This fiend in human form was dabbled in blood; his face, hands, bare arms, and all the front of his garment were wet with gore. He had been the butcher of the innocent slaves.
He was dragged forth and dragged forward, but suddenly, with an unearthly yell, he sprang from the sailor’s grasp, and next moment had leapt into the sea.
He was watched for a few moments swimming quickly away from the ship, then a strange commotion was seen near him, and the wretch threw up his arms and disappeared.
He had been dragged under by the sharks.
It is through no love of the sensational I pen these lines, reader, nor describe the capture of this blood-stained dhow. The story is almost from the life, and I deem it not wrong that my young readers should know something of the horrors of the slave trade.
Two hundred living slaves were found in the hold of the dhow, many dead were among the living, and many dying. And it will never be known in this world how many poor creatures were butchered or thrown overboard to lighten the ship.
The vessel was condemned at Zanzibar, and taken away out to sea and set on fire. Nothing was taken out of her except a few shields and spears that the men got by way of curios. She was simply burned, and sank hissing and flaming beneath the waves.
The slaves were liberated. Well, even their liberty was something. But that would not restore them their far-off happy homes amid the wild and beautiful scenery in the African interior: no, nor restore them their friends and kindred. Henceforward they must languish in a foreign land.
“What became of the captain of the dhow?” I fancy I hear some of my readers ask. Have I not, I reply, given you horrors enough in this chapter? But, nevertheless, I will tell you. He and five others were hanged. This end was at all events less revolting than an Arab execution as sometimes carried out. Fancy five political offenders tied hand and foot, and placed on their backs all in a row in the prison yard, an Arab executioner with a sharp sword leisurely stepping from one to another and half-beheading them!
It was a very lovely morning. Harry came on the quarter-deck just as a great gun was fired from the bows of the Bunting; making every window in the front part of the town rattle, and multiplying its echo among the distant coral islands. That gun told the condemned men that their day had come.