ask you to make me the only return in your
power by assisting me in my difficulty."

"Before I give you any answer to that," said I, "I must ask you to
explicitly define and accurately set forth the nature of the assistance
that you desire me to render."

"Certainly," said Mendouca. "All that I ask of you at present is to
relieve me by taking charge of a watch, and assisting me to navigate the
ship. With regard to the latter, I consider myself capable of taking
the ship anywhere, and have as much confidence in myself as a man ought
to have; but `to err is human,' and it increases one's confidence, and
confers a feeling of security, to have some one to check one's
calculations. And as to the watch, unless you will consent to keep one
for me, I shall be compelled to keep the deck night and day. Now, it is
no great thing that I am asking of you _in return for your life_; will
you do it?"

"Give me half-an-hour to consider the matter, and you shall then have my
reply," said I.

"So be it," he answered. And then the matter ended, for the moment.

It was a question that I found it by no means easy to decide. Here was
I, an officer in the service of a country pledged to do its utmost to
suppress the abominable slave-traffic, actually invited to assist in the
navigation of a ship avowedly engaged not only in that traffic but--
according to the acknowledgment of her captain--also in, at least,
occasional acts of piracy! What was I to do? On the one hand, I was
fully determined to do nothing that could be construed into even the
semblance of tacit acquiescence in Mendouca's lawless vocation; while,
on the other, I undoubtedly owed my life to the man, and therefore
shrank from the idea of behaving in a manner that might appear churlish.
Moreover, it appeared to me that by rendering the trifling service
demanded of me, I should find myself in a position to very greatly
ameliorate in many ways the condition of the unhappy blacks down in the
dark, noisome hold. The end of it all was, therefore, that at the
expiration of the half-hour I had determined--perhaps weakly and
foolishly--to accede to Mendouca's request. I accordingly went to him
and said--

"Senor Mendouca, I have considered your request, and have decided to
accede to it upon certain conditions."

"Name them," answered Mendouca.

"They are these," said I. "First, that my services shall be strictly
confined to the keeping of a watch and the checking of