"I have you to thank."
"Well, you were some help to me in the bargain, I'll own it. So there's an end on the matter." He glanced at Atiba, then back at her. "See to it these shiftless indentures tie him up like he was a bull. Wound or no, he's still a threat to life. To yours as well as mine."
Even as he spoke, a dark shadow seemed to drop out of the rain. She glanced up and just managed to recognize the form of Derin, his machete poised above his head like a scythe. It flashed in the lantern light as he brought it down against the arm of one of the indentures holding Atiba. The straw-hatted man screamed and doubled over.
What happened next was blurred, shrouded in the dark. Atiba was on his feet, flinging aside the other indentures. Then he seized his own machete out of the mud with his left hand and turned on Briggs. But before he could move, Derin jostled against him and grabbed his arm. There were sharp words in Yoruba and Atiba paused, a frozen silhouette poised above the planter.
"By Christ, I'll . . ." Briggs was drawing the long pistol from his belt when Atiba suddenly turned away.
The gun came up and fired, but the two Yoruba warriors were already gone, swallowed in the night.
"Well, go after them, God damn you." The planter was shouting at the huddled, terrified indentures. "Not a man on this plantation is going to sleep till both those heathens are hanged and quartered."
As the indentures gingerly started down the hill in the direction Atiba and Derin had gone, Briggs turned and, still coughing, headed purposefully up the pathway toward the remains of the mill room.
The burned-away roof had collapsed entirely, leaving the first sugar mill on Barbados open to the rain—its wide copper rollers sparkling like new.