So I was of somewhat a brooding mood by the end of that voyage, which had begun so well. But it is not my nature to dwell morosely on darker things, and I was glad enough to be alive, when I came stepping ashore at São Paulo de Loanda.
I found that much had altered in that city during my absence.
The new governor, Don Francisco d’Almeida, had begun to put his mark upon the place. The slopes of the hill leading up to the high fortress were bustling with fresh constructions. Thousands of blacks did toil under the terrible blaze of the torrid sun, building a palace for the governor far more majestic than the old one, and homes also for the governor’s brother, Don Jeronymo d’Almeida, and for the various other great fidalgos who had accompanied this governor out from Portugal. All these were very grand structures of lime and stone hauled from great distances and covered with tiles of Lisbon, very dignified and awesome, much enhancing the look of the city; for the whiteness of the lime and the merry blue and yellow of the tiles did dance most playfully upon the eye in the bright sunlight. Down below there were many other dwellings a-building, and barracks for the hundreds of new soldiers that Don Francisco had brought with him to Angola. This work had been accomplished at no little cost of native lives. For although all seasons are hot in that place, the rainy season often is more hot and evil than the dry one, and d’Almeida had compelled his people to work regardless of any heat, so that many of them fell in their tracks and died, for all that they were accustomed to such a clime. This I learned from Don João de Mendoça, who by now had taken me as a sort of confidant. “They bury a dozen blacks a day,” he said, with a scowl, “and still d’Almeida shows no restraint. He wants his palace done by winter.”
“Is the man mad?”
“Nay, Andres, not mad, only stupid. Very, very, very stupid.” Don João looked at me long and deep. “That is no way to treat one’s workmen.” I remembered that Don João was the man who had in an angry moment dashed a bowl of spiced sauce into the eyes of a careless slave. But then he added, “It is wasteful to work all those men to death, for some of them have skills that will be not easy to replace,” and I understood that Don João’s objections were objections of economy, not of morality. He laughed and said, “Still, one day Don Francisco will be gone from here, and his palace will remain for the using of his successors. I suppose that’s something good to come out of this.”
Don João did not need to tell me that he had great hopes of dwelling in that palace himself. Anyone with eyes would know of the rivalry between him and d’Almeida: Don João the stronger and shrewder man, Don Francisco the holder of the royal commission. That the governorship should have gone to Don João upon its last vacancy, no one in Angola did doubt; but Don Francisco was higher born, and he had the better connections in the mother country. It was cunning of Don João to make no show of resentment at having been passed over for the governorship, yet must it have been bitter for him, since suddenly Angola was full of new men, the satraps of Don Francisco, and these must also stand between him and true power in the colony. This Don João concealed from me, for he was not one to protest openly his dissatisfactions.
When we were done with these matters, the talk turned to my sorrowful voyage. Here he had lost grievously, since he was a major owner of the cargo that had gone down with the pinnace; but again he made light of that matter.
“There will be other voyages,” said he. “And I trust you will play a great part in them, for I have heard much from Faleiro of your valor and skill.”
“The skill is what I inherit from my father,” I answered. “As for the valor, it was only what was needful to save my life.”
“And the life of others, so I am told. All the men do speak highly of you.”
“Glad am I to have earned their respect.”
“Their respect, and more. For on your next sailing, you shall have a share in the proceeds. It is not right, to send a man off at risk of his life to be pilot for us, and not let him claim his just part of the return.”
This surprised me greatly, that the Portugals would divide a share for me. But I gave him only warm thanks, and not a hint of any ungracious thought.
He said, “Tell me of the events of your voyage, Andres, before the wreck.”
The which I did, in much detail, dwelling hard on the strange things that had occurred while I was in the land of Loango. Of the rainmaking and the great coccodrillo he took but light notice; it was the tale of the dead Jaqqa that most aroused him. He had me describe it in every detail. When I mentioned the white cross that was painted on the cannibal prince’s chest, he slapped the table, and roared out loud, crying, “By the Mass! They are jolly devils, those Jaqqas!”
I saw nothing jolly about them: to me they were devils, and hyaenas, or wolves in human form. But peradventure Don João had never seen them feeding on his shipmates.
I said, “What meaning has the cross to them? Surely they be not Christians.”
“Why, no, surely not. And it has no meaning for them, I suppose, but they find it a pretty thing. Or else they mean to mock us. Or perhaps they are become Jesuits, and that is their new sign of office. No one understands why the Jaqqas do the things they do. I think they are not human. But none of these blackamoors have any much sense of real Christianity, no matter what they babble in the church of a Sunday. Do you know, Andres, that when I was in Kongo I often saw good Christian Negroes putting the holy cross to pagan use? In one place there was a pile of horns of wild animals surrounded by branches, a sort of altar, and a cross was mounted above it. It is an ancient superstition of theirs that they can witch their animals when hunting them, with piles of horns, and it must have seemed to them that the cross would be an even more powerful mokisso, so they added it to the pile. I thought it clever of them.”
“And I, too, Don João. Why not use all the superstitions one can find, when one is hungry?”
He raised his eyebrows at me and I thought he would be angry, but then he eased somewhat.
“The cross is to you a superstition, then?”
Uncomfortably I said, “We are taught in England that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, even as it is taught by the Roman way. But we believe that it is Jesus who is holy, and not the wood on which He died. We have cast aside our old images and idols.”
“Have you now,” said Don João. “And does it not frighten you, to live without their protection?”
“It was but false protection, sir. For when we destroyed our holy relics, our images of the saints, and the like, there was no plague come upon England, nor any vengeance of our enemies, but rather we have prospered and grown far wealthier than we were in the old days, and when King Philip sent his Armada, we were not harmed, but—”
“Yea,” said Don João darkly. “I wonder why it is, that the Lord encourages such heresies as England’s. But be that as it may: we are far from such quarrels here. I showed the hunter’s cross to a priest, who grew all indignant, and broke it and burned it to pieces, saying it was blasphemy to use it so, and perhaps it was. Well, let the priests burn the Jaqqas as blasphemers, too, if they can catch any. Have you seen these Jaqqas, Andres? Other than the dead one at Loango?”
I looked upon him in amaze, and cried, “Have they not told you, that they devoured some of our men, after we had been cast up on shore?”
“Nay, not a word!”
I found myself atremble from the recollection. “It was the most frightsome thing I ever saw. They appeared like phantoms, in a place ringed round by quicksand, and fell upon the stranded men, and slew them, and—” With a shudder I said, “I saw it all. But need I paint it for you now?”