As Jack said this he stepped out from among the bushes and advanced to meet the strangers. Of course we all followed, and although we carried our rifles in a careless manner, as if we expected no evil, yet we held ourselves in readiness to take instant action if necessary.
The moment the negroes perceived us, they set up a great shout and brandished their spears and guns, but the voice of their leader was instantly heard commanding them to halt. They obeyed at once, and the European stranger advanced alone to meet us. As he drew near we observed that he was a splendid-looking man, nearly as large as Jack himself, with a handsome figure and a free, off-hand gait. But on coming closer we saw that his countenance, though handsome, wore a forbidding, stern expression.
“Dat am a slabe-dealer,” whispered our guide, as the stranger came up and saluted us in French.
Jack replied in the same language; but on learning that we were Englishmen, he began to talk in our own tongue, although he evidently understood very little of it.
“Do you travel alone with the natives?” inquired Jack, after a few preliminary remarks.
“Yaas, sair, I doos,” replied the stranger, who was a Portuguese trader, according to his own account.
“You seem to carry little or no merchandise with you,” said Jack, glancing towards the party of natives, who stood at some distance looking at us and conversing together eagerly.
“I has none wis me, true, bot I has moche not ver’ far off. I bees go just now to seek for ivory, and ebony, and sl–a–— w’at you call him? barwood.”
The man corrected himself quickly, but the slip confirmed Makarooroo’s remark and our own suspicions that he was a slave-dealer.
“De day is far gone,” he continued, putting as amiable a smile on his countenance as possible; “perhaps you vill stop and we have dine togedder.”