For at that moment there was a dull roar and the jarring sensation of a gun being fired overhead, making the black start and look wonderingly about him.
“I say, that startled him,” said Bob Howlett, who had stolen down behind his messmate, and had stood in the semi-darkness laughing at the black’s astonishment. “What do you think of that, old chap? That’s some of our private thunder. Large supply kept on the premises. There goes another! Here, Van, we mustn’t stop below.”
For a second report shook the deck, and the black tried to rise, but sank back from sheer weakness.
“Tell him it’s all right, Van, and that he’d better go to sleep.”
“How?” replied Mark.
“Ah, ’tis how! I say, what a shame for us to be sent on the west coast in such a state of ignorance. Here, all right, Massa Sambo. Go to sleep. I say, do come on, Van, or there’ll be a row.”
The next minute the two lads were on deck, to find that they were rapidly overhauling the schooner, and they were just in time to hear the orders given as the boat was ready to be lowered.
“Come, Mr Howlett, where have you been?”
This from the first lieutenant.
Bob murmured some excuse, and sprang into the boat, which dropped out of sight directly, and then darted in again as the men bent to their stout ashen oars, and sent her rapidly in the schooner’s wake, where Mark made out by the troubled water seen through his glass that another poor fellow had been tossed overboard by the slaver captain, for he rightly judged that no English officer would leave the black to drown.