All Souls' Rising - By Madison Smartt Bell Page 0,3

to emerge, and I approached a little nearer. He did not seem at all aware of my proximity, but stood near the stern rail to stare most intently down at the water (there being no longer any land in view). Not knowing what to say to him, or if I ought to speak at all, I was silent for some minutes before inquiring, what it might be that he was so carefully regarding.

And here the sentinel’s attention abruptly returned to his charge, and he undertook to prevent our conversation, but I overrode him, repeating my question and adding to it, whether Toussaint was looking back toward the island of which he had lately been master, and whether he regretted it.

At this, Toussaint turned half toward me and looked at me with half a smile, but without immediately speaking. I suppose he must have gone a lengthy while without much benefit of human discourse. Still, there was a sort of slyness in that smile. His lips were full and heavy, his teeth long and yellow; he lacked an eyetooth on the left side. The jaw long and slung far forward, stretching and lowering the deep oval of his face. His nose was long also and typically flat, but his forehead was high and his eyes, with their yellowing whites, were large and expressive—his best feature. All in all, a most arresting ugliness.

He was smaller than I somehow had expected, standing no higher than my breastbone. His disproportionately long trunk was set on little bandy legs—undoubtedly he would appear to best advantage on horseback. Some grizzled hair appeared at his shirt’s neck, and the gray pigtail hanging from under the kerchief was fastened with a bit of frayed red ribbon. I would have put him in the middle fifties. He was narrow-hipped and distinctly thin, though not to the point of frailty—his arms were disproportionately thick and muscular.

He returned my looks, taking my measure also it may be, and then resumed his staring at the water.

“Guinée,” he said, but so softly I scarce caught the word at all.

“Africa?” I said, with some surprise.

Of course he was not looking in the right direction, but one would hardly expect him to be a master of geography, outside of the colony. He is himself a Creole and I believe this must have been the first time he had ever been to sea. I found that my gaze was drawn after his; he continued to inspect the surfaces of the ocean for some time before he spoke. The water had taken on a red metallic glimmer from the light of the setting sun.

“Guinée, on dit, se trouve en bas de l’eau.” Still Toussaint kept his eyes fixed on the water. They say that Africa is at the bottom of the ocean.

“But you are a Christian,” I said, for I was again surprised, though it was not the first time I had heard of this belief. One often finds the slavers complaining of it—how their new-bought slaves will fling themselves off the ships in droves, believing that they may pass beneath the ocean to regain their original homes in Africa.

Toussaint glanced up at me with that same sly smile. “Of course I am a Christian,” he said, “but I should like to see Africa all the same.”

Our colloquy could not continue past that point, for the dragoons quite brusquely led him away. Improbable as it is that anyone aboard should enter into conspiracy with such a one as he, his reputation for cunning is sufficient that his guard evidently has been ordered to permit that he converse with no one.

Unfortunate fellow, I should not suppose him likely ever to see Africa—not, at least, in this lifetime.

It was well past dark when I was relieved of my watch, and in groping along through the darkness below toward my own repose I must pass the cabin where Toussaint was held secure. Going along the passage, I heard a voice coming from behind the door, and (the sentinel having absented himself, perhaps to the jakes) I paused to listen. The occupant was reading in a loud sonorous voice, this passage from the end of Deuteronomy:

And Moses went up from the plains of Moab under the mountains of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan.

And all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea.

And the