by L. A. Meyer
I run out on the pier and look sharply about. All the girls are now down in the launch, sitting on a bench that runs entirely around the inside of the gunwales. In the center is a tarpaulin that I suppose covers up the supplies needed for the day. Jerome stands and waves me to come over to the ladder and extends one white-gloved hand.
I don't take his hand. "Where's Mr. Harrison?" I demand of him. "We're not going anywhere, not without Mistress or Higgins, we're not—"
"Oh yes, you are, my dear," I hear Mr. Harrison say behind me, and then I feel something hard pushed into the small of my back, something I know to be the barrel of a pistol. I suck in my breath. "You will get into the boat and you will not say a word or I will put a bullet in your spine. The others will not be able to see this gun, as it is beneath my jacket, and so will not be alarmed. I do not wish them to be alarmed just yet." He is saying this very conversationally into my ear and I'm sure no one in the boat has noticed anything amiss. "And I have another pistol in my other pocket and if you so much as move a muscle in the wrong direction, my second bullet will go into the brain of that little girl right there."
I know he means Rebecca, who is sitting there in the stern of the boat, looking up at me and patting the seat next to her, impatient for me to come join her. Full of fear and dismay, I go down the ladder and sit down beside the girl, my seabag on my lap. We are on the rear seat and there is room for the coxswain and Mr. Harrison to stand behind us. Dobbs is back there, too, but small comfort in that—I can't see him in the role of bold rescuer. The pressure of the metal on my back does not relent.
"Let us cast off, Jerome," says Mr. Harrison.
"Yassuh, Mistuh Harrison. We do dat right now," says Jerome, and he throws off the bowline. The coxswain throws off the stern line, then the sail is raised and we pull away from the pier.
"Isn't it just the most beautiful day, ladies?" asks Mr. Harrison from behind me, and though I can't see his face, I am sure he is beaming out his benevolence on his trusting charges.
We are soon into open water and we take a little spray over the bow. The girls squeal in delight at the coolness on their cheeks and feign dismay over their clothes. The coxswain turns the bow a bit to take the waves in an easier way and the spray stops.
I can see Lovell Island up ahead and getting closer. I suspect we will be going around it to the other side, the sea side, where whatever is going to happen to us will happen out of sight of any on the coast who might be watching. It's sure to be a lot rougher on that side, I figure. I wonder...
"And why is our beloved little Brit being so quiet today?" asks Clarissa, who is seated in about the middle of the starboard seat and is looking at me in her mocking way. I know she has been thinking of ways to get back at me for the abolitionist-newspaper thing—Oh, Clarissa, if only you knew just how little all that means right now—and she goes on. "Why, you'd think the dear little thing would be chattering away like the sweet little magpie she is, being on the sea she says she so dearly loves."
The pistol is then removed from my back and brought around to press against my temple. The gun is now in plain sight. "I've got other things on my mind right now, Clarissa" I manage to say. I hear Rebecca gasp.
Clarissa's mouth drops open, as does the mouth of anyone watching me for a reply to Clarissa's sally, which is, of course, everyone. They don't have much time to wonder whether this is all a joke or not, for just then the coxswain puts the tiller over and we slip behind Lovell Island and Mr. Harrison says, "All right, men," and the tarpaulin is thrown back and men are revealed crouching there, men holding pistols and pointing them directly into the shocked faces of the ladies of the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls.
While the ladies are looking down the barrels of the pistols, I'm looking at a ship, a good-sized one, sitting at anchor several hundred yards off shore of the island. It is the black ship I had spied and wondered about yesterday. It is a trim and fast-looking brig, and I gaze at it with a sinking heart. The closer we approach, the more I despair.
We reach the ship and pull around it to where a gangway has been put down. The launch swings in under it and drops its sail. Rough-looking men watch us from behind the railing above as the boat is quickly secured and Harrison barks out, "Up the ladder with you, now! Quickly!"
The still stunned girls of the Lawson Peabody are taken up the gangway, roughly prodded along with hard hands and pistol barrels. We are hurried and cursed, and there are no white-gloved helping hands now. Jerome has disappeared. Rebecca clings to my right side, trembling, as does Elspeth to my left.
After we gain the deck, men force us into a huddle. Our purses are taken and some of them thrown overboard. A man strips the bonnet from Elspeth, and in a moment I feel mine torn away as well. The bonnets, too, are tossed over the side. Dorothea's new spyglass is wrenched from her hands while she looks on in shocked disbelief.
While most of the girls are wailing in horror and dismay, I look about to see where we are and what we will have to contend with. The ship is about one hundred and fifty feet in length, forty feet broad in the beam. I can see six guns, three on either side. There are about forty men altogether, on deck or in the rigging. There is an open hatch near to me, and from the stench coming up from below, I know this ship to be a slaver.
Mr. Harrison stands with crossed arms and smug expression, gazing upon our confused huddle. Incredibly, Dobbs goes over to stand with him. He stands there looking at us with a very satisfied look on his vile face. You son of a bitch, I'm thinking, you sold us out. I drop my seabag to the deck near the open hatch.
Dolley Frazier, her normally placid and composed face flushed with fury, pushes forward and confronts Harrison.
"Mr. Harrison! What do you mean to gain by this? Are you crazy? Are you mad? You will put us ashore immediately!"
"Oh, no, Miss, beggin' your pardon, but we will not do that," says Harrison, removing his hat and making a mock bow. "Permit me to reintroduce myself, as I am a man of some renown in certain circles. My real name is Colonel Bartholomew Simon, and you are at my service. Welcome to the Bloodhound. It shall be your new home for the immediate future. I do hope you will find it comfortable"
While attention is centered on this exchange of pleasantries, I use my foot to slide my seabag sideways, over to the open hatch. The bag tips over, and I hear the muffled sound of its fall, way down below. I'm thinking that that's where they're probably going to keep us and maybe I'll be able to get it later. If I left it on deck, they would surely take it from me.
"I know who you are now—you're the slaver Blackman Bart. That's who you are, and you are no colonel! You are nothin' but a common slave peddler." This is from Clarissa, who has come up next to Dolley to add her bit. I keep quiet 'cause I know all this talk ain't gonna do no good, no good at all.
"Well, Miss Howe, I may be a slave dealer, but I assure you I am not a common one. Are you surprised I know your name? It is very simple, really. I have sold many, many slaves to your father, and in the course of our last transaction for twenty good strong bucks and twelve young females—half of them already heavy with child, I might add—a very good collection of black flesh, muscle, and bone, not to mention womb, we entered into conversation and he spoke proudly of his daughter and the fine finishing school she attends in Boston. What a perfect opportunity, I thought, thirty certifiably virtuous females just ripe for the plucking." He smiles and nods happily at his own cunning.
Although we are out of sight around the lee of the deserted island and cannot be seen from the shore, still, were I him, I would have hustled us below. But I think he's enjoying this too much to do that.
Also enjoying himself hugely over all this is a boy of about fifteen years. He is cavorting about behind Simon and the rest. He is thin, with big hands and feet and curly blond hair. Suspenders hold up his pants and he wears no shirt. The boy grins at us, showing greenish teeth, and in his excitement, he jumps about like a demented monkey.
"So you would hold us for ransom, then?" asks Dolley, her chi
n in the air, her Look resolutely in place.
"I am deeply sorry, Miss, but no. In kidnappings there is always the problem of the transfer of the money, and you already know my name. How could I possibly let you go? You do see the problem, don't you, dear?" He shakes his head sadly as if he were a kindly old uncle telling a crestfallen child that she couldn't have any more candy.
"Then what..."
"What, indeed? Well, I will tell you." He clasps his hands behind him and begins to walk back and forth before us. I was right—he is enjoying this. "Everyone knows that the transatlantic shipment of slaves will be outlawed here within the next few years," he says with a wistful sigh, as if bemoaning the loss of a hallowed tradition, "and measures must be taken to maximize profit now, while we can. This ship is built to carry four hundred and eighty slaves. We take on six hundred at the barracoons in West Africa, but generally it's only four hundred and fifty or so that survive the crossing. Upon landing, I can get nine hundred dollars for a good strong buck, five hundred for a young woman, more if she's pregnant, and two hundred for a child. So you see, if you have studied your math at the dear Lawson Peabody, my partners and I make a gross profit, before our considerable expenses, of course, of at the very least, three hundred thousand dollars a trip. We figure our actual profit margin at fifty percent. Well worth the risk, wouldn't you say?"
He smiles and pauses, plainly pleased with his own eloquence—this man does like to talk. I notice some sailors are getting fidgety, anxious to be under way and tired of this man's blather. But he is the boss and so goes on.
"But for the lot of you, ah, I shall get that amount and then some when we get you to the Arab slave markets in North Africa and you are put up on the auction block and sold."
There is a common gasp from the girls. Sold into slavery! Not us, surely not us! Several clutch each other in horror. Elspeth and Rebecca are both clamped to me, on either side, whimpering. This can't be happening, oh dear God, no! I had already figured out what our fate was to be and continued my casing of the ship. There's a hatch up forward—that's got to lead down to the crew's quarters, storerooms, and galley. The Captain's and Mates' berths would be at the rear of the ship. All available space would be given over to the massive hold in the middle, the better to, again, maximize profit.
"You would eat at a man's table and then turn around and sell his daughter into a life of debauchery?" asks Clarissa with all the contempt she can muster, which is considerable—I should know, since I am generally the object of that contempt.
The man who now calls himself Colonel Bartholomew Simon goes over and stands before her. He puts the end of his riding crop under her chin and forces her face up even higher than she was holding it. I must say that, along with Dolley, Clarissa is one of the few who has maintained the Look in this situation.
"You are a pretty one. They said that you were. The price on you just went up a thousand dollars," he says. "Eat at his table? Oh no. Do you think that the Grand Lord Howe would have such as me to dinner? No, no, my dear, not that insufferably arrogant ass. Very recently, he did refuse to shake my hand when I held it out to him. In public, no less. My hand was left hanging out in the air, unshaken, for all to see. Which is why this is all the more delicious, don't you see?"
What he didn't see was Clarissa working up a gob of spit, which she then rears back and puts straight into his eye. "You pig! Ah will see you hang for this!" Clarissa is a very accurate spitter—I know this from experience.
Colonel Bartholomew Simon puts two fingers into his vest pocket and slowly pulls out a handkerchief. He then carefully wipes the spittle from his face. He is not smiling now.
"No, Miss, you will not. You will never see me again. But you will learn to obey your master. Whoever he turns out to be." And with that he reaches out his hand and slaps her hard across her face, rocking her head back. More gasps from the girls, but not from Clarissa—the red imprint of his hand flares on her cheek but she still maintains the Look. Well, a version of it, anyway—the languid, half-closed eyes have been replaced by a cold, level gaze of pure hatred.
"Shall we get on with this, then, Colonel Simon?" asks a man, obviously the Captain and just as obviously impatient to be on his way.
Simon turns from Clarissa and goes over to Dobbs, who has been grinning and bobbing his head up and down in his joy at what's been happening here. "Yes, we shall, Captain Blodgett, we shall, indeed. Mr. Dobbs, our thanks to you, Sir, for your fine service in this endeavor!" With that, he pulls a bag from the side pocket of his coat and presents it to the grinning Dobbs. "Your reward, Sir, for a job well done!"
"Thankee, Sir," says the vile Dobbs, clutching the purse and leering at us. "Ain't so high-and-mighty now, are ye, dearies? No more 'Dobbs, fetch this' or 'Dobbs, do that.' No, no. Havin' this money means old Dobbs ain't never gonna have to listen to the likes o' you no more—not that old witch Pimm, neither!"
I speak up for the first time. "Did you kill Mistress?" I ask of Bartholomew Simon. "And Higgins? And Mr. Sackett?"
Simon regards me. "No," he says, and I let out a slow breath of relief. "No, that would have cast too much suspicion on this enterprise. They were made sick, but they will recover. It will be blamed on bad fish or something, not on the mild poison our Mr. Dobbs put in their coffees. But how kind of you to think of someone other than yourself, considering your current situation." He makes a mock bow in my direction. I do not return the courtesy.
"This is preposterous. No one will believe this stupid scheme." This is from Dolley. "We are not common girls. A great hue and cry will be raised. You will be pursued and caught and surely brought to justice." She says this with great conviction.
"Let them hue and let them cry. We will be long gone," says Simon. "Besides, they will think you dead. Drowned, poor things, every one. They will find the wreckage—look, even as we speak, the launch is being swamped."
It was true. Sailors had tied a line to the top of the launch's mast and pulled it over till the side of the boat was underwater and the sea poured in. The launch was soon wallowing on its side. About it bobbed the bonnets and purses taken from the girls. Even as I watched, several of them sank out of sight.
"That will drift in, to the rocks over there, and be wrecked. They will find that and various of your personal belongings—and they will find a body—but your dear bodies will never be found. All will surmise that your heavy dresses dragged you down and you were pulled out to sea. How sad."
I think about toeing off my shoes and making a break for the side and diving over, hoping to make it to the shore of that island and so raise the alarm, but the sailors are standing too close about us for me to break through, and there's no telling what these dogs would do if they saw me making good my escape. They might just throw the girls overboard and then get the hell out of here. And then the girls would drown for real. I'm sure there's not a one of them who can swim. No, I'll have to stick around to see how this plays out.
"Well, if you're gonna make a dead body outta one of 'em," says Dobbs, "I'd say you kill that one there, as she's a real troublemaker, she is." He says this and points directly at my forehead.
"Thank you for the suggestion," says Simon. "We shall act upon it. Bo'sun Chubbuck, if you would be so good?"
A man, a very solid-looking man with a short, thick neck, black brows, and scarred face, has been hanging back by the ship's rail, behind the crowd. He now comes forward and he has a massive club in his right hand.
"Elspeth! Rebecca! Stand away from me!" I hiss, but they only clutch me tighter. "Give me room!"
But I will not be able to fight for my life, for a hand comes from behind me and grabs my neck and holds me fast. And he'll hold me thus till the club comes down and smashes my skull, oh, Lord, no!
The Bo'sun takes his club in both hands and swings it like a batsman swinging at a cricket ball and brings it down ... But not on me, oh no, not on me, but on the back of Dobbs's head, and it hits with a great, squishy thud. Dobbs looks surprised for a momen
t, then his eyes roll back in his head and he crumples to the deck.
Simon leans down and picks up the bag of coins. "Fool" he says. "Throw him overboard."
A man takes what's left of handyman Dobbs by the wrists and another by the ankles and they swing him over the rail. There is a splash and it is over. I'm sure he was dead before he hit the water. The man holding my neck lets go and the thumping of my heart begins to slow back down.
The girls are quiet now, as they have just seen a man killed and it was not a pretty thing. It's true that Dobbs was vile and he had it coming, but still, it was an awful sight to see.
Blackman Bart, the self-styled Colonel Bartholomew Simon, now raises his voice and addresses the crew of the Bloodhound: "You men listen to me! I am leaving now and I direct you to set sail to make this delivery. You will deliver this cargo intact in all ways, all ways, do you mark me on that? Captain Blodgett here has orders to shoot any man who so much as touches one of these girls. They are worth a great deal of money in their current condition and I will not have money lost as a result of your lust! Do you hear?"
There is a low murmur of assent, but one sailor speaks up. It is plain that discipline here is nothing like that of a warship. "What about them three servin' girls?" he says, and points at Annie and Sylvie and Katy, who stand together. "They ain't ladies. Surely we can have our sport with them?" The boy I had seen jumping about before is avidly nodding his head up and down in support of the sailor's proposal.
Both Annie and Sylvie cross themselves and put their hands together in prayer, but their faces are without hope. The girl Katy doesn't do anything except just stand there, her face totally without expression.
"Colonel Simon, Sir," I call out. He turns to look at me. "I know these girls personally. I know them and I know their families. They are all good girls and I can vouch for them as to their character and virtue. They will bring as good a price as any of us."
Simon smiles upon me. "Now, there's a good, practical one. I like that in a girl, and I like that even better in a captive." He turns again to the crew. "So be it. Those three shall be treated as the others are treated. And think on this, you dogs: You are getting twice the pay on this voyage. When you're through, you'll be able to buy all the women you could possibly want for months on end. Think on that."