It was the fresh air, I suppose, that revived me, even as, after my long sojourn in the noisome hold of the slaver, it had prostrated me by my sudden emergence into it, and I presently became conscious that I was feeling distinctly better than I had done for some time past. For a minute or two I lay passively where I was, in the bottom of the canoe, blinking up at the pallid zenith, near which the sun blazed with blinding brilliancy; and then, no one saying me nay, I slowly and painfully raised myself into a sitting posture and looked about me. We were in a typical African river, about three-quarters of a mile wide, with low bush-clad banks bordered by the inevitable mangrove, while beyond towered the virgin tropical forest, dense, impenetrable, and full of mystery. The turbid current was against us, as could be seen at a glance; I therefore knew at once that we were paddling up-stream. But whither were we bound; of what tribe or nation were the negroes who manned the canoe; and how had I come to be among them? Had Tourville, with a greater refinement of cruelty than even I gave him credit for, handed me over to the tender mercies of these savages, to work their bloodthirsty will upon me, instead of himself murdering me out of hand? If so, what was to be my ultimate fate? I shuddered as I put this question to myself, for I had been on the Coast quite long enough to have heard many a gruesome, blood-curdling story of the horrors perpetrated by the African savages upon those unhappy white men who had been unfortunate enough to fall into their hands.