[JDPUB: 64] PRESS RELEASE: CAPE BOJADOR-The Gateway to Hell - ED TILSTON

Cape Bojador – The Gateway to Hell by Ed Tilston has been published by Just Done Productions Publishing R160

 

Mario Freitas, a young Portuguese mariner, is in love with Elena, his captain’s daughter. His ship is captured by Barbary pirates, his captain killed. The same pirates capture the beautiful young Countess of Zaragossa. They are both stripped and sold on the slave block in Ceuta. They are bought by the Emir of Meknes with whom the Countess eventually falls in love.

 

Mario spends his years as a slave roaming the deserts with the camel caravans. He learns the secrets of navigation by the stars. He is condemned to be crucified but is saved when the Portuguese capture Ceuta in 1415. He returns to Portugal to search for Elena. Under Prince Henry the Navigator he establishes the world-famous Navigation School at Sagres where mariners can, at last, learn how to navigate the open ocean using the stars.

 

He directs the attempts to conquer Bojador, the Gateway to Hell, the Evil Cape, where the early mariner believed sea monsters lurked, where giant lodestones would draw the nails from his ship and where he would be borne by the waters cascading over the edge of the flat earth to tumble forever in the void.

 

            A wondrous tale, based on early fifteenth century historical fact, of adventure, seamanship, love, slavery, torture, and the life and beliefs of a man who lives to compare the freedom of his slavery with the bondage of his liberty.

 

An excerpt:

“His heart pounding, Mario scrambled up onto the taffrail and grabbed a stay. He stared in horror at the rapidly approaching galley. Its double bank of oars rose and dipped to the rhythm of a great drum pounding somewhere in the galley’s depths, the wet blades flashing in the early sunlight….

The galley surged closer. The sweat trickled cold down his back. There was nothing he could do but stare helplessly. He had heard harrowing tales from other mariners. He knew that behind its gunwales the pirates would be crouching: turbaned Berbers gripping drawn swords; black-veiled Tuaregs clutching round shields and scimitars; cowled Riffs hefting long lances. He could see two burly overseers cracking their long black whips across the backs of the slaves at the sweeps.

He shook his head in disbelief but continued to watch, fascinated by the hypnotic sweep of the oars moving to the ever-increasing booming of the drum. Vivid scenes flashed through his mind: Elena standing in her parents’ garden, almond blossoms falling about her feet; the cadence of his mother’s nursery rhymes mingling with the beat of the drum; his teenage memory of the 1385 battle against the Castilians from which he had so miraculously escaped. Nine years since that battle! His heart sank; has it all come to this, then?

The galley knifed through the water sending a smooth bow wave rippling back along its flank to distort the reflection of its black and gold hull. It loomed closer, filling the middle distance, close enough for the pounding of the great drum to resound in the Santa Inez’s own timbers and vibrate in Mario’s very bones.

Captain da Silva stood on the quarterdeck. His navy blue tunic open to a bare gray-haired chest, his narrowed eyes fixed on the onrushing galley as it began to turn in a wide circle to ram the Santa Inez amidships. Mario saw him half draw his sword, and then slam it back into its scabbard and race to the helmsman’s side. The galley finished its wide turn and headed directly for the cog….”

 

G. Edwin Tilston was born and educated in England. He served as pilot in the RAF and RN. He acted as agent for ships in the deep-sea and coastwise trades in Brazil, Peru (where he also served as honorary British Consul), Trinidad, New Orleans and New York. An American citizen, he now lives with his wife, Elizabeth Ellen Churchill, in the beautiful North Carolina Mountains.

 

305 pages- A5 – FICTION – Naval Adventure

KEYWORDS: Navigation- Barbary -Pirates -Sea -Mariner -Portuguese

 

 

Copies of ‘CAPE BOJADOR- The Gateway to Hell’ can be ordered through Just Done Productions – http://www.justdone.co.za

or for those who would prefer to fax 086 505 2478 or contact John 083 3888 290

publish@justdone.co.za

 

                                                                        INTERNATIONAL CLIENTS may order on http://www.lulu.com/content/2351711

 

 

If you want it published, it's Just Done !   Shirene Dovey Just Done Productions cc P.O. Box 23 Gillitts 3603 shirene@justdone.co.za http://www.justdone.co.za/ tel: fax: mobile: Skype ID: 0845299639 0865052478 0845299639 shirened

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