Or rather, I suppose I shall tell you now. You see, Bent was part of a British expedition expect’d to go around the horn of Africa, but three weeks after sailing out of Tenerife, the crew discover’d that a strange kind of mold was growing inside a majority of their water barrels, making the water undrinkable. They had to make a hasty stop along the coast to go in search of water. A search party was sent out with Bent as its head. They were suppos’d to return to the ship in the evening, irrespective of their findings. But come twilight there was no sign of them. When they had still not return’d that morning, another search party was sent to find them. Of this second party of seven men, only one return’d, Bent in tow, both of them injur’d and frighten’d. Their story was as sorrowful as it was revolting. The second party had arriv’d at a Negro village just when the savages were about to put a machete to Bent’s neck, so that they could boil him the same way they had boil’d his mates. The other members of the rescue party had been lost in the ensuing battle. Bent was allow’d to retire at the first port of call the expedition found, and as you would expect, he got on the next boat to Europe, and has never sail’d since.