Then in the general upheave I found myself nose to nose with Kinguri. Blood did flow along his scalp and forehead in torrents, and his eyes were a wild man’s.
“You!” he cried. “The peril, the curse among us!”
“Let me past you, brother,” said I.
He struck at me with the butt end of his hatchet, and laid bare my cheek almost to the bone, cutting athwart the older scars of my tribal ornamentation. I felt the streaming of my blood, but there was no pain, not then, not yet. He came to me with a second blow, but there was good frenzy upon me also, the kind that in battle does arm a man to surpass his own power. And as his hatchet descended did I catch his wrist and hold it high over me, so that neither of us could move.
We stood there maybe five hundred year, or maybe five thousand, frozen, wholly stilled, with all the drunkard Jaqqas circling about us and none daring to come near. Kinguri could not bring his great long arm down upon me to do injury, and I could not push that arm above me back to shake the weapon from it, so well matched were we, and so thoroughly equal in force. But if hatred alone had heat, I would have fried to a sizzle beneath his gaze.
To me he said, as we stood in that way, “You will die now, and you will join your Portugal witch in our banquet.”
“Ah, nay brother, nay, not so! I will have my vengeance upon you for her death!”
And with a surging of strength, such as comes upon a man perhaps once or twice in his life when he is at his greatest need, I took his arm and drew it down, and twisted it so that it snapped: for we were wrestling at last, but it was not the graceful dance of the Jaqqa sport-wrestling, but rather a wrestle for life or death, and the contest was to me. I heard the bone yield in his arm; his lips drew back in a horrid scream; the hatchet fell, and I snatched it up, and made ready to have his life from him.
Then there came above us a great spreading darkness, like unto some vast bird that had opened his wings over us to blot out the glitter of the stars. I did not understand. But after a moment I perceived it was vast Calandola that loomed over both us twain as an avenging-demon.
“He is mine,” said Calandola to me, and from my hand he plucked Kinguri’s hatchet, the very hatchet that had wounded him, taking it as lightly as it were a straw; and Kinguri, hissing, crouched down to shield himself with his hands.
“Slave!” the Imbe-Jaqqa cried. “Go! Go from me! Go from the world!”
And with a fearsome blow of the hatchet he did maim his crouching brother, lopping off an arm, and then struck again, the blow the second time being dire and the blood of Kinguri leaping forth to spew us both.
“Nugga-Jaqqa!” Calandola exclaimed. “Shegga-Jaqqa!” And spat upon his brother’s corpse, and trampled him into the reddened earth.
Then did he turn, and confront me once again, and a more hellish sight I hope never to see. His own blood and Kinguri’s painted his body utterly, that also did shine with the grease of slaughtered men, and his eyes were lunatic eyes, for that he had seen his kingdom dissolving about him in this war of brothers that had sprung up so suddenly.
“Come, we must kill them all!” he cried.
“Kill them yourself,” said I. “I want no part of your warfare.”
“What say you?”
“I am no longer of your kingdom, Calandola!”
“Ah, and is that so?” Advancing upon me, he did say in thick half-strangled tones, “You will fight when I tell you to fight, Andubatil, and you will eat what I give you to eat, and you will obey me in all things. You are my creature, you are my toy!” And then he did cry out in a language I did not know, perhaps no language at all save the language of madness, or the language of Hell, some belching coarse mazy gibberish, the language of coccodrillos, the language of dream-warlocks. And leaped high and brought down the hatchet, but I lurched aside, and went unharmed, and he leaped again, and swung, and came near to trimming my beard, and cried out in his coccodrillo-crazy jargon anew. I was sure I would die at his hand, so berserk was he, but I meant to make him work at it. Thus he pursued me about in the narrow space we had to move, chopping at me and cursing me and weeping and moaning, while blood poured over him, and all his followers did battle drunkenly amongst themselves. I longed for a pistol, that I could thrust it into his face and explode him to Hell; but of pistols I had none, and my musket was in my cottage, that would have been useless here anyway in such close quarters. A sword I did have, and was able finally to hoist it out, and for an instant we faced one another as equals. But only for an instant, since that as I lunged at him with my blade he struck downward upon it with his hatchet in such force that my arm was made numb, and I dropped the weapon, not knowing whether I still had an arm or not.
“Jesu receive me,” I cried.
“Inga negga hagga khagga! cried Calandola, or some such wild garboil.
And he readied himself to come upon me and make an end of me. But in that instant came a thunderclap and a burst of flame in our midst, and a second such uproar, and a third. In mid-stride the Imbe-Jaqqa halted, and looked about.
Cannon!
Aye, Christian weapons erupting from all sides! For we were surrounded, the army of Portugals having come at last, and setting themselves up in surround of this place while the maddened Jaqqas did blind themselves with wine. Too late for Dona Teresa, alas, but in time, in time for my salvation, the forces of the Masanganu garrison had appeared, and were making deadly war into the Jaqqa multitude.
Imbe Calandola did look at me most melancholy at this onslaught, much as Caesar must have looked upon Brutus: for I think he guessed that it had been I who brought this army onto him. “Ah, traitor, traitor,” said he in a low sad voice, and reached out to grip my shoulder, and held it tight a long moment, as brother might hold brother in a dark time, so that I felt the full flow of his powerful soul rushing from him to me. And having done that, I thought he would slay me, but merely did he scowl, and he spat upon me and turned on his heel without one more word to me. Then did he cry for his lieutenants by name, “Kasanje! Kaimba! Bangala!” Fully sobered was he by this invasion of the Portugals. I think he would fain have had Kinguri by his side now, and Andubatil as well; but Kinguri was tatters in the dust, and Andubatil was Andubatil no longer, having repudiated altogether his Jaqqa allegiance and taken on once more the name of Andrew Battell of Leigh in Essex.
Calandola, like a thwarted Lucifer, went running off one way, and I went the other, thinking to tunnel down into darkness in the bush, to strip from myself the beads and bangles of the man-eater nation; better to be naked now than a Jaqqa. As he vanished I saw old Ntotela and Zimbo come toward me, both of them wounded and looking more than half dazed. They hailed me and cried out, “Andubatil! Imbe-Jaqqa Andubatil!”
“Ah, nay, I will not be your king,” I said, for that was their purpose, to offer me the Jaqqa crown, I think, with all else fallen into turmoil.
“Imbe-Jaqqa!” said they again, sadly, in bewilderment, but I shook my head and ran past them.
Fires were blazing, clouds of dusty smoke were rising. From their fortifications around us the Portugals fired again and again, exploding a sunrise on the darkness, and the Jaqqas did stampede most wildly, all their brave courage peeled away by the confusion of their leadership and the surprise of the assault. They went this way and that, a headless mob. Some rushed into the adjoining camp of Kafuche Kambara, where I think they were slaughtered; some stood their ground, and made war against one another while the Portugals in regular formation sent them to Hell; some went into madness, and screamed and raged into the trees; and I know not what the others did, save that the camp of many thousands was dissipated, and reduced within an hour or two to nothing.