Scene Seven

PROJECTED TEXT: PASSAGE OF THE POLLY.

Most of the provisions have been packed and taken away. Only a couple of crates remain. Adjua is packing gunpowder into a pistol. Cranston appears.

CRANSTON: You got to oil the inside of the barrel or it will stick.

ADJUA: We should’ve let you drown.

(Cranston is silent. Adjua busies herself with cleaning the gun.)

The slave that got sick on your vessel, the Polly. (Beat) That was my sister. We were together on your ship.

(Adjua oils the inside of the gun.)

CRANSTON: I don’t recall your face.

ADJUA: Why would you? I was nix to look at. But my sister, men remember her.

CRANSTON: I didn’t kill your sister.

ADJUA: I was in the hold down below. I couldn’t see. How can I know? (Beat) Tell me how she died.

(After a few moments, Cranston begins to speak. The following exchange has slight echoes of a court hearing.)

CRANSTON: There were one hundred forty-two Coromantee on board the Polly. One hundred twenty-one delivered alive.

(Adjua calmly points the pistol at Cranston’s crotch. Cranston just looks at her. He knows she’ll use it.)

ADJUA: About my sister.

CRANSTON: The captain, he tied her to the maintop, to keep her away from the rest. Because she was sick. It was the pox.

ADJUA: Had she any victuals while in the maintop?

CRANSTON: Yes.

ADJUA: Was she alive when she was let down?

CRANSTON: Yes.

ADJUA: How do you know she was alive?

CRANSTON: Because I seen her alive about two minutes before in the maintop.

ADJUA: Then what did the captain do?

CRANSTON: After two days, when the watch was called at four o’clock, the captain called us all aft and says he, “If we keep the slave here, she will give it to the rest and I shall lose the biggest part of my slaves.” Then he asked us if we were willing to heave her overboard. We made answer “no.” We were not willing to do any such thing. Upon that he himself run up the shrouds, saying she must go overboard and shall go overboard—ordering one tar, Gorton, to go up with him—who went. They lowered her down from the maintop.

ADJUA: Who launched her overboard?

CRANSTON: They lashed her in a chair the captain brought from his cabin. There was a tackle hooked upon the slings ’round the chair.

ADJUA: Did you not hear her speak or nee make any noise when she was thrown over?

CRANSTON: No. A mask was tied ’round her mouth and eyes that she could not, and it was done to prevent her making any noise, that the other slaves might not hear, lest they should rise against us. They lowered her down the larboard side of the vessel.

(Adjua lowers the gun, then takes hold of Cranston’s face to look him closely in the eye, to see if he is telling the truth. Dembi enters in the background, sees this, mistakes it for intimacy, and exits.)

I said those very words in court. Aye.

(Adjua lets go of Cranston’s face and spits.)

Your sister was very beautiful.

ADJUA (Cuts him off): Don’t speak of her again.

(Adjua begins to leave.)

CRANSTON: After the captain threw her overboard, he said he was sorry he had lost so good a chair.

(Adjua just looks at Cranston, then away, her pain and anger so great, but she will not show it to him.)

What was your sister’s name?

ADJUA: That I will never tell you.

(Adjua leaves.)