Looking for hope in a dark place. By : Clifton Seeney

The darkest night came and went and so the wind picked up and carried the ship Northeast. Captain El Said Ben Bay was the luckiest man I have ever met and the best ship Captain. He did not raise the sails till first light, by then the Hound and her escorts sailed by her on a eastward direction. With the winds like they were it would take weeks to catch her even with the most favorable winds. The only thing that could slow us down now was a great storm at sea that would throw us off course. We all were praying that would happen and we known that a storm would mean death to many, if it did not sink the ship. Well after sunset and they ordered us below I looked and saw the black clouds that we prayed for, this will slow the  Moroccans down and with out any escort or decoys she would be easy for Captaine Richards and the Hound and her escort to catch us. Then I thought why was the Hound hunting this of all ships, there was just a few of El Captaine’s crew on broad?
After a few years at sea you get use to weather changes, nevertheless this was the worst storm I can remember. Could this ship take it being to tossed back and forth the main sails were gone and the crew were hanging on to life lines below all we could do was hold on to anything that was not moving. I felt sorry for the woman that the Viceroy brought; the rolling of the ship would be extra bad on their weak bodies.  As morning slowly came we were still alive and the ship did not sink, thank God. I tried to think where can we be after being driven off the heading that we were on. The Sun was to my back so that was west and we had to be heading east towards who knew where. The Hound could have sunk or worst yet passed us, nevertheless we were hopeful that it was slowly following us . I still could not understand why the Hound was following us?  
As we tried to pull ourselves together Captain El Said Ben Bay put more work on us, cleaning up what the storm left behind. Then we were put in a long boat to clean the side of the ship, the weather must have been in the hundreds. As I watch the European ship mates fall out close to death that’s when the first mate to El Said Bay ordered us up to the hole. We clawed out of with no water or food for all the food and water was destroyed in the storm. We knew that this ship would be a large coffin in a few days if we do not sight land, but where could land be if we were headed east away from the nearest islands. Death would be following this ship and not the Hound. It would be a frightful sight to see these Moroccans beautiful woman die. Where was Captain El Said Ben Bay taking us, as they said only Allah knows. We tried to listen as much as we could, the Moroccan crew not knowing what they were saying was a great disadvantage.  So when I was near Cadman, who spoke Spanish, I asked him where were we headed. He stated that he didn’t know and the Vice Roy was acting strange ! What was out here that we were headed too that we as sailors did not know of that was our biggest question . One of the oldest mates said that the only Island that could be this far Northeast was the Bermuda Island’s ! I had heard of this northern island before and that they were not far from America.


By now all of us knew that the next stop was to the Bermudas there were many stories about Bermuda. One was that it was the home of the devil himself told by ole sailors to scar younger sailors. One story goes that a flash of fire once fell from the sky into the Triangle. Once we landed the fear that the youngsters had was gone and we had a ray of hope. Just maybe the Captaine of the Hound would guess that this is where the Moroccans were. Nevertheless, I was still wondering why the Hound was hunting this ship.  I guess information was handed over to El Captaine that an important person was on this ship .Who could be more important then the Viceroy of Morocco here to make a treaty with the Americans. He would be a nice catch and held for ransom by the Ship that captures him. The Americans would pay dearly for him. Once we were ashore loading the ship I felt we were not going back. My enter voice was right they sold us to a British sea captain who was in need of able body sailors. He told us directly that if any of us tried to jump ship we would be hung from the Yardarm.  Now wasn’t this a find pot of fish, here we were sailing for the Island with El Captaine then captured by Moroccans. What next we said to one another what few of us that were left we started out with thirty now we are half that. I still had my bag of gold hidden in my pants where no man would want to look which made me look like I was well hung ha ,ha . I still had that ace in the hole or I should say in the socks ha-ha. We were in need of a savor and we didn’t know who that would be for we thought that life on the Moroccan ship was bad but this was worse. You were beat for the slightest thing. All major insults to the Captain or his Mates and officers were met with the cat and nine tails. You were up before the sun and down after the sun set to work in the cargo hole. We carried out all watches and any man caught asleep was flogged twenty five times.  I could tell by the first star we saw at night that we were headed west towards America. The cargo was not slaves therefore we must be picking up cotton or tobacco and that meant back braking all day work parties. The Hound would not be hunting us but still after the Moor’s . We were lost to our own devices if we had any will power we would be our own savor. Once we landed in Charleston, South Carolina to pick up cotton and tobacco we started to load the ship. There were many Noir slaves working just as hard as we were, one asked me why you sailors working like slaves?  I told him that we are slaves sold to this ships Captaine by Moor’s. “Moor’s, he said in his broken English, Me hates them with a passion they sold all of us to the Euro-man years ago. We would do anything to be free and kill them, if Allah wills it. There was about fifty of them the slaves that is and fifteen of us that would put the odds against the English four to one. Even if they had guns, we did not only have courage and bold moves, which would get us a ship and cargo. Join us next month for bold moves and courage!