The Quality of Mercy - By Barry Unsworth Page 0,89

sir. Tapley died aboard ship when his wound got hinfectious, an’ Cavana died later, in Florida.”

“What happened after Tapley fell?”

“The capt’n couldn’t hardly see, sir. There was blood streamin’ down his face. He was fumblin’ with the pistol, tryin’ to reload. I dunno if he reloaded, but he never fired. Rimmer stepped forward and stabbed him to the heart.”

“Rimmer is among the accused,” Stanton said. “You see how it was, gentlemen. A ship blown off course, disease below decks, desperate and driven men, a fortuitous intervention on the doctor’s part. He was not seeking to overthrow the captain’s authority, only to protest at the barbarous crime—yes, I persist in calling it so—that was taking place before his eyes. In the bloody scramble that followed, there was no concerted action on the part of the crew. One of them had been brought to the ground, there was fear among them of the captain’s pistol. They were left in command of the ship, so much is true, but that was never their design.”

Pike had only two questions to put to Barton.

“The captain went armed, then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is that usual on a merchant vessel?”

“No, sir, it is not, but there was feelin’ agin Capt’n Thurso. He felt hisself to be threatened. I was with the capt’n, sir, hunnerd percent. Barton is always faithful to them that is set above us.”

“Well, it does you credit. Thank you, that will be all.”

When Barton had stepped down, Stanton called his final witness, the ship’s interpreter, James Porter. He had wanted this man’s testimony to follow close upon that of Barton, who had, as anticipated, striven to make the captain appear the victim of premeditated violence.

Having established Porter’s condition as a free man, his situation aboard the ship as belonging neither to the slaves nor to the crew and the fact that he had been present on deck throughout the events of that distant morning and had witnessed the intervention of the surgeon and the violence that followed upon this, Stanton asked him if his memory of these matters was clear and obtained the assurance that it was.

“And will you tell the court the precise moment at which the captain drew his pistol?”

“It was immediately upon the doctor calling out, sir.”

“And he had raised the pistol and pointed it, he was intending to fire?”

“Yes, sir, it was clear he was intending to fire.”

“Was any move to harm the captain made before he raised the pistol?”

“No, sir, none.”

Stanton asked no further questions, allowing this emphatic negative to resound, as he hoped, in the minds of both judges and jury.

When the witness had stepped down, Pike embarked on the case for the prosecution. The facts were not in dispute. And it was facts they had to deal with, not sentiments, not pious wishes for a better world. There was no doubt whatever that at the time these events took place, both the captain and the crew regarded the negroes as property, as goods, with a precise and ascertainable value, a value determined by the most reliable indicator known to us, what people were willing to pay for them, the price per head they could command at Kingston market. It made no difference whether they were well or sick; while there was the breath of life in them they retained their value. At the moment that these men rose against their captain and took unlawful possession of the cargo, thereby depriving the owners, represented here today by Mr. Erasmus Kemp, whose moving testimony they had heard, at that same moment they became guilty of an act of piracy. In any other light than this it could not be regarded. And the penalty for piracy, when accompanied by violence, was death.

Pike paused on this, looking from side to side at the jury in their narrow enclosures. The decisive moment had arrived. “Honorable members of the jury,” he said, “the defending counsel has sought to portray the murder of the captain as something not intended, as being in the nature of an accident. But it was no accident, gentlemen. You heard the testimony of the first mate, James Barton. There was a feeling against him. Those were the words used. He went armed, against all custom and usage. Why did he do so? Because he knew that these men were waiting for an opportunity to rebel against him and do him harm. Let me remind you—and it is not disputed by the defense—that the first wounding, the first act of aggression, was not