The Blackbirder by James Nelson

Author:James Nelson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473540644
Publisher: Transworld

CHAPTER 18

Madshaka stood on the quarterdeck, near King James, listened to the accusations shouted in the tongues of the Ivory Coast, the Gold Coast, the Grain Coast, the Congo, the Slave Coast. The words of each language passed easily through his head, as if together they were but one great language, so adept was he at speaking them.

He had joined in with the Kru funeral ceremony, singing with them their wailing song of death, because he was himself Kru, while James and Cato and Quash and Good Boy had watched, silent, ignorant.

Madshaka knew who the Kru would obey. He was their master now, master of them all. It was not hubris. It just was.

He turned to King James. ‘They very angry.’ He nodded at the representatives. They were standing, sitting, squatting on the deck, called aft to discuss their situation, to vote, like the pirates do.

Far forward, in the waist and the foredeck, the women and children looked on, apprehensive. They did not like how things were going, how their deliverance was changing before their eyes.

They, however, do not decide their fate, Madshaka thought. I do.

‘What they angry about?’ James was losing his temper, but it was too late for that to be a problem.

‘They angry about running off, leaving that big ship. They think there much riches in that ship.’

‘Did you tell them what I said? About Marlowe, how we be captured if we stay and fight? Did you tell them we trying to get home, not pirating all over the ocean?’

Madshaka shrugged. ‘I told them.’

Actually, he had told them nothing of the sort. He had told them that King James was afraid of the white man, that King James was friends with the white man that came after them, that they had to vote as he, Madshaka, told them to or King James would steal all of their riches.

He had planted deep in their heads the idea of going back to Africa as wealthy men. The horrors of the Middle Passage were fading now, with the near certainty of returning to their homes. Now the thought of acquiring wealth before that return was finding fertile ground.

‘I think they want to take back from the white man, after all they suffer,’ Madshaka said to James. ‘They think you too afraid, you don’t understand. These men are warriors, not good to them to run from a fight.’

James scowled, looked away, and Madshaka waited, expressionless, for what he would say next.

This was so easy, now with Kusi gone.

‘Tell them …’ James began, and stopped and reconsidered.

James was becoming suspicious, but there was nothing that he could do. Madshaka understood as well as James what his choices were. James could hope that Madshaka translated his words correctly, or James could kill Madshaka, if he was able, and then have no means whatsoever to communicate.

James would take his chances with Madshaka.

‘Tell them, we are far from land now, we are halfway to Kalabari, not likely to see another ship. Tell them this was what we wanted, from the beginning, to go home, and that is what we are doing.

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