In the Sargasso Sea | Page 6

feeling in my inside!
In my hurried reading about the West Coast--carried on at odd times
since my meeting with the palm-oil people--I had learned enough about
the trade carried on there to know that slaving still was a part of it; but
so small a part that the matter had not much stuck in my mind. But it

was a fact then (as it also is a fact now) that the traders who run along
the coast--exchanging such stuff as Captain Luke carried for ivory and
coffee and hides and whatever offers--do now and then take the
chances and run a cargo of slaves from one or another of the lower
ports into Mogador: where the Arab dealers pay such prices for live
freight in good condition as to make the venture worth the risk that it
involves. This traffic is not so barbarous as the old traffic to America
used to be--when shippers regularly counted upon the loss of a third or
a half of the cargo in transit, and so charged off the death-rate against
profit and loss--for the run is a short one, and slaves are so hard to get
and so dangerous to deal in nowadays that it is sound business policy to
take enough care of them to keep them alive. But I am safe in saying
that the men engaged in the Mogador trade are about the worst brutes
afloat in our time--not excepting the island traders of the South
Pacific--and for an honest man to get afloat in their company opens to
him large possibilities of being murdered off-hand, with side chances
of sharing in their punishment if he happens to be with them when they
are caught. And so it is not to be wondered at that when I saw the
shackles come flying out from that broken box, and so realized the sort
of men I had for shipmates, that a sweating fright seized me which
made my stomach go queer. And then, as I thought how I had tumbled
myself into this scrape that the least shred of prudence would have kept
me out of, I realized for the second time that day that I was very young
and very much of a fool.

III
I HAVE A SCARE, AND GET OVER IT
I went to the stern of the brig and looked at the tug, far off and almost
out of sight in the dusk, and at the loom of the Highlands, above which
shone the light-house lamps--and my heart went down into my boots,
and for a while stayed there. For a moment the thought came into my
head to cut away the buoy lashed to the rail and to take my chances
with it overboard--trusting to being picked up by some passing vessel
and so set safe ashore. But the night was closing down fast and a lively

sea was running, and I had sense enough to perceive that leaving the
brig that way would be about the same as getting out of the frying-pan
into the fire.
Fortunately, in a little while I began to get wholesomely angry; which
always is a good thing, I think, when a man gets into a tight place--if he
don't carry it too far--since it rouses the fighting spirit in him and so
helps him to pull through. In reason, I ought to have been angry with
myself, for the trouble that I was in was all of my own making; but,
beyond giving myself a passing kick or two, all my anger was turned
upon Captain Luke for taking advantage of my greenness to land me in
such a pickle when his gain from it would be so small. I know now that
I did Captain Luke injustice. His subsequent conduct showed that he
did not want me aboard with him any more than I wanted to be there.
Had I not taken matters into my own hands by boarding the brig in such
a desperate hurry--just as I had hurried to close with his offer and to
clinch it by paying down my passage-money--he would have gone off
without me. And very likely he would have thought that the lesson in
worldly wisdom he had given me was only fairly paid for by the fifty
dollars which had jumped so easily out of my pocket into his.
But that was not the way I looked at the matter then; and in my heart I
cursed Captain Luke up hill and down dale for having, as I fancied,
lured me aboard the brig and so into peril of my skin. And my anger
was so strong that I went by turns hot and cold with it, and itched to get
at Captain Luke with my fists and give him