I passed my first weeks in solitude. Only fleeting visits from an exceedingly strange, yet spiritually powerful young girl, who daily brought me food and water, disturbed my isolation. When my seasoning was deemed complete, it was this same girl who began to escort me about the plantation and introduce me to my fellow slaves. My rapid acquisition of their language shocked them. I simply explained that I had tarried a while amongst English people, but when pressed I would say no more. I had determined that I would be a strange figure, quiet and reserved, for I intended my residence on this plantation to be brief, and felt that it would be unfair to begin to deliver a sermon I might never have the opportunity to conclude. I hoped that none amongst them would take offence at my reluctance to participate fully in their slave lives. Certainly the girl seemed content, and soon I came to develop a true affection for my odd female companion, and she for me. I told the girl nothing of my Anna, not wishing to divulge, in this place of unhappiness, anything of my previous felicity and taint my Anna's memory by association. Young and aloof, my unlikely escort, I quickly discovered, occupied among her slave-peers a position of respect occasioned by a formidable suspicion of her person.
Her history was a sad one. Born on the plantation, her mother had died shortly after her delivery, and her pagan father naturally spurned her. At ten years of age she was married to a man twenty years her senior. For three years this man treated her brutally while she refused to produce children. Meanwhile, the evidence of his capable manhood could be seen scampering across the slave village and improving his master's fortune by the minute. Her husband was eventually traded to another plantation, presumably to further display his breeding skills, and the girl was once more abandoned with neither protector nor any person who might show her some outward sign of affection. She subsequently developed a sullen nature which caused her fellow slaves to fear her, for their understanding was that the cruelties inflicted upon her during her violent marriage had merely compounded the strangeness that the unloved misery of her early years had forged in her soul.
Now I was manifestly a West Indian slave, but I refused to accept the woeful conclusion that there was little hope of manumission through either the generosity of Mr Wilson, or the evidence of my good deeds. The execrable years bred quickly but never, not for one moment, did I lose faith in the redeeming powers of the Good Lord. My hair took on a grey aspect, and my strength began to fade, yet all the while I remained true to my Lord and hoped one day to be afforded the privilege of preaching again in dear England on the subject of my travels and experiences as a son of God. Sadly, as she budded into womanhood, my strange escort became even more unpopular amongst her fellow-slaves. Her curious mind remained closed, and she seemed incapable of conversing with anybody beyond myself. I talked with her of our Lord, and attempted to explain that Jesus Christ had lain down his life for such as us, but her undeniably spiritual nature was absorbed in an entirely different direction.
The other slaves claimed her to be a possessor of the skills of obeah, but I refused to be drawn into their discussions. I recognized in her a growing aberrance and mind-wandering detachment, yet the loneliness that this ailment necessarily bestows upon its victims may have contributed to the powerfully sympathetic affection that I continued to feel towards her. Perhaps we were a case of curiosity attracting curiosity, for the respect which I commanded on account of my Christian learning and knowledge of the world was matched only by the caution with which every person viewed my woman friend. After a slow and wilfully paced courtship that lasted many West Indian seasons, I, Cambridge the field-hand, requested that the woman occupy my hut as my wife. Without uttering a word she willingly agreed, for she was now entering a period of her malady when she insisted that she distrusted words. And so we began to share our lives in my hut, and I watched and cherished her, all the while praying that the infusion of Christian values into her soul might help to obscure the miserable details of her life, which others claimed had resulted in her being blessed with this excess of pagan vision.
Years of drudgery lumbered by, and I wondered if I should ever be set free from this unChristian labour. Indeed, I worried that perhaps my God was punishing me for my sinful existence, even though He must have known that should I have requested a Christian wedding ceremony it would have certainly been denied. I had raised the question of my fellow slaves' continued adherence to crude African religions with our local man of the cloth, Mr Rogers. The minister, whilst openly acknowledging the correctness of my concerns, sought even as he spoke to a black Christian to introduce me to the notion that converted negroes soon became perverse and intractable. He further maintained that conversion was an inadequate tool with which to combat the perpetual absence of the Christian virtues of family life, morality and social discipline that he frequently found in 'the black stock'. Not unnaturally, I felt inclined to ask after him what he therefore imagined his role to be while he existed in this West Indian region, but I desisted, feeling pity and revulsion for this man who would attempt to build a false notion that all of a black skin are tainted with Cain's crime, or that of Noah's son, Ham. This weak man, who without doing a stroke of God's work simply coughed and perspired abnormally in the tropical heat, confirmed my long-held suspicion that many covetous and profligate individuals are often admitted to the clergy. The blocking up of all the inlets to the spiritual regeneration of the negro seemed his sole and devilish task. That such a man might condescend to marry a pair of negroes after the Christian manner was optimism beyond all reason.
One night, on hearing some distant commotion, my wife awoke with a start. It was not until the clear light of day that I discovered that the veteran Mr Wilson had been driven off our estate by his overseer, Mr Brown. Mr Wilson had proved himself a tolerably decent man and I, in common with many others, was sorry to see his demise. Doubly so in that he was replaced by Mr Brown, a bullying brute of an overseer who seemed trapped within the imagined swaggering authority of his own skin. His first act was to attempt to reorganize the status among the slaves to suit his own purpose. To this end it was suggested that I accept the title of Head Driver. Not wishing to be master to any, I declined, and so began the period of conflict between myself and this Mr Brown. He could not accept my disobedience. Although no words passed through his lips, it was clear that he had determined to reduce the haughty Cambridge, who by now had long revealed to all a firmer grasp of the English language than any, including Mr Brown, might ever conceive of achieving. I had also, much to this Mr Brown's chagrin, gained the true respect of my fellow-toilers, who affectionately styled me the black Christian.
Life continued without reference to the calendar, until one evening Mr Brown appeared at my hut after dark. His breath was contaminated with liquor and his person evidently consumed with passion. That my poor wife was the object of his frothful desire I had no doubt, but I decided that he should not satisfy himself upon her like an animal. As though reading my mind, Mr Brown drew his pistol and ordered me to leave my own hut. The pitiful pleading of my unsound wife, who saw that Mr Brown was truly determined to kill me if necessary, encouraged me to leave. Her distress attracted the attention of my fellow-slaves, who stood in the darkness as though this humiliation was something that we ought to endure as a company. Their hidden purpose was clear, for they wished to ensure that I should not decide upon any action, self-destructive or otherwise.