Blackwood’s younger step-brother Harry, a marine second lieutenant, is also aboard, as is Sir Geoffrey Slade, a senior government official.

At Gibraltar, disquieting news reaches Slade by despatch-boat concerning a possible native uprising north of Freetown.

He and a detachment of marines transfer to HMS Satyr, a new and faster steam ship, of the type being newly constructed for the Royal Navy; admired by some but derided by others including Ashley-Chute.

Despite the British government’s attempts to persuade the natives to take up palm oil production, they have returned to the vastly more lucrative slave trade.

Many marines are killed and wounded in the battle, but they are able to relieve the besieged trade fortress, finding few survivors.

But the hard-fighting marines are victorious, and Lessard, the leader of the slavers, falls, or is pushed, into the hold of a laden slave ship, where he’s torn apart.

He finds his father, the Colonel, bedridden but in good spirits and happy to hear of his son’s exploits.

He accidentally overhears a conversation in which he learns that his step-mother was the mistress of the late Lord Lapidge, from whom she inherited her wealth.

Fynmore, who has learned that his wife has given birth to a baby, almost certainly Harry’s, angrily gives the latter a dangerous assignment with a grenade party.