waves, and round it were the
boat-boys with their loincloths girded, ready to start; so I clambered
into the stern, or rather--for the boat was shaped alike at stem and
stern--the end from which the steersman, or _patrao_, used his long oar.
With a shout the boys laid hold of the sides of the boat, and the next
moment it was dancing on the spent waves next to the beach. The patrao
kept its head steady, and the boys jumped in and seized the oars, and
began pulling with a will, standing up to their stroke. Slowly the
heavy craft gathered way, and approached a dark and unbroken roller that
hastened toward the beach. Then the patrao shouted to the crew, and they
lay on their oars, and the wave with a roar burst right in front of the
boat, sending the spray of its crest high above our heads.

"_Rema! rema forca!_" ("Row strongly!") now shouted the patrao, speaking
Portuguese, as mostly all African coast natives do; and the crew gave
way. The next roller we had to meet in its strength; and save for the
steady force of the patrao's oar, I believe it would have tossed us
aside and we would have been swept under its curving wall of water. As
it was, the good boat gave a mighty bound as it felt its force, and its
stem pitched high into the air as it slid down its broad back into the
deep.

Another and yet another wave were passed, and we could now see them
breaking behind us, shutting out the beach from view. Then the last
roller was overcome, and there was nothing but the long heave of the
deep sea to contend against. Presently we arrived at the steamer, whose
side towered above us--an iron wall.

A shout came to me, pitching and lurching with the boat far below, "Come
on board at once." But to come on board was only to be done by watching
a chance as the boat rose on the top of a roller. Taking such a one, I
seized the side-ropes, swung a moment in mid-air, and the next was on
the streamer's clean white deck. Before me stood a tall man with black
hair and whiskers and dark piercing eyes, who asked me if I was the
agent for Flint Brothers. I answered that the agent was on shore, and
that I was his assistant. Whereupon he informed me that he had been
appointed by the firm to liquidate all their stations and businesses on
the coast, and "he would be obliged by my getting his luggage into the
boat." This was said in a peremptory sort of way, as if he had spoken to
a servant; and very much against the grain I obeyed his orders.