On landing they were met by a Portuguese slave-dealer, an American trader, a dozen or two partially-clothed negroes, and a large concourse of utterly naked little negro children, who proved to demonstration that they were of the same nature and spirit with white children, despite the colour of their skins, by taking intense delight in all the amusements practised by the fair-skinned juveniles of more northern lands—namely scampering after each other, running and yelling, indulging in mischief, spluttering in the waters, rolling on the sand, staring at the strangers, making impudent remarks, and punching each other’s heads.
If the youth of America ever wish to prove that they are of a distinct race from the sable sons of Africa, their only chance is to become paragons of perfection, and give up all their wicked ways.
“Oh!” exclaimed Ailie, half amused, half frightened, as Glynn lifted her out of the boat; “oh! how funny! Don’t they look so very like as if they were all painted black?”
“Good-day to you, gentlemen,” cried the trader, as he approached the landing. “Got your foretop damaged, I see. Plenty of sticks here to mend it. Be glad to assist you in any way I can. Was away in the woods when you arrived, else I’d have come to offer sooner.”
The trader, who was a tall, sallow man in a blue cotton shirt, sailor’s trousers, and a broad-brimmed straw hat, addressed himself to Glynn, whose gentlemanly manner led him to believe he was in command of the party.
“Thank you,” replied Glynn, “we’ve got a little damage—lost a good boat, too; but we’ll soon repair the mast. We have come ashore just now, however, mainly for a stroll.”
“Ay,” put in Phil Briant, who was amusing the black children—and greatly delighting himself by nodding and smiling ferociously at them, with a view to making a favourable impression on the natives of this new country. “Ay, sir, an’ sure we’ve comed to land a sick shipmate who wants to see the doctor uncommon. Have ye sich an article in these parts?”
“No, not exactly,” replied the trader, “but I do a little in that way myself; perhaps I may manage to cure him if he comes up to my house.”
“We wants a nigger too,” said Rokens, who, while the others were talking, was extremely busy filling his pipe.
At this remark the trader looked knowing.
“Oh!” he said, “that’s your game, is it? There’s your man there; I’ve nothing to do with such wares.”
He pointed to the Portuguese slave-dealer as he spoke.
Seeing himself thus referred to, the slave-dealer came forward, hat in hand, and made a polite bow. He was a man of extremely forbidding aspect. A long dark visage, which terminated in a black peaked beard, and was surmounted by a tall-crowned broad-brimmed straw hat, stood on the top of a long, raw-boned, thin, sinewy, shrivelled, but powerful frame, that had battled with and defeated all the fevers and other diseases peculiar to the equatorial regions of Africa. He wore a short light-coloured cotton jacket and pantaloons—the latter much too short for his limbs, but the deficiency was more than made up by a pair of Wellington boots. His natural look was a scowl. His assumed smile of politeness was so unnatural, that Tim Rokens thought, as he gazed at him, he would have preferred greatly to have been frowned at by him. Even Ailie, who did not naturally think ill of any one, shrank back as he approached and grasped Glynn’s hand more firmly than usual.
“Goot morning, gentl’m’n. You was vish for git nigger, I suppose.”
“Well, we wos,” replied Tim, with a faint touch of sarcasm in his tone. “Can you get un for us?”
“Yees, sare, as many you please,” replied the slave-dealer, with a wink that an ogre might have envied. “Have great many ob ’em stay vid me always.”
“Ah! then, they must be fond o’ bad company,” remarked Briant, in an undertone, “to live along wid such a alligator.”
“Well, then,” said Tim Rokens, who had completed the filling of his pipe, and was now in the full enjoyment of it; “let’s see the feller, an’ I’ll strike a bargain with him, if he seems a likely chap.”
“You will have strike de bargin vid me,” said the dealer. “I vill charge you ver’ leetle, suppose you take full cargo.”
The whole party, who were ignorant of the man’s profession, started at this remark, and looked at the dealer in surprise.
“Wot!” exclaimed Tim Rokens, withdrawing his pipe from his lips; “do you sell niggers?”
“Yees, to be surely,” replied the man, with a peculiarly saturnine smile.
“A slave-dealer?” exclaimed Briant, clenching his fists.
“Even so, sare.”
At this Briant uttered a shout, and throwing forward his clenched fists in a defiant attitude, exclaimed between his set teeth—
“Arrah! come on!”
Most men have peculiarities. Phil Briant had many; but his most striking peculiarity, and that which led him frequently into extremely awkward positions, was a firm belief that his special calling—in an amateur point of view—was the redressing of wrongs—not wrongs of a particular class, or wrongs of an excessively glaring and offensive nature, but all wrongs whatsoever. It mattered not to Phil whether the wrong had to be righted by force of argument or force of arms. He considered himself an accomplished practitioner in both lines of business—and in regard to the latter his estimate of his powers was not very much too high, for he was a broad-shouldered, deep-chested, long-armed fellow, and had acquired a scientific knowledge of boxing under a celebrated bruiser at the expense of a few hard-earned shillings, an occasional bottle of poteen, and many a severe thrashing.
Justice to Phil’s amiability of character requires, however, that we should state that he never sought to terminate an argument with his fists unless he was invited to do so, and even then he invariably gave his rash challenger fair warning, and offered to let him retreat if so disposed. But when injustice met his eye, or when he happened to see cruelty practised by the strong against the weak, his blood fired at once, and he only deigned the short emphatic remark— “Come on,” sometimes preceded by “Arrah!” sometimes not. Generally speaking, he accepted his own challenge, and went on forthwith.
Of all the iniquities that draw forth the groans of humanity on this sad earth, slavery, in the opinion of Phil Briant, was the worst. He had never come in contact with it, not having been in the Southern States of America. He knew from hearsay that the coast of Africa was its fountain, but he had forgotten the fact, and in the novelty of the scene before him, it did not at first occur to him that he was actually face to face with a “live slave-dealer.”
“Let me go!” roared the Irishman, as he struggled in the iron grip of Tim Rokens; and the not less powerful grasp of Glynn Proctor. “Och! let me go! Doo, darlints. I’ll only give him wan—jist wan! Let me go, will ye?”
“Not if I can help it,” said Glynn, tightening his grasp.
“Wot a cross helephant it is,” muttered Rokens, as he thrust his hand into his comrade’s neckcloth and quietly began to choke him as he dragged him away towards the residence of the trader, who was an amused as well as surprised spectator of this unexpected ebullition of passion.
At length Phil Briant allowed himself to be forced away from the beach where the slave-dealer stood with his arms crossed on his breast, and a sarcastic smile playing on his thin lips. Had that Portuguese trafficker in human flesh known how quickly Briant could have doubled the size of his long nose and shut up both his eyes, he would probably have modified the expression of his countenance; but he didn’t know it, so he looked after the party until they had entered the dwelling of the trader, and then sauntered up towards the woods, which in this place came down to within a few yards of the beach.
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