was more likely than any one to escape the gripe of the fever.

We had another trip on shore to bury poor Bob. The captain seemed sorry for him. “He was a man of better education than his messmates, though, to be sure, he had been a wild chap,” he observed to me. Bob’s conscience had been awakened; that of the others remained hardened or fast asleep, and they died as they had lived, foul, unwashed, unfit to enter a pure and holy heaven.

I am drawing a sad and painful picture, but it is a true one. I did not then understand how full of horror it was, though I thought it very sad to lose so many of our crew.

We continued to carry on trade as before, and the captain sent messengers urging the natives to hasten in bringing palm oil on board, but they showed no inclination to hurry themselves; and as to quitting the river till he had a full cargo on board, he had no intention of doing that.

Hitherto the officers had escaped; but one morning the second mate reported that the first mate was unable to leave his berth, though he believed that it was nothing particular; but Dick Radforth, who was considered to be the strongest man on board, when he had tried to get up that morning, had been unable to rise. The captain sent me forward to see him.

Some hours must have passed since he was attacked. He was fearfully changed, but still conscious.

“Black Jack has got hold of me at last, Harry, but I’ll grapple with him pretty tightly before I let him get the victory, do you see,” he observed, when I told him that the captain had sent me to see him. “I’m obliged to him, but if he wishes to give me a longer spell of life, and to save the others on board, he will put to sea without loss of time, while the land breeze lasts. A few mouthfuls of sea air would set me up in a trice. If we don’t get that there will be more of us down with fever before night.”

The boatswain had scarcely said this when he began to rave and tumble and toss about in his berth, and I had to call two of the men to assist me in keeping him quiet. When I got back to the cabin, I told the captain what Radforth had said. “Oh, that’s only the poor fellow’s raving. It will never do to leave the river without our cargo, for if we do some other trader will sure to be in directly afterwards and take advantage of what has been collected for us. However, I have had notice that lots of oil will be brought on board in a few days, and when we get that, we will put to sea even though we are not quite full.”

The captain shortly afterwards paid Radforth a visit; but the boatswain was raving at the time, and never again spoke while in his senses. The following day we carried him to his grave on shore. The death of one who was looked upon as the most seasoned and strongest man, had, as may be supposed, a most depressing effect among the crew. It was soon also evident that the first mate was ill with the fever, and indeed more than half our number were now down with it.

Still the captain could not bring himself to quit the river. “In a few days very possibly we shall have a full cargo Harry,” he said to me. “In the meantime, I daresay, the rest will hold out. Radforth overworked himself, or he would not have caught the fever. Take care Harry you don’t expose yourself to the sun, and you will keep all to rights my boy,—I am very careful about that—though I am so well seasoned that nothing is likely to hurt me.”

“I wish we were out of the river, Captain Willis,” I could not help replying. “The mates and the men are always talking about it, and they say the season is unusually sickly or this would not have happened.”

“They must mind their own business, and stay by the ship, wherever I choose to take her,” he exclaimed, in an angry tone, and I saw that I should have acted more wisely in not making the observation I had just let fall. Still, to do him justice, Captain Willis was as kind and attentive as he possibly could be to the sick men; he constantly visited the first mate, and treated him as if he had been a brother.

All this time not a word about religion was spoken on board; I had, it is true, a Bible in my chest, put there by my sisters, but I had forgotten all about it, and there was not another in the ship.

Except in the instance I have mentioned, and in one or two others, not even the sick men seemed concerned about their souls. The only consolation which those in health could offer to them, was the hope that they might recover. “Cheer up Dick,” or, “cheer up Tom, you’ll struggle through it, never say die—you will be right again before long old boy,” and such like expressions were uttered over and over again, often to those at their last gasp, and so the poor fellows went out of the world believing that they were going to recover and enjoy once more the base pursuits and unholy pleasures in which their souls’ delighted. Alas, I have often though what a fearful waking up there must have been of those I had thus seen taking their departure from this world, yet the rest of us remained as hardened, and in most cases as fearless, of consequences as before.

The death of the first mate, which very soon occurred, made the second mate, I perceived, somewhat more anxious than before about himself. The first mate had been a strong healthy man, and had often before been out on the coast, while the second mate was always rather sickly, and this was his first visit to the shores of Africa. Whether or not his fears had an effect upon him, I cannot say, but he began to look very ill, and became every day more anxious about himself. The captain tried to arouse him, telling him that we should be at sea enjoying the fresh breeze in a few days, and that he must hold out till then. “Still it is of no use, Harry,” he said to me, as I was walking the deck with him one evening, trying to get a few mouthfuls of air. “I know I shall never leave this horrible place alive unless the captain would give the order at once to trip the anchor, then perhaps the thought of being free of it would set me up again.”

I told the captain when I went into the cabin what the poor mate had said, for I really thought our going away might be the means of saving his life, as well as that of others aboard. He took what I said in very good part, but was as obstinately bent in remaining as before. “Those are all fancies, Harry,” he answered. “He has taken it into his head that he is to die, and that is as likely to kill him as the fever itself.”

“But then he fancies that he would get well if we were at sea,” I replied. “Perhaps that really would set him up again.”

“Well, well, just tell him that you heard me ay I hoped to get away in two or three days, perhaps that will put him to rights,” answered the captain, laughing. “Now, Harry, don’t let me hear any more of this sort of thing; I have bother enough with these black traders without having to listen to the fancies of my own people.”

I told the mate what the captain had said. “If the vessel does get away at the time he mentioned, I hope that I may be able to help in taking her to sea, if not, mark my words Harry, there will be a good many more of us down with the fever.” He spoke too truly. The traders continued to arrive but slowly, as before, with their oil. The captain waited and waited like an angler anxious to catch more fish. Before the week was over the second mate was dead, and we had only two men fit for duty on board.