ng his apprenticeship on a slaver, one
of the many ships sent yearly by the free and philanthropic Americans,
who made immense fortunes by carrying on the slave-trade.

Although this discovery filled Gaston with indignation and shame, he was
prudent enough to conceal his impressions.

His remonstrances, no matter how eloquent, would have made no change in
the opinions of Captain Warth regarding a traffic which brought him
in more than a hundred per cent, in spite of the French and English
cruisers, the damages, sometimes entire loss of cargoes, and many other
risks.

The crew admired Gaston when they learned that he had cut two men into
mince-meat when they were insolent to him; this was the account of
Gaston's affair, as reported to the captain by old Menoul.

Gaston wisely determined to keep on friendly terms with the villains, as
long as he was in their power. To express disapproval of their conduct
would have incurred the enmity of the whole crew, without bettering his
own situation.

He therefore kept quiet, but swore mentally that he would desert on the
first opportunity.

This opportunity, like everything impatiently longed for, came not.

By the end of three months, Gaston had become so useful and popular that
Captain Warth found him indispensable.

Seeing him so intelligent and agreeable, he liked to have him at his own
table, and would spend hours at cards with him or consulting about
his business matters. The mate of the ship dying, Gaston was chosen to
replace him. In this capacity he made two successful voyages to Guinea,
bringing back a thousand blacks, whom he superintended during a trip of
fifteen hundred leagues, and finally landed them on the coast of Brazil.

When Gaston had been with Captain Warth about three years, the Tom Jones
stopped at Rio Janeiro for a month, to lay in supplies. He now decided
to leave the ship, although he had become somewhat attached to the
friendly captain, who was after all a worthy man, and never would have
engaged in the diabolical traffic of human beings, but for his little
angel daughter's sake. He said that his child was so good and beautiful,
that she deserved a large fortune. Each time that he sold a black, he
would quiet any faint qualms of conscience by saying, "It is for little
Mary's good."

Gaston possessed twelve thousand francs, as his share of the profits,
when he landed at Brazil.

As a proof that the slave-trade was repugnant to his nature, he