hat slave parties attacked villages and carried off the
inhabitants.

At such points the minstrel's voice became low and thrilling, while his
audience grew suddenly earnest, opened their eyes, frowned, and showed
their teeth; but as soon as the subject was changed the feeling seemed
to die away. It was only old memories that had been awakened, for no
slavers had passed through their country for some time past, though
rumours of an attack on a not very distant tribe had recently reached
and greatly alarmed them.

Thus they passed the afternoon, and when the cool of the evening drew on
a dance was proposed, seconded, and carried unanimously.

They were about to begin when a man was seen running down the path
leading to the village at a speed which proved him to be the bearer of
tidings. In a few minutes he burst into the midst of them with glaring
eyeballs and labouring chest--for he had run fast, though not far, and
told his news in rapid short sentences--to the effect that a band of
slavers, led by Portuguese, were on their way to the valley, within a
mile or so of it, even while he spoke; that he thought the leader was
Marizano; and that they were _armed with the loud-sounding guns_!

The consternation consequent on this news was universal, and there was
good ground for it, because Marizano was a well-known monster of
cruelty, and his guns had rendered him invincible hitherto, wherever he
went, the native spear and bow being utterly useless in the hands of men
who, however courageous, were shot down before they could come within
arrow-range of their enemies.

It is the custom of the slave-dealers, on going into the interior for
the purpose of procuring slaves, to offer to buy them from such tribes
as are disposed to sell. This most of the tribes are willing to do.
Fathers do not indeed, sell their own children, or husbands their wives,
from preference, but chiefs and head-men are by no means loath to get
rid of their criminals in this way--their bad stock, as it were, of
black ivory. They also sell orphans and other defenceless ones of their
tribes, the usual rate of charge being about two or three yards of
calico for a man, woman, or child.

But the Arab slave-dealer sometimes finds it difficult to procure enough
of "cattle" in this way to make up a band sufficiently large to start
with for the coast because he is certain to lose four out of every five,
at the _lowest estimate_, on his journey down. The dro