Voyage of Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page B

andanswer to no one but myself. Me, Philip Arthur Higgins, master, speculator, and entrepreneur, just like my uncle.
    I imagined the day I’d return to the Gallaghers for a visit, telling tales of my adventures. I’d leave them with so much gold that they’d never have to work again, sorry they’d ever doubted Uncle.
    It took me a few days to teach Pea Soup his duties. At first I tried telling him, but he just stared at his feet, his face blank. Without a common language, I had to act out his duties, from laundering my clothes to serving my meals to cleaning my quarters. Jonas laughed, telling me I looked a fool. That it wasn’t difficult to tell who was master and who was slave with Pea Soup just standing there while I scrubbed my dirty pants.
    “You could whip him, you know,” suggested Billy Dorsett, the cabin boy.
    I’d been showing Pea Soup how to replace the candle in my lantern when Billy appeared at the door of my cabin. I didn’t like Billy. About a year younger than I, he seemed a dull boy—dull wits, dull eyes, dull hair—and he had a vulgar fascination with bodily excretions and emissions.
    “Everybody knows a darkie don’t do what he’s supposed to without a whipping to show him how,” he was saying. “Everybody knows that.”
    “I’ll do things my own way, thank you very much.” I hoped that the snap to my voice would dismiss Billy, but he lingered in the doorway. I returned to my task. “Anyhow, Pea Soup, you take a candle, like so—I’ve a ready supply in the drawer at all times—then you open the lantern door; there’s a latch here, mind you don’t pinch your fingers—”
    Billy said, “He’s probably stupid, that’s why he don’t do what you tell him.”
    I frowned at him. “And how would you know?”
    He shrugged and started to pick at a place in the wall where the whitewash was peeling. “I could teach him if you want, if you don’t got time.”
    “Thank you, but no,” I said with a sigh, thinking,
Bother it all!
Pea Soup was staring at the floor, his arms dangling limply. With Billy here, my hopes of teaching Pea Soup to keep a candle lighted in my lantern at all times were dashed. “Well,” I said to Pea Soup, speaking English to him, though I knew he couldn’t understand, “looks like we’re finished. Let’s go on deck, where the air is fresher.”
    Billy moved into my room as I pushed past him, Pea Soup padding softly behind me. I turned. “Clear off, Billy.”
    He looked at me blankly, as if he couldn’t fathom why I didn’t want him in my quarters, riffling through my belongings. Pulling him by the sleeve into the passageway, I shut my door. “Stay out of my cabin.”
    I let go of him then, but to my irritation Billy followed us to the upper deck and pestered me for the next half hour. I finally dismissed Pea Soup and locked myself in my cabin, away from Billy Dorsett.
    Despite Billy’s pestering and despite Jonas’ braying, soon Pea Soup was performing his duties. And though Pea Soup moved like a tortoise, not finding a reason to hurry for anything, I couldn’t complain. Even the little he accomplished left me more time to study my catechism, study medicine with Jonas, and learn navigation from Uncle.
    Several times during the voyage, Uncle invited me to dine at his table, where he asked after my studies and my health. Besides eating better food (for the captain’s larder was more generous and varied than that of the crew), we chatted happily, with me doing most of the chatting. I told him how I’d recently charted the course of my life. Never again would I drift according to thedesires of others, for I’d be a slave trader, just like him. Upon my announcement, a smile creased Uncle’s face and his pale blue eyes glittered as if he’d just opened a chest brimming with treasure.
    At our next supper, he presented me with a pair of gold hoop earrings, the Book of Common Prayer, two volumes of Shakespeare, and a Spanish learner. He said Spanish was a