It appeared, from his story, that intelligence had just been received of the successful conclusion of a great slave-hunting raid into the interior by a certain King Olomba, who had recently returned in triumph to his town of Olomba, on the left bank of the Fernan Vaz river, bringing with him nearly three thousand negroes, of whom over two thousand were males, all in prime condition.  This information having reached the slavers' agents at Sierra Leone through the mysterious channels by which news often travels in Africa, an effort of quite exceptional magnitude was to be made to get at least the two thousand males out of the country at one fell swoop; the present being regarded as an almost uniquely favourable opportunity for the accomplishment of this object, for the reason that the _Psyche_ was just then the only ship which could by any possibility interfere with the scheme.  And in the event of her happening to put in an inopportune appearance on that part of the coast at the critical moment--as she had a knack of doing, in the most unaccountable manner--she was to be decoyed away from the spot by the simple process of dispatching to sea a certain notorious schooner well-known to be in the trade, but which, for this occasion only, was to have no slaves or slave fittings or adjuncts on board, and after a chase of some two or three hundred miles to the southward, was to permit herself to be caught, only to be released again, of course, after an exhaustive overhaul.