Prologue
Abeni had hardly slept during the long hours of darkness. Now, the pale light that precedes the dawn was beginning to filter through the curtain drawn across the door of the initiation hut. The African day would come quickly, and the woman who would do the cutting was expected not long after sunrise. Abeni’s heart was pounding. Old Akpene kept telling the girls that the procedure would not hurt, but Abeni had heard the screams of one of the initiates two years before. That girl had been the butt of teasing and laughter for months afterward, as had her sisters and brothers and even her parents. Abeni rose from her mat and stood straight and tall, hoping to still her heart and brace herself for whatever was to come. She must bear it in silence, she told herself, and bring no shame, either to herself or her family. When it was over, she would be clean and beautiful, pure, but desired by men. She would soon be ready for marriage, and one day, she would have children of her own, earning the esteem that comes with motherhood…. Still, she dreaded the pain that must soon come…. At this early hour of the morning, there was no one to stop her from pulling aside the curtain and slipping away. No one but Akpene. The old woman had only feigned sleep as she kept a watchful eye on her charges. She saw that the tall girl had risen and was shaking. She rose herself and put a restraining arm across Abeni’s shoulders. “Be calm, my daughter,” she said. “This is a day you will remember always. Acquit yourself bravely, and you will remember it with pride….”
Akpene turned from Abeni and parted the curtain slightly to peer out at the new day. The sun was just bursting over the forest edge to flood the village with light. Soon the young mothers would wrap their babies on their backs, gather up the food they had prepared, and marshal the older children to join them as they followed the men to the fields…. As she gazed out over the familiar scene, Akpene became aware of the sound of shouting from the distant fields. The men should be working, she thought with disdain, not joking with one another in the loud voices they put on for that purpose. But their cries did not sound like joking. She saw three men run back into the village without their hoes. A hubbub of excited voices arose. A woman screamed. At that moment, a crackling sound broke out all around the village…. “The Dahomey!” she hissed. “The Dahomey are attacking!” She should have warned the girls to remain silent, but it was too late. A cacophony of shrieks broke out. If they kept up this racket, the mino would surely find them…. Abeni decided to make a run for home, where her father would protect her. He was the one who had given her the Yoruba name, ‘Abeni,’ – the one we have asked for. He would not let her be killed by these wild women…. The grinning warrior must have seen Abeni’s eyes lock on her father, for she spun around just as he lowered his spear to charge at her. She stepped forward as if to meet the attack, then suddenly jumped backward and aside. Abeni’s father could not stop himself as his momentum carried him into the midst of the three mino. In an instant he was stabbed both in the back and the chest. He fell forward, and again a Dahomey sword came down, cutting off his head as easily as old Akpene’s….
Chapter 1
“You can’t just knock the boy on the head and drag him to the ship, Bradshaw. Our entire enterprise might be exposed if you were caught.” Augustus Spratt exhaled a ring of blue cigar smoke, gazed into his tumbler of whiskey, and mused. “Still, he could be quite useful. He’s a bit old for a cabin boy, but we could use him for that. A presentable Yankee cabin boy. Yes, that could be helpful to our little subterfuge. We could give him other duties as well. He has brains, and Tull needs an assistant to help with the navigation.” “Then why not just knock him on the head,” Bradshaw responded, “or git him drunk – drunker’n he is already – and drag him onboard? Happens all the time. He’s miles away from home. Who’s to miss him? Who’s to be any the wiser?” Spratt regarded his scar-faced aide. Rodman Bradshaw was not a subtle man. “What if some good citizen intervened while you were dragging the boy to the ship, or notified the authorities?... “We can just forgit him, then. We can always find another cabin boy.” “Not a cabin boy as useful as this one. And such an innocent! We’ll have some fun with him” Spratt grinned, showing his tobacco-stained teeth. The remark brought a gleam to Bradshaw’s eye. “But we need him to come along of his own free will.” Spratt leaned closer and whispered to his aide, who soon rose and left the saloon.
Caleb stumbled when he stepped out of Farrell’s Tavern onto Thames Street. Then he pulled himself up straight and tried not to weave as he walked. He was a respectable businessman now, after all, and should look the part. He hardly ever drank back home in Penn Yan, where everyone knew everyone else, and there was too good a chance his mother would find out. Well, she would never know what happened in Baltimore, three hundred miles away, and anyway, wasn’t he entitled to a drink like any other young man of consequence? He was nearly eighteen, after all, and had successfully brought his brother George’s cabbages all the way down here for sale to the Germans. Still, he wished he hadn’t let his new friends, Mr. Spratt and Mr. Bradshaw, persuade him to follow that last beer with a shot of whiskey.
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