She said, squatting down to scratch a map of sorts in the soft earth, that she came from an inland province of the Angolan territory, a place called Kazama in the land of Matamba, that was tributary to the King of Angola. Jesuit missionaries had passed that way and built a small church and converted the people to the Roman faith, or more or less, and she had been baptized by them under the name of Isabel. She told me also her native name, but for once my ear for strange sounds did fail me, for the name was so awkward on my tongue, such a twisting sneezing clicking thing, that I was unable to say it after her, though she told me three times. I could not even put it down rightly on paper. So I called her Isabel, though I found it not easy to do, Isabel being so European a name and she being such a creature of the dark African interior; afterward I usually called her “Matamba Isabel,” and then just “Matamba,” which she accepted as her name even though in truth it was the land from which she came, and not a person’s name at all, as if she had wanted to call me “England.” But all of that came later.
She had fallen into slavery by double mischance. Two years before—so I think she said—a marauding band of Jaqqas had stolen her from her village, and would have made her one of their own kind—it being the Jaqqa custom to adopt into their tribe the boys and girls of thirteen to fourteen years of the villages they plundered, as I had already learned at the time of the massacre at Muchima. But she had slipped away from the cannibals in the darkness of the jungle and, wandering most boldly by herself, had drifted westward into some part of Angola where the folk of a settled village found her. These, to pay for certain goods that they desired, had sold her to an itinerant slave-trader. He in turn had brought her to the coast and conveyed her to the Portugals; who had branded her and had penned her here in São Tomé until such time as she could be crammed aboard one of those stinking abominable un-healthful slave-ships to be sent into servitude and early death in America.
“God’s blood!” I cried. “They shall not have you!”
I suppose it was wrongful of me to single out one girl from all these others and say that she should not be enslaved. Were the others not human as well? Did they not also have hopes, fears, pains, ambitions, and all that human cargo? Was not each of them the center of his own universe, a proud and noble creature of God? Why say, this one should be spared, this one is not deserving of such bondage, but those must remain.
Yet this one did seem superior to the others, and of such qualities that it was an evil thing to enslave her. I know there is an error of thinking in that. Slavery is not a condition to be imposed only upon the inferior. If it must be imposed at all, it should be handed round impartially to anyone, and if God has decreed that blacks be shipped in chains to America, why, then we should not pick out certain blacks that catch our favor and say, You are exempt, you are too fine for such service. And yet the injustice of turning this girl into a sort of pack-animal did cry out to me with a hundred tongues. She held herself so high, she seemed obviously to have such unusual qualities of mind and spirit, she appeared to be so far beyond the savages with whom she shared the corral, that it was most wrongful to my mind to let her be enslaved. I could not save them all; I did not even see the need or the worth of sparing them all; but I wished to spare just this one. That she spoke some Portuguese and professed herself to be a Christian already marked her, in my view, as someone to be exempted from slavery: for if we countenance the enslaving of Christians, why, there would be no end to it, and soon we would all be enslaving each other, as the vile Turks and Moors do enslave captive Christian mariners to row the oars of their galleys.
I think also I should confess it that I had noticed the beauty of the girl, her sleek limbs and high breasts and bold bright eyes. Yea, give forth all the truth, Battell! But though that surely did influence me in her favor, I swear that I did not purchase her with the idea of making her my concubine. It was only that beauty in a woman makes a powerful argument of its own in any debate, just or unjust though that may be. And although in my early days in Africa I had failed to comprehend the presence of beauty in black women, and had not had any sort of sexual commerce with any of them up to that point, I had by now spent more than four years under the hot African sun, and it had worked changes in my blood, no doubt upon it. In the Book of Solomon that is called the Canticle the bride of Solomon sings, Nigra sum, sed formosa, filiae Jerusalem, which is to say in English, “I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,” and so was it with this Matamba Isabel, black but comely to my altered way of seeing. But by God’s teeth I vow I did not have the use of her body in my mind at that time.
The one-eyed churlish guard returned and said, “Have you had enough conversation with this slave yet? She must return to the corral.”
“Nay, she will not return to it.”
“And will you prevent it, then?”
“I intend to buy her. What is her price?”
The girl knew enough Portuguese to understand that, plainly: for she threw me a look of amaze and gratitude. But the Portugal only made a shrug and said, “It is not done, selling like this. You may not have her.”
“I am in need of a slave. Slaves are sold through this island. Tell me the price, and I will pay it.”
“I tell you, it is not done.”
Again my choler rose, and this time I seized him, bunching up his shirt in my hand so roughly that the flimsy sweat-soaked fabric tore away. I shook terror into him, making his one eye roll about in his head, and threw him from me and pulled free my sword, ready to use it if he swung that evil cutlass of his. But he did no more than to glare me his venomous glare, and slink a few steps back and attempt to restore his disarranged clothing. And at last he said, not meeting my gaze, “This is no domain of mine. Wait ye here, and I will inquire after her price.”
He limped away. The girl trembled beside me, all astonished and frightened. For a long while we stood together saying nothing. Within the corral, arms did wave desperately at us and voices cried out in half a dozen African tongues; for others in there had concluded that I was taking her out of that detention, and they prayed me to do the same for them. During this time three members of my crew came along, Oliveira and Cabral and a third whose name I do not remember, and, seeing me standing with a naked blackamoor girl, they came toward us, with many a lascivious leering expression. “A sweet piece!” cried that third one. “Let us borrow her, and take her to our camp tonight!” And he did put his hands to her, stroking the curve of her buttock and squeezing her breast. At once I caught him by the shoulder and spun him around, and gave him a cuff across the cheek with the back of my hand that knocked him four or five paces, and when he was finished reeling and staggering he turned to me looking both surprised and angered, with his hand on the hilt of his sword ready to draw.
“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.
NINE
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.
But the natural attraction of the sexes is something that arises automatically in us, nor have I ever been notably proof against it. There came a night when I looked upon her and felt the strong pull of it. It was as I came from my watch and disrobed for sleep, and stood above her as she slept, lying on her back with her legs apart a little and not a stitch covering her, and I did think, Why not? She would not refuse me. I was without a woman. Dona Teresa was likely dead—how that panged me!—and Anne Katherine might as well be dwelling on the moon—that panged me, too, but not in any immediate close way, not after so many years—and I had my lusts like anyone else, and did I mean to live like a monk all the rest of my days in Africa? Here was a woman. She was handsome, after the fashion of her kind. Nigra sum, sed formosa. She was Christian, more or less. At least she was something more than a savage. And she was close at hand. Why not? Why not, indeed? Yet I did not. Some nicety of compunction held me from it, she being a slave and a blackamoor.
So I entered my sheets and lay awake a time, somewhat sore with need, debating these matters endlessly with myself, telling myself that I had only to reach down beside me and draw her to me, or lower myself to her and ease myself into her and that would be that. But I did not, and though sleep was slow in coming to me, it must at last have come, for I fell into troubled dreams full of teeth and claws and dark waters bubbling with hidden monstrosities.
And in the night came a spear of lightning that turned darkness to day, and a roll of thunder that was like the heavy crack of doomsday falling upon us, and such a lashing of rain as to make the sea boil and go white in its frenzy. At once I woke, and thought to go out on the deck and look to the masts and sails, although it was Oliveira’s watch and I knew him to be capable in such matters. But as I sat up, blinking in the darkness and kneading my eyes, there was a sudden flutter and mutter in the cabin and Matamba did hurl herself into my bed, whisper
ing, “I am afraid! I am afraid!”
Again the lightning. Again the thunder, more terrible.
She trembled like unto one who was on the threshold of a seizure, and did thrash and kick and leap about, so that I had to take her in my arms to protect us both from injury. And I said soothing things, and stroked her back, which was moist from the fear-sweat that had burst from her every pore. The pinnace meanwhile rocked and wallowed and slapped its sides against the great waves, and I heard men running about on deck, and knew that it was my place to be there with them. God forgive me, but I could not go. For as I gave comfort to poor frightened Matamba, gently holding and shielding her, the bareness of her body against mine became a fiery provocation to me, the twin solid masses of her breasts announced themselves irresistibly to my chest, my stroking hands did slip downward from her back to her rump, and to the hot place between her thighs. My member stood out in urgent want, pressing so hard against her belly that there was no room for it between us except if we were to insert it where nature had meant it to go. She made little panting sounds as an animal might when in heat, and scrambled about, all legs and arms, and suddenly there she was clasped tight astraddle me with my yard sunk deep in her body. It was for the mere taking of comfort, I think, a kind of primordial linking of flesh in an alliance against the great fright of dying. But, God’s death! it felt good to me, that soft wet secret woman-mouth of her belly grasping and containing me and sliding back and forth over me. And she had another trick, too, that Dona Teresa also had known, that I think is general among these African women, a trick of an internal quivering of the female channel, a tightening and loosing, tightening and loosing, that gave me the most extremest pleasure.