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 ACCOMPLICES. 251 wreck, at the mouth of the Longa, you had only tîme to ask me to get this party, somehow or other, up into the country. But ît îs just upon two years since you left Cassange with that caravan of slaves for our old master Alvez. What hâve you been doing sîncc ? The last I heard of you was that you had run foui of an EngHsh enliser, and that you were condemned to bc hanged." " So I was very nearly," muttered Negoro. " Ah, well, that will corne sooner or later," rcjoîned the American with philosophie indifférence; "men of our trade can't expect to die quietly in our beds, you know. But were you caught by the English ? ** " No, by the Portuguese." " Before you had got rid of your cargo ?" Negoro hesitated a moment before replying. " No," he said, presently, and addcd, " The Portuguese hâve changed their game : for a long time they carried on the trade themselves, but now they hâve got wonderfully particular ; so I was caught, and condemned to end my days in the penitentiary at St. Paul de Loanda." " Confound it ! " exclaimed Harris, " a hundred times better be hanged ! " " l'm not so sure of that," the Portuguese replicd, " for when I had been at the galleys about a fortnight I man- aged to escape, and got into the hold of an English steamer bound for New Zcaland. I wcdged myself in between a cask of water and a case of preservcd mcat, and so managed to exist for a month. It was close quarters, I can tell you, but I prcfcrred to travcl in- cognito rather than run the risk of being handcd over again to the authoritîcs at Loanda." " Well done ! " exclaimed the American, " and so you had a free passage to the land of the Maoris. But you didn't come back in the same fashion ? " " No ; I always had a hankerîng to be hère again at my old trade ; but for a year and a half. . . ." He stopped abruptly, and grasped Harris by the arm. " Hush," he whispered, " didn't you hcar a rustling in that clump of papyrus ? "