Free A Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith

not rise to the task, and she pushed the hideous images aside and crawled on over the heaving cargo, flashing her lantern into each corner, searching for more solid evidence than the narrow ledges.
    If there was planking on board it would be laid flat upon the deck, below this cargo, and there was no way in which Robyn could reach it.
    Ahead of her she saw a dozen huge casks bolted to the forward bulkhead. They could be water barrels, or they could be filled with trade rum, or the rum could be replaced with water when the slaves were taken on board. There was no means of checking the contents, but she knocked on the oak with the hilt of her scalpel and the dull tone assured her that the casks contained something.
    She squatted down on one of the bales and slit the stitching with the scalpel, thrusting her hand into the opening she grasped a handful and pulled it out to examine it in the lamp light.
    Trade beads, ropes of them strung on cotton threads, a
bitil
of beads was as long as the interval between fingertip and wrist, four bitil made a
khete
. These beads were made of scarlet porcelain, they were the most valued variety called
sam sam
. An African of the more primitive tribes would sell his sister for a
khete
of these, his brother for two
khete
.
    Robyn crawled on, examining crates and bales – bolts of cotton cloth from the mills of Salem, called
merkani
in Africa, a corruption of the word ‘American’ and the chequered cloth from Manchester known as
kaniki
.Then there were long wooden crates marked simply ‘Fire Pieces’, and she could guess that they contained muskets. However, firearms were common trade goods to the coast, and no proof of the intention to buy slaves – they could just as readily be used to purchase ivory or gumcopal.
    She was tired now with the effort of climbing and blundering around over the heaving slopes and peaks of cargo, and with the nervous tension of the search.
    She paused to rest a moment, leaning back against one of the bales of
merkani
cloth, and as she did so something dug painfully into her back, forcing her to change her position. Then she realized that cloth should not have hard lumps in it. She shuffled around and once again slit the sacking cover of the bale.
    Protruding from between the folded layers of cloth, there was something black and cold to the touch. She pulled it out and it was heavy iron, looped and linked, and she recognized it instantly. In Africa they were called ‘the bracelets of death’. Here, at last, was proof, positive and irrefutable, for these steel slave cuffs with the light marching chains were the unmistakable stigmata of the trade.
    Robyn tore the bale wider open, there were hundreds of the iron cuffs concealed between layers of cloth. Even if it had been possible, a perfunctory search by a naval boarding party was highly unlikely to have uncovered this sinister hoard.
    She selected one set of cuffs with which to confront her brother and she started aft towards the lazaretto, filled suddenly with desire to be out of this dark cavern with its menacing shadows, and back once more in the safety of her own cabin.
    She had almost reached the entrance to the lazaretto when suddenly there was a loud scraping sound from the deck above, and she froze with alarm. When the sound was repeated, she had enough of her wits still about her to douse the snuffer of her lantern, and then immediately regretted having done so for the darkness seemed to crush down upon her with a suffocating weight and she felt panic rising up to take possession of her.
    With a crash like a cannon shot the main hatch flew open, and as she swung back towards it she saw the white pin-pricks of the stars outlined by the square opening. Then a huge, dark shape dropped through, landing lightly on the piled bales beneath, and at almost the same instant the hatch thudded closed again, blotting out the starlight.
    Now Robyn’s terror came bubbling to the surface.