"Who?" Winston tried unsuccessfully to extract his arm from her grasp.
"I know he wanted to take the guns you have, but they were for us to fight for our freedom. He wished you no harm."
Good God, so she had been part of it too! He almost laughed aloud, thinking how Benjamin Briggs had been cozened by all his slaves, even his half-African mistress. "You mean that Yoruba, Atiba? Tell him he can go straight to hell. Do you have any idea what he had his men do last night?"
She looked up, puzzled, her eyes still pleading through the rain.
"No, I don't suppose you could." He shrugged. "It scarcely matters now. But his parting words were an offer to kill me, no more than a few hours ago. So I say damned to him."
"He is a man. No more than you, but no less. He was bom free; yet now he is a slave. His people are slaves." She paused, and when she did, a distant roll of thunder melted into the rain. "He did what he had to do. For his people, for me."
"All he and his 'people' managed was to help the Commonwealth bring this island to its knees."
"How? Because he led the Yoruba in a revolt against slavery?" She gripped his arm even tighter. "If he helped defeat the planters, then I am glad. Perhaps it will be the end of slavery after all."
Winston smiled sadly. "It's only the beginning of that accursed trade. He might have stopped it—who knows?—if he'd won. But he lost. So that's the end of it. For him, for Barbados."
"But you can save him." She tugged Winston back as he tried to brush past her. "I know you are leaving. Take him with you."