The Call of Zulina (10 page)

No. The only possible way to go was up. Frightening and unknown though it was, this road was the one that led to Yao. Yes, he was bound and in chains, but Grace had seen his face, and it was not the face of a slave. Besides, Yao had sworn to her that he would find a way out!

With new resolve, Grace pulled herself free of the sharp acacia thorns. Scratched and bleeding, she scrambled up the embankment and set her sights on Zulina.

O
n a cloudless morning, the rising sun cast fiery embers across the deep blue of the Atlantic Ocean. The spectacular dawn filled Pieter DeGroot with a great sense of renewed hope, for at long last he was ready to sail from Zulina's accursed harbor. Lucas Bass, the one-eyed, black-tempered captain of the notorious slaver
The Raven
, was not the person he would have chosen as a sailing mate. But then he didn’t have the luxury of choice. No other offers had come his way, and he was prepared to do anything to escape the constant wails from the slave cells.

With the first rays of dawn, Captain Bass began to pace the deck. Now and then he paused to scowl at the horizon and then back toward the narrow doorway that led into the fortress—the loading gate everyone called the “door of no return.” His irritation mounted, and he paced some more. As the sand in the hourglass marked the passage of time, Captain Bass's mood grew blacker and blacker.

“What's taking that devil of a priest so blasted long?” the captain demanded.

Since this question was addressed to no one in particular, no one was required to answer.

The last of the supplies had been secured on board well before sunset, including a full hold of slaves who lay chained and locked below deck. Pieter DeGroot stood by ready to cast off. He recoiled anew at the sounds of the captives’ terrified screams.

“First light, says he!” continued Captain Bass, his voice rising in anger. “Well, first light's come and gone. I won’t wait no longer!”

“Ye cain’t leave without gittin’ us blessed,” a leathery sailor called Jess protested.

Captain Bass glared at him. “I never did respect them superstitions of the sea, nor the fools who persist in clingin’ to them,” Bass snapped. He turned his back on Jess and ordered, “Set sail!”

The Raven
was the first ship to sail from Zulina in more than a fortnight, and although the hold was packed full, Lucas Bass was less than pleased with the quality of his cargo. Older men and women, children, people with deformities and wounds
—
that's the best he was able to purchase. He wouldn’t get nearly the price he had gotten for his last shipload that was for sure. Not a strong young buck in the lot, and only a precious few supple girls of breeding age. Hardly enough to satisfy his own sailors, let alone rouse excitement at the slave markets. But what could he do? Every day that his ship sat empty in the harbor, he lost money. And with the Dutchman's offer to work for free in exchange for passage, well, Lucas Bass finally decided to take what was available to him and sail.

“’Tis a bad omen, us leavin’ wi’out a blessin’,” Jess grumbled.

His mates nodded their solemn agreement.

One added darkly, “Cap’n is calling a curse down on us all, ’e is. If somethin’ ’appens—”

Leaving Africa in an unblessed ship didn’t bother Pieter DeGroot one bit. He never did put much stock in that formality. It certainly hadn’t done much to help his first voyage. And now, being most eager to put as much distance as possible between him and the African coast, he was only too happy to jump to the captain's command. Before the day was over, he proved himself an able sea hand and a willing one too. He called sheets when ordered and hopped to and handled the lines. A man who knew his business and would take orders—Captain Bass smiled and congratulated himself on getting such a crewman, and at no pay!

“That bloke’ll be eatin’ at the cap’n's table, ’e will,” Jess muttered to his mates. “’E ain’t one o’ us.”

On their third day at sea, Lucas Bass, his tongue loosened by ale, said to Pieter, “Too bad ’bout your lost ship. But you's a good seaman. You kin git yourself another.” “I won’t sail back to Africa,” Pieter replied.

The captain laughed. “Slave trade got you spooked, eh? Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for the superstitions too.”

Pieter said nothing, but his eyes fell on the hatch that led to the hold where the captives lay tight-packed and chained. Their screams and cries had died down by the second morning, but the low moans never ceased, day or night.

Captain Bass's eyes narrowed and his tone grew sharp. “Well, let me tell you somethin’,” he said, his finger poked in Pieter's face. “Slave trade ain’t such a bad thing. Necessary evil, that's what it is.”

“Necessary? Well now, strong arguments can be made for and against that point,” Pieter replied. “But of the evil, oh, yes! Of that there is no doubt. Absolutely no doubt at all!”

“Listen to you!” Captain Bass said with a snort. “Grabbing for your share of the black gold whilst at the very same minute disparaging the ship what brings it! Well, let me give you a word of advice, smart lad. There be two sides ’ere, the slave traders’ side and the slaves’ side. And you better choose one or t’other, Dutchman, ’cause you cain’t have it both ways. Try to live in both worlds, and you jest might die tryin’.”

Captain Bass was never destined to benefit from the “black gold” packed so tightly into the hold of
The Raven
. Jess would not forgive him for cheating the ship out of the protection of an official blessing, and at every turn he reminded the other men of the danger into which Bass had selfishly and foolishly thrust them all. He said it when one crate of live animals died suddenly. (“No blessin’, cap’n says, so we’ll all pay the price by starvin’ to death!”) And he said it when a slave managed to attack a crewman with a knife. (“What do we expect? Unblessed ship, it is. Like as not, we’ll prob’ly all be murdered in our sleep.”) And he said it again and again when the flux first showed up in the slave hold. (“Throw ’em sick ’uns over before we all git sick and die! And whilst yer at it, throw Bass over too. Pay ’im back fer runnin’ out on the blessin’.”) Before long, Jess had everyone frightened and on edge.

Just then an errant, rogue wave came out of nowhere, washed over the deck, and swept poor Jess overboard and out to sea. “Just as he said,” the crewmen whispered one to another. “It's either Cap’n Bass or us.”

The next morning, when the captain walked onto the deck and squinted into the rising sun, two crewmen grabbed him from behind. Before he could gather his wits about him, others rushed up with rope to bind him.

“’E's kickin’ me!” a sailor called out to Pieter. “You … secure ’is feet!”

“This is mutiny!” Pieter protested. “You will all die for this!”

“Is you with us or is you not?” the sailor demanded.

“Absolutely not!” Pieter said. “Now see here—” But already, the men had Pieter down too.

Lucas Bass, they set adrift in the longboat. He was, after all, their captain. But Pieter DeGroot, who was just a sailor like them, they tossed overboard.

“You’re nothing but bad luck,” Bass complained to Pieter as he pulled the Dutchman into the longboat.

“I thought you weren’t superstitious,” Pieter replied. “Well, I am now,” said Bass.

After their second night floating aimlessly at sea, just as dawn began to break, Pieter suddenly sprang to his feet and shouted, “Look!”

Lucas Bass blinked into the rising sun and mumbled under his breath. But then he saw it too. He jumped up and stared hard, cursing the loss of his telescope. On the horizon was the unmistakable silhouette of a ship.

Pieter waved his arms in the air and screamed, “Here! Over here!”

Bass yelled, too, flapping his arms with such enthusiasm he almost tipped the longboat over.

After what seemed hours, Pieter cried, “Look, it's slowing!”

“They see us!” Bass croaked in what was left of his voice.

Before the sun reached its zenith, a slaver from the Americas, loaded with guns and rum, pulled the two desperate castaways aboard ship.

“Yer in luck,” the captain told the two as he offered them hardtack and water. “We's on our way to Africa. A’fore week's end, ye’ll be safely in Zulina harbor.”

Four days later, Pieter DeGroot pulled his hat low to protect his face from the whipping sand and once again made his way up Zulina's loading ramp.

“Thieving bastards,” Lucas Bass growled in response to Joseph Winslow's look of pity. “But at least we two is alive.”

“More’n kin be said fer ’em fools wot took yer ship,” Joseph replied. “Wi’ no cap’n in charge, they's good as dead.”

Then Joseph Winslow invited the filthy, windswept men to his cabin where he passed around the rum bottle and lifted a cup in toast. “To us wot ’ave the power!” he proclaimed.

Lucas Bass, his face hard with fury, echoed, “To us with the power!”

Pieter raised his cup and drank down his rum. He looked around him at the solemn walls of Zulina, echoing with the anguish of more Africans than Pieter could comprehend, and he held his peace.

T
he hazy African sun dipped its fire behind the fortress towers and cast a sudden pall across Grace's path. Raw anguish echoed from its bleached stone walls.
What is this place?
she wondered with a shiver of dismay.
A prison, perhaps?
A desperate scream rang out from one side, answered by yells shouted from the other.
Or a lunatic asylum?
Maybe those ships in the harbor had brought all the deranged people from Europe over to Africa. Grace remembered her father's horrible bedtime stories of his childhood journeys to Bedlam Hospital in London to watch the antics of the poor wretches locked up inside. “Cain’t go see ’em no more,” he lamented. “Now only folks wot ’as tickets is let in.”

“This way! Move ’em on in. Bucks here, breeders over there. Not those! Bring those down this way.”

Voices! And just up ahead!

Frantically, Grace searched the hillside for a place where she could hide. To the left? No, no. That wouldn’t work. Maybe to the right? Nothing there. Not so much as a ditch or a gulley. Not even a thornbush where she could stomp out a hiding place.

Perhaps she could turn around and retrace her steps and escape this terrible place. Maybe go to a village up the road until she could think of another plan. She couldn’t see anyone behind her. But then …

Slap, slap, slap.

Footsteps! The captives were not far behind her.

Grace must move forward. She had no choice.

As she crested the hill, Grace got her first full view of Zulina. Three stories of sun-bleached stone blocks, it was. Vast and menacing, it rose above two massive wooden doors. Grace could see tiny windows cut into the rock walls at intervals, but only a few. On the side away from the harbor, off to her right, a low, windowless building stretched out and around. It was almost like a second building attached to the first one.

Tight. Impenetrable. Zulina offered no respite and certainly no place to hide.

Then Grace noticed the walkway near the top of the main building.

If I could just get up there
, she thought.
But how?
She could see no access whatsoever.
Perhaps around back?

To Grace's horror, the great doors began to swing open. Frantically, she thought of excuses that could explain her presence. She might say that she was going to town and had lost her way, or that she was looking for the marketplace, then ask innocently if someone could point her in the right direction. Or maybe she could say that she was new to the area
—
just off a ship from London.

But when no one appeared to demand an explanation from her, Grace relaxed a bit. Alone in front of the fortress, she stared into its gaping mouth. Again she heard the familiar moans and cries, only now they sounded as if they were right beside her.

“Ye go up there, Daughter, an’ ye won’t never come down agin!”
Grace quaked at the knees and shrank back as her father's warning echoed in her ears.