ng
your pardon, sir, if I might ask a favour for me and the men--"

"Yes; what is it?"

"Don't be too hard on us, sir, in the way of orders."

"What do you mean? I won't ask you to do anything I shall not try to do
myself."

"Oh, it ain't that, Mr Vandean, sir. We know you for a fine, plucky
young gent, as we'd follow anywhere. What I meant was, don't be too
stiff with the men in the way o' stopping 'em. We don't want to kill
any of the beggars, but we should like to give it 'em as hard as we
can."

"Do, Tom," whispered Mark, excitedly. "The beasts! the wretches! the
unmanly brutes! Oh, how can those poor blacks be such pitiful,
miserable cowards, and not rise up and kill the villains who seize them
and treat them in such a way!"

"I'll tell you, sir. It's because they've been beaten. I don't mean
larruped with a stick, but beaten in some fight, and made prisoners up
the country. Since then they've been chained and driven and starved and
knocked about till all the man's gone out of 'em, and made 'em so that
they haven't got a spark o' pluck left. You take 'em and treat 'em
well, and it all comes back, like it did to poor old Soup and poor old
Taters. They was fast growing into good, stiff, manly sort o'
messmates, with nothing wrong in 'em but their black skins, and I don't
see as that's anything agin a man. All a matter o' taste, sir. Dessay
the black ladies thinks they're reg'lar han'some, and us and our white
skins ugly as sin."

"We must have that schooner, Tom Fillot," said Mark, after a short
pause.

"You've got it, sir, and we'll sail her up to the port with flying
colours. You'll see."

"I hope you'll turn out a true prophet, Tom."

"So do I, sir, and I'm just going to whisper to the boys what you say,
and then I'm thinking it'll soon be time to go on board and kick those
chaps over the side."

"No killing, Tom."

"No, sir. You trust us. We won't go quite so far as that," said the
sailor grimly; and he crept away to begin whispering to his messmates,
while Mark sat straining his eyes in the direction of the schooner, hot,
excited, but without the slightest sensation of shrinking. This had
given place to an intense longing for action, which made his heart beat
with a heavy throb, while, from time to time, there was a strange
swelling in his throat, as he thought of the agony of the poor creatures
pent-up in the stifling heat of the schooner's hold, some of them,
perhaps, dying,