long enough to slip into his nether garments, and came groping blindly out on deck.

“Phew!” he muttered, as he emerged from the companion; “it’s as dark as the inside of a cow. Where are you, Mr Perry?”

“Here I am, sir; close alongside you,” answered the first luff, stretching out his hand and lightly touching the skipper’s arm. “Yes,” he continued, “it certainly is dark, unusually so; so dark that I am in hopes of keeping our presence a secret from the fellow out yonder until you shall have decided what is to be done.”

“Mr Fortescue tells me that you have not seen anything of him thus far,” remarked the captain. “Whereabout is he, and how far off, do you reckon?”

“Somewhere away in that direction,” indicated the lieutenant, with a flourish of his arm. “As to the distance—well, that is rather difficult to judge. Sound travels far on such a night as this; but I should say that the craft is not more than half a mile distant, or three-quarters, at the utmost.”

“Um!” commented the captain meditatively. “I suppose it is not, by any chance, the craft which we are after, which has slipped out of the river in the darkness, eh?”

“I should scarcely think so, sir,” answered Perry. “A man would literally have to be able to find his way about blindfolded to attempt to run out of the river on such a night as this. No, I am inclined to think that it is some inward-bound craft, becalmed like ourselves. We caught the sound of some order spoken on board her when we first became aware of her presence, and Mr Fortescue here was of opinion that the words used were Spanish, although the distance was too great to enable us to distinguish just what was said.”

“Ay,” responded the skipper; “two out of every three slavers doing business on this coast are either Spaniards or Portuguese. Now, the question is, What are we to do with regard to our unknown friend out yonder? Either she is, or is not, the craft that we are on the look-out for. If she is, we must take her, by hook or by crook, before the sea-breeze sets in and gives her the chance to run away from us; and that means a jaunt in the boats. On the other hand, if she is not the craft that we are after, she is still in all probability a slaver, and in any case will doubtless pay for an overhaul, which again means a boat trip. Therefore, Mr Perry, be good enough to have the hands called, and the boats got into the water as silently as possible. If the men are quick we may be able to get away, and perhaps alongside her, before the dawn breaks. I will take charge of this little pleasure-party myself, and you can stay here and keep house during my absence.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” answered Perry, in tones which clearly betrayed his disappointment at the arrangement come to by the skipper. “I will put matters in hand.”

“Yes, do,” returned the skipper; “and meanwhile I will go and dress. It shall be your turn next time, Perry,” he chuckled, as he turned away to go below again.

“Ay,” grumbled the lieutenant to himself, but audibly enough for me to hear. “Same old yarn—‘your turn next time, Perry.’ This will make the third time running that I have been left behind to ‘keep house,’ but there’s not going to be a fourth, I’ll see to that; it is time that this child stood up for his rights. Now, Mr Fortescue, have the goodness, if you please, to pass the word for all hands to arm and man boats; and to be quiet about it, too, and show no lights.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” I briskly responded, as I turned to hurry away; “I’ll see that our lambs don’t bleat too loudly. And—I suppose—that I may take it for granted that—”

“That you will make one of the ‘pleasure-party’?” interrupted the lieutenant, with a laugh, as he put his disappointment and ill-humour away from him. “Oh, yes, I suppose so. At all events there will be no harm in making your preparations; the captain is pretty certain to take you.”

Still on my bare feet, I hurried forward and found the boatswain.

“That you, Mr Futtock?” I inquired, as I made out his burly form.

“Ay, ay, Mr Fortescue, it’s me, right enough,” was the answer. “I presoom, sir, it’s another boat job, eh? You heard that bell?”

“We did, Mr Futtock; yes, we heard it distinctly, seeing that we don’t ‘caulk’ in our watch on deck,” I retorted. “Yes, it’s another boat affair; so be good enough to have all hands called at once, if you please. And kindly make it your personal business to see that nobody raises his voice, lets anything fall, or otherwise creates row enough to wake the dead. This is going to be a little surprise visit, you understand.”

“Ay, ay, Mr Fortescue, I understands,” answered Futtock, as he moved toward the open hatchway; “I’ll see that the swabs don’t make no noise. The man that raises his voice above a whisper won’t go. That’s all.”

“Just one word more, Mr Futtock,” I hastily interposed, as the boatswain stepped over the coaming to descend the hatchway. “You may do me a favour, if you will. Kindly ask the armourer to pick me out a nice sharp cutlass, if you please. You can bring it on deck with you when you come up.”

To this request the boatswain readily enough assented; and matters being thus far satisfactorily arranged I descended to the cockroach-haunted den wherein we mids. ate and slept, to find that little Tom Copplestone—who shared my watch, and who was a special favourite of mine because of his gentle, genial disposition, and also perhaps because he hailed from the same county as myself—having overheard the conversation between Mr Perry and myself, had already come below and roused the occupants of the place, who, by the smoky rays of a flaring oil lamp that did its best to make the atmosphere quite unendurable, were hastily arraying themselves.

“Murder!” I ejaculated, as I entered the pokey little place and got my first whiff of its close, reeking, smoke-laden atmosphere; “put out that abominable lamp and light a candle or two, somebody, for pity’s sake. How the dickens you fellows can manage to breathe down here I can’t understand. And, boy,” to the messenger outside, “pass the word for Cupid to bring us along some cocoa from the galley.”

“There’s no need,” remarked Nugent, the master’s mate, as he struggled ineffectively to find the left sleeve of his jacket. “The word has already been passed; I passed it myself when Master Cock-robin there,” pointing to Copplestone, “came and roused us out. And, as to candles, I’m afraid we haven’t any; the rats appear to have eaten the last two we had in the locker. However—ah, here comes the cocoa. Put the pot down there, Cupid—never mind if it does soil our beautiful damask table-cloth, we’re going to have it washed next time we go into Sierra Leone. And just see if you can find us a biscuit or two and some butter, will ye, you black angel? Here, avast there,”—as the black was about to retire—“produce our best china breakfast-set before you go, you swab, and pour out the cocoa.”

The black, a herculean Krooboy, picked up when we first arrived on the Coast, and promptly christened “Cupid” by the master’s mate, who, possibly because of sundry disappointments, had developed a somewhat sardonic turn of humour, grinned appreciatively at Nugent’s sorry jest respecting “our best china breakfast-set,” and proceeded to rout out the heterogeneous assortment of delf and tin cups, basins, and plates that constituted the table-equipage of the midshipmen’s berth, poured out a generous allowance of cocoa for each of us, and then departed, with the empty bread-barge, in quest of a supply of ship’s biscuit. By the time that Cupid returned with this, we had gulped down our cocoa and were ready to go on deck. I therefore helped myself to a couple of biscuits which, breaking into pieces of convenient size by the simple process of dashing them