The boat had a mast and spritsail.  I reckoned that I would wait until sunset, then hoist sail and hold on past the river and along shore towards Whydah.  I counted on a breeze coming off shore towards evening, which it did, and blew all night, so stiff that at two miles’ distance, which I kept by guess, I could smell the stink of swamps.  I ought to say here that, before starting, I had climbed aboard the Mary Pynsent and provisioned the boat.  The niggers had left a few stores, but the mess on board made me sick.

The breeze held all night, and towards daybreak freshened so that I reckoned myself safe against any canoe overtaking me if any should put out from shore; for my boat, with the wind on her quarter, was making from six to seven knots.  She measured seventeen feet.

The breeze dried up as the day grew hotter, and in the end I downed sail and rowed the last few miles.  I know Whydah pretty well, having had dealings there.  It is a fine place, with orange-trees growing wild and great green meadows, and rivers chock full of fish, and the whole of it full of fever as an egg is of meat.  The factory there was kept by an old man, an Englishman, who pretended to be Dutch and called himself Klootz, but was known to all as Bristol Pete.  The building stood on a rise at the back of the swamps.  It had a verandah in front, with a tier of guns which he loaded and fired off on King George’s birthday, and in the rear a hell of a barracks, where he kept the slaves, ready for dealing.  He was turned sixty and grown careless in his talk, and he lived there with nine wives and ten strapping daughters.  Sons did not thrive with him, somehow.  In the matter of men he was short-handed, his habit being to entice seamen off the ships trading there to take service with him on the promise of marrying them up to his daughters.  It looked like a good speculation, for the old man had money.  But every one of the women was a widow, and the most of them widowed two deep.  The climate never agreed with the poor fellows, and just now he had over four hundred slaves in barracks, and only one son-in-law, an Englishman, to look after them.

The old man made me welcome.  A father couldn’t have shown himself kinder, and when I told him about the Mary Pynsent he could scarce contain himself.

“If there’s one thing more than another I enjoy at my age,” said he, “’tis a salvage job.”

And he actually left the agent—­A.  G.—­in charge of the slaves for three days, while he and I and three of the women took boat and went after the vessel.  We found her still at her moorings, and brought her round to Whydah, he and me working her with the youngest of the three (Sarah by name), while the two others cleaned ship.  I cannot say why exactly, but this woman appeared superior to her sisters, besides being the best looking.  The old man—­he had an eye lifting for everything—­took notice of this almost before