“Go you easy,” I said. “I am buying this slave, and I would not have you handle her.”
“I knew not that she was yours,” he muttered.
“You know it now.”
“Aye,” said he most sullenly, still looking wrathful, but putting down the hand from the sword-hilt. He rubbed his cheek and gave me a sour look. But clearly he wanted no quarrel with me, for word had gone about the ship of my treatment of Oliveira and they knew I was dangerously strong and perhaps a trifle mad.
Oliveira said, “Are you truly buying the girl, Piloto?”
“She is Christian, and speaks Portuguese, and is unfairly taken into captivity. I would not have her suffer the fate of these savages. She will come to me to São Paulo de Loanda, and look after my domestic matters, and woe betide the sailor who fingers my property thus lewdly.”
“Aye,” said the man who had touched her, again. “I knew not she was yours, Piloto.”
“Mark that these slave-mongers do not cheat you.”
“I pray you tell me what a fair price would be.”
He conferred a moment with Cabral and the other, and said to me, “At most, ten thousand reis.”
Ten thousand anything would have been too great a strain on my purse, in that I was in truth a prisoner still, and had no money of my own. But I gave that no heed. When I am set on a thing, I pursue it until it is mine.
Shortly the one-eyed one returned, the ugly monoculus having with him a second Portugal of the slave-pen just as swart and unwholesome, who first told me I could not buy a slave in so irregular a way, and then, seeing me determined and backed up by three members of my crew, decided not to make a great issue of it, and with an air of extending upon me a supreme courtesy, did say, “Well, it is improper, but I can accommodate you out of regard for your master Don Jeronymo. The girl is yours for twenty thousand reis.”
I laughed him to scorn. I cried out that the girl was weak in the knees and had three times coughed a cough that spoke of consumption. “Five thousand,” said I. On this we went round and round a bit, he looking injured and disdainful, and at length we came to terms at ten, as both of us had known from the first. Ah, these poxy Portugals, that are but rabble, and haggle at you like a street-peddler!
“Give me your invoice,” I said, “and I will have the money sent to you by morning.”
This did not please him, but again there were four of us and fewer of them, and he scribbled me a bit of paper and off I went with my companions and Isabel Matamba the slave. We were all lodged in the hostelry by the harbor, and great was the outcry when I appeared with a naked black girl. The sailors crowded round as if they had never seen female flesh before. Quickly I let it be known that she was mine and not to be trifled with; and then I gave her into the custody of the slaves of the hostelry, so that she might be fed and cared for and clothed. Within an hour she was in the courtyard with a strip of red fabric around her waist, the which seemed to comfort her and give her much security: for the African women prefer to keep their private parts covered, even if it be only by a leaf or a bit of straw or a string of beads, though they care not in the slightest about hiding their breasts or their buttocks from view.
I drew Pinto Cabral aside and said, “How am I to obtain ten thousand reis, now?”
“Why, do you not have it?”
“I have not been paid so much as a single cowrie-shell in all my time in Africa.”
“Why, you must borrow it, then.”
“Where? How can I find me a Jew moneylender?”
He laughed and said, “You need no usurer, Piloto. I can lend you that sum, with some aid from Oliveira and a few others, and you can repay us from the profits we are to make trading at Loango on the journey south.” And he went about to one and another and another, and swiftly assembled the ten thousand, which seemed to me miraculous—for ten thousand reis at that time was the equal of three English pounds, which is no trifle. But I would learn that money in these African colonies is easy to come by, when one can trade worthless beads for the equally worthless hairs out of elephanto-tails, and then trade the hairs for slaves, that can be sold for ten thousand reis each. So it was that I lightly undertook an indebtedness of the size of three pounds, that would have burdened me greatly in England, and eased myself of it in scarce any time at all.
And in that way I came to obtain a slave-girl. Truly, my life had become passing strange, flooded with novelties one after the other in such numbers that I was beginning to feel no jolts from all this strangeness, but simply took each thing as it came, accepting it as the normal flow of life.
9
The Portuguese governor at São Tomé returned at length from his business on the mainland and received me and endorsed my credential, and had from me the letters of Don Jeronymo asking for military aid. In a few days’ time he handed me an answer, that he would supply Angola with three hundred men now and three hundred more when the equinoctial rains next arrived, in return for the license to collect slaves within the territory that was subject to Don Jeronymo. I said I thought that would be satisfactory, and took my leave of him.
We were now discharged of our duties in São Tomé, and we made our departure from that place, which none of us felt the least reluctance to do.
On our southward voyage I had a new difficulty with which to contend, that was the presence of the girl Matamba among a crew of lusty men. The pinnace was small and there were only two cabins, one of which was mine and one Oliveira’s. The others slept on the open deck, to which they were accustomed. But I dared not let Matamba sleep among them, or they surely would use her most shamefully no matter what instruction I gave that she was to go unmolested: it would be only human nature for them thus to do. I could not give her over to them in that way to be their plaything. What then? Why, I had to take her into my own cabin.
My cabin was long and narrow, with my sleeping-place to the left, and an oaken chest for charts and maps opposite it, and some space between to walk. I rigged a hammock for her in that space, but she looked at it with a long face, and by pantomime told me that she feared being thrown from it by the swaying of the ship. So I got woven palm-cloth mats and laid them on the floor beside my place, which was acceptable to her.
That night I stood the early watch, and when I came in after my four hours Matamba was already asleep, curled on the floor with her knees to her bosom and her thumb thrust in her mouth, like a babe. Indeed she seemed like nothing so much as a child, peaceful there, reposing her spirit after the long horror of the slave-corral. By candlelight I looked down upon her, seeing with pleasure the smooth rich dark-hued skin of her, and the strong fleshy limbs, the firm breasts: for all the torment she had been through she was healthy and robust with the vigor of youth, like a sturdy young filly that could canter many a furlong un-winded. I smiled at her and snuffed my light and lay down in the darkness, and said a prayer or two, and dropped into swift sleep.
For two or three nights thereafter it was the same: she lay naked by my side, and I never touched her. The temptation did come to me, but I did not act upon it. By day she chastely donned her scant loin-wrap, and did simple duties aboard the ship, helping in the serving of the meals. The men favored me with their little envious knowing smiles and smirks, thinking that I was making free with her by night, to which I gave no heed.