e surlily out of the darkness.

"Don't you be sarcy 'fore your orficers, Bob, or there may be a row,"
said Tom Fillot, sharply.

"I can't see no orficers, messmate," said the same voice.

"That'll do, Bob Stepney. That's cheek. Tim Dunning."

"That's me."

"All here, sir, and able to use their tongues. Fisties, too, I dessay."

"The two blacks!" said Mark, quickly, and with a feeling of thankfulness
to find matters so far well.

"Ay, ay, sir. Thought I'd give the white uns a chance first," said Tom
Fillot. "Now, you two, try and understand plain English. Answer to
your names. Soup."

There was no reply.

"Taters."

Still no reply.

"Not here?" said Mark, anxiously.

"Don't sabbee, p'raps, sir. I'll try again."

"Taters."

No answer.

"Soup."

No reply.

"Soup and Taters."

"Aren't aboard," growled several voices in chorus. "I'm 'fraid the Soup
and Taters is done, sir," said Tom Fillot in a low voice.

"Oh, man, man, how can you try to joke at a time like this!" cried Mark,
angrily.

"'Tarn't no joke, sir," cried Tom Fillot. "I'm sorry as you are, for
they were getting to be two good messmates. They'd on'y got minds like
a couple o' boys, but the way in which they took to their chew o' 'baccy
was wonderful to behold."

"The men must have overlooked them," cried Mark. "They were below
asleep."

"Nay, sir, they didn't care to go below. They was both asleep curled up
forrard under the bulwarks. They'd had so much being below, that they
shied at going down a hatchway."

"Then what do you think about them, Tom?" cried Mark, excitedly.

There was no reply.

"Why don't you answer, man?"

"Didn't like to tell you, sir," said Tom Fillot, quietly.

"Tell me what you are thinking at once."

"Well, sir, I thinks same as my mates do here. Them piratical sharks o'
slavers didn't dare to be too hard on us because they knowed if they was
ketched arterwards it meant a bit o' hemp round the neck, and a dance on
nothing at all in the air; but when it comes to blacks, they're no more
account to them than blackberries as grows on brambles. Strikes me they
give them poor chaps a crack o' the head apiece, and knocked 'em down,
same as they did we, but they wouldn't take the trouble to carry them
and pitch them into a boat. They just chucked them overboard at once."

"Oh, impossible!" cried Mark, excitedly. "They could not be such
brutes."

"What! not them, sir?" cried Tom Fillot, ind