Then they started, creeping cautiously through the reeds. When they were within twenty yards of the fires, Leonard missed his footing and fell into a pool of water with a splash. Some of the slave-dealers heard the noise and sprang to their feet. Instantly Otter grunted in exact imitation of a hippopotamus-calf.
“A sea-cow,” said a man in Portuguese. “She won’t hurt us. The fire will frighten her.”
Leonard and Otter waited awhile, then crept to a clump of reeds whence they could hear every word that was spoken. The men round the fire numbered twenty-two. One, their leader, appeared to be a pure-bred Portugee, some of the others were Bastards and the rest Arabs. They were drinking rum and water out of tin pannikins—a great deal of rum and very little water. Many of them seemed half-drunk already, at any rate their tongues were loosened.
“May a curse fall upon our father, the Devil!” said one, a half-breed; “why did he take it into his head to send us back with the boats just now? We shall miss the fun.”
“What fun?” answered the leader of the party. “They won’t cage the birds for another three or four days; the dhows are not ready, and there is talk of an English cruiser—may she sink to hell!—hanging about outside the river mouth.”
“No, not that,” said the man who had spoken first, “there is not much sport in driving a lot of stinking niggers on to a dhow. I mean the auction of the white girl, the English trader’s daughter, whom we caught up the river yonder. There’s a beauty for some lucky dog; I never saw such a one. What eyes she has, and what a spirit! why, most of the little dears would have cried themselves blind by now.”
“You needn’t think about her,” sneered his leader; “she will go too dear for the likes of you; besides it is foolish to spend so much on one girl, white or black. When is the auction?”
“It was to have been the night before the dhows sail, but now the Devil says it shall be to-morrow night. I will tell you why—he is afraid of her. He thinks that she will bring misfortune to him, and wants to be rid of her. Ah! he is a wag, is the old man—he loves a joke, he does. ‘All men are brothers,’ he said yesterday, ‘white or black; therefore all women are sisters.’ So he is going to sell her like a nigger girl. What is good enough for them is good enough for her. Ha! ha! pass the rum, brother, pass the rum.”
“Perhaps he will put it off and we may be back in time, after all,” said the captain. “Anyhow, here is a health to her, the love. By the way, did some of you think to ask the password before we left this morning? I forgot to do so, myself.”
“Yes,” said a Bastard, “the old word, ‘the Devil.’”