ld have been
about, while the elder shook their heads sagely.

"Ah," more than one said, "it has always been the same since the
revolution; these Yankees have been too much for us. There's something
in the American air that sharpens their brains."

Then old Dempsey, the boatswain, who had heard pretty well all that the
captain had said, chewed it over, digested it, and gave it voice as if
it was something new, to first one knot of listeners and then another,
ending with the two midshipmen.

"You see, Mr Murray, and you too, Mr Roberts, it was like this. That
schooner had just started for the West Injies with a full load of
niggers, when she sighted the _Seafowl_ and knowed she was a king's ship
looking after a prize."

"How could the Yankee skipper know that?" said Murray. "He could only
get just a glimpse before we were hidden by the fog."

"Cut of the jib, sir--cut of the jib," said the old man. "What else
could he think? 'Sides, Yankee slaving skippers have got consciences,
same as other men."

"Rubbish, Mr Dempsey!" said Roberts contemptuously.

"Course they are, sir--worst of rubbish, as you say, but there's bad
consciences as well as good consciences, and a chap like him, carrying
on such work as his, must be always ready to see a king's ship in every
vessel he sights. But well, young gentlemen, as I was a-saying, he
sights us, and there was no chance for him with us close on his heels
but dodgery."

"Dodgery, Mr Dempsey?" said Roberts.

"Yes, sir; Yankee tricks. Of course he couldn't fight, knowing as he
did that it meant a few round shot 'twixt and 'tween wind and water, and
the loss of his craft. So he says to himself, `what's to be done?' and
he plays us that trick. Sends his schooner up the river while he puts
off in that there lugger and pretends to be a injyrubber grower. That
ought to have been enough to set the skipper and Mr Anderson thinking
something was wrong, but that's neither here nor there. He pretends
that he was a highly respectable sort of fellow, when all the time he
was a sorter human fox, and lures, as the captain calls it, our sloop
into this sort of a branch of the big river where the current runs wrong
way on because part of the waters of the great river discharges
theirselves. And then what follows?"

"Why, we were carried by the strange current into the muddy shallow and
nearly capsized, Mr Dempsey, while we had the satisfaction of seeing
the slaver sail away wi