And when he went down into the hold
to bring them their gruel, when one of them would catch his eye and
make pleading gestures, bewildered at his lot, he used it:
"Accept." There was no other way to survive.
And so for five years he had lived, making the long triangular
passage: from London to the coast of Africa, carrying medicine and
supplies, from Africa to America, with the slave labor which helped
build it, then back again to England with raw materials, and the
profits that came from being aggressive, and willing to do what was
necessary. It was a lesson he never forgot: injustice there would
always be, and a man must look to his own advancement.
But then Captain Horne had died, strangled to death by a slave's chain
in a ship revolt. The huge, fierce black man had been oblivious to the
thrusts of his own knife from behind, his one desire to kill the man
in front of him before his own life was ended. This, too, was a lesson
he would long remember. The captain had grown less severe with age,
and had loosed his grip, just enough, for those he kept under his
thumb to rise up and take his life.
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