“No, sir,” said Sam Peters; “that factory he has gone to is a regular slaving-shop, and he will be away to Lagos or Porto Novo before the captain can get the caboceers to look for him.”
“Well, what must we do, Willie?” I said.
“We can do nothing except get things as straight as we can, and then go on with what we were doing before the blackguard bolted. Look here; he has even broken open my desk and stolen my watch and what little money I had locked up!”
“He certainly made the most of his time; he can’t have had more than ten minutes to himself here.”
Warspite was told to get order restored in the cabin; and Willie and I returned to the trade-room, where we found that the four bales we had seen passed into the boat were composed of very costly silks which were intended specially for presents to big chiefs, and which had been brought there for us to select presents for the King of Dahomey and his caboceers.
Jack Adams and Sam Peters came down to us, and they said they thought we should have stopped Pentlea from leaving the ship. “But then,” they said, “he gave his orders, and no one could disobey him.”
“It’s no use crying over spilt milk,” said my brother. “I could not have gone against the mate’s orders, and none of us could know what he was doing in the cabin.”
While we were discussing the flight of Pentlea and sorting the cloths according to a list left for us by my father, Warspite came running into the trade-room, bringing with him a couple of small manuscript books which he said he had found in Pentlea’s berth, and which contained a number of entries about anchorages in the bights and oil rivers, and also about the Gaboon and Congo, with notes about the numbers of slaves shipped at different places.
“Why, the man is a regular slaver! See in this book there are names of ships and their captains. Why, there are all the vessels of the squadron—which are steamers, and which can sail best off and on a wind; and, hallo! here is a full description of the Petrel and a list of the places we are going to.”
I looked over Willie’s shoulder as he turned the leaves of the books over, and saw that evidently these were memoranda of what Pentlea had considered the capabilities of our brig, and among them he had noted that she might easily carry two hundred and fifty slaves.