food upon which she sustained life itself. Taking her lonely place in
the cabin, after the conversation just referred to, she again hid her
face in her hands, and remained with her head bowed in her lap for a
long, long while, half dreaming, half waking. Poor, untutored,
uncivilized child of nature! she was very, very unhappy now.





CHAPTER XIII.

THE TRIAL.




AT the immediate time of which we now write, there had been some very
aggravated instances of open resistance to the English and American
cruisers on the African station by the slavers who thronged the coast,
and the home government had sent out orders embracing extraordinary
powers, in order that the first cases that might thenceforth come under
the cognizance of the court might lead to such summary treatment of the
offenders, as to act as an example for the rest, and thus have a most
salutary effect upon the people thus engaged. It was under these
circumstances that Captain Will Ratlin found himself arraigned before
the maritime commission at Sierra Leone, with a pretty hard case made
out against him at the outset of affairs.

The truth was, he had not been taken resisting the attack of Captain