“And are you loath to leave, father?”
“Nay,” said I, “I go home joyously.”
But yet I knew there was a mixture in my feelings on that score, all the same.
I stood a time longer, looking backward at the hills. And a cloud came and darkened the land, and I thought I saw the face of Imbe Calandola in the curvings and twistings of the great hill, and that he was calling out to me in his great deep voice, “Andubatil! Andubatil!” So I did turn my back on him, and all of Africa, and looked to the vast sun-sparkled blue-green breast of the ocean sea.
Our ship was heavy and slow, and the winds were wayward as winds always are; but yet we beat our way up the coast in steady order. I looked landward again, thinking as a pilot does, that this cape I know, and that, and over there must be Zaire mouth, and there Cabo de Palmar in the land of Loango, and there Kabinda, and so on and on. These names I did speak to the sailors, who had done little African service and were unfamiliar with those marks; and they, too, smiled at me, doubtless thinking me a foolish gaffer, but a good-hearted one.
But some did come to me and ask me my tales of Angola, and I told them a few, and shared with them some of my piloting knowledge that still was sharp in my mind. These were good sailors, men of valor and sufficiency, from youth bred up in business of the sea. I was uneasy at first being among so many Spaniards, they having been the enemies of my nation since I was a boy. But that war was ended, and these bore me no enmity. And why should they? Most had been only babes at the time of the Armada. They said that England and Spain were not only at peace but did do much trade with one another, and there was talk that the King of England’s son Charles might be married to a Spanish princess, which I found most marvelous to consider.
“What?” I said. “And do Drake and Ralegh swallow all this, and pay civil calls at the court of King Philip?”
But the names of Drake and Ralegh meant nothing to these lads; and it was from Captain Teixeira that I had the truth, which was that Drake was long dead, having died in ‘96 with John Hawkins on the Spanish Main of fevers, in some miscarried voyage; and Ralegh had fared little better, having been clapped into the Tower by this our King James in Anno 1603 on charges of treason, and being still prisoner there these seven years later. So I knew me that I was entering an England greatly altered, where old heroes were branded traitor and the Spanish lingo was heard in the chambers of our King. And that taught me much about the changes carved by the tooth of time.
We journeyed under a burning swollen sun into the high tropic lands, and to Guinea, and off the headland of Sierra Leona, and into the latitude of Cape Verde; and a few days thereafter we were directly under the Tropic of Cancer. On the next day we had sight of a ship to the windward of us, which proved to be a Frenchman privateer of ninety tons, who came with us as stoutly and as desperately as might be, and coming near us, perceived that we were a merchantship, and judged us to be weak and easily taken. The Frenchman then thought to have laid us aboard, and there stepped up some of his men in armor and commanded us to strike sail; whereupon, we sent them some of our stuff, crossbars and chainshot and arrows, so thick that it made the upper work of their ship fly about their ears, and we spoiled him with all his men, and tore his ship miserably with our great ordnance.
And then he began to fall astern of us, and to pack on his sails, and get away; and we, seeing that, gave him four or five good pieces more for his farewell; and thus we were rid of this Frenchman. Such are the hazards of the sea. In this hot action I took no part, being a mere passenger, and not needed. But it put me in mind of my young days, this being the most vigorous passage at sea I had witnessed since the Armada. Which I did remark to the sailors, and the young ones looked as empty-eyed at mention of the Armada as though I had been speaking of the Crusades! Well, and they will be fifty years of age one day also, those that are granted such good fortune. For no man be immune and exempt from the passage of time, however much he may think so when he be young.
Then sped we onward, and in an amazing short time we hove into the road of Cadiz. Here we unladed much of our cargo, and I went ashore, to say I had put foot in Spanish soil. There was some rain then, and the air was cold, and I did huddle close into myself, this temperate air being most intemperate to me, that had become thin-skinned from long African life. And afterward shipped we for Lisbon, where I lay two weeks in kinder weather, until I could board the English vessel Mary Christopher, that took me home.
This was a journey finally that went by so swiftly it seemed a dream; for one day I entered the ship, and—thus did I fancy it—the next was I in mine own land. But in sooth it did not quite occur that way, except that I took a fever and was raving for some few days; but I was restored fully to health. The captain’s name was Nicholas Kenning, and his pilot John Loxmith, and they looked upon me, as did their men, as though I were something most rare and fragile, for they knew I had long been abroad in African captivity. We took a merry wind for England and by the good blessing and providence of God brought ourselves by the twenty-seventh day of June in Anno 1610 to the sight of the Lizard, where we bore in under heavy wind, and the next day about nine of the clock in the morning we arrived safely in Plymouth, and praised God for our good landfall. Kenning and Loxmith were beside me as I came on deck, and the captain did say, “Well, and you are in England again.”
“I thought I would weep for joy at this sight, but look! Mine eyes are dry, for I can scarce believe I am here.”
“Be most assured, this is England.”
And as so he spoke, the sky that had been gray did release some rain upon us, by way of my welcome; and at that trick of fortune I laughed very heartily, which all of a sudden turned to tears, most copious ones. For indeed this was England and I was in it once again, and as I have said, tears come in unexpected ways: I who had looked dry-eyed into the harbor of Plymouth was surprised by joy in this rainfall.
I came forth onto the land and would not do anything for show, such as kneel down and kiss the earth, or the like. But I felt a quiet gladness that was deep and pure in every fiber of my being. For I was an Englishman in England again, after ever so trifling a side-journey of only one-and-twenty years.
Plymouth always is full of sailors fresh in from strange corners of the world, and so no celebrity was made upon me, for the which I was right grateful. I desired only to slip back into this land in quiet, and adapt me to its ways, that had become more strange to me now than those of Calicansamba and Mofarigosat. But it was not so easy. From a moneychanger I got me English money, and found the silver pieces showing King James’ face to be most very curious, though he did look kingly enough, with his sweeping mustachio and beard and heavy brow. I stepped into a tavern, and took a lodging for the night for me and the black boy Francis, that was all eyes, wild agog with wonder at this country. That night I dined on meat pie that to me had no savor at all, and was mere bland stuff without spice after the foods of Africa, and I drank some tankards of foamy beer, but I missed the heavy sweet taste of palm-wine. And in the chill of the night I thought I would perish, though I hid deep below my blankets, on my soft bed that seemed altogether oversoft.
And so on and so on: it was my first day, and I knew not England any more, but I was as Moses had said of himself, a stranger in a strange land.
There was another odd thing about my first impression of this new England. It seemed I had entered a smaller and a quieter time than was the one I left. In Elizabeth’s day all was bubbling and excitement, a great upheaving turmoil of life and vigor and earthy outspanning growth: and now, under James, I sensed right at the first that men trod more cautious, and looked often over their shoulders out of timidity, and spoke in less robust voices. Was it an illusion? I think not; for that first impression was confirmed by my succeeding days and weeks. A certain great moment of time has gone by, for England, and is but memory now. It is as though once the world was all fire and crystal, and now it is mere wool and smoke, and dull red sparks in the ashes. And I do regret that I was not here for some of that time of fire and crystal; but, by Jesu, at least I saw its borning and its early ripeness!