Our prize proved to be the _Dolores_, of two hundred tons measurement, with--as we had suspected--a cargo of slaves, numbering three hundred and fifty, which she had shipped in one of the numerous creeks at the mouth of the Congo on the previous day, and with which she was bound for Rio Grande.  Her crew were transferred to the _Shark_; and then--the second lieutenant being ill and quite unfit for service--I was put in command of her, with a crew of fourteen men, and instructed to make the best of my way to Sierra Leone.  My crew of fourteen included Gowland, our master's mate, and young Sinclair, a first-class volunteer, as well as San Domingo, the servant of the midshipmen's mess, to act as steward, and the cook's mate.  We therefore mustered only five forecastle hands to a watch, which I thought little enough for a schooner of the size of the _Dolores_; but as we hoped to reach Sierra Leone in a week at the outside, and as the schooner was unarmed, Captain Bentinck seemed to think that we ought to be able to manage fairly well.  By the time that we had transferred ourselves and our traps to the prize it had fallen quite dark.  The _Shark_ therefore lost no time in hauling her wind in pursuit of the strange brig, which by this time had run out of sight, and of which the skipper of the _Dolores_ professed to know nothing beyond the fact that she was French, was named the _Suzanne_, and was running a cargo of slaves across to Martinique.