But then I thought it might not be so easy. For I did remember Don João hurling the sauce into the eyes of that slave, and I remembered Don João casually deceiving Dona Teresa in the matter of their marriage contract, and I knew that I did give the man credit for being more generous of soul than he really was. So I began to fear once again. I had betrayed my trust, who had seemed trustworty to them; why then should they be soft with me?
In the morning I was brought a bowl of water and a plate of cold porridge, and nothing else, and no one came to speak with me. And so it was the next day, and the next. It was worse than my first captivity in this dungeon, for then I had the company of my shipmate Thomas Torner, and sometimes Barbosa also to visit and encourage me, and later Dona Teresa; but Torner was long since fled and Barbosa had perished and Dona Teresa had become my enemy, and who now would stand advocate for me?
I grew weak and suffered much from hunger. On the fourth day there was a clanking of gates and there came to me a priest, Father Gonçalves, one of the Jesuits. I trembled with terror when I saw him, for I knew they had years ago given up hope of converting me to their Romish way, so if they sent a priest now it must mean I was in some grave peril, perhaps even of execution. And indeed he set up his candles and began his Latin mutterings and invited me to join with him in prayer.
“How now,” I said, “am I to be put to death?”
“I do not know, my son,” said the priest in most gloomy tones, that brought the dark shadow of the gallows into the room.
“It cannot be, to slay a man for no more than trying to return to his homeland!”
“Your soul is endangered. Add no more sins to your score by uttering lies.”
“Lies?”
“You are guilty of grave crimes,” he said.
At which I cried out, “A grave crime? What? To cherish my native soil, to yearn to see my family again?”
“To force your lusts upon a married woman is no trifling offense.”
“What, did I hear you aright?”
“You stand guilty of rape, or will you deny it?”
I began then to shout forth my protests, all outraged by this scurvy and unwarranted attack on my innocence. And then my head did begin to swim with dismay, for in an instant I understood which woman it was that I was accused of ravishing, and what kind of trap had been woven about me. And I feared that I was lost.
I said, when the pounding of my heart had quieted some, “Speak the truth, priest. Am I to be hanged?”
“You are a runaway and a Lutheran and a forcer of women. What hope can there be for you?”
“That I am a Protestant has been known from the beginning, and no one has greatly chided me for it in this land. That I am a runaway I do not contest, but it was a natural deed that anyone would have done, and no sin. And that I am a forcer of women is an abominable falsehood. I would wish to see my accuser take an oath before God that I have done any such crime.”
“These words will not save you.”
“Then the governor will! Does Don João know that I am imprisoned here?”
“It is by his express command,” said the priest.
“It is a lie!”
Dourly he did hold high his crucifix and say, “Do you demand an oath from me on it?”
Then I knew all was lost. I fell to my knees, and in my own way did implore God to spare me. At this the priest brightened greatly, and dropped down beside me and offered to place the crucifix in my hands as I prayed, the which I did not accept, and he said, “If you will but embrace the true faith, I will crave pardon of the governor for you, and perhaps he shall yield.”
I closed my eyes. “My life then depends upon my turning Papist?”
“Your soul, rather.”
“Yea. You will fill me with Latin and then hang me anyway, and think yourselves well accomplished, for having sent another good Catholic soul to Heaven. I do see the size of it. But I will not have it. If I am to hang, I would rather hang as a Protestant, I think. For whether I go to Heaven or Hell makes little difference to me, but to die as an honest man is very much my intent.”
“You speak on honesty, with such crimes on your conscience?”
Turning on him angrily I did cry, “By the God we both claim to love, I have done no crimes!”
“Peace. Peace.”
And he muttered some more in Latin, with many signings of the cross over me. I think he was as sincere in his hunger for my soul as I was in my denial of guilt. So I allowed him to pray for me.
And then I said, “I will not turn Papist, for it is a matter of scruple with me. But if you are as godly as your robes proclaim you, then I beseech you do me one service: go to Don João and tell him I maintain myself to be unjustly prisoned, and ask him to grant me an audience that I may defend myself against these charges.”
Father Gonçalves looked at me long and steady. At length he said, “Yes, I will speak with Don João.”
He departed then. His final words did give me hope, and for a day and a half I listened intently for the sounds of my jailers coming to fetch me and take me to the governor. But when next anyone came to me, it was not the jailers, but rather a certain venerable member of the governing council, one Duarte de Vasconcellos. This stooped and parch-cheeked old lawyer, with the dust of ancient lawbooks all over him, told me that Don João had sent him to explain to me the nature of my iniquities.
Which were vast, for I was accused of plotting with the Dutchman Cornelis van Warwyck to overthrow the royal government of Angola by force and seize the city of São Paulo de Loanda for Holland, and also was I charged with going to the chamber of the lady Dona Teresa da Souza in the dark hours before my boarding of the Dutch ship, and attempting a carnal entry upon her chaste body.
“And who are my accusers?” I asked.
Dona Teresa herself was the accuser in the second offense, he told me. As for the first, it was Gaspar Caldeira de Rodrigues who cried treason against me, and swore upon his royal forebears that I had gone about town boasting that I would convey the city to the possession of the Dutch, who meant to sell it to England. Thus did he avenge his brother.
“Well,” I said, “and let me be confronted with these accusers! For the deceitful Rodrigues knows that there was no plan of hostility against this city in me, but only that I sought to return to mine own homeland. And Dona Teresa, God wot, will not be capable to stand up before my eyes and swear that I had her by force, when it is well known in São Paulo de Loanda that she has many times given herself freely to—”
“Nay, say no slanders, Englishman.”
“Slander? Slander? Come, old man, you know yourself that she—”
“I will not hear it.” He looked at me sternly and said, “The Portugals who denounced you cannot testify, for that their ship has sailed, and they are gone with it out to sea. And I do tell you it is beyond all imagining that Dona Teresa can be put to the torment and ordeal of an appearance in court, so shaken and disrupted is she by your attack on her. But her husband Don Fernão has seen the bruises and other damage on her body, and he has entered the plea against you, by which you are found guilty and sentenced—”
“God’s death, am I guilty already, and no trial?”
“—to die by hanging in the public square, at the pleasure of the Governor Don João de Mendoça.”
“Those bruises on Dona Teresa’s body were made by my slave-girl Matamba, when they two did fight, after Dona Teresa in jealous rage attacked the girclass="underline" she being angered that Matamba and not she herself was now my bedpartner. Examine the slave! Take her testimony, and see the wounds Dona Teresa inflicted upon her!”
“A slave’s testimony is without value. And in any event the verdict has already been rendered.”