“I will not take on myself to say he is as bad as you appear to think, though I have little reason to believe he has any honesty to cast into the sea. What has become of him?”
“A question easily asked, but hard to answer. In the first place, though an old and a gray-headed fellow, he twitched his skiff along as if it floated in air. We were not a minute, or two at the most, behind him; but, when we got on the other side of the slaver, boat and man had vanished!”
“He doubled her bows while you were crossing the stern.”
“Did you see him, then?”
“I confess we did not.”
“It could not be, sir; since we pulled far enough ahead to examine on both sides at once; besides, the people of the slaver knew nothing of him.”
“You saw the slaver’s people?”
“I should have said her man; for there is seemingly but one hand on board her.”
“And how was he employed?”
“He was seated in the chains, and seem’d to have been asleep. It is a lazy ship, sir; and one that takes more money from her owners, I fancy, than it ever returns!”