I, so as to
bring him up to the scratch without delay; for, when Jim once got on the
moralising or sentimental tack, he generally ended by getting angry with
everybody and everything around him; and when he got angry, there was an
end to his stories for that day at least.

"All right, your honour," said the old fellow, calming down at once into
his usual serenity again, and giving his quid another shift as he braced
himself well up against the old barge, on the half-deck of which I was
seated with my legs dangling down--"All right, your honour! If it's a
yarn you're after, why I had best weigh anchor at once and make an
offing, or else we shan't be able to see a handspike afore us!"

"Heave ahead, Jim!" said I impatiently; "you are as long as a three-
decker in getting under way!"

With this encouragement, he cleared his throat with his customary
hoarse, choking sort of cough, like an old raven, and commenced his
narrative without any further demur.

"It's more'n twenty years now since I left the service--ay, thirty years
would be more like it; and almost my very last cruise was on the West
African station. I had four years of it, and I recollect it well; for,
before I left the blessed, murdering coast, with its poisonous lagoons
covered with thick green slime, and sickly smells, and burning sands, I
seed a sight there that I shall never forget as long as I live, and
which would make me recklect Afrikey well enough if nothing else would!"

"That's right, Jim, fire away!" said I, settling myself comfortably on
my seat to enjoy the yarn. "What was it that you saw?"

"Steady! Let her go easy, your honour; I'm a-coming to that soon
enough. It was in the old _Amphitrite_ I was at the time--she's broken-
up and burnt for firewood long ago, poor old thing!--and we was a-lying
in the Bight of Benin, alongside of a slaver which we had captured the
day before off Whydah. She was a Brazilian schooner with nearly five
hundred wretched creatures on board, so closely packed that you could
not find space enough to put your foot fairly on her deck in any place.
The slaves had only been a night on board her; but the stench was so
awful, from so many unfortunate niggers being squeezed so tightly
together like herrings in a barrel, and under a hot sun too, that we
were longing to send the schooner away to Sierra Leone, and get rid of
the horrid smell, which was worse than the swamps ashore! Well, I was
in the morning watch af