But there was more than mere court intrigue to all this, for the brothers did have a feeling for me that went beyond such simple intrigue. Each wanted for himself the mokisso that was within my white skin; each coveted me, each desired me, almost as rival lovers do, for each thought I had in me that which would illuminate and exalt his spirit.
I had some hint to this early, when the man-witch Kakula-banga, a high sorcerer of the tribe, came to me to paint me with magic signs to warn off the threat of zumbi. Those spirits were much in fear just then. This witch was a small wrinkled man with one eye and a scar that made much of his face seem that it had been melted in flame; but that one eye saw with keen sight. And he said, as he drew his zickzacks upon my skin, “Calandola is fire, and Kinguri is snow, and so Calandola does rule, for fire rules over snow. But yet snow can kill, and it is a passing cold death.”
“What is the meaning of this witch-talk, old man?” said I.
“That you lie between the flame and the ice, and both can burn you, O Andubatil Jaqqa. But you cannot endure both burnings. You will have to choose, some day, between Kinguri and Calandola, as will we all. Give it thought, O Andubatil Jaqqa! Give it thought!”
But these dark forebodings had no substance for me, except in the most broad way, that I knew one must be careful in the proximity of great men. In every realm, and not only that of the man-eaters, does greatness glut itself on the blood and flesh of those who are not so great, and who hope to rise, and die in the rising. Beyond such wisdom I knew nothing here, and resolved to watch and wait, and tread carefully.
From Kinguri I learned something of the history of these dread Jaqqas. They had come, he told me, out of the land known as the Sierra Leona, that is high above and inward somewhere in Africa. But long ago did they leave that place, giving up all settled habitation and wandering in an unsettled course. Thus they dispersed themselves as a scourge, one might say as a pestilence, throughout much of this continent, invading this land and that, and over time drifting southward through the kingdom of the Kongo and onward to the eastward of the great city of Angola, which is called Dongo. Thus they came to infest both these territories that the Portugals have colonized, and to threaten constantly against the little Portugal outposts and the Christian blackamoor nations that the Portugals have made subject to themselves.
As they marched, the Jaqqas in time transformed themselves into the likeness of the tribes they conquered. For they allow the bearing of no children of their own, but adopt into their nation the strongest and best of their foes’ children, as I have already told. Thus in all their camp there were but twelve natural Jaqqas of the true blood, that were their captains, and fourteen or fifteen women. For it is more than fifty years since they came from Sierra Leona, that was their native country. But their camp is sixteen thousand strong, and sometimes more, and all of them know themselves only as Jaqqas, being without any knowledge of the tribes from which they were taken, or concealing it if they do.
This matter of bearing no children is one of the strangest of their ways. Of course they do engender babes, and carry them to full term, and the women are very fruitful, since the Jaqqas are a lewd nation and constantly perform the act of coition. But their women enjoy none of their children: for as soon as the woman is delivered of her child, it is presently taken from her, and placed in a hole in the earth, and in that dark prison of death the newborn creature, not yet made happy with the light of life, is allowed to perish.
Their reason for this cruelty is that they will not in their travels be troubled with such cumbersome burdens as babes, nor do they wish to undertake the education of infants. This is most monstrous. I witnessed it myself many times, the digging of the hole, the placing of the babe, all this done with the greatest ease and calm, as if it were the drowning of kittens. I did tax Kinguri with the manifest evil of this, and he said, “But it lets us grow stronger, for we choose only the best for our number, and discard all others.”
“But since you are so valiant, are not your own children apt to be stronger than those of other tribes, and best suited to become as you are?”
“That may be, Andubatil, but it may also not happen that way. Great kings do engender feeble princes. Did you not tell me yourself that your King Henry brought forth only sickly sons, that all died in youth, so that your kingdom had to be given over to women?”
“It can happen so, aye, but it is not the rule. Have you not had sons yourself, of your wives?”
He looked indifferent. “I have not come to know them. They are of no concern to me.”
“They are of your get, of your blood, of your valor!”
“They are only half mine, and who knows what corruption the other half brings? I tell you, Andubatil, these babes are mere insects, that buzz and drone for a day, and are gone.”
“Nay, nay, nay,” said I, pressing him close. “Strong men with strapping wives do bring forth fine and lusty children, so I believe. And in the murder of your babes you and your fellows have forfeited great strength in your armies, and—”
“Have care, Andubatil!”
“Do I transgress?”
“You transgress in the extreme.”
“I speak from my heart, though.”
“I was told by my brother Calandola that your heart was Jaqqa.”
That did give me a moment’s pause. Jaqqa-hearted, was I, in their eyes? Well, and I had thrown myself most lustily into their festivals, and did ape Jaqqa ways, and now did bear a Jaqqa sort of name: but was my heart truly Jaqqa? In faith, that brought me some amaze, and then some second thought, and I recalled to me the harsh croakings of that white-skinned witch, that demon-eyed madman of a ndundu, that in the city of Loango long ago had moaned and gestured at me and called me “white Jaqqa.” Was his prophecy now fulfilled? Well, and so be it, though this was passing strange to me.
“And is my heart not Jaqqa then?” I asked Kinguri.
“So it seemed to my brother, and so it seems also to me: which is why I took you near, and showed my love to you. But am I mistook? Is your heart still white?”
“I think it is both white and Jaqqa at once,” I said. “I find myself making the voyage between the one life and the other, and taking on new ways, and casting off old ones. But in some things I do find my heart as white as ever. In the matter of the murder of babes—”
“It is not murder!”
“I understand the killing of innocents to be murder.”
“You understand nothing!” cried he most furiously.
“I think I have some little wisdom.”
“None! None!”
There was a blaze in his eye and a froth to his lips. My own brain was heated, and to my tongue there came a crowd of arguments, why it was not right to do as the Jaqqas did with their young. But I caught my breath, and held myself still. For from the fury that was rising upon him, I knew it was the moment to cease plaguing him on this, lest I lose his love entirely, and inflame him into enmity. We had reached our boundary in this discourse, and any crossing of it would be a breach irreparable.
“I will not press you,” said I.
“Nay, best that you do not.”
He still was enraged. And I was yet fevered with the heat of my convictions; but I gave over, I held myself still, and after a time we did grow calm, and restore our amity.