I do not think I ever encountered a lower, or more bestial type of humanity than was this man. He was a pure-blooded black, of almost herculean proportions, and evidently of enormous strength, as are many of the pure-blooded West African negroes; but one completely lost sight of his splendid physique in contemplation of the expression of low cunning and ferocious cruelty that blazed out of his small, narrow eyes and contorted his wide, flat nostrils, his thick, blubber lips, and his unnaturally prominent chin and jaws; he was the very embodiment and picture of all the most savage and debasing passions that characterise the worst specimens of humanity, and reminded me of nothing so much as a combination of snake, tiger, and monkey clothed in the outward semblance of a human form. "Heaven have mercy upon the unfortunate who stirs this brute to anger!" thought I. He was undoubtedly well aware of the feelings of horror and repulsion that he inspired in the breasts of others, and seemed rather to pride himself upon it, I thought; for as I was led forward into his presence he paused in his wolfish feeding and glared upon me with an expression of concentrated malignity that seemed to freeze the very marrow in my bones. But I believed that he was deliberately striving to frighten me, and horrified though I actually was, I was determined he should not have the satisfaction of feeling that he had succeeded. I, therefore, steadily returned his stare with all the coolness and nonchalance I could summon to my aid, and after the lapse of a full minute or more he turned his glance aside to one of the men who held me, and said: "Well, Carlos, my ruse succeeded, it would appear. But it is a poor sort of capture that you have made; I hoped you would contrive to get hold of Don Luis, or at least of Don Esteban, or one of his sons; but who is this? He is a mere boy!" "True, he is," answered the man addressed as Carlos--the scoundrel who had taken advantage of an appeal to my humanity to catch me unawares. "But," he continued, "boy though he is, he is as strong as a young lion, and will afford us sport for three or four days, if things are carefully managed; and after that--" He added a few words in some language that I did not understand. "But who is he, and what is he?" snarled the other. "He does not look like a Spaniard." "He is not a Spaniard," answered Carlos. "Pepe, one of the Bella Vista `boys' who joined us last night, told me that there was a young Englishman in the house who had been found by old Tomasso, Don Luis' fisherman, floating about on a piece of wreckage, nearly dead, and had been brought ashore by him and, at Don Luis' orders, taken up to the house and nursed back to health by Mama Elisa; and without doubt this is he." "Is this so?" demanded the quintessence of ugliness, turning his gaze upon me.