About Me

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Jim and I were standing the last watch before dawn. I had
no trouble staying awake after the story the housekeeper had told. I could
scarcely credit her tale but I had no other explanation for what I had seen
with my own eyes. With the first false dawn Margarate approached me. Her tone
was less imperious and more friendly than it had been earlier. She offered up
some small talk which I found tedious at this time of day, and at last I asked
her plainly what was on her mind. She
bridled, but adopted a more business-like tone. She described how her husband
had kept a fortune in silver coins in a small chest in his study. When the
situation began to deteriorate, he secretly hid the chest in the warehouseof argument underway. Doctor Menting had Margarate by the arm, Hector
was loading his musket and looking back at the slowly advancing slaves. Joe was
helping the men left behind to prepare to cast off. I ran down the beach to the
group just as Margarate broke away from Menting. She ran to the warehouse intending, I suppose, to search for her husband’s chest
of silver. Just as Menting caught up with her, she pulled the door open and
recoiled in horror. There in the shed, seated above that awful pagan shrine was
a slave with elaborate symbols painted on his body and her husband and the
overseer! I reached the dock and could see the slave stand up, laughing
maniacally. The two white men were dead, but awake like the other slaves. The
painted man must