Captive though I was, dismally far from home with no hope of returning, yet did I behold this new place with eyes of wonder. And the sky-high green-crowned trees ashore were things of miracle to me, and the heat of the air, and the smells, the sounds, the dazzle of the light.
Our weighty vessel made its way as deep into the harbor as it dared, and cast its anchor. And then small boats with oars and sails came to fetch us. These were made of palm-tree wood, joined together and framed after the manner of our boats. As we were conveyed to the mainland we saw the channel full of these boats, taking fish, for these are rich waters, heavy with sardines and anchovies, and also sole and sturgeon and an abundance of wholesome crabs.
We drew up to the shore. And saw a grim platoon of somber-faced Portugals waiting for us, dark-haired, dark-eyed, swarthy-skinned little men, sweltering in their full armor under the terrible sun. As though we were a company of great Judases, Torner and I, that durst not be let escape.
They glared most foully at us. Their hard cold staring eyes were stones that they would have hurled at us to pierce our skins. I felt the pressure of their hatred, that dull heavy hostile weight, as I had those first few days of our ocean crossing. And I gave them glare for glare, scowl for scowl. Am I your enemy? Porque? Because my country is your country’s enemy? Because my Queen is the Pope’s enemy? Because we will not sit and mumble at our devotions, and call upon the saints and other false gods? Because we loathe the Latin singsong, and have our own lawful book of prayer? Well, then, so be it, Portugals, I am your enemy! But only because you choose to be mine.
They jeered. They shouted things in their thick-mouthed lingo, not knowing that I understood the half of their foulness. They cursed the Queen as an excommunicated whore and the daughter of a whore and witch. They said the same of my mother and Tomer’s. I kept my peace, though it was hard. Jesu, it was hard! I would have cried things at them of the Pope and the stinking luxuries he wallows in, and the monks who fill themselves on altar wine and couple in the cloisters like devils, and such stuff, but worse. Yet I kept my peace.
I said only at last, in my best Portugee, as they marched me onto the dry black earth of their city, “The Devil will chew your souls, ye Papist swine,” and left them gasping in amazement that I knew their tongue.
The town, for the supposed capital of a supposed great empire in the making, was small and shabby. This part of Angola yieldeth no stone, and very little wood, and the buildings I saw were largely made of bulrushes and fronds of palm, covered with earth. There were of course certain structures much more grand, the governor’s palace and the houses of government, and the great-steepled red-walled church, and the high-palisaded fort.
Torner and I were prodded like sheep, or more roughly than that, through the midst of this place, down dusty mazes of scurfy streets. Everything was hot and dry, the rainy season having given way to the long time of no rain that is the only way to tell winter from summer in these latitudes, the winters being parched. As we proceeded, some Africans came out to stare, first a few, and then great crowds, like floating swarms of bulging white eyes in a cloud of blackness.
“Why do they look so fiercely at us?” I said to Torner. “Is it such a miracle, then, that two Englishmen should be paraded here?”
“It is your hair, Andy, your yellow hair!” he answered me.
Beyond doubt it was, and soon the boldest of the blacks crept forward to touch it lightly, as if to find out whether it was made from spun gold, I suppose. White skins were no longer strange show for these folk; but fair hair, I trow, must be a vast novelty, the Portugals all universally being a dark-thatched people. So they stared at me and I at them. What a splendid complex world, where some are pink in our fashion, and some are red and some yellow-skinned, and some are ebon! These Angolans were pure black, both the men and the women, some of them somewhat inclining to the color of the wild olive. Their hair was curled tight and black, though I saw in a few a slight red tint. Their lips were not as thick as those of such other blacks as I had seen in other lands, and their cheekbones were precious sharp. The stature of the men was of an indifferent bigness, very like that of the Portugals. The women looked strong, with deep and heavy breasts, which they exposed without shame.
What would become of me in this place was utter mystery to me. I knew not why the Portugals had troubled to ship me here nor what use they would find for me, and nothing was certain save that I would be a long time in seeing England again.
They thrust us forward to the fortress. The sun was fire in my eyes, blinding them, and then I fell blinking and muddled into a dungeon both damp and chill, carved out of the earth. Torner and I lay side by side in a great dusky mildewed chamber, with a barrier of sharp stakes between us. Our ankles were bound with light chains, so that we could not run without stumbling, but our hands were left free. The Portugal soldiers hovered around us, stinking of garlic and oil, poking their faces close upon ours, prodding us here and there to see if we had bones and ribs, and finding that we did, and prodding us again. Like superstitious heathen they made the sign of the cross often at us, and waved their beads and other toys about, and spoke to one another in a Portuguese so barbarous, so crusted with nonsense, that I could make little of it, except that they were instructing each other that we were to be kept without comfort.
And then they left us. “God bless Queen Elizabeth!” I called after them. “Dieu et mon Droit! England, England, England!” and more such things.
There we remained in darkness and misery for three or four days, receiving meals from time to time but otherwise ignored. Insects paid us visits, spiders with fur, and small chittering things, and lizards of the night. The stink of piss and shit was all we breathed. Barbosa had said, as we parted from him in the plaza of the town, that we would soon know our fates, but I wondered if these ill-gendered Portugals had simply forgotten us. Finally, though, came a clanking of gates and a rattling of distant locks, and Barbosa appeared, holding a guttering taper. Two of our jailers were with him, but they lay back some paces.
The good man was kind enough to bring for us a bowl of the wine of the country, which is made from palm-juice: for such courtesy may his saints give him peace, may his Madonna hold him in the bosom of her repose. The wine was milky and powerfully sweet, and had a tingle to it.
“Are you being fed?” Barbosa asked.
“Not often, and not well, but we are not being starved,” I said. “They give us a sort of porridge, mainly. Are we to be left in this hole forever?”
“There is a problem,” said Barbosa. “The old governor is dead, and all is confusion here, and warfare with the blacks is threatening. The King of Matamba and the King of Kongo and the King of Angola have made league against us, and the Jaqqas lurk on the other side, hungry for evil meat. There will be war. At such a time the officials here can give little thought to you.”
“Then let us go, if we are too much trouble!” Torner cried. “Set us free to make our own ways toward home!”
Barbosa shook his head sadly. “You would not live a week, my friend. This is no country for such adventures. You must stay in São Paulo.”
“Why are we kept?”
“They will find uses for you,” said Barbosa.
“What?” shouted Torner. “Never!” said I, in the same instant.
“Uses,” said Barbosa. “We are so few, and the blacks are so many. The administrators have decided to employ captive English here, of which you are the first.”