So that was it.  After having suffered shipwreck, I had been run down and narrowly escaped with my life, only to fall into the hands of a Frenchman--and a slaver at that!  Now, most slavers were little if anything better than pirates; they were outlaws whose crimes were punishable with death; trusting for their safety, for the most part, to the speed of their ships, but fighting with the desperation of cornered rats when there was no other way of escape; neither giving nor asking quarter; and, in many cases, guilty of the most unspeakable atrocities toward those hapless individuals serving in the Slave Squadron who were unfortunate enough to fall into their hands.  This was especially true in the case of those who carried on their nefarious traffic under the French flag; for they were, almost without exception, West Indian Creoles, most of whom bore a dash of negro blood in their veins, therefore adding the inherited ferocity of the West African savage to the natural depravity of those to whose unbridled passions they owed their being.  If, as was more than likely, I had fallen into the power of one of these fiends, my plight was like to be desperate indeed.  I came to the conclusion that I could not do better than act upon the advice of the second mate, and abide the issue of events with as much equanimity as I could muster.  Accordingly, as soon as I had taken my bath I returned to the state-room which had been assigned to me by the mate, and there remained _perdu_, awaiting the moment when that somewhat formidable individual the captain should be pleased to send for me.