“We will have faith, and you shall be spared.”
“I do not think so, Andres.”
“We do not abandon hope, lady, until hope is rendered hopeless.”
As I turned to go, she reached for my hand, and pressed something into it, and folded my fingers over it, as once she had done long ago with that carven love-idol of hers. I opened my hand and saw that she had given me a little golden crucifix, that often I had seen between her breasts.
“Take it,” she said. “To remember me.”
“You should keep this upon you.”
“I will have no need of it soon. Take it, Andres.”
I could not tell her that to me this piece of gold was as much an idol as that other one; indeed, at that moment, strange to tell, I did not entirely feel that way, but recognized in it a kind of power, which I suppose meant that Africa had seeped into my soul a little, and had made of me not a Papist but an idol-worshipper to some degree. But I think mainly it was because it came from Dona Teresa that I felt the power in it. So I took it and placed it safe about me, and thanked her.
And I went from her, and the cage was closed behind me, and I walked me a long while around the Jaqqa camp, listening to the strange and barbarous sounds of it, the chanting and the singing and the playing of instruments, and the sharpening of knives, and when I came to the place of the kettles a fire was already lit, and the water was aboil. And at the sight of that, a vast rage rose in me, so that I pondered seizing Calandola and holding him as hostage for Teresa’s life, and breaking forth from this camp with her beside me and the Imbe-Jaqqa at my sword’s point; but I knew that to be folly.
Yet was I beginning to draw away from my immersement in the Jaqqa way, and commence my voyage back toward civilization. For I did boggle at this purposing of theirs to slay Dona Teresa, and all the rest of their intent did now begin to take on the taint of blood, and I pulled myself back from it, and stood hesitating, drifting between the side of God and the side of Satan. For I did see that God is the spirit that cries Yea, and Satan is he that cries Nay, and I in my African captivity had become as great a crier of Nay as the Fiend himself, willing to tear down anything to ease mine own pain. For a time I had been mad, I think, or adream. And in that time had I given myself unto Calandola, for whom the act of destruction was the act of creation: I had for a time seen the poetry within that strange pairing of ideas. But no longer. And now I wandered, desperate, lost, between one world and another.
In that moment Golambolo came to me, running, breathing hard, as though he had run a great distance. He lurched to me on his long legs and gasped before he could speak, and finally the words tumbled from him.
“The Portugals! They are advancing, O Andubatil! They are coming toward us!”
“Is it an attack, then?”
He shook his head. “I think not. I think it is but by chance that they move in our direction. But when morning comes they will surely stumble upon our outlying forces.”
“How far are they now from us?”
“An hour’s march, perhaps, or two or three. They have camped for the night.”
“Ah. And where are they?”
“In the direction of Langere, between the two gray hills.”
“The Imbe-Jaqqa must be told,” said I. “I will go to him at once.” Then did I take Golambolo by the wrist and look him close in the eye and say, “Speak nothing to anyone else of what your scouts have told you, not to Kinguri, not to Ntotela, not to anyone, until I have been to the Imbe-Jaqqa: for I would not have the news going running wild through our camp, until the high council has met to resolve on a plan.”
“I understand. I will obey, O Andubatil.”
“You do well, Golambolo,” I told him, and sent him on his way.
Now all fate was in my hands; and I stood poised on the knife’s-edge, between this way and that; and I did make my choice.
To Kulachinga my Jaqqa wife did I go, she who was so sturdy and reliable, and strong of leg and wind.
“I have urgent need of you,” I said. “Go now, run eastward, toward Langere way, to a place of two gray hills, that we have seen in recent days. There will be an army there. Take this, and give it to the high commander.” I put into her hand the golden crucifix that Dona Teresa had bestowed upon me. “And tell him these words, that you must repeat to me until you have them by heart.” And I told her the Portuguese words that meant, “Come at once, strike tonight!7’ These she said after me, and on the fifth time she had them perfect, though she had no idea of their meaning. “Show them by signs where our camp is located, and lead them to us: for it is the Imbe-Jaqqa’s plan to deceive them, and fall upon them when they least do expect it. Go now!”
“I will go,” said she, and turned from me, and sank herself into the forest like a stone into the depths of the sea, and was lost to my sight.
So it was done. I had made me my choice.
And night descended; and the Jaqqas did gather for their grand festival of death.
13
The princes of the man-eater nation bedecked themselves in their finest finery, their paints and beads and ornaments of bone; and I who was a Jaqqa prince did do the same, it being incumbent upon me to play my part. So certain servants to my naked body applied white circles of paint, and stripes of red and blue, and on my face where certain tribal scars had been incised I did color myself with the special Jaqqa powders, and I wrapped palm-cloth over my loins and put on my jingling necklaces of honor, and donned my sword on the one hip and my dagger on the other. All this while Kulachinga was running through the darkness, with Dona Teresa’s little golden crucifix clutched in her hand and the words, “Come at once, strike tonight!” going over and over in her mind. And would they come? And would they come in time? And what price would I pay for my treason, when they came? Those questions I could not answer. In my grand insignia of office, then, I went me down to the festival to sit beside Imbe Calandola and my brother Kinguri.
When it was full dark they brought forth Dona Teresa.
Her rags were stripped away and they had bathed her body and painted it somewhat, too, and given her nothing more than a ringlet of some animal’s teeth about her loins to wear, that hid nothing, so that she came forth as I once had come to a place of execution with all her privities laid bare, the high round breasts and the dark curling mat of lower hair put on exhibit.
Yet was she tall and proud and queenly as she strode, for all her nakedness, this Christian woman whose most secret places were displayed to ten thousand savages. I think I might rather have seen her feeble and frightened; for the sight of her so regal awoke on me sharp memories of the woman of São Paulo de Loanda that I had loved, that soon would be lost to me forever unless some miracle came, and time was growing monstrous late for miracles. And I did feel a powerful sense of onrushing disaster impending over this place, and not for Dona Teresa alone. And I bethought me of those words of Master Marlowe’s play of Faustus, when the clock is striking eleven, and Mephistophilis approaches to claim the soul of the damned man: