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an avalanche on the poop, and rushing along the decks, swept the waist-boat and all the loose spars into the sea. The ship staggered under the shock, and it seemed to every one on deck that she must inevitably founder; but in a few seconds she recovered, the water gushed from the scuppers and sides in cataracts, and once more they drove swiftly before the gale.

In about twenty minutes the wind moderated, and while some of the men went aloft to clear away the wreck of the topsails and make all snug, others went below to put on dry garments.

“That was a narrow escape, Mr Millons,” remarked the captain, as he stood by the starboard-rails.

“It was, sir,” replied the mate. “It’s a good job too, sir, that none o’ the ’ands were washed overboard.”

“It is, indeed, Mr Millons; we’ve reason to be thankful for that; but I’m sorry to see that we’ve lost our waist-boat.”

“We’ve lost our spare sticks, sir,” said the mate, with a lugubrious face, while he wrung the brine out of his hair; “and I fear we’ve nothink left fit to make a noo foretopmast or a jib-boom.”

“True, Mr Millons; we shall have to run to the nearest port on the African coast to refit; luckily we are not very far from it. Meanwhile, tell Mr Markham to try the well; it is possible that we may have sprung a leak in all this straining, and see that the wreck of the foretopmast is cleared away. I shall go below and consult the chart; if any change in the weather takes place, call me at once.”

“Yes, sir,” answered the mate, as he placed his hand to windward of his mouth, in order to give full force to the terrific tones in which he proceeded to issue his captain’s commands.

Captain Dunning went below, and looking into Ailie’s berth, nodded his wet head several times, and smiled with his damp visage benignly—which acts, however well meant and kindly they might be, were, under the circumstances, quite unnecessary, seeing that the child was sound asleep. The captain then dried his head and face with a towel about as rough as the mainsail of a seventy-four, and with a violence that would have rubbed the paint off the figurehead of the Red Eric. Then he sat down to his chart, and having pondered over it for some minutes, he went to the foot of the companion-ladder and roared up— “Lay the course nor’-nor’-east-and-by-nor’-half-nor’, Mr Millons.”

To which Mr Millons replied in an ordinary tone, “Ay, ay, sir,” and then roared— “Lay her head nor’-nor’-east-and-by-nor’-half-nor’,” in an unnecessarily loud and terribly fierce tone of voice to the steersman, as if that individual were in the habit of neglecting to obey orders, and required to be perpetually threatened in what may be called a tone of implication.

The steersman answered in what, to a landsman, would have sounded as a rather amiable and forgiving tone of voice— “Nor’-nor’-east-and-by-nor’-half-nor’ it is, sir;” and thereupon the direction of the ship’s head was changed, and the Red Eric, according to Tim Rokens, “bowled along” with a stiff breeze on the quarter, at the rate of ten knots, for the west coast of Africa.

Chapter Nine. Rambles on Shore, and Strange Things and Ceremonies Witnessed There.

Variety is charming. No one laying claim to the smallest amount of that very uncommon attribute, common-sense, will venture to question the truth of that statement. Variety is so charming that men and women, boys and girls, are always, all of them, hunting after it. To speak still more emphatically on this subject, we venture to affirm that it is an absolute necessity of animal nature. Were any positive and short-sighted individual to deny this position, and sit down during the remainder of his life in a chair and look straight before him, in order to prove that he could live without variety, he would seek it in change of position. If he did not do that, he would seek it in change of thought. If he did not do that, he would die!

Fully appreciating this great principle of our nature, and desiring to be charmed with a little variety, Tim Rokens and Phil Briant presented themselves before Captain Dunning one morning about a week after the storm, and asked leave to go ashore. The reader may at first think the men were mad, but he will change his opinion when we tell him that four days after the storm in question the Red Eric had anchored in the harbour formed by the mouth of one of the rivers on the African coast, where white men trade with the natives for bar-wood and ivory, and where they also carry on that horrible traffic in negroes, the existence of which is a foul disgrace to humanity.

“Go ashore!” echoed Captain Dunning. “Why, if you all go on at this rate, we’ll never get ready for sea. However, you may go, but don’t wander too far into the interior, and look out for elephants and wild men o’ the woods, boys—keep about the settlements.”

“Ay, ay, sir, and thank’ee,” replied the two men, touching their caps as they retired.

“Please, sir, I want to go too,” said Glynn Proctor, approaching the captain.

“What! more wanting to go ashore?”

“Yes, and so do I,” cried Ailie, running forward and clasping her father’s rough hand; “I did enjoy myself so much yesterday, that I must go on shore again to-day, and I must go with Glynn. He’ll take such famous care of me; now won’t you let me go, papa?”

“Upon my word, this looks like preconcerted mutiny. However, I don’t mind if I do let you go, but have a care, Glynn, that you don’t lose sight of her for a moment, and keep to the shore and the settlements. I’ve no notion of allowing her to be swallowed by an alligator, or trampled on by an elephant, or run away with by a gorilla.”

“Never fear, sir. You may trust me; I’ll take good care of her.”

With a shout of delight the child ran down to the cabin to put on her bonnet, and quickly reappeared, carrying in her hand a basket which she purposed to fill with a valuable collection of plants, minerals and insects. These she meant to preserve and carry home as a surprise to aunts Martha and Jane, both of whom were passionately fond of mineralogy, delighted in botany, luxuriated in entomology, doted on conchology, and raved about geology—all of which sciences they studied superficially, and specimens of which they collected and labelled beautifully, and stowed away carefully in a little cabinet, which they termed (not jocularly, but seriously) their “Bureau of Omnology.”

It was a magnificent tropical morning when the boat left the side of the Red Eric and landed Glynn and Ailie, Tim Rokens and Phil Briant on the wharf that ran out from the yellow beach of the harbour in which their vessel lay. The sun had just risen. The air was cool (comparatively) and motionless, so that the ocean lay spread out like a pure mirror, and revealed its treasures and mysteries to a depth of many fathoms. The sky was intensely blue and the sun intensely bright, while the atmosphere was laden with the delightful perfume of the woods—a perfume that is sweet and pleasant to those long used to it, how much more enchanting to nostrils rendered delicately sensitive by long exposure to the scentless gales of ocean?

One of the sailors who had shown symptoms of weakness in the chest during the voyage, had begged to be discharged and left ashore at this place. He could ill be spared, but as he was fit for nothing, the captain agreed to his request, and resolved to procure a negro to act as cook’s assistant in the place of Phil Briant, who was too useful a man to remain in so subordinate a capacity. The sick man was therefore sent on shore in charge of Tim Rokens.

On landing they were met by a Portuguese slave-dealer, an American trader, a dozen or two partially-clothed negroes, and a large concourse of utterly naked little negro children, who proved to demonstration that they were of the same nature and spirit with white children, despite the colour of their skins, by taking intense delight in all the amusements practised by the fair-skinned juveniles of more northern lands—namely scampering after each other, running and yelling, indulging in mischief, spluttering in the waters, rolling on the sand, staring at the strangers, making impudent remarks, and punching each other’s heads.

If the youth of America ever wish to prove that they are of a distinct race from the sable sons of Africa, their only chance is to become paragons of perfection, and give up all their wicked ways.

“Oh!” exclaimed Ailie, half amused, half frightened, as Glynn lifted her out of the boat; “oh! how funny! Don’t they look so very like as if they were all painted black?”

“Good-day to you, gentlemen,” cried the trader, as he approached the landing. “Got your foretop damaged, I see. Plenty of sticks here to mend it. Be glad to assist you in any way I can. Was away in the woods when you arrived, else I’d have come to offer sooner.”

The trader, who was a tall, sallow man in a blue cotton shirt, sailor’s trousers, and a broad-brimmed straw hat, addressed himself to Glynn, whose gentlemanly manner led him to believe he was in command of the party.

“Thank you,” replied Glynn, “we’ve got a little damage—lost a good boat, too; but we’ll soon repair the mast. We have come ashore just now, however, mainly for a stroll.”

“Ay,” put in Phil Briant, who was amusing the black children—and greatly delighting himself by nodding and smiling ferociously at them, with a view to making a favourable impression on the natives of this new country. “Ay, sir, an’ sure we’ve comed to land a sick shipmate who wants to see the doctor uncommon. Have ye sich an article in these parts?”

“No, not exactly,” replied the trader, “but I do a little in that way myself; perhaps I may manage to cure him if he comes up to my house.”

“We wants a nigger too,” said Rokens, who, while the others were talking, was extremely busy filling his pipe.

At this remark the trader looked knowing.

“Oh!” he said, “that’s your game, is it? There’s your man there; I’ve nothing to do with such wares.”

He pointed to the Portuguese slave-dealer as he spoke.

Seeing himself thus referred to, the slave-dealer came forward, hat in hand, and made a polite bow. He was a man of extremely forbidding aspect. A long dark visage, which terminated in a black peaked beard, and was surmounted by a tall-crowned broad-brimmed straw hat, stood on the top of a long, raw-boned, thin, sinewy, shrivelled, but powerful frame, that had battled with and defeated all the fevers and other diseases peculiar to the equatorial regions of Africa. He wore a short light-coloured cotton jacket and pantaloons—the latter much too short for his limbs, but the deficiency was more than made up by a pair of Wellington boots. His natural look was a scowl. His assumed smile of politeness was so unnatural, that Tim Rokens thought, as he gazed at him, he would have preferred greatly to have been frowned at by him. Even Ailie, who did not naturally think ill of any one, shrank back as he approached and grasped Glynn’s hand more firmly than usual.

“Goot morning, gentl’m’n. You was vish for git nigger, I suppose.”

“Well, we wos,” replied Tim, with a faint touch of sarcasm in his tone. “Can you get un for us?”

“Yees, sare, as many you please,” replied the slave-dealer, with a wink that an ogre might have envied. “Have great many ob ’em stay vid me always.”

“Ah! then, they must be fond o’ bad company,” remarked Briant, in an undertone, “to live along wid such a alligator.”

“Well, then,” said Tim Rokens, who had completed the filling of his

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