The Heart of the Caribbean Sea—Saint-Domingue
April 4, 1796.
Southern Andros Island, the largest island in the Bahamas.
Maspoint Port was packed with people. The groans of the wounded and sick could be heard everywhere. The children in their mothers' arms wore numb expressions, neither crying nor smiling.
All of them had fled here to escape Aaron's brutal rule, simply because they had heard that ships would come to take everyone away.
Yet the five or six hundred people on the shore could only stare helplessly at the turbulent sea. There was not a ship in sight.
Mac Grant, with light-brown skin, slightly curled hair, and a full height of one meter ninety, frowned as he looked behind him. No one knew when Aaron's "Royal Guard" would catch up.
When that happened, fugitives like them would be executed at once—without any trial.
Suppressing his anxiety, he comforted his wife. "Julie, the ship will be here soon. The Dunn family escaped to Saint-Domingue this way."
He picked up his son and continued, "I heard they desperately need people who know how to grow Sugar Cane there. Especially Mixed-Blood people like us—we can even vote."
A Black man beside him glanced at him and said softly, "Actually, Blacks can too, sir. Saint-Domingue's Vice Speaker is Black."
Just then, cheers erupted from the crowd. "Look, it's a ship!"
"God, a ship really came for us."
"Wonderful! We're saved!"
About twenty minutes later, a gray-black Brigantine slowly sailed into the crude harbor—Maspoint Port had once been burned down by Aaron, and only recently, after countless fugitives had repaired it, had it barely become usable for docking ships.
Soon, a gangplank extended from the ship, and more than a dozen sailors jumped onto the pier.
Grant hurriedly grabbed his wife and rushed forward in long