Leery foreboding seeped over him. He settled his hands on his hips. “If I can…”
“Promise me you’ll not let Brayden Harcourt, or anyone of the like, marry her.”
Trent couldn’t stop the bark of laughter that escaped. “That may be like asking a mule to prevent rain from falling.”
The corner of Ryan’s mouth lifted. “Perhaps. But I’ve seen you cross swords with RyAnne on more than one occasion, and generally you come out the winner. So I’m counting on you to give it your best shot.”
Trent studied the decking at his feet. “If the time comes, and if you are not here to speak for yourself, I’ll make your wishes known to her.”
Ryan pulled his hand back and nodded. “That’s all I can ask. And I appreciate it.”
Trent made his escape before the man extracted any more intimate promises.
The lioness may be pretty and sleek, but he had no desire to spend the rest of his days fighting her sharp claws and biting wit.
RyAnne didn’t do much except rouse to eat, and then sleep some more, for the next several days. Papa seemed to have turned a corner, resting most of the time himself, and her mind had been eased a small measure with regard to his condition.
But after several days of rest her strength had returned, and she feared she was beginning to come down with a case of “cabin fever,” as Captain Dawson called it.
So she couldn’t have been more relieved when the “land-ho” call had rung out over an hour ago, and Papa had gone topside to get the details. A little thrill rushed through her at the thought of getting to explore a new city.
RyAnne took advantage of Papa’s absence to change into her only remaining clean dress, and now waited for him to fetch her once the ship had docked.
The port was called Bagamoyo. Lay Down Your Heart. Her brow furrowed as she primped her hair in the reflection of the tea tray. How odd that a town should be named such a thing. Whyever would they have wanted to call it that?
But—she set the tray down and smoothed her skirts—never mind the name. A town was a town. She was looking forward to doing a little shopping. Eating a fresh mango. And maybe even some roasted peanuts. She paced the confines of the captain’s cabin, waiting for Papa to fetch her.
Memories of the Zanzibar harbor assailed, and her stomach turned a long, slow curl. Truth be told, if this harbor was going to be anything like that, she was happy to remain here belowdecks until she could escape the ship with as little exposure to the atrocities as possible. But she hadn’t heard even one murmur about this harbor being similar to that on Zanzibar, so likely she needn’t worry.
Finally she felt the bump of the ship against the dock. They had arrived! Soon her feet would be on blessed solid ground.
Slowly the minutes ticked by, but Papa did not come to get her. She peered out the porthole, but all she could see was the side of another ship in the next slip over. She poked her head out into the passageway. Empty and silent. Papa must have forgotten her. She would just go up and find him so they could go into town together.
Bosun Knight hurried toward her the minute she stepped into the thankfully pleasant-smelling air on the deck. “Miss Hunter. Your father asked that I instruct you to remain belowdecks until we can set sail once more this evening.”
“Nonsense. Whatever for—”
An undulating screech sliced through the humid air. Much more than terror—so much more—reverberated in that short wail. It held a note of finality. A tenor of defeat. And the first was followed by a second and a third. The cries rose up together in chorus, and underlying them came deeper shouts, cold and uncaring, the crack of whip, and jangle of chain.
John Knight clutched at her sleeve. “Miss—”
She brushed past him, drawn to the starboard rail as if pulled by a lead rope. A dhow was tied up across from them in the slip that shared their dock.
On the shore, a line of poor woeful souls, shackled together, shuffled toward the gangplank of the dhow. None of them wore more than a breechcloth—man, woman, or child—all so thin that she could have counted their ribs. Two thickly muscled men strode along the dock, each holding a sharp prod in one hand and a whip in the other. These they liberally used on any of the pitiable, frail wretches they deemed too slow or uncooperative.
A whip descended across the shoulders of a hunched old man, leaving a crimson streak in its wake. RyAnne flinched and looked farther down the line.
A wide-eyed woman bent and frantically tried to disengage the shackle around her ankle. Bright-red blood and white bone stood in contrast to her dark skin. She’d obviously tried to remove the clasp before, to no avail. One of the slavers shouted at her, but when she was slow to rise, he jabbed her with the point of his goad. With a haggard cry the woman scrambled forward, and the slaver gave a satisfied nod.
RyAnne’s hand rose to her mouth. She absentmindedly registered Mr. Knight by her side saying something. He took her arm, but she shook him off and gripped the rail.
At the top of the gangplank, two other slavers waited to receive the slaves being prodded their way. One held a key, and as each reached the deck, he bent and unlocked their shackles, then handed them off to another man. There were no slaves on the deck, so they were obviously being taken below. The dhow was small, smaller even than Captain Trent’s brig, yet at least a hundred more slaves still waited to be taken aboard the vessel.
She’d heard of slave ships that gave only a meter of room between decks and packed the slaves in so tightly they lay shoulder to shoulder. But she was only now beginning to realize what a sheltered life Papa had ensured she had. Stories didn’t compare to actually witnessing such atrocities.
How could people be so cruel to one another? She swallowed and absentmindedly rubbed her fingertips over her forearms. Had the woman who had birthed her faced something like this early in her life?
She remembered the question that had come to her as she had first registered the horrors at the Zanzibar harbor. Whom shall I send, child?
Something ought to be done! But what could she, a lone woman, do about the injustice in the world? She couldn’t take that whole ship’s crew on by herself. And the law was not on her side—they were doing nothing illegal, provided they only shipped the slaves to Zanzibar.
She thought of Papa. First, she needed to return him to Zanzibar where he would have better medical treatment. She must convince him. But… She swallowed and scanned the dhow once more. What kind of person would she be to witness things like this and not at least try to do something?
She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes as defeat washed over her. How had she lived in a land full of slavery all her life and never truly understood the dehumanizing origin of it? She’d even treated wounds at the slave market. However, nothing had struck her to the core like this sight.
The odds of actually making a difference seemed insurmountable.
Her desire to explore the town had vanished.
A pregnant woman in the line of slaves glanced back toward the shore and released a raspy keen that sent a chill down RyAnne’s spine.
Lay Down Your Heart. The town’s name made so much more sense now.
Exhaustion enveloped her like a heavy cloak. Listlessly she retreated belowdecks and crawled into her hammock.
Papa and Captain Dawson returned a few hours later, and they put out to sea without so much as a word. From the pinched looks they both wore, each was as happy to be away from that place as she was.
They sailed south along the coast, close enough in that the dark outline of the Continent remained a constant companion off to the starboard.
All RyAnne’s energy had been sapped by the scene along the Bagamoyo dock. She spent several days pleading ill and sleeping most of the time. Which, if she were honest with herself, wasn’t far from the truth. She was heartsick. She remembered nothing of her own mother, who had, in fact, died giving birth to her. But it chilled her to realize it could so easily have been her walking there in that chain gang of peop
le. Once, when she slept, she dreamed a woman much like herself walked among the line of shackled humanity. She’d jerked awake with a start and lay in her hammock, heart pounding for a moment before reality settled into her mind.
Of course, the girl who’d birthed her would not have experienced such treatment. She had been the daughter of a Zanzibar clove plantation owner. Papa had purchased the girl directly from her father.
RyAnne rolled to her side and tucked her elbow under her head, staring at the hull.
That must have been painful enough for the girl—to have her own father sell her.
Papa had intended to use the girl as a house servant because of her beauty. But then he’d conceived in her a child, and the girl had died in childbirth. Papa could have taken RyAnne to the slave market. But instead, he’d insisted on raising her as his own. Her first soft mewl had driven a shaft of remorse straight through his heart, he’d told her years later. She was white enough to pass as his and Anne’s own offspring. He’d even insisted Anne allow the use of her name to combine with his, as was common. And to save face in society, Mother had gone along with his plan. They’d promptly returned to England, and when family and friends expressed surprise over the new baby, Papa and Mother had claimed their letter about the impending arrival of a new little one must have gotten lost in transit. And by the time they returned to Zanzibar a few years later, the details of the timing of it all were a hazy blur in the distant past. Thus RyAnne’s heritage had remained unquestioned.
RyAnne sighed.
It was no wonder Anne had spent the bulk of her life detesting her.
Finally sleep came that night, and when she woke, she set a resolve in her heart never to remain so naïve again. After she talked Papa into going home, she would find a way to make a difference. Even if she feared she could do naught.
She felt better after that, and when a few days later there came a knock on the captain’s cabin door, she actually felt relief at the intrusion. “Who’s there?” she called as Papa roused from a nap and rubbed his palms over his face.
“Begging your pardon, miss, but the captain has sent word. We’ll dock at Cape Delgado by nightfall.”
Finally, she would get to escape the wearisome rocking of this ship.
While at Bagamoyo, Trent had sent word to a friend at Cape Delgado that they would like a place to stay while they assembled the parts of the little steamship he and Papa had purchased for this trip. Tonight they were to stay in the home of his friend, a British commodore in charge of keeping the peace and battling slavery in the towns along the coast.
Surely there would be dancing and music, and maybe that would begin to erase the helpless feeling that had been hanging over her like a gray cloud for the past few days.
Music…
Her one regret was that she hadn’t been able to bring her violin with her. She ran her thumb over the small calluses on her fingertips. Would they be gone before she had the chance to play again?
Papa excused himself so she could change her dress, and she’d just finished buttoning the shirtwaist of her yellow ensemble when a knock sounded once more. Papa must have returned to change into his evening coat. Her excitement had been building steadily since the announcement earlier.
Hurrying across the room, she flung the door open. “Oh, Papa, I’m so excited to hear music ag—”
Captain Dawson leaned in the companionway, one shoulder planted into the bulkhead, arms folded.
He’d been so busy for the past several days that she’d hardly seen him, much less spoken to him.
His eyes swept her, and a gleam leapt to life there.
She smoothed her hands over imaginary wrinkles. Why did she want his approval so much? “I’m sorry. I thought—”
Waving away her apology, he straightened. “I should have announced myself.” He bowed over her hand, holding her gaze as he did so. “You look very…rested.”
Rested?
She’d just spent over a quarter of an hour primping her hair and dressing, and the word that came to him was rested?
She pulled her hand free and forced a curtsy. “Thank you, Captain Dawson.”
Dash it all. Why did she care a whit what this man thought of her?
“If you’ll pardon me, I need access to my chest inside.”
“Of course. I’ll just go find Papa up on deck.”
The next thirty minutes were occupied with the crew docking the ship along a rickety-looking wharf. A carriage had been sent down from the main estate, and a short ride later they arrived at a great house on a low bluff overlooking the ocean below.
Just a furlong or so away, small huts clustered near the Rovuma River, which flowed down the hill and dumped into the bay.
Trent introduced her and Papa to Commodore Llewellyn Cornwall, who seemed a pleasant enough fellow, if a bit drawn to his drink, and who in turn presented the dark-haired Arab already seated at his table.
RyAnne’s stomach pitched.
“May I present Ali Khalifa? Here on behalf of Harcourt Shipping to…trade for supplies.” The commodore and Captain Dawson exchanged glances full of some elusive meaning.
Ali Khalifa’s eyebrows rose as RyAnne was introduced. He raked her with a look that sent a shiver of unease through her. He sucked at his front teeth, then picked at them with a dirty fingernail, glancing away and seeming to dismiss her from his mind.
Shaking out the serviette next to her plate, she tucked it into her lap. Khalifa here? What was the commodore of Harcourt Shipping doing on an inland trading mission?
The whispered conversation she’d overheard in the Harcourts’ garden the night of the ball came back to her with sudden clarity. She stiffened. Could Khalifa be one of the men she’d heard? She swallowed. If he was, then it was certain whatever plan they’d been discussing was ill gotten. Who had the second man in that conversation been?
After the long dinner trying to suppress her unease over Khalifa’s presence, she could not even muster an ounce of disappointment that the meal was a short affair with no music and dancing afterward. In fact, RyAnne was to a great extent relieved when their host stood and indicated the meal was concluded, directing a servant to show them all to their quarters.
Trent stood along with her and Papa. He cast a cursory glance toward the repulsive trader before turning his attention back to their host. “Lew, I’ll just escort Miss Hunter to her room, but then I’d like a word with you, if I could?”
“Certainly.” Commodore Cornwall nodded.
Trent motioned for her to precede him out the door, and they followed the head house servant, who had been introduced as Kako, down a long outer veranda with guest rooms off to the left. Each room had a large window so guests could look over the terraced gardens to the beauty of the Indian Ocean beyond. As they walked, RyAnne admired the moonlight spilling like a milky gloss over the obsidian tabletop of the water. Far out in the bay, she could see the twinkling lights of a trawler, probably fishing. Cicadas had begun their evening serenade, accompanied by the chorus of rushing river water. And despite the fact that she’d done not much but rest for the past several days, weariness sapped her strength.
Trent paused just outside her room as Kako unlocked the door and handed her the key and then returned the way they had just come.
“Thank you, Captain. Good evening to you.” She started into her room.
“Miss Hunter?”
Trent’s words froze her on the threshold, and she turned to face him. “Yes, Captain?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, glancing down at the rattan mat under his feet before peering up at her. “Are you well?”
She lifted her chin and swallowed. “I will be fine, thank you.”
“Yes…” He cleared his throat. “Let me remind you that over the next few days I’m going to be very busy putting our boat together and loading it with supplies. If you find yourself getting bored and have a yen to run off to a cockfight or a slave market, I hope you will take into consideration”—he glanced b
ack toward the dining room where they’d just left Khalifa, and something dark rippled across his features—“that you are not in Zanzibar Town, where you have many friends, but are in a locale totally unknown to you and full of many dangers.” He lowered his chin and gave her a pointed look.
Her jaw dropped. Did he think her so addlebrained? “Captain Dawson! I’m am not a child who needs to be mollycoddled and bossed about! I know how to take care of myself, and of course I would do no such thing!”
He clasped his hands behind him and headed back down the veranda toward the main house, then paused and glanced over his shoulder, his brows arched in apparent skepticism. “I, for one, hope you can prove those words to be true, Miss Hunter. Good evening.” He offered a sketch of a bow.
She stomped into her room and slammed the door behind her. Of all the pompous boors in the universe, why did that one have to be so comely?
Kako directed Trent toward the parlor when he stepped back into the main wing of the house.
Lew sat on the settee nursing a finger of scotch. He indicated the decanter on the sideboard. “Help yourself.”
Trent sat in one of the wingback chairs across from the commodore. “No thanks.” He clasped his hands and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he studied his old friend. The many days of heavy drinking were wearing hard on the man. Veins etched trails across his bulbous nose, and wrinkles added years Trent knew were not there.
Lew turned the glass and assessed the amber liquid in the bottom. His lower lip protruded. “You are probably wise not to start, my friend. The old girl’s not much of a companion.” Despite his words, the man lifted the glass in a trembling hand and sipped unsteadily.
Trent studied the floor for a moment before looking up to meet Lew’s gaze. “What news have you”—he turned to scan both entrances to the room and lowered his voice to ensure he wasn’t overheard—“of Khalifa?”
Lew set his glass on the table by his side and rubbed a hand down his face. “He arrived day before yesterday. He and his crew have been loading casks of dried fish and tea onto his Indigo Waves.” Lew pursed his lips. “Interesting thing is that Khalifa plans to take several of his crew inland on a ‘trading mission’ as soon as they finish loading the ship—probably in the next few days. His first mate is apparently going to sail the cargo to England.”
Lay Down Your Heart: A serialized historical Christian romance. (Sonnets of the Spice Isle Book 2) Page 3