“Take me thence immediately,” said I.
It is not in the Jaqqa nature to carry men in a litter, after the servile manner of the Bakongo folk, but there was no choice in that now. So they did cobble together something by which to bear me, and took me forth toward Masanganu, until I came to a sloping low hill that gave a prospect of the hot tableland ahead. And indeed the Portugals were drawn up encamped there, with much weaponry and a great force.
“What is this?” I asked. “Are they patrolling, or do they plan some conquest of Kisama?”
To this no one could make answer. And as I looked down upon them I felt within me a pounding of the heart, and a swaying of the soul, and a great overwhelming urge to reach out with the tip of my finger and brush those Portugals aside, or grind them into the earth like offensive insects. Aye, that was the Jaqqa rising in me! By what right did they camp there, I asked myself, with all their gear and their tents and their refuse and trash? Let us wipe them aside, I thought! And all like them, even to São Paulo de Loanda! Let there be war between Jaqqa and Portugal, and let us drive them into the sea!
Even as those savage war-like feelings did course within me, and loose the blood-thrill in my soul, so also did I calculate in a more civil way the practical merits of such a campaign of extermination and expungement. For when Portugals were gone from this land, the English might enter. Through my dazzled mind floated a vision of myself taking ship to England aboard some Dutch trader, and organizing a company of adventurers, and returning to Africa to lead a venture that would wholly supplant the Portugals here. Aye! Strike up a treaty with Calandola my brother, and pledge him never to offend against our mother the earth as the Portugals had done, and then drive the slavers from São Tomé, and build a new England in this hot West African country!
You can see in my words the conflict, the contradicting. For how could I think both of destroying and of building, and each equally holy? But there were two souls in my breast just then, one English and one Jaqqa; and the wonder of it was that I encompassed them both and did not go altogether mad. I stood there a long while dreaming of Portugals abolished and English established here, with the blessing of the Imbe-Jaqqa my lord and kinsman. Madness? Aye, madness! But within the madness, I tell you, lay a core of the soundest reason; and within that core, another core yet, of the dark madness that Africa does kindle in the soul.
“Come,” said I finally to my men, “we must bring news of this army hastily to the Imbe-Jaqqa.”
So turned we back southward. On our return journey we did spread ourselves out in a wide company over several valleys, so that we would have a better chance of meeting with Golambolo, as he came northward to rejoin us. But we saw him not, though we gave every attention to noticing him. I continued onward into the south, as far as Agokayongo. Approaching that place, I looked down into the cleft where those six Portugals had been camped, and saw their horses lying dead beneath that wide-crowned tree. But of the Portugals themselves, or of Golambolo and his nine Jaqqas, I saw nothing. That perplexed me, for I did not care to have part of my force wandering in search of me in this land, but I saw no help for it other than to go on into Agokayongo.
And as we came in view of the town, I beheld a vast and unexpected sight: not the little Jaqqa party of Golambolo, but uncountable thousands of men, the entire force of Imbe Calandola, and the troops of Kafuche Kambara as well, laid out upon the plain in immense array, with banners flying most jubilantly. I sent one of my fleet Jaqqas forward, to discover what event was unfolding, and he came back soon with the word, “Alliance has been made between the Imbe-Jaqqa and Kafuche Kambara, and they have begun the march northward upon Masanganu.”
Well, and there must have been some swift and cunning bargaining in my absence, that the two enemies were so cozily merged so soon! I regretted me not having been there to take part. But that mattered only lightly now. I was the bearer of significant news; it behooved me to bring my tale before Calandola forthwith.
My injured foot by this time was largely healed. So at the head of my men I walked swiftly into the heart of the Jaqqa encampment at the sunset hour, when the sky was richly stained as though by spreading blood the whole length of the horizon. And I discovered that a festival was being begun, with much beating of drums and chanting and dancing. This wild noise gave me pause, for I recognized it as the cannibal-feast music. There would be dining on human flesh tonight: but what foes were these, that would be the Jaqqa dinner?
The great kettles were in their position, and the raging fire was already lit. And the drummers were pounding, and the dancers were dancing, and the nganga-witches were crying out their screeching blessings, with old Kakula-banga hopping about to the forefront, and the water was just coming to its first boil. Under the gathering darkness all the high lords of the Jaqqas were assembled for their grim festivity: there was Imbe Calandola proud upon his great tall stool in all his shining ornament, and there was my solemn-faced blood-brother Kinguri beside him, and Ntotela and Kaimba and Kasanje and Ngonga and Zimbo and Kulambo and Bangala, which were the totality of the great ones yet living, since none had been named in the place of Ti-Bangala and Paivaga, that had died by my sword during the pestilence.
At the sight of me they all did give salutes and cheers, and Calandola raised his hand toward me and cried out, “What, Andubatil, back among us just in time for dinner?”
“Aye, and what feast is this?”
“Why, we shall dine well tonight, on plump white meat! Come, take your place with us, and swiftly!”
He laughed and gestured, and I looked toward the other side of the clearing. On the ground behind the kettles lay the dead bodies of three white men, naked and bloodied, with their torn clothes in heaps about them. And three more, in Jaqqa manacles, did huddle together in terror and fright against a thick tree. Because the air was dark with smoke and the encroachment of night, I could not see those three clearly from the distance at which I stood, but it was plain from their garb that they were Portugals, and surely they were the ones Golambolo had caught, and brought back to be prisoner here. Prisoner: not dinner.
To Calandola I said, bluntly and forgetting all diplomacy, “This is a great wrong, O Lord Imbe-Jaqqa.”
“What do you say?” he answered, in a growl and a snarl.
“There is a new army of Portugals camped beyond Ndala Chosa, and I know not why. I have come all this way from Ndala Chosa to speak with these Portugals, and interrogate them on the movements of that army, which is why I plucked them from the desert and had them borne here. And I find you cooking them, O Imbe-Jaqqa, as though they were mere beasts!”
“Ah, is that the reason you are so angered? Not that you mislike the boiling of Portugals?”
I shrugged. “Boil them, roast them, do as you like. But not before I have spoken with them!”
Calandola’s great booming laughter floated downward to me like the white water that tumbles down some mighty waterfall-cascade, and he said, “Ah, we have saved a few for you to give questions to, Andubatil! Feast with us tonight, and you can speak with them tomorrow, and then another night we will feast on them as well, Eh? Does that suit you, Jaqqa prince?”