Rough Passage to London(86)

“I been talking to some of the survivors, Captain.”

“Some of them speak English?”

“No, sir, Captain. Seems as though I can speak their language. It ain’t exactly the same as what my mother taught me, but it’s similar enough. She was Igbo, and these people must be from the same area. They say they are Ndi Igbo from west of the big river.”

Lowery’s face twisted with anger as he explained what they told him. “They were captured, their villages burned, and sold off by a rival chief to a slave trader called Cha-Cha. Then they marched ten days to the coast with yokes around their necks, gagged, put in canoes, and taken to a place called Whydah, where they were kept in a barracoon with hundreds of other Africans and then loaded onto that ship.”

“How many were on that ship?” Morgan asked.

“I’m not sure, Captain. They told me ‘O hiri nne.’ In their language, that means ‘many.’ I am guessing maybe as many as three hundred. Could be more.”

Morgan shook his head as he pondered this figure of lives lost.

“What happened on board, Lowery? They are without crew or captain. Do they know who the slavers were?”

“They ain’t saying much, Captain, but I think they rebelled and took over the ship. Maybe when the storm rose up and the sailors were busy tending to the sails. Maybe that’s when they escaped and attacked. I’m just speculating. When I asked them if there was fighting on board ship, they didn’t say anything, but some of them have knife cuts and bruises. They say the captain and crew punched holes in the ship’s hull before they fled in the quarter boats.”

“Those slavers left them to drown on board a sinking ship?”

“I believe so, Captain. They ask if we are going to take them home. They keep saying, ‘Ala Ndi Igbo.’ What do I tell them, Captain? They plenty scared. They think all white people want to eat black people and make powder from their bones.”

“For Lord’s sake, Lowery, I hope you told them we aren’t cannibals. Did you tell them they are safe now?”

“Yes, sir, Captain.”

Morgan looked down at these abused and frightened people he’d saved. They were squatting on deck looking around them with fear and amazement. The two Irish priests were blessing each of them as they walked through the small huddled group of shivering survivors, who were clutching towels they’d been given. Eliza and Whipple were ladling out water into tin cups from a wooden cask as they gulped down the water. He was going to have to bring them to London. There was no other choice. His ship was in need of repairs and he had passengers to deliver and a schedule to keep. He estimated they would be arriving in London at least a week to ten days later than their schedule. The Africans were now shouting and singing and Morgan stopped walking to listen.

“Onye na nke ya!”

“O di ndu onwu ka mma!”

“Anyi na-acho ila ala anyi, ala ndi Igbo!”

“They are calling for their freedom, Captain,” Lowery said. “They say to be enslaved is to be part of the living dead and they want you to take them back to their homeland.”

Morgan asked Lowery to walk with him so he could talk to some of them. Thirty pairs of intense dark eyes were now trained on him and Lowery as they stepped into the steerage area. He could feel their attentive stare and sense their fears and desperation. He felt uncomfortable as he looked at the huddled naked bodies with only towels covering their waists, the recently scarred and raised flesh from the branding all too visible. For the first time in his life, he felt in a most profound way the unspeakable horror of slavery with all its indignity and cruelty.

As he walked amidst the thirty survivors, he looked down at the bent back and sharply ridged backbone of one crouched man who sat at his feet. He was a young fellow, probably no older than seventeen, tall and slim, long necked with scuffed, bony knees. Morgan took a closer look. The young man was fondling something in one hand, a talisman, perhaps. He had opened what looked like a small round sundial compass made of bronze about three inches in diameter.

“Mr. Lowery, ask that man if I can have a look at what he has in his hand,” Morgan said. The African, his face suddenly mistrustful, closed his fist over the compass, shaking his head. Lowery persisted, coaxing the man in his language to let the captain see this small treasure. He promised he would give it back so the young man relented and handed it over reluctantly. Morgan’s eyebrows rose as he examined the brass container. He flipped the lid open and focused on the engraved lettering on the inside cover.

“Hold on. What is this?”

He read it aloud with a clear note of anxiety in his voice.