And I? I, who had felt that tingle of awe at the setting up of that portentous altar under the sun’s blazing eye?
I felt sick with grief at the foolishness of mankind. This did seem altogether insane to me, this waving about of bell and book and candle, this chanting of frightsome words, this throwing of spiritual thunderbolts in the name of God’s tender Son. It was as magical to me, and as heathen, as those doings in Loango with albino witches and houses of mokissos and the blowing of trumpets to bring rain. Why, the very coccodrillos that lie roaring and blowing on the river-banks would never be so shallow as give credence to such stuff; only mortal men, hokusing themselves soberly with noisy formulas and sacred gibberish, could swallow it down. Did Father Affonso believe he had truly separated Don Francisco from the mercy of God? Did Don Francisco believe it? Or was it all for outer show, to frighten the foolish and strip away from him the power of the governor by making the ordinary folk feared to approach him, lest they, too, be sent to Hell? I do not know. But this one thing is sure, that the blacks of this country have fallen between two sharp mouths, if they are to be governed either by corrupt and venal authorities civil or by these ferocious priests, and which government is kinder for them, no man can say. And a second thing also, that I was unable to see little differences between this high Christian ceremony I had witnessed and all the various heathen rites done with masks and wild dancing and painted skins. It is all equal madness. It is all folly. Bells, books, and candles have no power. There are true unseen forces, but not nearly so many as we believe, nor would they rule us so sternly if we did not admit them to our souls. We would not be assailed half so often by devils, had we not taken the trouble to invent so many of them.
5
As I made my way homeward from the excommunication, I found my path blocked by a slender and agile-looking man in tight blue velvet breeches and a flaring scarlet jerkin, who looked at me most evilly, while rubbing his hand up and down the shaft of his sword as though stroking his lustful male member.
I knew him at once to be Gaspar Caldeira de Rodrigues. He had his brother’s shifty whoreson eyes and weak scornful smile, and the same sort of poxy beard that grew in patches on his face. But he was taller, and more robust, and somewhat less cowardly and slippery of bearing. Behind him stood four more of his sort, ugly and dour, and I moved instantly into a readiness to defend myself, fearing an attack and determining to send at least half of them to Hell before they despatched me.
He said in a cold way, “Hold your place, murderer. I would speak with you.”
“I am no murderer,” said I. “But I am able to slay, as you will find out if you test me.”
“My brother did you no harm.”
“Let the court be the judge of that, Don Gaspar.”
“I have spoken with those who witnessed your killing of him. The court will hang you, if you live long enough to be hanged.”
“Ah, and will you add murder to the crime of suborning witnesses, then?”
“I would not soil my blade on you,” he said. “But my brother had other friends, of less noble birth than I, who may not be so finicking nice.”
“Yes, your brother was indeed noble. Nobly did he plunder graves, and nobly did he attempt to enter into a longboat that had no room for him, and nobly did he clutch stolen treasure to his breast even if it drowned him. Are you equally noble, Don Gaspar?”
His wrath blazed high. He strutted toward me, and stroked his sword all the more flagrantly.
“Noble enough not to slive you apart in the street, which is what you deserve, Lutheran dog! I will let the court have its rightful turn with you. But I tell you this, Englishman: if you come free away from the inquest, through some chicane of your master Don João, then you shall have me to answer to!”
“And your friends as well, I suppose? Or will you challenge me man to man?”
For reply, he spat at my feet, and made a snorting in his nostrils, and whirled, and most pompously marched away.
My first impulsion was to laugh: for he was so comic, so puffed with pride, with his strutting and his caressing his sword and his threats, and his “Lutheran dog” and other such ponderous menacing expressions, that it was tempting to take him for a clown. Yet I knew that to be error. It is just such men—inflated like pig-bladders, puffed with pride of their own breeding and merit—that are most dangerous, for they are weak, and do cover their weakness with such action as they deem to look bold in the eyes of other men. One who is truly strong can shrug, and laugh, and walk away from strife that is beneath his honor; but the weakling who must feign strength has no such wisdom, and it is he who strikes the coward’s blow in the dark, he who pursues his enemy with mean vindictive whining persistence until, by deceit or malign conspiracy, he attains the triumph he must have. Another man, learning how his brother had perished, would grieve for the loss of his kinsman but hold no malice against the slayer. But I had in sooth won me a perilous enemy here. One oftimes must fear the hornet more than the lion.
Yet if I guarded myself, I might not for a time need to face warfare with him. Like his brother, he was vain and idle and craven, and also I think was in so precarious a state of exile that he could afford no more crimes on his hands. He hoped the inquest would condemn me and save him the trouble. But afterward, if I emerged with my acquittal, it would be a different matter, and I could expect much trouble from him.
I put him for the moment from my mind.
The inquest now was delayed. For, as Don João de Mendoça had predicted, the authority of Governor d’Almeida was wholly shattered by the excommunication. It was not at all the same thing as a King Henry or a Queen Elizabeth having been condemned by a distant Pope, while yet remaining secure and powerful in England. São Paulo de Loanda was then a small city; everyone in it professed to be a loyal Catholic, save for those blacks who were secret pagans and the one English Protestant unwillingly in residence; it was impossible for d’Almeida to carry out his civil functions while he remained outside the communion of his faith. Anyone who dealt with him or did his bidding risked the same dread excommunication: therefore was he isolate. If he emerged into the city he would seem an unapproachable figure, like some leper, or a carrier of plague: therefore he remained immured in his palace. And a governor who may not go forth, and who cannot lawfully be served, is no governor at all.
For several weeks the city was nigh a city of the dead. No business was conducted and the streets were empty. Neither the Jesuits nor the governor were seen at all. There were meetings of the powerful men of the place, one faction led by Don Jeronymo d’Almeida and the other by Don João, but what took place at these conferences, I know not. My only news came from Dona Teresa, but even she was little apprised of what was happening, except that a negotiation was in progress to determine who should be the new governor of Angola, Don Francisco’s rule being entirely ended.