“Ah, is that so?”
It was indeed, though I could not tell him why. Which was, forsooth, that there was still too much Jaqqa in me; that my mind and soul were corrupted by the dark rites of that jungle people, in which I had partaken; that I needed some time yet to cleanse myself of all that, and to have a full purge, before I could enter myself into the clean quiet life of England, from which I had been absent so long that I scarce felt I belonged there.
The governor gave me his pledge that I was to go home. And in good sooth it was a pledge I had heard often before, as you know. But I think this Coutinho was sincere. I might go home whenever I pleased, said he, and in the mean time, could I do a little service for him?
Ah, I thought, it is the old song sung anew; it is the wheel to which I am ever yoked. If I am not to be a pilot for them, I am to be a soldier of the army, or some like thing, I who want only to retreat from the fray and meditate upon my travail. But yet was I beholden to him for my rescue. So what was the little thing he desired of me? Why, that he was going to march down into Kisama province, and bring all the rebels to heel and make an end to the Jaqqas if he could find them, and destroy for all time the power of the chief Kafuche Kambara. And since I knew these peoples so well, and spoke their languages as though I had been born to them, would I join with them in that endeavor?
Well, and what could I say, but yes? I was beholden. So then I journeyed again to the wars. The governor made me a sergeant of a Portugal company, with an hundred men at my command. We marched into Muchima first, the place where first I had seen the bloody fury of the Jaqqas expended long ago, and at the presidio there we gathered further soldiers; from thence it was south-easterly to a place called Cava, and then to Malombe, that was the city of a great lord subject to Kafuche Kambara. Here we were four days, and many lords came and obeyed us, so that our armies were swelled mightily with our black auxiliaries.
From thence we marched upon Agokayongo, where lately I had experienced such terrible events. The chief of this town was a Christian, and we settled ourselves here for eight days, finding it a very pleasant place, and full of cattle and victuals. But here a further misfortune came upon me, for the bountiful Don João Coutinho fell ill of the fever that is so widespread at Masanganu, and that he had carried secret in his body from that place. He sickened quickly and did roam wildly in his mind for a few days, and then he died, which was a great loss to us all, and most especially to me.
To serve as governor now the army did choose its captain-major, whose name was Manoel Cerveira Pereira. I did not find him greatly to my liking. This Cerveira Pereira was small of stature and very hard-fleshed and dark, as some Portugals are, as though the sun has baked all mercy and charity from their bodies. He was of somber mien and very deeply religious, constantly fingering his beads and crucifixes and the like such holy apparatus. The Jesuits of Angola did hold him in the highest esteem, and he gave them much advantage in the colony, which earned him the enmity of many of the powerful men. To me he made outward show of courtesy, and confirmed me in the sergeancy that Don João Coutinho had bestowed upon me. But because he was so devout a Papist and I a mere Protestant heretic, Cerveira Pereira privately did not regard me as one to whom he needs must be faithful of his oath, and he did sadly play me false in many ways.
Yet this will I say for him, he was a most excellent warrior. As soon as he had seen the late governor given proper funeral, he addressed his army and made ready to march. We were eight hundred Portugals, or more, and I know not how many thousand blacks: a very great army indeed, and well armed. Eastward we did press. The Jaqqas were wholly dispersed, having melted into the land like the phantoms they be, but the army of Kafuche Kambara was not far beyond Agokayongo, with more than sixty thousand men, whom we did fall upon mightily. We had the victory, and made a great slaughter among them, and took captives all the women and children of Kafuche Kambara. This took place upon the tenth day of August, Anno 1603, and in the very place where Kafuche had slain so many Portugals years before, so that that terrible defeat was wholly avenged.
After we had been two months in the country about Agokayongo, we marched towards Kambambe, which was but three days’ journey, and came right against the Serras da Prata, and passed the River Kwanza. At the great waterfall that was the holy place of the Jaqqas we did see signs that the man-eaters had been there of late: some remnants of their feasting, and certain painted marks on the rocks. But of the Jaqqas themselves we yet saw nothing, they being as elusive as ghosts. This was finely suitable to me, I having seen enough of those folk for one lifetime and being in little urgency to encounter them again. At night Imbe Calandola came to me in dreams very greatly often, floating through the seas of my mind like a malign monster of the depths, and laughing and stirring up turbulent maelstroms, and crying out, “Andubatil Jaqqa! Return unto me, Andubatil Jaqqa, and let us devour the world!” For which meal I had small appetite remaining.
Presently we overran the country at Kambambe, and built a fort hard by the riverside.
No chance presented itself to me for my return to the coast, nor to seek ship for England. Governor Cerveira Pereira, when I reminded him of the promise of Don João Coutinho to release me after a time, only shrugged and said, “I find nothing in his journals of such a promise, Don Andres.”
Aye, and what could I say?
So I bided my time, a skill in which I had developed no trifling aptitude. I lived a private life apart from the Portugals now, friendly with them but not close, nor had they much wish to befriend me. I think they knew not what to make of me, and, God wot, I hardly knew what to make of me myself, for I was so changed by time and monstrous event. I had seen a quantity of gore and horror sufficient to leave its impress on me in the deepest ways. Often when I closed mine eyes I saw the headsman’s blade falling upon Dona Teresa; or I imagined myself in Kulachinga’s greasy embrace, her body slippery against mine own; or I sat between Calandola and Kinguri at some dread festival, and awoke with the savor of human meat in my nostrils and on my tongue. I had made a voyage that was passing strange, into the darkest of the realms of this world; and though I smiled upon others, with a cheery greeting, a “Bom dia” for all and a friendly “adeus” upon parting, yet was I a man alone within their midst, one who has looked upon things that put him beyond the pale of common society. I felt almost like a wanderer out of some other world: which I was, in good sooth, in some five or six various ways.
We marched about upon the tribes outside Kambambe, and mastered many nations there. Among our conquered was Shillambansa, uncle to the King of Angola, that I had helped to sack utterly when I was with the Jaqqas. He had rebuilt his city to something of its old sumptuousness; when this chief did see me again in the triumphant army of Portugals, he looked upon me as a demon who particularly oppressed his destinies, and hissed “mokisso” at me, and “white Jaqqa,” and turned away in dread. Well, and I suppose he had no cause to love me for working two utter devastations upon him, and my appearance now was frightening to behold, with my scars and my long tangled white hair and my golden beard and my blue eyes to manifest me as a devil to him.
Cerveira Pereira founded a presidio at Kambambe, and once again the Portugals set about the search for the silver mines, but I think they got small share of silver, or perhaps none at all. This new upstart governor, who held no royal commission from his king, was very cruel to his soldiers, so that in time all his voluntary men left him; and by this means he could go no further. So we remained at Kambambe month upon month, I now being past forty-five years of age, but still, thank God, strong and healthy.