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"Orders had been received by the Egyptian authorities from the European Governments to suppress the slave-trade. Four steamers had arrived at Khartoum from Cairo. Two of these vessels had ascended the White Nile, and had captured many slavers; their crews were imprisoned, and had been subjected to the bastinado and torture; the captured slaves had been appropriated by the Egyptian authorities.

Their crews went armed to defend themselves, and from Thames mouth to Land's End the Channel became the scene of desperate fights. The type of vessel altered to suit the new conditions. Life depended on speed of sailing. The State Papers describe squadrons of French or Spaniards flying about, dashing into Dartmouth, Plymouth, or Falmouth, cutting out English coasters, or fighting one another.

Among the captains who remained faithful to James was Captain Benbow, although his crew, as well as those of most others, desired at once to join William of Orange; but as soon as William and Mary had been declared Sovereigns of England, he and many others, to the great satisfaction of their crews, sailed up the Thames to offer their allegiance.

A few only, whose crews had strength left, returned to aid the flying inhabitants. The last of the troops had been embarked under the able management of Captain Elphinstone, of the Robust, and other Captains, without the loss of a man, the Robust being the last ship to leave the harbour when the infuriated Republicans, breathing vengeance on the helpless inhabitants, rushed into the city.

Mr Cherry's countenance, even in the heat of battle, looking jovial and rosy, was now seen, as he fought his way with his boat's crew from deck to deck of the junks, driving their crews into the sea. No quarter was asked by the desperadoes, and the British seamen were not much inclined to give any. The roar of guns was heard.

It was a moment of intense excitement, not only to the crews of the boats, but to hundreds of spectators on the shore. It was undeniably true that the Zephyrs, in spite of the warnings which Frank had given them, were very much excited, and various were the expedients which the boys used to calm their agitation, or at least to conceal it.

A sudden descent made by boats' crews from the frigates "Superb" and "Nimrod" so completely surprised the inhabitants, that the enemy burned the shipping at the wharves, set fire to a factory, and retreated before the villagers fully comprehended the blow that had fallen upon them.

The boats were now all arranged in a string, as before, in tow of the sailing-boat, and, with the crews lying perdu in the bottom of their respective craft, the entire expedition got under way and proceeded down the river. Meanwhile, the weather had undergone a certain change.

The prospects for great legal complications in the new country were highly encouraging. Lieutenant Jarvis of the United States revenue service, a man of sound judgment and few words, who so signally distinguished himself in 1897 by his overland expedition and rescue of the crews of whaling-vessels ice-bound in the Arctic seas, had been the chief agent of the government at Nome the preceding year.

Whether it was that the palm- oil, which came in canoes, and very irregularly, from high up the river, did not arrive in sufficient quantities, or whether it was deliberate delay on Pepel's part, a year would sometimes elapse before the return cargo was completed, and sickness was meanwhile decimating the crews.