Read Cloud Atlas for Free Online

sail through the blackness & sealed my lips ere I could cry out! My assailant hissed, “Missa Ewing, no harm, you safe, I friend of Mr. D’Arnoq—you know he Christian—please, quiet!”
    Reason, at last, rallied against my fear. A man, not a spirit, was hiding in my room. If he wished to slit my throat for my hat, shoes & legal box, I would already be dead. If my gaoler was a stowaway, why he, not I, was in peril for his life. From his uncut language, his faint silhouette & his smell, I intuited the stowaway was an Indian, alone on a boat of fifty White Men. Very well. I nodded, slowly, to indicate I would not cry out.
    The cautious hand released my lips. “My name is Autua,” he said. “You know I, you seen I, aye—you pity I.” I asked what he was talking about. “Maori whip I—you seen.” My memory overcame the bizarreness of my situation & I recalled the Moriori being flogged by the “Lizard King.” This heartened him. “You good man—Mr. D’Arnoq tell you good man—he hid I in your cabin yesterday night—I escape—you help, Mr. Ewing.” Now a groan escaped my lips! & his hand clasped my mouth anew. “If you no help—I in trouble dead.”
    All too true, I thought, & moreover you’ll drag me down with you, unless I convince Cpt. Molyneux of my innocence! (I burned with resentment at D’Arnoq’s act & burn still. Let him save his “good causes” & leave innocent bystanders be!) I told the stowaway he was already “in trouble dead.” The Prophetess was a mercantile vessel, not an “underground railroad” for rescued slaves.
    “I able seaman!” insisted the Black. “I earn passage!” Well & good, I told him (dubious of his claim to be a sailor of pedigree) & urged him to surrender himself to the captain’s mercies forthwith. “No! They no listen I! Swim away home, Nigger , they say & throw I in drink! You lawman aye? You go, you talk, I stay, I hide! Please. Cap’n hear you, Missa Ewing. Please.”
    In vain I sought to convince him, no intercessor at Cpt. Molyneux’s court was less favored than the Yankee Adam Ewing. The Moriori’s adventure was his own & I desired no part in it. His hand found mine & to my consternation closed my fingers around the hilt of a dagger. Resolute & bleak was his demand. “Then kill I.” With a terrible calmness & certitude, he pressed its tip against his throat. I told the Indian he was mad. “I not mad, you no help I, you kill I, just same. It’s true, you know it.” (I implored him to restrain himself & speak soft.) “So kill I. Say to others I attack you, so you kill I. I ain’t be fish food, Mr. Ewing. Die here is better.”
    Cursing my conscience singly, my fortune doubly & Mr. D’Arnoq trebly, I bade him sheath his knife & for Heaven’s sake conceal himself lest one of the crew hear and come knocking. I promised to approach the captain at breakfast, for to interrupt his slumbers would only ensure the doom of the enterprise. This satisfied the stowaway & he thanked me. He slid back inside the coils of rope, leaving me to the near-impossible task of constructing a case for an Aboriginal stowaway, aboard an English schooner, without attainting his discoverer & cabinmate with a charge of conspiracy. The savage’s breathing told me he was sleeping. I was tempted to make a dash for the door & howl for help, but in the eyes of God my word was my bond, even to an Indian.
    The cacophony of timbers creaking, of masts swaying, of ropes flexing, of canvas clapping, of feet on decks, of goats bleating, of rats scuttling, of the pumps beating, of the bell dividing the watches, of melees & laughter from the fo’c’sle, of orders, of windlass shanties & of Tethys’ eternal realm; all lulled me as I calculated how best I could convince Cpt. Molyneux of my innocence in Mr. D’Arnoq’s plot (now I must be more vigilant than ever that this diary should not be read by unfriendly eyes) when a falsetto yell, beginning far off but speeding nearer at a