It was the lights of this ship that the Arabs
had seen and mistaken for those of an English man-of-war. She had put
into Kilwa for water, and the sailors, finding me on the verandah of
the house and still living, in the goodness of their hearts carried me
on board. Of the old woman they had seen nothing; I suppose that at
their approach she ran away.
"At Zanzibar, in an almost dying condition, I was handed over to a
clergyman of our mission, in whose house I lay desperately ill for a
long while. Indeed six months went by before I fully recovered my
right mind. Some people say that I have never recovered it; perhaps
you are one of them, Allan.
"At last the wound in my skull healed, after a clever English naval
surgeon had removed some bits of splintered bone, and my strength came
back to me. I was and still am an American subject, and in those days
we had no consul at Zanzibar, if there is one there now, of which I am
not sure, and of course no warship. The English made what inquiries
they could for me, but could find out little or nothing, since all the
country about Kilwa was in possession of Arab slave-traders who were
supported by a ruffian who called himself the Sultan of Zanzibar.
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