• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Then with a chill he saw a group of narrow-faced men with pointed beards. They wore billowy garments with flowing burnouses, and swords thrust into sashes at their waists. By their lighter skin, Nemo recognized them as notorious slavers from northern Africa.

At the edge of the village, he saw dozens of people, obviously from a different tribe, chained together and tethered to the thick trees. Some of them huddled in the shade, others sat miserably in the hot, equatorial sun.

Before he could struggle, the fishermen grabbed Nemo’s arms. He thrashed and kicked and yelled, to no avail. One of them cuffed him on the side of the head, making his vision spin. The slavers looked over at Nemo and raised their eyebrows in curiosity. They nodded with appreciation, then spoke in a guttural language which some of the natives seemed to understand.

One of the fishermen held out his hand for payment while the rest threw Nemo inside a small hut. He surged to his feet, fists clenched to attack, but the natives barricaded the door in his face.

Seeing red, Nemo growled through the thin walls, “I am not a slave.” He didn’t know if any of the others understood him, but he certainly comprehended their sharp, nasal laughter from outside.

viii

When the stripped-down balloon was ready to fly again, Caroline and Dr. Fergusson waited for a day, hoping Nemo would somehow make his way to them. The Victoria bobbed in the sky like a beacon; he should have been able to see them even from a great distance.

But still, he didn’t arrive.

Caroline scanned the trees, the lake, the horizon, yet saw no sign of him. So, when the breezes changed and tugged them back in the opposite direction, she made up her mind. “If we take advantage of these winds, we shall drift back to Lake Tchad. It’s our only chance.”

“We no longer have the means to control our direction, Madame,” Fergusson pointed out. “We cannot easily find new air currents. Indeed, we must go wherever the breezes take us.”

Caroline’s eyes were set with determination. “And now the breezes will blow us toward where we need to be. Nemo should spot us, and I know he can find a way to draw attention to himself . . . somehow.”

Seeing her forceful expression, Dr. Fergusson climbed down the ladder to disengage the grappling hook. The Victoria, as if anxious to be off, sprang into the sky as he climbed back up, mopping sweat from his brow.

Free again, the balloon wandered eastward across the sky like a drunkard, following the vagaries of breezes. Caroline refused to relinquish her grip on the spyglass, scanning for any sign of her lost Nemo. She knew that if they didn’t find him soon, before the prevailing winds began pushing them the opposite direction, she and the doctor would have no opportunity to return here.

At last, she made out the metal-blue haze of Lake Tchad on the horizon. Now they merely had hundreds of uncharted miles to search for one lone man.

ix

Nemo stared through the cracks in the dry thatch of his prison hut. The cruelty and injustice he saw made his blood simmer, and he focused his iron thoughts on escaping.

The other slaves, taken as spoils of battle in intertribal warfare, seemed crushed in spirit and unwilling to escape. Heartbroken, their villages destroyed, their relatives murdered in battle, they had nothing left to run to, no possibility for peace even if they escaped. The slavers had destroyed their very will to live.

But Nemo could still think, and he could still fight.

Ruthless slave merchants took captives to the coast, where they were sold in great markets such as the one at Zanzibar. The practice was so prevalent that the western edge of Africa bore the label “ebony coast,” a euphemism for the slaves sold to Portuguese and Dutch ships.

Here, many of the hopeless women and children tied to the thorn trees were emaciated from a long trek across the wilderness. But Nemo was still healthy and strong. He would never be more fit. If he had to fight his way out, there could be no better time.

The hut enclosing him was not sturdy,