Lord of Darkness

  This brought me no response. Certain ngangas began an evil-sounding chanting and a making of music.

  I said, having trouble finding my voice now, for my throat was dry as the sands of Egypt and my tongue was swollen with dismay, “Only give me five more days, and my companions will return, bringing you all you desire. But if you slay me, they will fall upon you and exact a terrible vengeance.”

  This waked only laughter in them, as well it might, since it was the direct opposite in sense from my previous plea.

  And after that I said, knowing the time did grow desperate, “Let me pray, and make my peace with my Maker, before you smite me.”

  They indicated I might do that. But I could not find the words of prayer within my soul. I was not ready to die, and I had no summing-up yet to make to the Lord of my life and deeds, for I felt myself interrupted in mid-course. To death I had been no stranger, God wot, since coming to this land; but now that he was so close, now that I could view the very blade that would sever my neck and the very heap on which my head would be thrown, I could not speak the language of grace. So I stood still, in a praying guise, getting down on my knees, and in my head there was only a buzzing and a droning as of idle insects on the wind.

  Seeing that it was useless, I rose again and stood slack, thinking that there was no delaying it further. Mofarigosat himself was arriving now, borne toward the executing-place on a high litter much ornamented with peacock feathers and the tails of leopards. No doubt they had been waiting only for him, and would proceed with despatch to the grand event.

  But then came another figure, on foot, much out of breath, making his way through the crowd with little sharp outcries that caused them all to move aside swiftly before him. This was the white-skinned red-eyed ndundu witch Mboma, my friend and tutor. He was flushed and wearied, as though he had run a long way, he who was so frail and feeble of body. They were already jostling me toward the chopping-block, which was a mere crude heavy log much nicked and sliced, and stained with old blood.

  “Wait!” cried Mboma. “Let him be!”

  The executioners paid no heed, but pushed me forward and bent me down, and the headsman grasped his weapon.

  “I say wait!” cried the albino again, and added some words in the holy language, unknown to me.

  Already was the great sword rising.

  Mofarigosat leaned forward on his wickerwork throne. “What is this?” he said.

  “Take not his life!” said Mboma.

  The headsman looked toward Mofarigosat, as if to say, Let us ignore this interruption, O my lord, and continue with our morning’s work. But Mofarigosat gestured, the smallest mere movement of his left hand, and in that trifling flick of his fingers did reprieve my life.

  To Mboma he said again, “What is this?”

  The man-witch approached his master Mofarigosat and answered, in his high reedy voice that scarce carried five yards, “He may not be slain, for his Portugals are coming, with many warriors and guns to aid us in our wars.”

  Mofarigosat said scowling, “Is this sure?”

  “I have seen the truth of it in the rising smoke of my fire,” declared the ndundu. “In six days will they be here.”

  There was muttering and grumbling among the chief lords, who had come to see me shortened that day, and would not have me set free. Mofarigosat and his witch carried on a brief colloquy that I could not hear, and then the chieftain gestured once again to the headsman, more broadly, signalling that I was saved.

  I fell again to my knees. This time prayer did come to me, a flood of thanksgiving gratitude, and the dazzling light of the Almighty’s mercy did shine upon my soul.

  The giant headsman went slinking away disappointed, and the crowd, murmuring much, dispersed. With trembling hands I collected my clothes and covered my nakedness.

  To Mboma I said, “I owe you my life.”

  To this he shrugged. “The message was in the images made in the smoke.”

  “Aye,” said I. “But you could have misread it, or chosen to ignore it. And you did not.” Then I laughed wildly, as one does when one is called unexpectedly back from certain doom, and said, “Friend Mboma, this is as near as I will ever come to a lordship, I think. For in my land only the high lords do lose their heads by the block, and all lesser men must die by the hanging or the burning, which is far worse, being slower. And this morning I thought sure I would die a nobleman’s death. But I think I would sooner live a deckhand’s life, and go on living, than perish grandly like an earl. Eh?” And I saluted him and took me back to my cottage, on legs that were so numb and shaking that it was like walking on two wooden stilts.

  NINE

  THE ORACLE of the man-witch’s fire had spared me that morning. But I had less faith in that oracle than did these savages, and I resolved me to escape from Mofarigosat’s town without further ado. Perhaps Pinto Dourado would indeed return for me six days hence, and yet I felt sure he would not: whereupon quite likely the headsman at last would have his way with me, Mboma or no Mboma.

  So I spent that day in seclusion, thinking over the events of the morning and gradually casting aside my fright, which for some hours after my reprieve had still reverberated in my bones. It is no small thing to walk to the place of the chopping-block and stare at the edge of the blade, and the dread it inspires is not shrugged off in a moment. Moreover still I did think it might all be suddenly reversed, the blacks coming for me an hour hence, saying Mboma now claimed to be mistaken in his reading of the smoke message, and they would smite off my head. From time to time did I wriggle my neck to make certain it was still whole; and I imagined that blade descending and felt a peculiar choking in my Adam’s apple, and it was some days before I was able to put that preoccupation behind me.

  When night came and the fullest depth of darkness arrived, no moon being in the sky, I did arise and leaving my cottage I made my way quietly toward the edge of the town. I had with me my musket and shot and powder that Pinto Dourado had provided me with, for the blacks had not thought to take it from me, and a leathern flask of palm-wine, but nothing else.

  The town was quiet. But as I went by one group of houses a dog sprang up and nipped and yipped at my heels, which aroused a watchman, a tall black warrior who came forward as if to block my way. I dared not take the time to parley, so I commended his soul to God and put my knife into his throat, and kept going.

  Only one other man did I see as I left the town. But this was Mofarigosat, who was walking the boundaries on some dark inquiry of his soul. He did not spy me. He went head downward and hands locked behind his back, deep in thought, and I prayed that he would not glance my way, for then I should have to take his life also, and I did not greatly wish to do that. With all the stealth at my command did I glide behind a tree and wait there, peeping out from moment to moment as that chieftain proceeded to pace up and down, murmuring to himself. Once I thought he was coming in my way, but then he turned, still deep in contemplation. What a noble figure he was, that rigorous old man, spending his sleepless hours in communion with his pagan gods! If God had cast his soul into a Christian body he would have been some prince for sure, or an archbishop.

  Like a ghost he floated away from me, his black body becoming invisible in the night and only his white hair in view; then he was gone and I darted into the jungle.

  Once more was I free.

  But I was the only white man within fifty leagues, doubtless, and I had no slightest hope of finding my way alone through these wastelands and wildernesses to São Paulo de Loanda. Nor did I have much yearning to return to that place, except that there I would find the sweetness of my Matamba once again. But otherwise I had no hunger to see those Portugals: for a traitorous lot they all were, and I was done with their kind.

  I intended now to go to the camp of the Jaqqas. Aye: the Jaqqas.

  How far was I traveled, now, from that innocent young man who first had set to sea! That boy had held all kinds of fanciful notions of honor, and proper behavior, and righ
ts and wrongs; and he had parted one by one from all those holdings, in his long education under the African stars. Now was he setting forth toward the most dreaded cannibal tribe of this land to give himself over freely to their service, and raising no questions of honor over it. For I did hope in God that in their diabolical marauding the Jaqqas would travel so far to the westward that we should see the sea again; and so I might escape to England by some ship, and holy grace. Only that thing mattered: quitting this accursed land, and homeward sailing. I would pillage, I would kill, I would if need be forswear myself thrice over, all for the sake of getting myself shipped out of this hellish Africa, where I had never desired to go, and where I had been detained against my will for close upon a dozen years now.

  All that night I marched through the terrible darkness. I heard sounds I could not name and smelled smells of animals I could not see. Sometimes there was a loathsome snuffling sound, as of a great snout pressed close against the ground, and sometimes there was a craven sickly whining, followed by a growl and then a scream of pain from some other creature. I knew that skull-faced Death did pad along beside me on silent paws, and that he could have me at any instant did he choose. But he did not choose. I put great distance between myself and Mofarigosat before I would allow myself repose; then did I sink down on a moist mossy hummock and take some sleep, which came over me as if I had been drugged.

  Two things at once awakened me. One was the coming of morning, sunlight very pale penetrating the green canopy of vines over my head; and the second was the creeping across my body of certain small round insects, bright red with black speckles, that did bite me most abundantly in every exposed place. Each bite was like the prick of a hot needle. I looked at them in amaze and saw the small creatures thrusting their sharp tubes into me, and sucking forth my substance; and with a howl I swept them away, but the tubes often remained in me most painful, and I had to pick them out with great diligence. Within moments each bite grew inflamed, and red swellings rose all over me, so that I looked like one who had taken a pox. But that was the worst that befell me from those vermin; and afterward an African told me that I might have died of it if they had stung me more copiously, for among the blacks the juice of these insects causes a dissolution of the flesh and bones, so that a man becomes a mere bag of vile liquid within his own skin some hours after being bitten. I do not know if this is so: it did not happen to me.

  I breakfasted upon some glossy yellow fruits that looked to be safe, and proved sweet and tender. Then I found the River Kuvu, which was here shallow and brackish, with a few sickly-looking coccodrillos dozing on its bank, and I made my journey inland by following its course. The jungle was so deep overhead that I was hard put to see the direction of the sun, but in an opening I spied the mountains of the eastern land ahead of me, and thereafter I kept close by the river, knowing it would take me in the direction that the Jaqqas had gone.

  By afternoon I met two Negroes, not of Mofarigosat’s nation, that gaped in wonder at me, for in this place there was never any white man seen before me. These two were sore affrighted and stood like statues in their tracks, but I put them at ease and asked if they had seen the Jaqqas, and they said, “Yes, they are in the town of the lord Cashil,” and showed me the way. Then they gave me some meat they were eating, which was a roasted monkey, and I gave them five beads that I found in my pocket, and we went our separate ways.

  The meat did afford me strength, and I pressed onward through very close heat that made my body stream with sweat, until I came to footpaths that were well trampled, and I knew the town of Cashil must not be far beyond. Outside it I found a tree with a great hollow, where bees were flying, and boys came and drove the bees off with smoking torches, and helped themselves to the honey. And they gave me some without asking me what I was or from whence I came, but their hands were shaking, and I am sure they thought me to be a mokisso visiting out of the spirit-world. The honey was passing sweet, far finer than any of England.

  Then did I enter Cashil’s town, where all the people, great and small, came to marvel at my whiteness of skin and at my hair, the like of which was a great mystery to them. Here among the Negroes of the place were some of the Imbe-Jaqqa’s lieutenants, who were abiding peacefully in Cashil, for the Jaqqas do not always destroy the lands they enter. I was right glad to see them.

  This town of the lord Cashil was very great, and is so overgrown with ollicondi trees, cedars, and palms, that the streets were darkened with them. The streets of this town were paled with palm-canes, very orderly. Their houses were round like a hive, and, within, hanged with fine mats curiously wrought. In the middle of the town there was an image, which was somewhat in the shape of a man, but strange, with tusks and great staring eyes, and stood twelve feet high; and at the foot of the image there was a circle of elephanto teeth, pitched into the ground. Fastened to these teeth were great store of dead men’s skulls, which were killed in the wars, and offered to this image. I saw them pour palm oil at his feet for an offering, and pour their blood at his feet also. This image is called Quesango, and the people have great belief in him, and swear by him; and do believe when they are sick that Quesango is offended with them. In many places of the town were little mokisso images, and over them great store of elephanto teeth piled. On the southeast end of the town was a most fanciful mokisso in scarlet and gold paint that had more than three tons of elephanto teeth piled over him, that would be worth a princely ransom if taken to be carved into ivory pieces.

  In this dark and cool place the Jaqqa lieutenants came to me, for they knew me as the golden-haired man from that other time by the shore. They spoke with me, using both their own language and the Kikongo tongue, so that I learned deeper into the Jaqqa sort of speech. When they asked of me why I was here, I said that I had been left by my own people and had been captive of Mofarigosat, and now was faring into the dark wilderness to find the Imbe-Jaqqa and give myself into his care. To which they replied that the Imbe-Jaqqa was in the town of Calicansamba, which lay two days’ journey further into the country.

  “And will you take me to him?” I asked.

  “That we will,” said the Jaqqas, and grinned their gappy grins at me, and slapped my shoulders as though I were some old comrade of theirs, that they were greatly joyed in seeing again.

  But first there was feasting at Cashil and much drinking of the palm-wine: for the lord of the place, seeing me favored by the Jaqqas, was most earnest to show his favor to me, too. That is, they stand in such fear of the man-eaters that they will spoil themselves of half their goods, to make a brave show of hospitality for them, and oftimes afterward the Jaqqas will despoil them of the other half anyway.

  I saw here what I had never seen before, how the palm-wine is procured. These palm-trees in which it is harbored are six or seven fathoms high, and have no leaves but in the top. There is a way the natives have of climbing the trees swift as monkeys, by wrapping a cloth about the stem and pulling on it with their hands while pushing against the wood with their bare feet, and when they get to the top of the tree they do cut a hole, and press a bottle into the place that is cut, and draw the wine into the bottle. This is a fluid of a somewhat milky look, that they set aside a few days for greater richness, and then it becomes sweet and powerful, so that it makes the head spin from the drinking of it. This wine they drink cold, and it moves one to urine very much: so that in those countries where it is favored, there is not a man that is troubled with gravel or stone in the bladder. Thus are they spared one of the most evil of torments. The wine will make them drunk, that drink too much of it; but indeed it is of a very good nutriment. After a time it turns sour, and becomes very vinegar, fit to serve for salads.

  The Jaqqas love the palm-wine more than any other beverage, and drink a great muchness of it. But their way of producing it is altogether different from that of the village folk. For the Jaqqas, being a tribe of wanderers, keep no long-time plantations of the wine-palm trees. Instead do they go into a land where groves of palms
abound, and cut the palm-trees down by the root. The tree must lie ten days before it will give wine. And then the Jaqqas do make a square hole in the top and heart of the tree, and take out of the hole every morning a quart, and at night a quart. So that every felled tree giveth two quarts of wine a day for the space of six and twenty days, and then it drieth up. When they settle themselves in any country, they cut down as many palms as will serve them wine for a month: and then as many more, so that in a little time they spoil the country.

  I saw this done in the town of the lord Cashil. The Jaqqas went into the plantation, which was already well destroyed, and cut themselves down five of the finest trees for their future delectation. Some of the men of Cashil stood by as this was being done, and they looked sorely sad to see this, but they dared not speak out, lest they provoke the Jaqqas and bring about the general destruction of their town.

  The Jaqqas stay no longer in a place than it will afford them maintenance. And then in harvest-time they arise, and settle themselves in the fruitfullest place they can find; and do reap their enemy’s corn, and take their cattle. For they will not sow, nor plant, nor bring up any cattle, other than they take by making of war.

  So I remained in this town some days. Which I did not like, for it is a place close by the country of Mofarigosat, and I feared he might be sending messengers in search of me, since that I had killed one of his watchmen and escaped his custody. But I could not hurry the Jaqqas to take me to Imbe Calandola. It is plain that only a fool will hurry a Jaqqa. For even a friendly one, and the ones in the town of the lord Cashil were friendly in the extreme, will turn savage and snarling if he is offended, and he will growl and strike out with his hand or his knife. I have seen this. They are a fearsome folk, and will kill for a trifle. So I abided in the town of Cashil and showed no impatience. And sure enough, five men of the country of Mofarigosat did come to the place, and ask if any white-skinned demon with golden hair had come this way.