Mendez shook his head sadly.
“We’re too old. It will take too long. I want to devote the years that are left to me to my vengeance. Give me the copies of the letters, the pleas and orders we wrote for reinforcements, give me the arrogant, contemptuous answers. They will be my daily breviary. I will derive strength from them, lest I succumb to bleak loneliness.”
Farria saw he was determined.
“You can be sure you will always find my harbour open, even if the whole Portuguese fleet is arrayed outside.”
“Don’t use that kind of talk. Never do that, or you’ll never be able to execute your plan of revenge. I may be the one who helps you.”
The green light faded and the two slept fitfully on the bunks in the saloon.
In the morning Farria gave Mendez, who was resolved to go his own way, a bundle of papers, a box and his commander’s ceremonial sword. The ships were hauled up into the wind. Sloops sailed to and fro. All those wishing to throw in their lot with Mendez were to board the Pinta, the smallest ship, on which the black flag was now hoisted. When Farria rowed out in the afternoon, he found Mendez standing gloomily by the gangplank and the ship very sparsely manned.
The farewell gifts were put on board; they clasped hands for a long time. Then there was a shot and Mendez set sail on the Pinta.
He was never heard of again.
II
FARRIA SAILED SOUTHWARD with three ships. In the waters between the coast of Fujian and the island of Formosa, where the wind from across Asia and the ocean converge, a typhoon approached, the great wind born of the union of many, which whips up the sea, and casts it into the sky, compresses, wrings and then tears apart sea and sky, and between tissues of air and water destroys everything that comes too close to this supernatural alchemy. The Mãe de Deus was just able to signal to the others that Nanwei would be the assembly point. Then the ships were separated by banks of cloud and fog, assaulted by tornadoes and tidal waves, which battered them from all sides beneath howling rain. Lashed to a mast, Farria stood shouting orders, but no one could hear him. He saw no one, heard nothing but the occasional desperate cry, the snap of a ripped sail with the accompanying creaking sound and the splash of a loose cannon plunging into the sea. Beneath him in the pitch-black and stifling saloon lay Dona Miles, the only woman to survive Lian Po, kneeling before Nossa Senhora da Penha. Sometimes she was hurled against the statue. Did this not make her prayers even more fervent? She prayed for a night and a day. Life had receded, and prayer had taken its place. Until the gusts died down, a light shone in through a crack in the door and Farria lifted her up. They were united in a short prayer and a long embrace, as there could now be no end to the love of those who had been saved. Death had retreated before ecstasy, or before a gentle sun, shining over the foaming but bending waves into a round open porthole.
III
THE MÃE DE DEUS had lain at anchor off the bay of Nanwei for a week waiting in the lee of a narrow peninsula. Finally the Coimbra rounded the headland, with one mast still standing. The Rafael never appeared. Some believe that this ship joined Mendez.
The occupants of the wreck — the Coimbra was no more than that — requested transfer to the big Mãe de Deus, but Farria did not want to lose any more ships, and the Coimbra with its shallow draught was indispensable for coastal reconnaissance.
The bare beach was alive with brisk shipbuilding activity.
Farria himself, having climbed aloft to see if he could catch sight of the Rafael, spotted a bamboo grove on the far side. This provided yardarms and ropes.
Nanwei would have to furnish water and provisions. But it lay inaccessible in the interior, beyond a bend in the river, half town, half fleet, huts and houses on the bank, junks in the river so close together that only a thin strip of open water lay between them. Between the land and the waterborne district stood a grey palace with gold statues and curlicued spires glittering in the sun, and many-coloured banners curling down from the beams of the gate.
A delegation with some scanty gifts must go there and request help and supplies.
Farria, knowing what a prized hostage he would be, did not dare go. Alvarez went with three men from Lian Po, baptized Chinese, and a gift of cloth and wine. Farria had nothing else. In a letter he pointed to the friendship that existed between the two monarchs, far apart only because the power of each extended so far; he alluded to services rendered in the destruction of the pirates, passing in silence over the battle and fall of Lian Po. Then he asked for help.
Alvarez returned after four days, alone and without an answer. The mandarin had received the gifts coolly, had burst into a rage when he saw a stain on one of the carpets, read the letter and erupted in even greater fury, praising his Emperor as Son of Heaven, belittling Portugal’s monarch as an insignificant vassal, a tributary of the celestial one, who anyway controlled the whole world, however far westward Portugal might lie. He ordered them to leave the city and remove their ships from the coast.
The admiral listened in silence and gave orders to prepare to set sail. But not to leave the coast. That evening the Mãe de Deus and the Coimbra lay a mile downstream from Nanwei and bombarded the floating half of the city by moonlight. Soon large holes appeared and suddenly the dark mass moved upstream. The two carvelas calmly took the place of thousands of junks and set fire to the city with rockets. In various places the fire flared up and then spread at lightning speed with bangs and hisses, the blossoming of intensely joyous colours, interwoven with green, red, purple, shot through with fiery serpents, revolving suns, fading stars, fire-spewing dragons and quickly fading monstrous flowers.
The Portuguese, at first alarmed, ceased the bombardment, which had become unnecessary, and became spectators of the awesome firework display.
The officers remembered Farria’s encouragement in response to their objections:
“This is not a finely balanced battle. This is a festive firework display. The people of Nanwei will give us a glorious reception, because it’s the 1st of February.”
The fact was that Farria, thinking of everything, had used the eve of the Chinese New Year for the attack, which, once begun, continued of its own accord.
By morning Nanwei had disappeared.
The grey palace on the outer wall, scorched black, stood amid a wilderness of black ash. Lian Po had still been recognizable, Nanwei had been wiped clean like a black slate. The mandarin’s palace rose graceful and alone.
They landed: a hundred soldiers and two artillery pieces which kept the roofs and windows under rapid fire, while the crew of the Mãe de Deus opened fire on the gate. To one side Farria waited with a column ready to charge. But after one salvo the gates flew open.