The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox

Author:Paula Fox
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Published: 2016-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

The Spaniard

“Have you ever watched a cockfight, Jessie? You’d never guess a fowl had so much life in it till you saw one with murder in its eye. It moves so fast you can only tell where the beak struck when the blood spurts! It’s the finest sight in the world! I’d like to have my own fighting cocks someday. I’ve devised a plan to make the viewing better. There’s always some who can’t see the pit over the heads of the others, but here’s how I would do it—”

“Cooley, leave off with your birds!” Sam Wick interrupted. “It’s only savages who’d take pleasure in such a spectacle. We’ve outlawed it in Massachusetts. As for owning anything, you’ll be fortunate if you end your days with something over your head to keep off the rain.”

“They’ve outlawed everything in Massachusetts,” retorted Cooley without much fire. The two sailors fell silent. Both stared at the horizon which appeared to rise and sink as the ship rolled. I looked at their eyes, so wide, so empty, like the sea itself in that moment when the last colors of sunset have faded and darkness begins. So had they witnessed—if it can be called that—the casting overboard of Ned Grime’s body that morning, and later, when the holds had been emptied, the discovery of eight of the blacks dead, five men, one woman and two children who had followed Ned into the waves. There was no one to say what anyone died from now.

That Sam Wick was from Massachusetts, my mother’s birthplace, held my attention only a second. They had all come from somewhere, after all. It made no difference to me. I didn’t care if in New York or Rhode Island or Georgia, the crew had wives and children, or parents, or brothers and sisters. We were all locked into The Moonlight as the ship herself was locked into the sea. Everything was wrong.

The slaves were nearer death than the crew, although what they ate was not much worse than what we ate, and none of us, except the Captain and Stout, who had now assumed the duties of Mate, was ever free from thirst except when it rained. But we could walk the deck. I wondered if, in this circumstance, that was not the difference between life and death. And although Ben Stout could and did increase our misery with his captious orders, there was a limit. There were courts of inquiry to which the Captain would have to answer for unusual cruelty toward his crew—if a sailor had the endurance to pursue justice. If any of us ever saw the shore again …

Our northwestward course was steady except during one violent downpour. Though we were out of the doldrums, Purvis never left off exclaiming at our luck in not having been becalmed for weeks. His voice was fevered; his eyes bulged as he tried to convince me—perhaps, only himself—that it would be clear sailing ahead, only a brief passage now until he collected his wages and his share of the profit from the sale of the slaves.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.