'We shall have to stop this noise in some way, sir,' Charke said to the captain; 'it has been going on more or less ever since they came on board, and the men complain that it disturbs them in the fo'c's'le. It's a pity we can't communicate with them somehow. Perhaps Lieutenant Bampfyld might try, as he says he knows some words of Swahili'; while as he spoke he looked at the man who had once more, as he considered, or chose to consider, stepped in between him and the woman he loved. Yet, because he never forgot that he was a gentleman born, there was nothing in his manner that was otherwise than polite when he addressed Gilbert. 'I have tried,' said the latter, 'more than once to-day. And either my Swahili is defective, or that is not their language. I suspect that it's Galla, of which I do not know a word.' Meanwhile, the captain had drawn back the cocoanut matting which hung in front of the deck cabin door, though, after peering into the sombre dusk for a moment, he started back, exclaiming: 'Good Heavens! what has happened now? Have they murdered one of their companions, or what?' It was, in truth, a weird sort of scene on which he, as well as Gilbert and Charke, gazed, as the swiftly-failing tropical evening light illumined the interior of the cabin. Flat on the floor of it lay one of the negroes, undoubtedly dead, since there was on his face the gray, slate-coloured hue which the African assumes in death. Yet his eyes were open, only now, instead of that bright glassy look which all their eyes had had since they were brought on board, there was a dull filmy look, which told plainly enough that there was no life behind them. Still, dead as the man undoubtedly was, he did not present the most uncanny spectacle of all within! That was furnished by those who of late had been his comrades, and by the strange grotesqueness--a grotesqueness that was horrible in itself--of their actions. All three of the living negroes were on their knees in the cabin, which was roomy enough to amply admit of their being so, while, with their great black hands, they were pawing the man all over, feeling his breast and body, and endeavouring to bend his fingers and toes as well as his legs and arms; while, even as they did so, from their great mouths came that moaning incantation which resembled so much the bleating of sheep. Doubtless they felt almost sure that their fellow-slave was dead, and these actions were being performed as tests. Yet, also, there was a solemn, wild unearthliness attached to the whole thing by the manner in which, when one of the visitors standing at the door and peering in made a remark, all turned their sightless eyes towards that door and then held up each a hand, and emitted a hissing noise through their great pendulous lips, as though enjoining silence and respect for the dead. They held up those hands with the fingers stretched enormously apart and with the palms towards the intruders. Their eyes