The next two days were entirely devoid of incident; but we were all kept busy in attending to the unfortunate captive blacks, supervising the bathing of them in batches, inducing them to take a moderate amount of exercise in the barracoon compounds, feeding them up, and nursing the sick--of whom, however, there was luckily a singularly small percentage. But on the morning of the third day, before the gig had started upon her daily cruise of surveillance of the river, the look-out whose turn it was for duty in the crow's-nest had scarcely ascended to his lofty perch in the tree when he hurried down again with the intelligence that three craft--a ship, a barque, and a large brigantine--were in the offing and making for the mouth of the river.  Whereupon Mr Purchase volunteered to go aloft, taking me with him as aide-de-camp, to keep an eye upon the strangers, and to transmit intelligence of their movements from time to time.  The skipper promptly accepted the offer and, besides, arranged a system by which I was to write Mr Purchase's messages, carry them from the crow's-nest to the ground, and deliver them over to one of two midshipmen in waiting, who would at once scamper off with it, while I ascended the Jacob's ladder again for further information, to be transmitted by the second midshipman--if, meanwhile, the first had not had time to return.  This system acted admirably, for it kept the captain fully informed of the course of events, and at the same time left him quite free to attend to such preparations for the reception of the three craft as he might deem necessary.