The next day was a busy one aboard The Gentle Hand. All the boats were gotten out early, and the barque headed in shore again. We had stood off at night, for fear of a current setting us into the breakers, and we did not care to let go an anchor.

By two bells (nine o’clock) in the forenoon, we were close in to the bar at the river mouth, the breeze giving us way at the rate of about five knots, but, as we drew under the land, it became puffy and showed signs of dying out altogether. It was decided not to go in any closer, so the foreyards were left full, the main backed, and the forestaysail hauled amidship, heaving the barque to with a slight reach to the southward.

Pretty nearly all hands tumbled into the boats and rowed through the broiling sunshine for the beach, it being the captain’s object to get all the cargo aboard at once, and stand off to work along to the eastward.

249By noon the first boat-load of the poor creatures arrived. There were fourteen of them closely packed and manacled in the bottom of the craft. As they drew nearer, they set up a chattering like a crowd of monkeys, and the Guinea in charge rapped them severely over the head with a stout stick, bidding them be quiet. Their white eyeballs and teeth shone in contrast to their skins, and the excitement they were undergoing made them show both eyes and teeth much more than usual, giving them a strange, wild look. Streaks of mud and filth showed upon their black bodies. The men had little kinky beards upon their chins and lips, and the women had huge bunches of wool on their heads, which were simply great nests of dirt and vermin. Poor creatures, they were hardly human, but for all that I felt sorry for them when I thought of the ’tween-decks of the barque under that torrid sun.

Henry hustled them on deck, and Jorg, with a couple of men, sent them below at once to get them out of the way. By eight bells, we had the crowd below, where they kept chattering until Gull went among them with a long whip, and touched them up lustily whenever they made a noise. Martin, Anderson, Bill, Shannon, and myself went in for the last boat-load.

The heat was terrible, and the breeze was almost imperceptible after the bar was crossed, making all 250hands quiet and sullen with the exertion. Inside the river mouth the same glaring quiet prevailed, broken only now and then by the sound of a gull’s scream, the dull, heavy rumble of the swell only adding to the desolate stillness.

“’Tis a good coast for the business,” said Martin, in a low tone to the long sailor, who was rowing stroke oar. I held the tiller, and had charge, but Martin appeared to think my rating did not command silence, and I let him speak.

The fellow Shannon only looked over his shoulder up the turbid stream that flowed around the distant point of marsh in the direction of the heavy forest beyond.

“What better place d’ye want? ’Twould be a good one to find ye in that glade,” continued the Scot.

“There’s mighty little water on the bar, Scotty,” said Shannon. “What the devil would become of yer ship, I wanter know?”

“Lighten her more, lighten her. Take out her guns and ballast. She’d be a floatin’ fort until ye were ready to go to sea full o’ niggers. Mon, mon, na mon-o’-war c’u’d come after ye, an’ as fer small boats--hoot!” And he gave a cry of contempt at the idea.

“Joust whin would ye do these things, friend Martin?” asked Bill.

251“Shut up, ye square-head. Keep silence when men are speakin’, or I’ll be fer whollopin’ ye the minit we hit the beach,” growled Martin.

Then they rowed on in the heat without a word, the regular clank of the............