However, most of the survivors of the plague were too weak and confused and demoralized to move. They stayed on in the squalid stinking barracoons, pathetically dependent upon Robyn and her tiny band of helpers for every mouthful of water and farina, watching her with the eyes of dumb and suffering animals.
All this time the piles of corpses in the palm groves grew taller, and the stench more penetrating. Robyn knew too well what would happen next. The battlefield plagues, she explained to Mungo St. John. 'They always follow when the dead are left unburied, when the rivers and wells are choked with bodies. If they strike now, then none will survive. All of us are weakened, we would be unable to resist the typhoid and enteric plagues. Now is the time to leave, for we have saved all those who are for saving. We must fly before the new onslaught, for unlike the smallpox, there is no defence against them.'
IrMost of my crew are still sick and weakThey will recover swiftly out on the open ocean.'
Mungo St. John turned to Nathaniel to ask, 'How many slaves have survived? IMore than eight hundred, thanks to the missus here.'
We will begin to take them aboard at dawn tomorrow, he decided.
That night Robyn came back to his cabin after dark. She could not stay away, and he was waiting for her, she could tell by his expression and the quickness of his smile. I was beginning to fear that you preferred the company of eight hundred plague-ridden slaves, ' he greeted her. Captain St. John, I wish to make one more appeal to you. As a Christian gentleman, will you not release these poor creatures and have them escorted and fed on the Tourney back to where they cameHe interrupted her, his tone light and that smile hovering on his lips. And will you not call me Mungo, rather than Captain St. John?
She ignored the interruption, and went on. 'After all they have suffered, that terrible march down from the highlands, the error and humiliation of slavery and now this plague. If you would consent to release them, I would lead them back to their homes.'
He rose from the canvas chair and came to stand over her. His leanness and pallor made him seem even taller.
Mungo! ' he insisted. God would forgive you, I am sure of that, he would forgive you the sins that you have already committed against humanity-, Mungo! ' he whispered, and placed his hands upon her shoulders. She felt herself begin to tremble uncontrollably.
He drew her to his chest. She could feel his ribs, he was so thin, and her voice choked up in her throat when she tried to continue her appeal. Slowly he stooped over her, and she closed her eyes tightly, her arms stiff at her sides, her fists clenched. Say Mungo! he commanded quietly, and his lips were cool and soft on hers. Her trembling became uncontrolled shaking.
Her lips opened under his, and her arms went up around his neck. Mungo, ' she sobbed. 'Oh, Mungo, Mungo.'
She had been taught that her naked body was shameful, but it was the one lesson that she had learned imperfectly, and much of her shame had been mitigated, firstly in the lecture rooms and dissection rooms of St. Matthew's, and secondly in the company of Juba, the little Matabele dove, whose unaffected delight in her nudity she had transmitted to Robyn. Those childlike I romps together in the cool green pools of an African river had served to blow away most of the cobwebs of shame.
Now Mungo St. John's delight in and admiration for her body gave her joy and, far from shame, brought her pride that she had never known before. Their lovemaking was no longer accompanied by pain, there were - so locked together I no longer barriers between them they could ride the dips and swings of emotion from Himalayan heights where the great winds blew, down to the sweet languorous depths where they seemed to be drowning in honey, each movement slowed, every breath drawn out as though it would last forever, their bodies damp and hot, pressed together and without form, like clay in the hands of a child.
The night was too short, while the wick of the lantern guttered and smoked, neglected and untrimmed. In the dawn, their loving seemed to have filled them with new strength, to have driven away the weakness of fever and the exhaustion of the past weeks.
It was only the sound of the first slaves coming aboard that roused Robyn and brought her back from that far frontier to the hot and cramped little cabin on a slave ship in a fever creek on a wild and brutal continent.
She heard the whisper of bare feet and the clank and drag of slave chains, the sound of men's voices raised, hectoring and impatient, on the deck above.
Hurry them, or we load for a week. ' Tippoo's voice.
Robyn raised herself on her elbow and looked down at Mungo. His eyes were closed but he was not asleep, she knew. Now, she whispered. 'Now you cannot but release them. After last night, I know that something has changed in you.'
She felt a strange joy, the zeal of the prophet looking down upon a convert for whose soul she had wrestled with the devil and won. Call Tippoo, ' she insisted, 'and give him the order to free the slaves.'
Mungo opened his eyes, even after the long night in which neither of them had slept, his eyes were clear.
There was the shadow of new beard, dense and dark, carpeting his bony jawline. He was magnificent and she knew then that she loved him. Call Tippoo, she repeated, and he shook his head, a little gesture of perplexity. You still do not understand, ' he answered her. 'This is my life. I cannot alter that, not for you nor for anybody. 'Eight hundred souls, she pleaded, 'and you have their salvation in your handsNo. ' He shook his head again. 'You are wrong, not eight hundred souls but eight hundred thousand dollars that is what I have in my hands.'
Mungo! His name still felt awkward on her lips.
Jesus has said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than that a rich man should enter the kingdom of Heaven. Let them go, you cannot judge human lives in gold.'
He laughed and sat up, With eight hundred thousand bucks, I can bribe my way into Heaven, if I want to, but between us, my dear, it sounds an awfully dull place. I think the devil and I might have more to talk about.'
The mocking gleam was back in his eye again, and he swung his legs out over the edge of the bunk, and naked crossed to where his breeches hung on a wooden peg from the bulkhead. We have lain too long abed, he said briskly. 'I must see to the loading, and you had best begin your own preparations for the voyage. ' He belted his breeches and stuffed his shirt into them. 'it will take us three days to load, I would be obliged if you would test the water barrels. ' He came to sit on the edge of the bunk and began dragging on his boots, talking the while in crisp businesslike fashion, detailing the preparations that she should make for the welfare of the slaves during the
