tances were
favourable; if the weather was bad, the hatches were put on and kept on
until a favourable change occurred; and in the case of a gale, of wind
the unhappy slaves have been known to have been kept without food or
water for forty-eight hours, or even longer, simply because it was
impossible to give them either. Of course in such a case the mortality
was simply frightful, it being no uncommon occurrence for a slaver to
lose more than half her cargo in a single gale; this loss, be it
understood, arising not so much from the want of food as from simple
suffocation through long confinement in the dreadful atmosphere of the
unventilated hold. And when a slaver happened to be pursued by a
man-o'-war, the sufferings of the slaves were almost as bad, for in such
a case the crew seldom troubled themselves to attend to the wants of
their helpless prisoners, devoting all their thoughts and energies to
the task of effecting their own escape. But as I shall have more to say
upon this subject further on, I will not enlarge upon it here.

Ryan having rejoined his prize, and there being a nice little easterly
breeze blowing, the order was given for all three craft to weigh and
proceed down the creek; the captain being rather anxious lest the
slavers should return and take us at a disadvantage now that our force
was divided. Nothing untoward occurred, however, and in a short time we
were all proceeding down the creek, with the second lieutenant in his
schooner as pilot.

And here it may be as well to enumerate the few particulars relative to
our prizes that the exigencies of the narrative have hitherto not
enabled me to give. To begin with the brig: she was, as Lobo had
stated, the _Mercedes_ of Havana; a truly beautiful craft, measuring
fully five hundred tons, very flat in the floor, and so exceedingly
shallow that even in her sea-going trim, with everything on board as
when we took her, she only drew a trifle over eight feet of water aft.
But what she lacked in depth she more than made up for in beam, her deck
being half as spacious again as that of the _Barracouta_. She was a
perfectly lovely model, and sailed like a witch, as we soon discovered.
This was not to be wondered at, however, for in addition to the
beautiful, easy grace of her flowing lines, her scantling was
extraordinarily light--less than half that of the _Barracouta_--and all
her chief fastenings were _screws_! With so light a scantling she of
cours