Amazed at such an assertion, the chief consulted among his brethren, and it was agreed that if the white man’s story proved true, then he should be released.

At the hour appointed on the following day, the negroes were surprised and terrified to see the gradual and almost total eclipse of the sun, and attributed it to the Great Spirit’s displeasure because of their detention of the white prisoner, as he had foretold.  They hastened to loose his arms and to set him on his way rejoicing.  They even bore him on their shoulders for leagues in a sort of triumphal march, and did not permit him to walk until they had brought him safely and deposited him with his arms and pack before the doors of Don Leonardo!

CHAPTER XVII.

The poisoned barb.

Of course, Don Leonardo was amazed to see his friend, deeming him by this time either in an English prison or dead.  He learned with amazement the part that Maud had performed, for Charles Bramble was forced to reveal to the father, who was eager to inquire after his daughter.  Though Charles felt not the least compunctions of conscience as to the matter, yet he now fully realized the cause of all her enmity, though of this he said not a word to her father.  Don Leonardo cheerfully joined the new-comer in completing his business arrangements, and Charles Bramble found himself the rightful owner of some eight thousand dollars in gold, the product of the goods which he had landed as his private venture, and he also took good care to forward true bills of credit to his owners in Cuba, for the specie which had been sent out by him to purchase slaves.

These business arrangements consummated, he now began to think seriously of once more revisiting the scenes of his childhood, Bramble Park.  He doubted not that Helen and her mother would arrive at their own early home, which adjoined that of Bramble Park, and which, by the way, had been leased during their settlement in India, as early as he could himself procure conveyance which would enable him to reach the spot.  With this idea, he eagerly scanned the horizon daily, hoping for the arrival of some craft, even a slaver, that might bear him away, either towards America or Europe, so that he might get into the course of travel.

One morning, when he had as usual gone up to the lookout and scanned the sea view far and near, he at last came down to the breakfast-room with his face quite speaking with inward satisfaction.  He had seen a sail, evidently a large merchantman, and begged Don Leonardo to go up and see if together they could not make the stranger out more fully.  Charles, himself, thought that she was heavy and evidently steering for the small bay on which the factory stood.  But their curiosity was soon to be satisfied, for spar after spar gradually became more and more clearly defined, until at last the deck itself could be seen, and St. George’s cross observed flying saucily in the breeze.  The ship was a British sloop-of-war, and so it proved.