man. At first they thought that I was a black
man, for I had forgotten to rub the black off my face, and afterwards
had more difficulty in getting that white than any other part of me. I
could very easily talk with them, as I had learned to speak the lingo in
very common use along the coast in those parts.

"The dhow was, as I expected, a slaver. She had seventy or eighty poor
wretches stowed closely together in her hold, and was going to take them
to an island in the north of Madagascar, where they were to be shipped
on board a French vessel bound for some French island or other. Soon
after I got on board a breeze sprang up, and the dhow made sail. We had
been at sea four or five days when a large schooner hove in sight. The
Arabs took her for an English man-of-war, and made all sail to escape.
As I looked at her, however, I felt pretty sure that she was no other
than a villainous piratical craft which had been cruising about in these
waters for some time--shipping a cargo of slaves when she could do so
easily, robbing other vessels of them when they came in her way, and
committing acts of piracy on every opportunity. In either case the
Arabs had every prospect of losing their cargo. If she should prove to
be a man-of-war our lives would be safe; but if the pirate, as I
suspected, her crew would very likely murder us all, and sink the dhow,
on the principle that dead men tell no tales.

"As soon as I hinted my suspicions to the Arabs they made all sail, and
stood to the northward in the hopes of escaping. The weather had before
been threatening. A heavy gale sprung up, which increased every moment
in fury. Still the Arabs held on. The schooner came after us at a
great rate. Night was coming on: we hoped to escape in the darkness.
On we drove. Where we were going no one seemed to know. The little
vessel plunged and tore through the fast rising seas, every timber in
her creaking and groaning. The wind howled, the waters roared, and the
poor wretches below cried out and shrieked in concert.

"After some hours of this terrible work I felt a tremendous shock: I was
thrown down flat on my face. Another sea came up and washed every soul
off the deck. The dhow was on the rocks. Scarcely a minute had passed
before she began to break up under my feet, I cannot describe the
terrible cries of the poor slaves as the sea rushed down upon them. I
had seized a spar, and a sea rolling on lifted me up and carried me