Then the slaves--600 in all--were brought up from below, open-eyed, whispering, wondering what new act in the pitiful drama of their lives this midnight summons portended.

With blows and curses the sailors ranged them along the rail and bound them to the chain cable.

The anchor was cut loose, plunging into the sea it carried the cable and the shackled slaves with it to the bottom.

The men on the approaching man-of-war's boats, heard a great wail of many voices, a rumble, a splash, then silence, and when they reached the ship its captain politely showed them that there were no slaves aboard, and laughed at their comments on the obvious signs of the recent presence of the blacks.
[Illustration: "BOUND THEM TO THE CHAIN CABLE"] A favorite trick of the slaver, fleeing from a man-of-war, was to throw over slaves a few at a time in the hope that the humanity of the pursuers would impel them to stop and rescue the struggling negroes, thus giving the slave-ship a better chance of escape.

Sometimes these hapless blacks thus thrown out, as legend has it Siberian peasants sometimes throw out their children as ransom to pursuing wolves, were furnished with spars or barrels to keep them afloat until the pursuer should come up; and occasionally they were even set adrift by boat-loads.