know not I reached it.
It was part of the wreck of a dhow or of some other vessel against which
our ship had struck. I climbed upon it with my little charge, whose
head I had managed to keep above water. She was crying out for her
mamma. I knew that name. I tried to console her. For some time voices
reached my ear, but whether they came from the boats or the deck of the
ship I could not tell; I guessed, too truly, that she had gone down, for
when morning at last dawned neither she nor the boats were to be seen.
I feared that the little girl would sink from hunger and thirst, for I
remembered what I had endured in the canoe; but scarcely had the sun
risen than I saw a ship approaching, and you, Massa Pack, know the
rest.'

"It was my ship which Tom saw coming. Of course we soon had him and his
little charge on board. You will understand that I have given what I
may call a translation of his yarn. It was spun, as it were, in a
number of shreds, and I have put them together; still I have expressed
his sentiments, and have not adorned his tale by adding to it anything
he did not say. Many a time did he melt into tears as he spoke of his
own child and the love he bore him, and it would be difficult to picture
fully all the horrors he endured during his journey overland and his
voyage in the slave dhow. To send him back to his home I knew was
impossible, he would have been retaken by the first Arab party he fell
in with, or been murdered as he was trying to pass through the territory
of any hostile tribe. He therefore cheerfully remained on board my
ship, and has stayed with me ever since, pretty well reconciled to his
lot, his whole soul wrapped up in Mary, who has taken the place in his
affections of the son from whom he has, he believes, for ever been
separated, though he is devoted also to my sister, and to N