The Slave Dancer Read Online Free Page B

house.
    â€œWhat a fearful runt!” boomed the smaller man. Paper-voice agreed, adding a high-pitched “Sir” like a sour whistle at the end of his words. I supposed from that that the short fellow was the Captain.
    â€œYour name?” he asked.
    â€œJessie Bollier.”
    â€œNever heard such a name.”
    â€œIt used to be Beaulieu but my father didn’t want to be thought French, so he changed it,” I hastened to explain, recalling Stout’s advice to answer everything I was asked.
    â€œJust as bad,” said the Captain.
    â€œYes,” I agreed.
    â€œCaptain!” roared the Captain. I jumped.
    The thin man said, “Address the Captain as Captain, you boy.”
    â€œCaptain,” I echoed weakly.
    â€œPurvis!” cried the Captain, “Why are you standing there, you Irish bucket! Get off to your work!”
    Purvis slid away soundlessly.
    â€œSo you’re one of them Creoles, are you?” asked the Captain.
    â€œIt was only my grandfather who was from France, Captain,” I replied apologetically.
    â€œBad fellows, the French,” remarked the Captain, scowling. “Pirates all of them.”
    â€œMy father wasn’t a pirate,” I declared.
    â€œIndeed!” sneered the Captain. He looked straight up at the sky, an odd smile on his lips. Then he coughed violently, clapped his hands together, grew silent and stared at me.
    â€œDo you know why you are employed on this ship?”
    â€œTo play my fife for kings,” I answered.
    â€œDid you hear that, First!” the Captain cried. “That’s Purvis-talk, ain’t it? I’d know it anywhere. It was Purvis told you that, wasn’t it?”
    â€œYes, Captain,” I said.
    â€œPurvis is an Irish bucket,” the thin man said reflectively as though he’d only just thought of it himself.
    â€œWell, now, listen, you miserable pygmy!”
    â€œI will, Captain.”
    Without a word of warning, the little man snatched me up in his arms, held me fast to his chest and bit my right ear so hard I screamed. He set me down instantly, and I would have fallen to the deck if the thin man hadn’t yanked me up by my bruised arm.
    â€œHe answers too fast, Spark,” said the Captain, “but that may teach him!”
    The thin man gave me a shake and let me loose, saying, “Yes, Captain, he answers much too fast.”
    â€œWe are sailing to Africa,” said the Captain, looking over my head, in a voice altogether different from the one with which he had been speaking. He was suddenly, insanely, calm. I wiped the blood from my neck and tried to concentrate on what he was saying.
    We were sailing to Africa, the Captain repeated with a lofty gesture of his hand. And this fast little clipper would keep us safe not only from the British, but from any other misguided pirates who would try to interfere in the lucrative and God-granted trade of slaves. He, Captain Cawthorne, would purchase as many slaves as possible from the barracoon in Why dah, exchanging for them both money, $10 a head, and rum and tobacco, and returning via the island of São Tomé to Cuba where the slaves would be sold to a certain Spaniard. The ship would then return to Charleston with a hold full of molasses, and the whole voyage would take—with any luck at all—four months.
    â€œBut what is wanted is strong black youths,” the Captain said excitedly, slapping Spark on his shoulder. “I won’t have Ibos. They’re soft as melons and kill themselves if they’re not watched twenty-four hours a day. I will not put up with such creatures!” Spark nodded rapidly like a chicken pecking at corn. Then the Captain scowled at me.
    â€œYou’d best learn to make yourself useful about this ship,” he said. “You’d best learn every sail, for you ain’t going to earn your way just by playing a few tunes to make the niggers jig!” He