He was caught, however, by the leg, by another of the crew; and the sailor, rising in a passion, hamstrung him with his cutlass.  The captain, seeing this, knocked the butcher flat upon the deck with a handspike.  “I will teach you to keep your temper,” said he; “he was the best slave of the lot!"’ The boy then runs to the chains, and sees the slave who was found to be ‘useless,’ dropped into the sea, where he continued to swim after he had sunk under the water, making a red track, which broke, widened, faded, and was seen no more.  At last they got fairly to sea.  The captain is described as being in the best temper in the world; walking the deck, rubbing his hands, humming a tune, and rejoicing that he had six dozen slaves on board; men, women, and children; and all in ‘prime marketable condition.’  The boy says, their cries were so terrible, that he dare not go and look into the hold; that at first he could not close his eyes, the sound so froze his blood; and that one night he jumped up, and in horror ran to the captain’s room; he was sleeping profoundly with the lamp shining upon his face, calm as marble.  The boy did not like to disturb him.  The next day, two of the slaves were found dead in the hold, suffocated by the foulness of the atmosphere.  The captain is informed of this, and orders them in gangs to the forecastle to take the fresh air.  The boy runs up on deck to see them; he did not find them so very unwell, but adds, ’that blacks are so much alike that one can hardly tell.’  On reaching the ship’s side, first one, then another, then a third, of the slaves leaped into the sea, before the eyes of the astonished sailors.  Others made the attempt, but were knocked flat on the deck, and the crew kept watch over them with handspikes and cutlasses, until they should receive orders from the captain.  The negroes who had escaped, kept gambolling upon the waves, yelling what appeared like a song of triumph, in the burden of which some on deck joined.  The ship soon left the ’ignorant creatures’ behind, and their voices were heard more and more faint; the black head of one, and then another, disappearing, until the sea was without a spot and the air without a sound.  The captain, having finished his breakfast, came on deck, and was informed of the revolt.  He grew pale with rage, and, in dread of losing all his cargo, determined to make an example.  He selects six from those who had joined in the chorus, has three hanged, and three shot before their companions.  That night the boy could not sleep.  The negroes, in consequence of the revolt, are kept closer than ever.  As a consequence, ophthalmia makes its appearance among them.  The captain is compelled to have them between decks, and the surgeon attends them ‘just as if they were white men.’  All the slaves, then the crew, save one, the captain, surgeon, and mate, the boy, and at last the solitary one of the crew, are stone blind.  ‘Mother,’ says the boy, ‘your son was blind for ten days.’