Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom

and speak to those I consider buying. I can make myself understood in
Yoruba. M’wife told me she needed a weaver and a seamstress, and I
asked the women if any of them could weave or sew. This one raised
her hand. I took her across the street before the sale, to the house of a
friend, and showed her a loom, told her to weave. And weave she
could. So I bought her. Because of her looks, she came cheap. It was
a pleasant surprise to discover she could also sew.”
“She speaks no English?”
“No. Only a few words of Yoruba and of course a bit of the pidgin
the slaves here in Calabar use. Yes, no, come here, that kind of thing. I
don’t think she’s actually lack-witted. But my wife has to speak to her
very simply. At first I wondered if she was mute, but she’s not. But she
hardly ever speaks.”
“My employer is in need of a good weaver and seamstress for his
household,” the newcomer said. “How much?”
Master Dalton shook his head. “I don’t want to sell Ayisha. She’s
too good at her craft.”
Hearing this, it was all Ayisha could do not to visibly sag in relief.
The man with the black gloves frightened her. She didn’t know why, but
she was convinced that whatever he wanted her for, it wasn’t her ability
as a seamstress or weaver.
She stitched faster, and moments later, heard them leave.
That night, she dreamed of the day that Pennut had been unable
to rise from the ground. Ayisha, weakened herself, had been trying to
help her stand, when “Duke” had come striding over. With a swift
shove, he’d thrust the princess away from her maid, and then she’d
heard the thunder-crack of his pistol. Pennut had sagged to the
ground, a hole between her wide-open eyes. Ayisha had had this
dream before. In the dream, as she had done in life, she had raised
her gaze to the slaver, incredulous that he could wipe out a human life
as though Pennut had been nothing more than a beast.
But this time, when she looked up at Ancona, his face was the
face of the visitor with the black gloves. Ayisha awoke, sweating and
trembling. She was so terrified of falling asleep and dreaming again of
him that she lay there, pinching the inside of her elbow until dawn
brightened the eastern sky, and it was time to rise and begin work.