Calandola went on, “Do you understand me? Very few understand. We Jaqqas know the truth, which is not given to other men, that this enslaving of the earth through farming and commerce is a great evil. It was not meant for mankind to do thus.” He spoke most gently and softly, like a thoughtful king rather than as a madman. “It is our mission,” he said, “to undo that evil. And so we sweep from land to land, and we rage, and we slay, and we devour; and behind us everything is made more simple, more clean, more holy. We will restore the earth, An-dubatil. We will make it what it was in the first days: green, pure, noble.” And with a laugh he said, “Your Portugals, they build in stone, do they not? Well, and we will drive them into the sea, and give their stone houses over to the jungle, and the vines and creepers will pull the heavy blocks apart. And then will we rejoice, when the motherland is wholly cleansed. Do you understand, Andubatil? So few understand. We are the forces of the purifying. We take into our own bodies those who are the enemies of truth, and we absorb them, and we make their strength our own and we cast forth their weakness. And thus we conquer and prevail. And we will go on in this way from land to land, from shore to shore, to the farthest rim of the sky. Tomorrow it will be Kalungu; and then later it will be Dongo, and Mbanza Kongo, and those other great cities; and in time it will be São Paulo de Loando, too, and when that city is gone, all will be whole again. After that we will see what work remains to be done in farther realms. Do you see? We have the semblance of ones who smash and destroy, Andubaticlass="underline" but actually what we do, in truth, is make things whole again.”
And we stood side by side all that night, looking toward the desert and watching the witch-fires dancing in the air. And that witchery did enter my brain and inflame my blood, for the words of the Imbe-Jaqqa seemed crystal-clear and reasonable to me, and I made no quarrel with them. I saw the world as swarming with ugliness and treachery and corruption, and the good green breast of the earth encumbered with the ill-made works of man; and it seemed to me most peaceful and beautiful to sweep all that away, and return to the silence of the first Garden.
And when morning came, Imbe Calandola did mount a high scaffold and utter a warlike oration to his troops, inspiring them with the frenzy of battle. Whereupon they did sweep down upon the town of Kalungu and take it, and put its people to the sword and its high slender palm-trees to the axe, and devour many of its folk boiled and roasted, and take its children by impressment into the tribe of Jaqqas. And in that way was yet more of this land returned into its ancestral purity. And in doing this, I truly believe, the Jaqqas were aware of no hypocrisy, but were altogether sincere, in fullest knowledge that this was their divine mission, to smash and destroy until they had made all things whole. Aye, and God spare us from such terrible virtue!
3
I make my full confession. In the warfare that the Jaqqas had launched against all the civilized world, I confess I did play my full part, with much heartiness and vigor.
For Calandola had not spoken in jest, or in idle vaporing, when that he had named me on my wedding night to be his lieutenant, and the chief of all his warriors, and dubbed me Kimana Kyeer, the Lord of the Thunder. For love of my musket or for love of my golden hair had he in a single stroke lifted me to a lordship among these people, I who had been a prisoner and a slave and a pawn for so long with the Portugals. Now that we went into battle he looked to me indeed to act my role, as the right hand of the Imbe-Jaqqa, and act it I did, with all the fervor of my soul.
In giving me this high place he did of course displace others, that might have reason to resent me. There were, I have said, twelve high captains of the Jaqqa nation. Firstmost was Calandola, and then, a long distance behind, Kinguri, by right of blood. I will tell you the names of the other ten, which were Ntotela, Zimbo, Kulambo, Ngonga, Kilombo, Kasanje, Kaimba, Bangala, Ti-Bangala, Machimba-lombo: all of great stature and awesome presence, though in the beginning I could scarce tell one from another. I knew them only as long-legged figures that stalked like spectres through the Jaqqa camp with followings of their own, and stood close beside Calandola and Kinguri at the festivals, and had privileges in the feasting. But of course with time came familiarity, and I learned to know each in his way, and saw that some were mine enemy, and some were friendly in their hearts toward me. But that knowledge came later.
When we went down into the valley of Kalungu to take it, I was with them, with Kinguri on my left hand and Kulambo, who had the longest arms I ever have seen on a man, to my right. Calandola was not with us, for he had had himself borne ahead of us on a great scarlet palanquin in which he sometimes rode, and was directing things from the fore. But the others seemed to be looking to me to see what I would do.
When we came to a high position outside the besieged town, where the ground did rise up into strange little tawny hillocks more than three times the height of a man, and very narrow and twisted, I said, “Here will I take my stand, and show them what a musket is used for!”
And I did climb one hillock that gave me a view into the town, and was within musket range. And with my musket I did set up an uproar of fatal power, that terrified the blackamoors that had come forth from Kalungu to defend themselves, and sent them fleeing in an instant.
“Kimana Kyeer!” came the cry, as I fired me my first shot. I think ten men fell, though in good sooth I could not have hit more than one, and the others dead of fright.
I aimed and I shot again. And again came the cry, “Kimana Kyeer!” from the Jaqqas, but also now it came, not so jubilantly, from the throats of the Kalungu men.
With those two shots did I put the town into rout. Imbe Calandola came from his palanquin, and watched what was befalling; and he grinned a great grin, and hauled forth from his robes his mighty yard, and made water in the direction of the town, with a great yellow stream that was like the outpouring of a giant spigot. For that was his token of conquest, to piddle on the threshold of an enemy that was giving over the fight.
That was the first of my battles on behalf of the Jaqqas; but it was far from the last.
I became so highly esteemed with the great Imbe-Jaqqa, because I killed those many Negroes with my musket, and frightened an hundred for every one I slew, that I could have anything I desired of him: the best wine, the choicest meat, captured maidens, little pretty ivory trinkets. I needed but to name it and it was mine. I confess I took some glee in this. I do not conceal it. After so long not my own master, I was Lord of the Thunder, and I was like some vast force let loose from leash. There was a joy in it, that had me looking keenly forward from battle to battle. And when I fought I was like a king, or like a god. All the same I used my shot with caution and parsimony, not knowing where I would replenish my powder when it was gone, but being skillful in my aiming I made full advantage of my weapon’s force, and slew great numbers, and those who were not slain were rendered helpless out of terror of my weapon.
Terror was a key to the Jaqqas’ success. Their foes were half dead with fear before battle ever was joined. Calandola had seen at once that I was a new kind of terror-wielder, and so it was that he did put me again and again in the fore of his troop, and I would fire, and the battle-cry would go up, “Andubatil Jaqqa! Kimana Kyeer!” And mighty was the weapon of Andubatil, and easy was the conquest of the town that never had beheld a musket before, or a white man. And to protect me, when we went out to the wars, Calandola did give charge to his most valiant men over me, even his high captains. By this means I was often carried away from hard battle in their arms, by giant Ti-Bangala or broad-backed Ngonga, and my life thereby saved: for there was ever a phalanx of puissant Jaqqa swordsmen to shield me and rescue me.