whether the ruffianly European element will have either the strength or resolution to stand out against these should they clamour for his slayer’s blood. It is more than doubtful if they have the will; for this Englishman is both hated and feared by them. His coolness and daring in the pursuit of their lawless traffic has not only been the means of quadrupling their gains, but has twice saved the whole party from capture red-handed, for of late the Union Jack has been—to them—unpleasantly active in Zanzibar waters. Yes, they hate him bitterly. He has won largely from them at play, for they are great gamblers, and can they once get him into their power they are fully determined to make him yield up—by torture if necessary—the large sums which they know him to keep concealed somewhere. But then, his revolver is ever ready, and they are most of them cowards at heart.

Sternly he now looks the young Portuguese in the face.

“Juarez,” he says, in a very significant tone. “Do you know, I always think I can never have enough revolver practice. It makes a man invulnerable, does this little bit of wood and iron.”

The other turns away with an oily smile. He has his own reasons for not being fond of the Englishman.

The latter strolls leisurely into one of the huts, keeping his eyes about him, though, unobtrusively. Arrived there, he sits down for a few minutes to rest and think out his plans. For he is determined to take leave of his repulsive surroundings; and the sooner the better. Nearly two years of his life have been spent in this detestable traffic, and how sick he is of it, he himself hardly knows. He has amassed wealth with a rapidity little short of marvellous; but not for the ransom of an empire would he go through the experiences of those two years over again. Many and many a scene of human suffering has it been his lot to witness during that period—for he is a slave-dealer, a trafficker in human flesh. But he is guiltless of any single act of brutality or wanton oppression towards the unfortunate wretches who have passed through his hands. In his eyes mere cattle, yet he would never allow them to be tortured or ill-treated. More than once has he stood between the victim and the lash, occasionally at the risk of his life—as we have seen—or interfered to save some worn-out wretch from being abandoned to the beasts of the desert. More than once, even, during a long desert march when water was worth its weight in gold, has he shared his scanty stock of the priceless fluid with some toiling, parched, and exhausted slave, who, with tongue swollen and protruding, could hardly drag one 

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