lied. Moreover, he went on to say that if I had not got down to the
brig he had meant to leave my fifty dollars with the palm-oil people
at Loango, and that sounded square enough too. At any rate, if he were
lying to me I had no way of proving it against him, and he was
entitled to the benefit of the doubt; and so, when he had finished
explaining matters--which was short work, as he had the brig to look
after--I did not see my way to refusing his suggestion that we should
call it all right and shake hands.

For the next three hours or so--until we were clear of the Hook and
had sea-room and the tug had cast us off--I was left to my own
devices: except that a couple of men were detailed to carry to my
state-room what I needed there, while the rest of my boxes were stowed
below. Indeed, nobody had time to spare me a single word--the captain
standing by the wheel in charge of the brig, and the two mates having
their hands full in driving forward the work of finishing the lading,
so that the hatches might be on and things in some sort of order
before the crew should be needed to make sail.

The decks everywhere were littered with the stuff put aboard from the
lighter that left the brig just before I reached her, and the huddle
and confusion showed that the transfer must have been made in a
tearing hurry. Many of the boxes gave no hint of what was inside of
them; but a good deal of the stuff--as the pigs of lead and cans of
powder, the many five-gallon kegs of spirits, the boxes of fixed
ammunition, the cases of arms, and so on--evidently was regular West
Coast "trade." And all of it was jumbled together just as it had been
tumbled aboard.

I was surprised by our starting with the brig in such a mess--until it