The Slave Dancer Read Online Free Page A

clouds. It looked like rain. I caught my foot in a coil of heavy chain, and I bumped my shoulder against a mast. Except for the mutter of Purvis’ voice, I heard only the fluttering sound of water about the hull of the ship. A man passed me wearing a woolen cap, his gaze on the horizon.
    There was no one to save me—and I didn’t even know from what I needed to be saved. As quickly as my mother’s sharp scissors cut a thread, snip! I had been cut off from the only life I knew. When I felt a hand on my arm, I supposed it was Purvis come to tease me, so I didn’t turn around. But a strange voice asked, “What’s your name?”
    It was a plain question, asked in a plain voice. I was startled, as though life had come straight again, and turned to find a tall heavy-limbed man standing behind me. I made no reply at first. He smiled encouragingly and said, “I’m Benjamin Stout and sorry for what’s been done to you.”
    I wanted to ask him why it had been done, but I was so grateful to be spoken to in such a sensible way that I didn’t wish to provoke him. I said nothing. He leaned against the bulwark.
    â€œHow old are you? Thirteen, I’d guess. I was pressed too, although when I was older than you, and for a much longer voyage than this will be. A whole year I was gone. But then, you see, I got to like it, the sea and all, even the hard life on a ship, so that when I go ashore, I get restless in a few hours. I get half mad with restlessness. Though I promise you, there are days at sea when all you want is to be on a path that has no end, a path you can run straight ahead on till your breath gives out. Oh, I’m not speaking of gales and storms and squalls. I mean the flat dead days without wind.”
    â€œI’m thirteen,” I said.
    â€œThirteen,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Just as I said. You’ll see some bad things, but if you didn’t see them, they’d still be happening so you might as well.”
    I couldn’t make sense of all that. I asked him the question that was uppermost in my mind.
    â€œWhere are we going?”
    â€œWe’re sailing to Whydah in the Bight of Benin.”
    â€œWhere is that?”
    â€œAfrica.”
    For all the calmness with which he said Africa , he might as well have said Royal Street. I felt like a bird caught in a room.
    â€œYou haven’t told me your name,” he said.
    â€œJessie Bollier,” I replied in a whisper. For a second I was ready to throw myself off the ship. The very name of that distant place was like an arrow aimed at me.
    â€œJessie, we’ll shake hands, now that we know each other. I’ll show you to our quarters where you’ll sleep. You’ll get used to the hammock in a night or two. I’ve got so I won’t sleep in anything else, and when I’m ashore, I prefer even the floor to a bed.”
    â€œHere!” roared Purvis, his heavy steps pounding toward us. “Is this boy bawling up trouble?”
    â€œShut your great face,” Benjamin Stout called over his shoulder, then said to me, “He’s harmless, only noisy. But watch out for the Mate, Nick Spark. And when you speak to the Captain, be sure and answer everything he asks you, even if you must lie.”
    Purvis dropped a heavy hand on my shoulder. “You’ve met Saint Stout, I see. Come along. Captain Cawthorne wants to see what sort of fish we caught.”
    His hand slid down and gripped my arm. Half dragging me, for I couldn’t match his strides, he took me to a part of the ship which had a kind of small house on it, the roof forming what I later learned was the poop deck.
    â€œStand, Purvis,” a voice ordered, as dry as paper and as sharp as vinegar. Purvis became a stone. I twitched my arm away from his grasp and rubbed it.
    â€œStep forward, boy,” said the voice. I took a step toward the two men who stood in front of the small