ks, but easy to grasp the meaning of their gestures, and as Jack's
attention was caught by the eager conversation going on, he pretty well
saw that those who had been waiting had seen danger, for they kept on
pointing and making other signs, the end being that the prisoners were
hurried down to the edge of the water, and pushed toward the great
canoe.

"All right!" cried Ned angrily. "I ain't a sack of oats: I can get in.
Don't chuck a fellow into the tub."

Expostulation was useless, and the two were thrust down in the bottom;
the blacks hurried in and took their places, each man seizing his
paddle, and in perfect silence they began to dip their blades into the
smooth water, the huge canoe began to move very slowly, and then by
degrees faster, the men paddling almost without a splash.

"The _Star_ must be pretty close at hand, Mr Jack," said Ned, as they
glided at last out of the little dark river into the bright, golden
waters of the lagoon, "and they know it; that's how I take all their
play-acting jigging about to mean."

"Yes, Ned, that's it. Oh, if we could only see her, or one of the
boats! Which way are they going?"

"Well, Mr Jack," said Ned grimly, "I don't like to tell you; but it
seems to me that we're off on a voyage to nigger-land, and yet the
newspapers say that slavery's nearly done away with now."

"Slavery?" said Jack, and his heart sank within him. "Oh, Ned, that
would be awful."

"Better than being made beef and mutton of, Mr Jack. But don't you be
down-hearted; p'r'aps we may be together after all, and if we are, there
ain't nothing I won't do to make it easier for you, sir, and we'll cut
and run, as the sailors say, some day. Ups and downs in life we see;
right-tooral-looral-looral-lee. There's only heads and tails to a
penny, and if you spin it up in the air, it sometimes comes down one
side, and sometimes the other. Well, it's come down wrong way for us
this time, next time p'r'aps it may come down right. If it don't, well,
you've got too much pluck in you to howl about it: so have I. Here, I
don't care; let's look at the bright side of things."

"Oh, Ned, how can we at a time like this?" groaned Jack.

"Easy, sir. It's all adventures, and it might be a jolly deal worse."

"How?"

"Why, this might be a poor old leaky canoe as wasn't safe, and all the
time it's a fizzer. See how it goes. Then we might have had a shabby,
common-looking crew; but I will say it for them, spi