Rough Passage to London: A Sea Captain's Tale (36 page)

Nanvers paused as he puffed vigorously on his cigar.

“So you see, all of this was done with a great deal of thought. Oh, but I am boring you, Captain. Shall I continue?”

“Please, go ahead,” Morgan replied. He had calmed down ever since he realized that Nanvers did not know about the shipwreck of the
Hydra
. “I would like to know when you first heard about my brother?”

Nanvers took a long drag on his cigar as he suddenly appeared more philosophical.

“When I think that all of your interest in my affairs, Morgan, began with your search for your brother . . . It is quite a coincidence, is it not? I was always touched by that story. Brother searching for brother. Just like Hiram Smith, your brother Abraham stumbled on some accounting papers he was not supposed to see. Blackwood caught him in his cabin. It was unfortunate. We couldn’t let that stand. One way or the other, he had to be eliminated. For a good while we actually thought your brother might be alive. Stryker heard tales of a blind white man who was shipwrecked years earlier on the offshore reefs of Morant to the east of Jamaica. A missionary told him about it and even had the name of our ship. The rumor was that he lived with runaway slaves up in the rugged Cockpit Country. We looked, but there were no roads, only footpaths. We couldn’t find him. We were worried that if it was Abraham, he might have gone to America. I actually sent Tom Edgars to your hometown of Lyme to inquire whether anyone had seen your brother. When we couldn’t find him, we soon concluded that the story of the blind white man was some cockeyed missionary tale.”

Morgan stared intently at Nanvers. “You actually thought my brother was alive, and that he survived the shipwreck?”

“We thought it highly unlikely, but we couldn’t take the chance.”

“Why was he so important? Surely there are others who knew your secrets.”

“None who knew my name. Unfortunately, your brother Abraham stumbled on papers which mentioned my name as the purchaser of slave cargoes. No one else knew that or knows that today, not even our trading partners.”

“Still, what harm could a blind man possibly have done to you, Lord Nanvers?”

“I am surprised that you don’t know the answer to that, Morgan. It is very simple really. The answer is . . .” He paused as he slapped the head of his cane on the palm of his hand. “The answer, my dear Captain Morgan, is you.”

Nanvers smiled at the confused look on Morgan’s face. “If somehow Abraham were alive, we knew you might eventually find him and then we would have a problem. You would not have been content to keep a secret. Am I right, Captain?”

Morgan was silent.

“Now that I have been so candid with you, Captain, and divulged all of our secrets, I think you understand the seriousness of my proposal. You are a smart man, Morgan. You must realize you have no choice but to join our business syndicate. Am I being perfectly clear, Captain?”

Morgan was boiling inside. He looked up at Nanvers and said firmly, “It does sound like you are not aware, Lord Nanvers, that the
Hydra
was shipwrecked on the rocky shoreline of the French island of Ouessant. All on board are reported lost. That includes your son, William Blackwood, and your two business associates, Captain James Stryker and Tom Edgars. If you don’t believe me, look in today’s paper.”

There was a deathly silence in the room as the two men stared at each other with long penetrating looks, each taking careful measure of the other. Morgan took some satisfaction in noticing that Lord Nanvers’s lips were quivering and his hands were shaking.

30

Morgan caught a cab early in the morning for the docks. As was customary, he had stayed at the Queens Hotel, where many of the American packet ship captains lodged when they came ashore in London. The coolness of the morning air rejuvenated him, and he took off his black beaver top hat to feel the breeze on his head. The driver slapped the reins, and soon the clattering hooves of the horses and the already busy streets of London jolted him awake. More than two weeks had passed since his confrontation with Lord Nanvers. At first, he didn’t think he would survive another day. He was sure he would be killed. He had said nothing about Nanvers’s confession to Leslie. He knew he was in serious danger, but he had tried to put that fear out of his mind. He still felt guilty about the
Hydra
, sad for all the innocent sailors who had died. But he also felt relieved that there were fewer men who wanted him dead. With Stryker, Edgars, and Blackwood gone, he guessed Nanvers would be uncertain about his next move.

Today was departure day. He was looking forward to going home to see his family. It was becoming harder for him to be away. The children always plaintively asked their mother when their father would be home. He had invited the usual group for the daylong cruise down the Thames, everyone except Nanvers. A late breakfast with plenty of refreshments would be served on the quarterdeck. Only a handful of the Sketching Club artists could make it. Dickens wrote to Morgan that he would be bringing some artists he worked with, including Frank Stone and Hablot Browne. They were going to do sketches of the emigrants. Thackeray was also coming with the well-known illustrator Richard Doyle from
Punch
and his editor, Tom Taylor. Leslie had sent word he would be there even though he was busy with commissioned paintings. Morgan didn’t have the courage to tell his old friend that this might well be one of his last regular journeys down the Thames as a packet ship captain. He was seriously thinking of accepting Griswold’s offer to join him as a manager for the Black X shipping line. He would be coming ashore for the sake of Eliza and the children.

As his cab pulled up to his ship, Morgan was alarmed at the sight of Constable Pinkleton with his small battalion of police officers. They were ready to begin their inspection of what looked like a full shipload of emigrants. Pinkleton was already writing down a list of all the sailors and the emigrants. Morgan wondered if perhaps he was looking for Hiram. Worse still, he could be looking for him. To his surprise, he learned that Pinkleton seemed more interested in the whereabouts of Lord Nanvers than he was about the sailors and the emigrants. He asked why, but the policeman didn’t answer. It was at this point Morgan became aware of a small man dressed formally in a long black coat, white shirt, and cravat who was clearly waiting to speak with him at the gangway.

“Captain Morgan, I presume?” he asked politely.

“Yes, indeed. What can I do for you, sir?”

Morgan noticed the man’s hands, clasped together in front of him.

“My name is Reverend John Wall, and I am just back in London after many years of service as a Baptist missionary in the West Indies.”

“Are you in need of a stateroom? We may still have availability.”

“No, Captain, that is not why I am here. I have a story to tell you and a message to deliver. I know you are extremely busy, but could I have a few moments of your time, perhaps in your quarters?”

Morgan nodded brusquely and motioned him to come up the gangway and to follow him. He offered the man a chair in the seating area outside his cabin. The small man with thinning gray hair wasted no time in beginning his story.

“Captain, I am someone who has dedicated his life to baptizing and bringing the word of God to the unfortunate African laborers who were enslaved and brutally treated in the English islands. I worked with William Knibb, who once said that sugar is sweet, but the liberty of man is much more sweet. Those words have been my life’s compass. My colleagues and I have opened scores of missions and churches in Jamaica alone, and helped to establish free Negro villages deep in the mountains where few white men go. Now these past few months I am back here in London to tell those interested about how the planters have established a new form of slavery with emigrant laborers. The fight for liberty and justice is far from over.”

Morgan nodded impatiently. He had a ship to prepare for departure and he was uncertain as to how any of this pertained to him. The man seemed unaware of Morgan’s restlessness as he continued speaking.

“I was addressing the London Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society a week ago, and I mentioned several touching human stories of courage and defiance against the institution of slavery. One story in particular about a blind man caused considerable interest. A woman who was introduced to me as Harriet Leslie approached me and suggested I contact you right away.”

The mention of Harriet Leslie caused Morgan to put his growing impatience in check, but it was the detail about the blind man that triggered his curiosity.

“What did he look like, this blind man?”

The minister paused, and looked at Morgan intently.

“A man about your height, stockier, bearded face, hair thinning and gray, a good-looking man I would say, with a straight forehead and a strong chin. You can’t see his eyes. His eyelids are closed shut. Why do you ask?”

Morgan shook his head.

“It’s probably nothing, just a notion I had. Please go on.”

“I should give you a little bit of background, Captain. My missionary work began in Jamaica at the time just before emancipation, just after the bloody Sharpe Rebellion where hundreds were killed. One of the areas the runaway slaves fled to was a remote mountainous region in the western end of the island called the Land of Look Behind. It was named long ago for the soldiers who rode two in the saddle, back to back, to make sure they could see any possible attackers from all directions. Now it is more commonly called Cockpit Country because of the pockmarked terrain riddled with sinkholes reminiscent of cockfighting pits. Maybe you have heard of this part of Jamaica, Captain?”

Morgan didn’t say anything. He shook his head.

“This is an uncharted place with no roads, only narrow footpaths that wind their way up steep forested slopes. Believe me, it is rugged terrain, an easy place to get lost in or to elude your hunters. There are dozens of hidden caverns and sinkholes filled with water, lush forests, and waterfalls. It is a veritable Garden of Eden, Captain. Birds you have never seen before, and yes, many poisonous snakes. The frightful fer-de-lance is actually prevalent there. The people who have lived there for centuries are called Maroons, the descendants of runaway slaves who first defied the Spanish and then the English.”

Wall paused as Lowery brought in some coffee.

“It was here in this lost land that I found the blind man, his eyelids sealed over his eyes. He was a white man living amidst these African souls in one of the thatch huts in the village. These settlements are so well hidden in the forest that you can walk right by them and not know they are there. I found this white man, his skin bronzed and leathery from years in the sun, seated on a small stool weaving a hammock. He was talking with a group of barefoot children. He spoke the patois that these people speak, a rich stew of English mixed with some Spanish and African words, all spoken in a lilting voice.”

Morgan pulled out one of his Havanas, his first of the day, and lit it with the lantern on the table.

“I went over to this man and spoke to him. He seemed surprised to hear my English voice, and once I explained who I was he began to speak in a halting way. His accent was American. I asked him where he was from, and he just shook his head and said he had no memory of the past. I offered to take him with me to the nearest Baptist mission, but he seemed disinterested. I sat and read the Bible with him, and I knew he came from a Christian home because he seemed familiar with many of the scriptures I read. Before I left, I asked the village elder about the white man and he told me he had come to them with a group of African slaves who had been shipwrecked off the coast of Jamaica. This was many years ago, he said. He pointed to a tall black woman who was talking with several other women who were weaving baskets. He told me she was his wife. Her name was Adeola. She was a Yoruba princess from somewhere north of the Kingdom of Dahomey.”

“What was his name?” Morgan whispered.”

“In the village they called him Enitan,” the man replied. “I was told that in the Yoruba dialect that means a person with an important story.”

Morgan sat transfixed as the tale unraveled. Reverend Wall looked up at one of the glass skylights above him, and then turned his glance back to the captain’s face.

“Please continue, Reverend. I am most interested in your story.”

The man clasped his hands together and placed them on his lap.

“I went over to the woman named Adeola and attempted to talk with her, but she only spoke her African dialect mixed with the Jamaican patois and I couldn’t understand exactly what she said. All I could decipher was that they were in a shipwreck and had escaped from a slave ship. They lived on some uninhabited sandy islands off the eastern end of Jamaica until they built a raft from the wreckage and paddled their way to the big island. They walked up into the mountains and wound their way up the footpaths until they came to where they are now. She pointed to the blind man and indicated that at that time he could still see, and she pointed to her own eyes, which were partially closed. It was clear to me they had been stricken with some kind of eye disease, Captain. Strangely enough, she remembered the name of the ship, something like the
Karen
or
Charon
.”

At that point, Morgan jumped to attention.

“The
Charon
! When did this shipwreck occur?”

“As I said, the village elder told me it was many years before emancipation, possibly ten to fifteen years before I arrived in Jamaica.”

“What was the blind man’s Christian name?” Morgan asked breathlessly.

The Baptist minister smiled. “I do not know, but your reaction was exactly the same as the one I received when I first told this story to a Royal Navy captain. He was there visiting Jamaica as part of the West Africa Squadron. When he heard the ship’s name he wanted to go to that village immediately. He said the blind man was a criminal, a slave trafficker, and needed to be arrested.”

“Did you tell him where the man was?” Morgan asked with a note of urgency in his voice.

The minister shook his head.

“I was about to reveal the location of the village when I looked into this man’s face and suddenly felt like I should not. He had a reckless look, dare I say it, a ruthless look, and the simple fact was I could not accept his assertion that the blind man had ever been a slaver. He seemed too gentle a man, and he was clearly familiar with Scripture. So may God forgive me, I lied, and told him I had put the blind man on a trading schooner leaving for America.”

Morgan now suspected he knew the reason why Lord Nanvers had sent Edgars to Lyme to inquire about Abraham all those many years ago. Hope rose up deep inside of him like a sharp gust of wind filling a sail.

“Go on, please tell me more. Did you ever see this blind man again?”

“Years later, I went back to that same village. This was during the period before 1838 when slaves were desperate. They had been freed, but England had allowed a new form of slavery even worse than the old system. We abolitionists campaigned hard to have this fiction of apprenticeship repealed. Planters flogged slaves at random and put women on the treadmill, all in a desperate move to keep the slaves working. Scores of runaway slaves were leaving the plantations and seeking refuge in the caves and the forested hillsides of Cockpit Country. I saw him again then. He was still blind, but working in the fields. He seemed to understand many things about farming and how to till the land even though he was blind. He had several children then. His wife was pregnant with another. I asked him again if he remembered anything more about the past, but he just shook his head.”

Morgan looked perplexed.

“Is the man still there?”

“I believe so,” he replied. “And that is the reason why I am here telling you this story.”

“Please go on,” Morgan said.

“Before I left just a few months ago, I went back to that village and to my surprise I learned from one of the village elders that the blind man had recovered some parts of his memory. I rushed over to talk to him. I asked him what his Christian name was. He didn’t respond, but he began to tell me about the harrowing voyage that had brought him to Jamaica so many years ago. He even remembered the year, 1816. It was an extraordinary story. He was young and had only been to sea for one year. He told me how he had been shanghaied by slavers, English slavers, to my shame, and that his entire ship had been infected by an eye disease.”

Morgan was mesmerized at the story that was unfolding.

“We walked down to one of the nearby waterfalls not too far from the Quick Step Trail. It was familiar to him because he walked without fear, using a cane to make his way along the footpath. Several of the village boys followed along behind. It was lucky they did too. I have never forgotten that walk because he suddenly stopped, and whispered for me to stop as well. He talked to one of the boys in patois and pointed with his cane. I still hadn’t seen anything. A brownish mottled snake about eight feet long slithered out onto the path, lifting its arrow-shaped head up as if to strike us. I had seen them before. It was a fer-de-lance, which I knew was deadly. The boys had picked up rocks and started throwing them at the snake. One of them produced a machete from the cane fields and he eventually cut its head off.”

“How did he know where that snake was?” asked Morgan.

“I think because he was blind he must have developed especially keen hearing. That was the only explanation I could think of, but the boys clearly thought he was a magic man. ‘Obeah,’ they called him.”

“Tell me more,” said Morgan, now totally engaged in the minister’s story.