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The mockery in his voice convinced Hawkins that murder would
have been kindness indeed, compared to the fate that awaited them.
And yet how could they complain, for it was no different than the fate
to which they had so willingly consigned their own living cargo.
“Keep going!” Abubakar snapped his whip again. “To the
galley.”
For a panicked moment, Hawkins thought they were to be killed
and eaten, fed to the Africans they had so lately starved, but the two
men in the galley wielded no knives.
The first was short, and built as stoutly as Abubakar. The second
was tall, and thin. He wore a long robe of the purest, white cotton, and
a matching turban. In one hand he carried a string of tiny, wooden
beads, which he fingered rhythmically, lisping unintelligible words to
himself. Hawkins presumed he was a holy man of sorts.
As they entered, he looked upon them, his gaze poignant and
sympathetic, almost mournful. His companion’s look held no such
compassion.
“You first,” Abubakar said, pointing to the captain.
Bayonne mustered what a dignity a naked, fettered man can, and
stepped forward.
The priest raised his hand level with Bayonne’s forehead.
“Yudkhilu man yasha’a fi rahmatihi. Wal thalimeen – a’adda la
hum athabun aleem,” he chanted. He let his gaze bore into Bayonne’s
eyes, then inclined his head almost imperceptibly as though
acquiescing to some invisible master. He raised his eyes once again,
and, in sepulchral tones, droned, “He admits to his Mercy whom He
will. But the evil-doers – for them has He prepared a grievous
castigation.”
Abubakar yanked the captain toward the stove, and Hawkins saw
with horror, that in the coals lay irons like those used to brand a
bullock.
“Surely you don’t intend to brand us like beasts!” Bayonne
protested.
“Ahnt nothing that ahnt been done afore,” Abubakar answered
him, turning his forearm upwards, revealing a welted scar in the shape
of a W.
“William Woollery. He would have been my owner if they hadn’t
fed me to the sea.”
The shorter sailor pulled a fiery iron from embers, and Abubakar
grabbed Bayonne’s arm. The smell of burning flesh filled the galley.
Bayonne cried out, one long, tortured howl of agony. Two livid,
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