Mistress of Darkness

by Christopher Nicole

  And perhaps, in the beginning, she had thought of suicide, briefly. Then she had been sustained by her anger. For a week she had fought them, while her belly retched with seasickness, and blood had dribbled into her mouth with the fury of their kisses. For a week she had hardly eaten, and they had had to beat her with their belts to make her serve their food. In her desperation she had cursed them, and struck at them with her fists, to their huge amusement. She had vowed that she would see them hanged, and they had laughed at that, too. Yet gradually the thought had come to replace all others. She would see them hanged. But to do that it was necessary to preserve her own life. And if she would enjoy their hanging, it was also necessary to preserve her own health. On the fourth night out, when Runner had been drunk, he had hit her so hard she had been knocked unconscious, and had awoken with an enormous bruise on the side of her face. The black stain had faded now, although the bone was still tender to the touch.

  But she had reflected then that if her object was to stay alive, she was going about it the wrong way, and from that moment had submitted, almost with a will.

  For now she possessed a purpose. All the while, as she lay in their bunks, massaged by their evil-smelling bodies, she had thought of them dangling from a rope above her. It had even provided contentment. Her only resolution was that should she, by some mischance, have to die, they would die with her. Thus the laughter during the storm, the almost pleasurable anticipation of the imminent disappearance of the Antelope and all who sailed in her. But she was glad they had not. And since the storm, they had almost been friends, in their hatred.

  Not, she supposed, that they hated her. Runner was a seaman, and an excellent one. He was a slave trader, and no doubt was excellent at that also. But he was not a particularly thoughtful or intelligent man, and he granted women no more feeling than might exist between their legs. She had submitted because she had grown weary of resisting. That was enough. The threats she had offered in the beginning, the bribes she had attempted, had been nothing more than natural. But the fact was, as he had told her often enough, she was a nigger girl, whose ordained fate was to lie on her back, or her front, or in any position a man might desire, and enjoy it. Once she was prepared to be sensible he was almost kind; only when he took to his rum punch was she now in any danger, as the various bruises she had accumulated revealed. But even then, once she submitted and submitted and submitted, he was unlikely to do more than bruise her. Oh, she had learned well. And a fortnight ago, when they had celebrated Christmas - and how incredible it had been to experience the greatest of Christian festivals on this overheated, filthy, hellship - she had even accepted a glass of rum herself, and for the first time in her life lost her misery in the pleasure of inebriation.

  So then what had happened to the breathless girl who had stolen away from her foster parents' house? She closed her mind to that. What had happened to Mama and Papa Nicholson themselves? She closed her mind to that. What had happened to Matt? She closed her mind to that most of all. She was living a long nightmare, which would end when the Hiltons caught up with her. Because they would do that. Then they would hang both Runner and Penny, and they would take her, and ... but her mind had to stay closed to that also. To consider what Matt might think of her, after she had spent two months, or more, on this boat with these people, would be to go mad. He would rescue her, because he was Matthew Hilton. That was enough.

  And Runner would hang. She had never realized before what a pleasure it could be to hate. Why, in its dream of future achievement it almost equalled love.

  He was here now, standing at her shoulder, hand slipping beneath the shift to massage her bottom, squeezing and pinching. She believed he was, now, almost fond of her. She had grown on him, from a pair of breasts and a flat belly and slender thighs and long legs into a companion, a constant helpmate. 'Listen,' he said.

  The first law of survival was to do everything Captain Runner even hinted. And indeed there was sound, a mixture of splashing oars and chanting voices, a rustle of weapons and steel, the whole overlaid with a strange moan, as of a large number of people in torment. 'That's the Prince on his way,' Runner said.

  'And about time.' Penny stood above them on the poop, also leaning on the rail. 'You'll have me break out the chest?'

  'Oh, aye. The sooner we're filled and away from this pest hole the better I'll like it. But mark me, John Penny. You'll have the pieces loaded and run out; grape, not ball. I don't trust that nigger further than I can spit, and it'll do him no harm to see we've teeth. And every man on deck will wear a cutlass and a pistol.'

  'Aye aye,' Penny said, and hurried forward.

  'And you'll get below,' the captain said. ' 'Tis a certain fact that His Highness will never have laid eyes on a white woman before, and he might just want to add you to his harem.'

  'But I am not a white woman, Runner,' she said. 'Else I had not been here, surely.'

  'Bury your humour, girl,' Runner growled, and now he was definitely nervous. 'Or I'll have the skin from your hide.'

  Gislane shrugged, and retreated to the companion. But she remained in the hatchway to watch the approaching army. For so it seemed, as from the mouth of a large river which debouched into the bay some distance to their right there emerged a succession of canoes, each paddled by a dozen brawny black warriors, and each containing, amidships, a huddle of equally dark humanity. But there was no relation between the paddlers and the slaves. The warriors were tall and powerfully built; they handled their paddles deftly, and their heads were high; they sang as they sent their surprisingly large craft surging towards the Antelope. They wore headdresses of brightly-coloured feathers, and another fringe of feathers at their waists and round their calves; these indeed were their only clothing; their spears were slung over their shoulders by rawhide thongs, and from other thongs at their thighs hung heavy wooden knobkerries. They were not a reassuring spectacle, but there could be no questioning their arrogant humanity.

  The moan arose from the prisoners. These were destitute of all clothing, and consisted of women, and some children, as well as men. But none of the children was less than twelve, Gislane estimated, squinting in the morning sunshine, just as none of the men or women was much over thirty. And they were yoked together, and chained at wrist and ankle, without distinction of sex or age, and had apparently been thrown into the bottom of the boats without regard for their comfort, for arms and legs emerged from various angles, and the general moan was occasionally punctuated by a shrill cry.

  And now, as the canoes approached the ship, the morning air was obliterated by the most frightful stench she had ever known. It surpassed even the cabin of the Antelope after a gale.

  'Where are they from?' she asked.

  Runner half turned his head. 'The interior,' he said. 'The Prince undertakes to supply all the slaves we can handle. They are prisoners he takes in the wars, but now he undertakes the wars just to gain the prisoners.'

  'And none of them are old,' she said, half to herself.

  'What good would there be in an old slave?' Runner wondered. 'Those creatures have marched more than a hundred miles to take passage in this ship, and Christ knows we lose even the healthy ones if the wind fails. And we import them to the Caribee Isles for labour. No, no, those the Prince reckons won't stand the march are killed on the spot. Now get out of sight, if you value any of our lives.'

  Gislane crouched on the companion ladder, closing the door to all but a crack. For now the lead canoes were under the lee of the ship, and a moment later a huge black man appeared in the gangway. More than six feet tall, with shoulders like an ox, the red and blue and white feathers surmounting his head added another two feet to his stature, and he wore a fringe over his shoulders as well as at his waist. His muscles bulged at bicep and thigh, his penis almost matched the knobkerry beside it, but the ultimate mark of his authority was that, apart from his normal weapons, he wore a European sword, a Spanish rapier which was thinner than one of his fingers, hanging from a broad leather
belt.

  He stood in the gangway, and took in the whole ship in a slow stare, and Gislane's heart began to throb as he even seemed able to penetrate the wood of the aftercastle to see her. To belong to Runner and Penny was one thing; to suppose being taken by this animal, into the endless fastnesses of the Congo jungle, was an utterly incomprehensible task for the imagination. Yet she stared at him; she had never in her life seen such a totally splendid male figure. And the strangest of understandings began to seep into her mind, that to contemplate lying nightly beneath Harry Runner would also have been an incomprehensible thought, two months ago.

  'Runner.' The Prince pronounced the word slowly. But he had used it before. And now the captain revealed an unsuspected side to his character, as he approached the potentate, bowing low, and speaking in a foreign language. The Prince replied, and the conversation became general for a few minutes, with both men looking pleased enough, although the Prince's glance kept straying to the crew, assembled forward, every man armed and ready.

  But at last the negotiations seemed complete, and Penny snapped his fingers to bring forward four sailors lugging between them a large chest. This had lain inside the cabin throughout the voyage, and Gislane knew it contained nothing better than old and rusty muskets, strings of worthless beads, a few gilt ornaments, and some bottles of gin. Yet when it was opened before the Prince he seemed delighted. The lid was snapped shut, ropes were fastened to lower it into one of the canoes, and the main hatch was thrown open.

  Insensibly Gislane allowed the companion doorway to swing open a litde further as the slaves came on board. Never had she seen such misery, on their faces, in their naked bodies, emaciated and laden with every conceivable variety of filth, amongst which open sores dribbled blood, and in the spiritless shamble of their footsteps. But Captain Runner was an old hand at the game; if he calculated on losing two out of every ten on the voyage across the Atlantic, he knew the steps he had to take to prevent that deficit growing. Each yoke of six slaves was made to stop as they reached the deck, and half a dozen of the seamen were already working at the pumps, sucking up salt water from the bay and having it gush forth, directing their stream over the shambling people in front of them. These stopped in dismay, no doubt supposing their unhappy existence finally at an end, and that they had been brought here to be drowned, and then slowly resumed their progress, down into the hold.

  On and on they came, while Runner himself made the tally, and Penny walked up and down with a whip, slashing here and there where a yoke would not obey his instructions, bringing glances of resigned terror and the occasional moan of pain. Gislane watched in fascinated horror. If not her mother, then certainly one of her ancestors had once boarded a vessel like this in these circumstances. The thought induced a tingle of anger all the way up her spine. And there were so many of them; it almost seemed as if the Antelope had no bottom, for surely the hold had been filled long ago.

  She was distracted by a shout from the captain. A yoke had reached the gangway, and there checked. It consisted of two men, a boy, and three young women; they appeared to be stronger and more alert than the average, and there was even a certain plumpness about the girls' bodies. Having reached the deck, they had paused to look around them, at the flooding hose, at the shivering group immediately in front of them, at the next dripping yoke slowly finding its way down the ladder. Now they gave a collective yell, and turned for the gunwale. Hence Runner's shout, as he attempted to stop them, to find himself thrown to one side as, acting in unison, they climbed on to the rail and launched themselves into space.

  'God damn you for brainless creatures,' Runner bawled. But he did not seem interested in regaining the runaways, and was already marking the next yoke down as it came up the ladder. These looked over their shoulders at the sea, and then advanced readily into the jet of water.

  Gislane could contain herself no longer. She threw open the companion door and ran outside, clambering the ladder to the poop and running to the rail. She watched the six people swimming, easily discernible by the wooden harness which rose above them, and still quite ignored, as much by their late captors as by the seamen of the Antelope. So why, she wondered, did not others take this opportunity to make their escape?

  Because there was no escape. The six slaves were still chained together, and still burdened by their yoke. Even as she watched, the boy's head dropped, and he stopped swimming. His weight for a few minutes made little difference, but the shore was still half a mile away, and now one of the two men dropped into the water. Soon the other also died, and the three male corpses were supported by the vigorous efforts of the girls alone. But now they were well away from the cluster of canoes, and the sharks, driven from the side of the brig by the disturbed water, were regaining their courage.

  'Can't you help them?' Gislane shouted.

  Runner glanced over his shoulder. 'For Christ's sake, I'll have your arse raw for this,' he bawled. 'Get below.'

  'They're people drowning,' she screamed. 'You can't just let them drown.'

  Runner looked at the distant yoke, still bobbing on the water as the girls urged themselves onwards, but now sinking lower as their own strength began to fade. 'Silly bastards,' he said. 'There's naught we can do for them now, girl. If they will go, they will go.'

  Gislane could not stop looking, as the fins circled closer and closer. It was difficult to see now, but she thought that even one of the girls had died, and the whole was being supported by the remaining two. Then the water around the yoke became broken, and a single wailing scream drifted across the bright sunlight of the morning. She found herself on her knees, with tears coursing down her cheeks, and she had not wept since they had been a week out of Bristol.

  'I said get below.' Runner seized her arm and dragged her to her feet; the Prince had returned to his canoe, but he was staring at the brig's poop in quiet interest. 'Six ain't going to make much difference. I have four hundred below hatches. We'll take no more.'

  She gaped at him. 'Four hundred? In that hold? That isn't possible.'

  'They fit,' Runner said. 'We make them lie down, and we put a false floor on top of each row. Oh, they fit.'

  'But ... six weeks, lying down in that heat, crowded one against each other?' she cried. 'They'll all die.'

  Runner grinned. 'Not them. Well, maybe a hundred or so. I'm only contracted for three hundred, anyways. But I'll keep them alive, girl. Why, I bring them up every day, for a salt water wash and a walk. Ten minutes a day, girl, for every man, woman and child. I'm no monster.'

  The girl's giggles awoke Gislane. This happened regularly. The Negress giggled constantly, whenever food or drink was offered to her, whenever a hand was laid on her body. And when she giggled, she moved, sinuously, hips and shoulders and breasts and thighs and even toes, keeping some sort of obscene rhythm. 'Get a black one going,' Runner had declared, 'and you've got something. They don't lie around like sacks of coal. The trouble with you, girl, is that there ain't enough nigger in your veins. You'd do best to cultivate it, if you'd keep your skin.'

  No doubt he was right. And there was something fascinating about the Negress's movements, about the abandon with which she threw herself into lovemaking. Of course for her it was heaven, to be taken aft - supposing she believed in a heaven. It meant she received good food, and liquor to drink, and a bunk to sleep on instead of the deck. It meant she had reasonably clean air to breathe most of the day, instead of for a few minutes. It meant she never felt the lash curling around her shoulders; as the sailors spoke none of the African tongues their only means of communicating with their charges was by means of the whip.

  And it meant that, having found a plump and willing girl amongst the cargo, Runner and Penny made less demands upon her. Gislane could hardly believe her fortune. Yet at the same time she was prepared to think about Runners strictures. Survival, to the West Indies, had become imperative. Because in the West Indies would be the Hiltons. Once she was off this hellship, she would find her way to Hilltop or
<
br />   Green Grove, and thence she would be free. Thus nothing mattered, save survival. And survival depended upon pleasing Runner. It occurred to her that she had never actually pleased him at all, judging by his reaction to the Negress. Her body pleased him, because it was white, because she had large breasts and a small waist, because her legs were long and slender. He had told her that these things pleased him, as her narrow thighs pleased him, as her luxuriant hair pleased him, as the inescapable fact of her growing filthiness did not displease him. He could obtain an erection just by looking at her, and certainly by running his hand through the thatch on her belly. But afterwards, he would slap her face and throw her from the bunk, and raise his favourite grumble, that she was a damned sack of coal.

  It had never occurred to her before that a woman had an active part to play in pleasing a man. Her observations had always had to do with appearance. A woman was pretty, in which case she pleased, or she was ugly, in which case she displeased. Money and position were important. Pretty clothes and a good bearing and a smattering of education could make an ugly woman attractive, and ignorance and lack of conversation could make a pretty woman dull. All of these facts of life had been hammered into her by Mama Nicholson. But now she was realizing that Mama had been neglecting the really important things, the things that were necessary after the attraction had been completed, after the man had achieved the position he sought.

  How strange, she thought, that she should be considering learning about men, and women, from a giggling black girl?

  But in the mornings she hated the giggle. When she slept, she dreamed, and she did not feel. When she awoke, it was to another endless day, another problem in survival. Not for her, perhaps. But for so many others. She sat up, swung her legs to the deck, pulled greasy hair from her shoulders and face, idly scratched the various corners of her body where lice and fleas had gathered during the night. By now the movement of the ship was part of her nature, and she swayed with it, placed her feet on the deck to counter the roll, hardly heard the creaking of the rigging and the swish of the water being driven away from the hull. They ran before an unceasing trade wind, always aft the beam, which varied only in force, sometimes whining into half a gale, more often dropping into hardly more than a zephyr, leaving the ship rolling and the yards flapping, causing the ocean to assume the characteristic of an enormous blue carpet, with not a speck of white to be seen.