In a day or two after my initiation with Calandola, we resumed our march toward the city of Kafuche Kambara. Shortly we drew up our position on high ground to the northeast of it. I saw it far below, dry and dusty, the color of a lion in the hot sunlight, and crouching like a lion at the base of low dark hills. The city was a great one, but it seemed a swarm of ants and nothing more, from here.
I cleaned my musket thoroughly and made ready my remaining shot and powder. And on a day of great heat and some little rain the Imbe-Jaqqa did mount his lofty scaffold, and utter a long and most ferocious oration, and we did sound our battle-drums and mpungas and other musics of war, and with a great rush we swept down on Kafuche Kambara.
It was Calandola’s stratagem to terrify Kafuche, and break his spirit on that first day by a sudden onslaught. But it did not happen that way. This lord did stoutly withstand the Jaqqas, and we had that day a mighty battle, but neither side had the victory. In this warfare I was placed upon a wooden engine that the Jaqqas had constructed, so that I could shoot my musket downward upon the enemy, and perhaps slay the opposing general. Three bold Jaqqas stood before me with great shields of elephanto-hide, to form a phalanx in my protection, and again and again they parted at a signal, and I did thrust my weapon through the opening, and discharge it with a terrible roar.
But Kafuche Kambara did not fall. At sunset we withdrew with many of our men dead on the field, and made ourselves a palisado of trees in the Jaqqa fashion behind which we might encamp. And the next day it was the same, and the next, a battle without outcome.
We remained close on four months in the wars with them, to great cost. Some days we had the better hand, some days they did; but it mightily perplexed Calandola that he could not shatter the forces of Kafuche Kambara no matter what tactic he employed. Never had a blackamoor lord withstood him before in this way. We held a long council to discuss it, at which I was present along with Kinguri and Kulambo and Kasanje and the other great Jaqqa princes, and I could see the wrath of Imbe Calandola smouldering within him. And he did look toward me from time to time, as though I might offer some plan to break the stalemate. But the only plan I had was one I thought he would deeply mislike, so I did not voice it.
And at length it was Kinguri, after we had talked for hours, that put forth the same idea that had come to me. “Since it seems we cannot defeat them, let us make alliance with them against the Portugals.”
At this, Imbe Calandola’s eyes blazed with fury, and he snarled like a jungle beast and clenched his fists tight. Peradventure only Kinguri could have made that proposal without giving mortal offense. For alliance with an enemy was not Calandola’s way; and he was not eager to admit he had failed against Kafuche Kambara.
Yet around the council-house the other princes did nod and give assent to Kinguri, first old Zimbo, and then others, in a cautious manner, for they knew how perilous it was to support that which the Imbe-Jaqqa opposed.
Calandola turned then to me, and said, “What say you, Andubatil, shall we parley with Kafuche Kambara?”
His eyes did gleam most craftily. Clearly it was a test, to see whether my love lay more with him or with his brother. So I chose my words with some care, and said, “What is our greater goal, O Imbe-Jaqqa? To destroy Kafuche Kambara, or to wipe from our soil the Portugals of the coast?”
“That question does not answer to my question.”
“Aye, but it does! If Kafuche is the higher foe, why, then we must stay here until we break him. But if our greater thrust is destined to be against the Portugals, Lord Calandola, then it behooves us not to slaughter many more of Kafuche’s warriors. For we will need them in the attack on São Paulo de Loanda.”
I saw a keen smile quickly cross Kinguri’s face, and knew that I had spoken myself rightly.
Calandola, too, showed pleasure. “Yea, that is so. Each day do we kill great number of his men.”
“And also do they kill great number of ours,” said Kasanje, but not so loud that the Imbe-Jaqqa might hear.
Kulambo, that was a wise and bold commander, now said, “The Andubatil Jaqqa speaks sooth. Let us spare Kafuche Kambara’s army, and put it to our own uses. And when the Portugals are destroyed, why, then we may turn again against Kafuche, and deal with him as he deserves.”
Calandola did ponder this a long while in silence, and I saw his face change from moment to moment as he weighed this argument and that. And then he did brighten, as though he had weighed it all, and saw the truth.
“So be it, as Kulambo proposes,” he said at last.
And so it was that on the next day a negotiation commenced, under a flag of truce, between the Jaqqas and their foes. I say “a flag of truce,” that being the way we do understand such things, but in fact the way it was done was quite other: for a pig was slaughtered, and turned so that its entrails were on the outside, and this was carried into the open ground by six of the Jaqqa women, with two dozen Jaqqa warriors behind them as a guard. By this display was signified a willingness to parley, which Kafuche Kambara did comprehend, and he did send forth by way of agreement a slaughtered calf, similarly opened, so that there was blood and entrails all about. These meats were cooked and shared by the ambassadors of both sides, and after that it would have been unholy to make war, so that truce was struck.
I was not present at this parleying, though all the other Jaqqa high lords did attend. As I was making ready to set forth with them Calandola said, “Nay, not you, Andubatil.”
“And why is that?”
“Because of our skin that is dark, and yours that is white.”
“This I do not understand,” said I. “Am I not a Jaqqa?”
“You are Jaqqa within, by right of initiation, and blood-brothering, and marriage. But yet are you still a white man to the outer semblance, and I fear you will give dismay to Kafuche Kambara on that score.”
“Do you, then? Even though I wear Jaqqa emblems?”
“Even though,” said he, and I knew there was no appeal from that. So I withdrew my pleading, much as I did resent to be excluded from the meeting. And in this I think Calandola was not wrong. This Kafuche was a man of quick suspicions, who was known to have no liking for whites, and I would be far too strange an article for him to accept with ease. Therefore did I yield, although feeling shamed by my having to remain behind.
I did have one glimpse of the formidable Kafuche, as he came out from his city to meet with the Jaqqa lords. He was a splendid figure indeed, being very tall and strong, though old, with whitened hair, and when he came forth it was in such state as befitted a king. For he did ride upon an elephanto in great pomp and majesty, and on either side of the elephanto he had six lordly warriors, and there were slaves who carried a high golden canopy as it were a cloth of state above his head, and some five hundred archers as his guard came before him.
More than that I did not see, for Calandola had another task for me, that took me into new and grievous adventure. This was that we were to prepare the way for the invasion of the Portuguese territories, and so I was sent to explore the lands that lay between this place and Masanganu, and be a spy against the number of Portugals who defended the presidio there.
To accomplish this the Imbe-Jaqqa gave me for my protection some ninety fine warriors, of whom one, a tall and slender man that was called Golambolo, came to me with a great laugh and said, “Do you not know me, Andubatil?”
“Aye, you are the warrior Golambolo,” said I.
“So I am. But does nothing else concerning me come to your mind, now that we are about to cross this dry wasteland together?”
“I do not take your meaning,” I said.
“Have you no remembering of five Jaqqas that found you wandering in this same desert, after the Portugals had been smashed by the army of Kafuche Kambara?”
“That escorted me safe over the dry lands to Masanganu?”
“Indeed,” said Golambolo.
I looked close at him, and feigned that I recognized him; but in truth I did not, since that in those
early days one Jaqqa had looked much like another to me.
“My gratitude is great,” said I. “To you I owe my life.”
“The life of Andubatil is precious to us all.”
“But I was not then Andubatil. Why did you save me, then?”
He smiled and pointed to my hair, and said he had thought me to be some powerful mokisso, or at the very least an important witch belonging to the Portugals, and he had not wanted to risk the enmity of the spirit world by letting me come to harm. Which was the confirming of what I had long suspected. I took from my neck the beads I was wearing, white with inlays of jet, and placed them about his throat, and he took both my elbows in his hands, which is a Jaqqa embrace of loyalty and affection, and we smiled upon one another for the sake of that other time.
With Golambolo and my ninety warriors did I now set forth to the direction of the River Kwanza, across Kisama province by way of a place called Agokayongo, where a lord subject to Kafuche Kambara did reign. At this town we were greeted with a hospitality of an uneasy sort—for none of these villagers relished the sight of Jaqqas ever, be they one Jaqqa or ninety-one—but they fed us and gave us to drink, and then they told us that a party of Portugals had passed just that way, traveling from the presidio of Ndemba to the west, and heading for Masanganu, where they proposed to take ship back to the coast.
This news gave me some alarm. “How many were there?” I asked.
“Not many,” replied the lord of Agokayongo. “Less than the fingers of two hands.”
“And said they anything about events in the Kisama province? Of a Jaqqa army, or of warfare in the south?”
“I heard from them not a thing of such matters,” answered that lord.
But the Portugals, had they known Calandola was moving through the province, might not have deemed it important to share that news with the lord of Agokayongo. Nor, even if he did know it, was he necessarily telling me the truth. And if there were Portuguese travelers moving through these regions, who knew of Imbe Calandola’s movements, it would go hard for us if they conveyed word of this to the forces of Masanganu. So I did summon Golambolo and my other lieutenants and say, “We must overtake these Portugals and make them prisoners, and keep them from bearing tales of us to their countrymen.”
At once did we set forth in their pursuit. Which did not seem to me to be any easy matter, for there is no fixed road in this part, and the terrain is much broken. But when we were only a league beyond Agokayongo we came upon the first sign of them: a dead horse by the base of a cliff, most pitiful to behold, for it was shrunken and withered and lying flat with sprawled limbs, like some cast-off doll out of which all the straw has fallen.
“They travel by horse?” Golambolo said. “Ah, then they are undone!”
I felt the same. For it is a risky thing to travel by horse in this torrid country; there is sparse forage for the poor beasts, and the air itself does suck the life from their lungs. Better by far is it to go afoot, and be light of burden, for there are some places, and this is one, where a man can go and a horse is only a drain and a disadvantage.
Indeed that had been the case amongst these Portugals. For we proceeded onward, and surmounted a steep rise in the valley, and looked down a short way to the west into a deep cleft between two sharp hills, and there they were. They sat gathered by the shade of a broad-spreading tree that was rooted in a small brackish pond. There were six of them, and four horses, and one of the horses looked to Golambolo’s keen eyes as being near unto death, and the other three not much more vigorous. Plainly the Portugals had made camp to allow their steeds to regain strength: and a somber error it had been for them, since that it had delivered them up into our hands.
“I will take them,” Golambolo said.
“Aye. Choose nine men, and ride down there and seize them, and return them to Lord Calandola for safekeeping. Tell him that upon my coming back from Masanganu, I will question them and get from them valuable information about the dealings of the Portugals in this province. And when you have done that, proceed onward and meet me by the town of Ndala Chosa.”
“So shall I do,” answered Golambolo.
With his nine men he moved out and down into the valley where the six Portugals lay. I knew I could trust him to accomplish the task with ease; therefore I did not wait, but continued on northward with the remainder of my force. We saw nothing of note in the bleak country ahead, until that we came to the place called Ndala Chosa, which lieth on the south side of the River Kwanza a few leagues upstream from Masanganu. For a day or two I rested in this village, for I had had the misfortune of twisting my foot and injuring it most sorely, so that I could not walk. While I lay in this fashion I sent forth scouts, who came back to me swiftly with news of the district that runs from Ndala Chosa to the great waterfall. There was a Portugal army ahead, they said: not just the usual complement of Masanganu, but some hundreds of troops camped outside that place, as though they were contemplating a war.
“Take me thence immediately,” said I.
It is not in the Jaqqa nature to carry men in a litter, after the servile manner of the Bakongo folk, but there was no choice in that now. So they did cobble together something by which to bear me, and took me forth toward Masanganu, until I came to a sloping low hill that gave a prospect of the hot tableland ahead. And indeed the Portugals were drawn up encamped there, with much weaponry and a great force.
“What is this?” I asked. “Are they patrolling, or do they plan some conquest of Kisama?”
To this no one could make answer. And as I looked down upon them I felt within me a pounding of the heart, and a swaying of the soul, and a great overwhelming urge to reach out with the tip of my finger and brush those Portugals aside, or grind them into the earth like offensive insects. Aye, that was the Jaqqa rising in me! By what right did they camp there, I asked myself, with all their gear and their tents and their refuse and trash? Let us wipe them aside, I thought! And all like them, even to São Paulo de Loanda! Let there be war between Jaqqa and Portugal, and let us drive them into the sea!
Even as those savage war-like feelings did course within me, and loose the blood-thrill in my soul, so also did I calculate in a more civil way the practical merits of such a campaign of extermination and expungement. For when Portugals were gone from this land, the English might enter. Through my dazzled mind floated a vision of myself taking ship to England aboard some Dutch trader, and organizing a company of adventurers, and returning to Africa to lead a venture that would wholly supplant the Portugals here. Aye! Strike up a treaty with Calandola my brother, and pledge him never to offend against our mother the earth as the Portugals had done, and then drive the slavers from São Tomé, and build a new England in this hot West African country!
You can see in my words the conflict, the contradicting. For how could I think both of destroying and of building, and each equally holy? But there were two souls in my breast just then, one English and one Jaqqa; and the wonder of it was that I encompassed them both and did not go altogether mad. I stood there a long while dreaming of Portugals abolished and English established here, with the blessing of the Imbe-Jaqqa my lord and kinsman. Madness? Aye, madness! But within the madness, I tell you, lay a core of the soundest reason; and within that core, another core yet, of the dark madness that Africa does kindle in the soul.
“Come,” said I finally to my men, “we must bring news of this army hastily to the Imbe-Jaqqa.”
So turned we back southward. On our return journey we did spread ourselves out in a wide company over several valleys, so that we would have a better chance of meeting with Golambolo, as he came northward to rejoin us. But we saw him not, though we gave every attention to noticing him. I continued onward into the south, as far as Agokayongo. Approaching that place, I looked down into the cleft where those six Portugals had been camped, and saw their horses lying dead beneath that wide-crowned tree. But of the Portugals themselves, or of Golambolo and his nine Jaqqas, I saw nothing. That perplexed me,
for I did not care to have part of my force wandering in search of me in this land, but I saw no help for it other than to go on into Agokayongo.
And as we came in view of the town, I beheld a vast and unexpected sight: not the little Jaqqa party of Golambolo, but uncountable thousands of men, the entire force of Imbe Calandola, and the troops of Kafuche Kambara as well, laid out upon the plain in immense array, with banners flying most jubilantly. I sent one of my fleet Jaqqas forward, to discover what event was unfolding, and he came back soon with the word, “Alliance has been made between the Imbe-Jaqqa and Kafuche Kambara, and they have begun the march northward upon Masanganu.”
Well, and there must have been some swift and cunning bargaining in my absence, that the two enemies were so cozily merged so soon! I regretted me not having been there to take part. But that mattered only lightly now. I was the bearer of significant news; it behooved me to bring my tale before Calandola forthwith.
My injured foot by this time was largely healed. So at the head of my men I walked swiftly into the heart of the Jaqqa encampment at the sunset hour, when the sky was richly stained as though by spreading blood the whole length of the horizon. And I discovered that a festival was being begun, with much beating of drums and chanting and dancing. This wild noise gave me pause, for I recognized it as the cannibal-feast music. There would be dining on human flesh tonight: but what foes were these, that would be the Jaqqa dinner?
The great kettles were in their position, and the raging fire was already lit. And the drummers were pounding, and the dancers were dancing, and the nganga-witches were crying out their screeching blessings, with old Kakula-banga hopping about to the forefront, and the water was just coming to its first boil. Under the gathering darkness all the high lords of the Jaqqas were assembled for their grim festivity: there was Imbe Calandola proud upon his great tall stool in all his shining ornament, and there was my solemn-faced blood-brother Kinguri beside him, and Ntotela and Kaimba and Kasanje and Ngonga and Zimbo and Kulambo and Bangala, which were the totality of the great ones yet living, since none had been named in the place of Ti-Bangala and Paivaga, that had died by my sword during the pestilence.