or not he was to obtain freedom; at least such was for a moment
Hans' idea. Concentrating all his attention and energy towards
defeating the captain, he approached him cautiously, his handspike in
readiness for a blow, when having reached nearly the required distance,
something flashed before Hans' eyes, a noose settled over his shoulders,
and before he could understand what had occurred he was jerked to the
deck, and there pinioned by half a dozen sailors.

Protesting in alternate Dutch and English, Hans was dragged down below,
and placed in irons alongside of some Africans, whose nationality or
language he was unacquainted with. At first Hans supposed that his
words had been unintelligible to those to whom he spoke, but after some
hours a sailor came down, and seeing him said--

"You speak Ingleese."

"Yes," said Hans; "I am a Dutch farmer: why am I made a prisoner like
this?"

"Captain pay silber for you; that why," said the sailor. "If he get
more silber from you, he let you go, not without."

"I have no silver to give him here," said Hans; "but if he could send
any one with me to Natal, I could procure plenty of silver, enough to
pay him back more than he gave for me."

"Ah! captain no like go to Natal; English gun-ships sometimes there; he
no go there; no, he sell you in America."

With this remark the man left, and Hans was now alone amidst a crowd;
for the black men around him had no sympathy with him, and did not
understand a word of the language he spoke.

Hans had now time to look around at the scene in which he was a
partaker. At least two hundred negroes were crowded together between
decks. There was no attempt at cleanliness, and the foul state of all
around convinced Hans that a fearful mortality would shortly overtake
the negroes. The heat was suffocating, and the ventilation scarcely
perceptible. A hot steamy atmosphere pervaded the hold of the vessel,
and rose from it as from a furnace. In such a situation Hans looked
back longingly to his free life in the forest and on the plains of
Africa, and he reflected, like many people, on the immense value of that
which he had lost, and which he had not half appreciated when he
possessed it. "What would I not give," said Hans, "even to be the
fore-looper of a waggon, so that I might see the light of day, and
breathe the fresh air of heaven! Oh, Bernhard, and you, Victor, how
happy are you, and how little you know of the sad fate of Hans! Poo