"Now, then," Captain North said peremptorily, in such a way that I knew he was entirely unaware of my recent appointment as Gleazen's lieutenant, "now then, lads, into the boat all hands together."
"One moment!" I cried. "I forgot something." And with that I ran back.
In changing my jacket in honor of the call we were to make, I had left my pistol behind me. Of no mind to put off without it, I hurried down to my stateroom.
Passing through the cabin, I saw that the four men, Gleazen, Matterson, the strange Bud, and my uncle, were drawing up around the great table, on which they had carelessly thrown a pack of cards. They gave me frowns and hard looks as I passed, and I heard them muttering among themselves at the interruption; but with scarcely a thought of what they said, I left them to their game.
No sooner had our boat crunched on the shore than on all sides black figures appeared from the darkness, and landing, we found ourselves surrounded by negroes, who pressed upon us until we fairly had to thrust them back with oars. It was the first time I had set foot on the continent of Africa, and the place and the people and the circumstances were all, to my New England apprehension, so extraordinary and so alarming that I cast a reluctant glance back at the dim lights of the Adventure. But now a door opened, and I saw in the bright rectangle a white man in European clothes; and we went up and shook his hand,—which seemed for some reason to displease him, although he did not actually refuse it,—and were ushered into a large room with a board floor and chairs and tables and pictures, for all the world as if it were a regular house.
"Under some circumstances I should no doubt be glad to meet you, gentlemen," he said, with cold reserve, "for no ship has visited us for more than three months. But we hereabouts are not friendly to slavers."
"Nor are we," Gideon North retorted.
"I think, sir," said Arnold Lamont, soberly and precisely, "that you mistake our errand."
He looked at us a long time without saying more, then he quietly remarked, "I hope so."