Excerpt
An Excerpt from
The Slave Dancer I heard one piercing scream. My teeth began to chatter.
Then a very small brown face rose above the rail as though it had flown
up from the sea. It continued to rise slowly until its brown bare chest
was visible. Then I saw dark hands around its waist. The hands lifted,
the little girl's legs flew out, and I saw the head of the young man who
had been carrying her.
For a second, she sat on the deck, looking all around her, her eyes huge
with amazement, then she crawled and jumped toward the rail but was forced
back by the forward propulsion of the man who tottered over the rail,
unable, it seemed, to bring his body any further. The child hugged the
young man's neck frantically and buried her face in his hair. At that
moment, Nicholas Spark bent his thin length and gripped the man's back
as though he were gathering up cloth, and yanked him altogether over,
the chains around his ankles striking the deck with a violent clanging.
The clanging never ceased as one after another the captives struggled
over the rail and were dropped or dragged onto the deck. How long did
it all take? I'll never know. None of us moved.