iggers, poor
wretches. We'll suppose them saved, along with the consuls,
missionaries, and such-like. Well, that's a loss of somewhere about
83,000 scoundrels,--a gain we might call it, but for the sake of
argument we'll call it a loss. On the other side of the account you
have 30,000 niggers--fair average specimens of humanity--saved from
slavery, besides something like 150,000 more saved from death by war and
starvation, the results of the slave-trade; 83,000 from 150,000 leaves
67,000! The loss, you see, would be more than wiped off, and a handsome
balance left at the world's credit the very first year! To say nothing
of the opening up of legitimate commerce to one of the richest countries
on earth, and the consequent introduction of Christianity."

The captain paused to take breath. Yoosoof shrugged his shoulders, and
a brief silence ensued, which was happily broken, not by a recurrence to
the question of slavery, but by the entrance of a slave. He came in
search of Yoosoof for the purpose of telling him that his master wished
to speak with him. As the slave's master was one of the wealthy Banyans
just referred to, Yoosoof rose at once, and, apologising to the captain
for quitting him so hurriedly, left that worthy son of Neptune to cool
his indignation in solitude.

Passing through several dirty streets the slave led the slaver to a
better sort of house in a more salubrious or, rather, less pestilential,
part of the town. He was ushered into the presence of an elderly man of
quiet, unobtrusive aspect.

"Yoosoof," said the Banyan in Arabic, "I have been considering the
matter about which we had some conversation yesterday, and I find that
it will be convenient for me to make a small venture. I can let you
have three thousand dollars."

"On the old terms?" asked Yoosoof.

"On the old terms," replied the merchant. "Will you be ready to start
soon?"

Yoosoof said that he would, that he had already completed the greater
part of his preparations, and that he hoped to start for the interior in
a week or two.

"That is well; I hope you may succeed in doing a good deal of business,"
said the merchant with an amiable nod and smile, which might have led an
ignorant onlooker to imagine that Yoosoof's business in the interior was
work of a purely philanthropic nature!

"There is another affair, which, it has struck me, may lie in your way,"
continued the merchant. "The British consul is, I am told, anxious