"The Africans, you mean?" She examined him, still puzzled. "The slaves?"
"You've hit on it. The slaves. Like a fool, I didn't see it coming, but it's here, all right. May God curse Ruyters. Now I realize this is what he planned all along, the bastard, when he started telling everybody how they could get rich with cane. Save none of these Puritans knows the first thing about working Africans. He's sold them a powder keg with these Yoruba." He rose and started for the door leading into the front room of the tavern. "And they're doing all they can to spark the fuse."
"What're you tryin' to say?" She was watching him walk, something that still pleased her after all the years. But she kept on seeming to listen. When Hugh took something in his head, you'd best let him carry on about it for a time.
"They're proud and I've got a feeling they're not going to take this treatment." He turned back to look at her, finally reading her confusion. "I've seen plenty of Yoruba over the years in Brazil, and I can tell you the Papists have learned to handle them differently. They're fast and they're smart. Some of them even come off the boat already knowing Portugee. I also found out that at least one of those Ruyters sold to Briggs can speak it."
"Is that such a bad thing? It'd seem to me . . ."
"What I'm saying is, now that they're here, they've got to be treated like men. You can't starve them and horsewhip them the way you can Irish indentures. I've got a strong feeling they'll not abide it for long." He moved restlessly into the front room, a wood-floored space of rickety pine tables and wobbly straight chairs, plopping down by the front doorway, his gaze fixed on the misty outline of the river bridge. "I went on out to Briggs' plantation last night, thinking to talk over a certain little matter, but instead I got treated to a show of how he plans to break in his slaves. The first thing he did was flog one of his new Yoruba when he balked at eating loblolly corn mush. That's going to make for big trouble, mark it."
She studied him now and finally realized how worked up he was. Hugh usually noticed everything, yet he'd walked straight through the room without returning the groggy nods of his men, two French mates and his quartermaster John Mewes—the latter now gaming at three-handed whist with Salt-Beef Peg and Buttock-de-Clink Jenny, her two newest Irish girls.
She knew for sure Peg had noticed him, and that little sixpenny tart bloody well knew better than to breathe a word in front of her mistress.
"Well, settle down a bit." She opened the cabinet and took out an onion-flask of sack, together with two tankards. "Tell me where you're thinking you'll be going next." She dropped into the chair opposite and began uncorking the bottle. "Or am I to expect you and the lads'll be staying a while in Barbados this time?"
He laughed. "Well now, am I supposed to think it's me you're thinking about? Or is it you're just worried we might ship out while one of the lads still has a shilling left somewhere or other?"