Volume One—Chapter Three.

The Slave Settlement.

“Idiot! Don’t you see that the poor devil can’t move an inch further to save his wretched life. Leave him alone. You’re the greatest brute even in this bestial land?”

“Am I? And if I am, what’s that to you?” is the defiant reply.

The first speaker is a young Englishman, whose face, tanned to a coppery brown by exposure to a torrid sun, bears a stamp of recklessness and determination. His bearded lips are set firm as he confronts the other, a powerful, savage-looking mulatto, and his eyes are ablaze with wrathful contempt. Around stretches a wide, sun-baked desert in Central Africa. A few palms, dotted about here and there, throw a faint pretence of a shadow, and not far from the cloudless horizon hangs the now declining sun. A gang of black men and women, weary and emaciated, and a few of them tied together, are standing wearily contemplating one of their number who lies prone upon the earth, sick, footsore, and unable to move another step. It is a slave-gang on the march.

“Here, you two,” goes on the first speaker, addressing a couple of the strongest-looking among the slaves, “pick him up and carry him along.”

The two fellows designated pause, and look hesitatingly from one to the other of their drivers. They stand in mortal fear of the ruffianly mulatto, and prefer to chance the wrath of the Englishman.

“Do you hear what I say? Let him alone, Sharkey,” repeats the latter in a warning tone.

For all answer the ruffian addressed advances upon the fallen slave, and with a frightful grin, disclosing two pointed, shark-like teeth—whence his hideous sobriquet—curls his raw-hide lash round the naked body of the emaciated wretch. But a terrific blow full in the face sends him reeling half-a-dozen paces.

“There! Won’t you listen?” And the Englishman stands between the miserable wretch and his smiter. With a growl like a wild beast, the latter springs up.

“Stand off, Sharkey!” cries his companion in a firm, warning tone. Too late. With features working in fury, and foaming at the mouth, the other rushes upon him knife in hand.

“Stand off, I say, or—”

Crack!

The savage makes one spring and rolls over and over at his slayer’s feet, digging his knife into the hard earth in his death-throes.

“Dog! You would have it!” observes the Englishman, calmly reloading the discharged chamber of his still smoking revolver. “You won’t bite again. Now then, you fellows, do as I told you just now—pick up that chap and—march.”

They obey apathetically; and, with many a furtive glance backward, the slaves move wearily on, leaving the body of their late oppressor to the vultures and jackals of the desert.

And now, after a march of several miles further, the melancholy cortège arrives at its destination. In a natural clearing, surrounded by dense jungle, stand a few thatched shanties. In the centre is a large barracoon, and into this the miserable human herd is turned. The last rays of the sun have disappeared, and here and there in the open space a fire glows redly. Several men are standing about; awful-looking cut-throats, villainy personified. Half-a-dozen of them are Portuguese, the rest Arabs and negroes. They crowd up to inspect the slaves.

“Well, Lidwell,” says one of the first nationality in good English, addressing the new arrival. “You’ve brought in a poor-looking lot. How many did you lose?”

“Two. Both died.”

“And Sharkey—wasn’t he with you? Where’s he?”

“Dead.”

“Dead? Nonsense! What killed him?” And the first speaker stares in amazement.

“A pistol ball, regulation calibre.”

A gleam of triumphant malice flits across the other’s swarthy features. He is young, and by no means bad-looking but for a chronic scowl.

“Comrade,” he replies, “you have done a good thing in ridding us of that beast.” But the man addressed as Lidwell has marked that exultant expression, and he knows that it means mischief. Sharkey has relatives in the camp who will certainly do their utmost to revenge his death, and it is doubtful whether the ruffianly European element will have either the strength or resolution to stand out against these should they clamour for his slayer’s blood. It is more than doubtful if they have the will; for this Englishman is both hated and feared by them. His coolness and daring in the pursuit of their lawless traffic has not only been the means of quadrupling their gains, but has twice saved the whole party from capture red-handed, for of late the Union Jack has been—to them—unpleasantly active in Zanzibar waters. Yes, they hate him bitterly. He has won largely from them at play, for they are great gamblers, and can they once get him into their power they are fully determined to make him yield up—by torture if necessary—the large sums which they know him to keep concealed somewhere. But then, his revolver is ever ready, and they are most of them cowards at heart.

Sternly he now looks the young Portuguese in the face.

“Juarez,” he says, in a very significant tone. “Do you know, I always think I can never have enough revolver practice. It makes a man invulnerable, does this little bit of wood and iron.”

The other turns away with an oily smile. He has his own reasons for not being fond of the Englishman.

The latter strolls leisurely into one of the