Caribbee

CHAPTER NINE

  "I've changed my mind. I'll not be part of it." Serina pulled at his arm and realized she was shouting to make her­self heard above the torrent around them. In the west the lightning flared again. "Take me back. Now."

  Directly ahead the wide thatched roof of the mill house loomed out of the darkness. Atiba seemed not to hear as he circled his arm about her waist and urged her forward. A sheet of rain off the building's eaves masked the doorway, and he drew her against him to cover her head as they passed through. Inside, the packed earthen floor was sheltered and dry.

  The warmth of the room caused her misgivings to ebb momentarily; the close darkness was like a protective cloak, shielding them from the storm. Still, the thought of what lay ahead filled her with dread. The Jesuit teachers years ago in Brazil had warned you could lose your soul by joining in pagan African rituals. Though she didn't believe in the Jes­uits' religion, she still feared their warning. She had never been part of a true Yoruba ceremony for the gods; she had only heard them described, and that so long ago she had forgotten almost everything.

  When Atiba appeared at her window, a dark figure in the storm, and told her she must come with him, she had at first refused outright. In reply he had laughed lightly, kissed her, then whispered it was essential that she be present. He did not say why; instead he went on to declare that tonight was the perfect time. No cane was being crushed; the mill house was empty, the oxen in their stalls, the entire plantation staff ordered to quarters. Benjamin Briggs and the other branco masters were assembled in Bridgetown, holding a council of war against the Ingles ships that had appeared in the bay at sunrise.

  When finally she'd relented and agreed to come, he had insisted she put on a white shift—the whitest she had—saying in a voice she scarcely recognized that tonight she must take special care with everything. Tonight she must be Yoruba.

  "Surely you're not afraid of lightning and thunder?" He finally spoke as he gestured for her to sit, the false lightness still in his tone. "Don't be. It could be a sign from Shango, that he is with us. Tonight the heavens belong to him." He turned and pointed toward the mill. "Just as in this room, near this powerful iron machine of the branco, the earth is sacred to Ogun. That's why he will come tonight if we pre­pare a place for him."

  She looked blankly at the mill. Although the rollers were brass, the rest of the heavy framework was indeed iron, the metal consecrated to Ogun. She remembered Atiba telling her that when a Yoruba swore an oath in the great palace of the Oba in Ife, he placed his hand not on a Bible but on a huge piece of iron, shaped like a tear and weighing over three hundred pounds. The very existence of Yorubaland was en­sured by iron. Ogun's metal made possible swords, tipped arrows, muskets. If no iron were readily at hand, a Yoruba would swear by the earth itself, from whence came ore.

  "I wish you would leave your Yoruba gods in Africa, where they belong." How, she asked herself, could she have suc­cumbed so readily to his preto delusions? She realized now that the Yoruba were still too few, too powerless to revolt. She wanted to tell him to forget his gods, his fool's dream of rebellion and freedom.

  He glanced back at her and laughed. "But our gods, our Orisa, are already here, because our people are here." He looked away, his eyes hidden in the dark, and waited for a roll of thunder to die away. The wind dropped suddenly, for an instant, and there was silence except for the drumbeat of rain. "Our gods live inside us, passed down from generation to generation. We inherit the spirit of our fathers, just as we take on their strength, their appearance. Whether we are free or slave, they will never abandon us." He touched her hand gently. "Tonight, at last, perhaps you will begin to under­stand."

  She stared at him, relieved that the darkness hid the disbe­lief in her eyes. She had never seen any god, anywhere, nor had anyone else. His gods were not going to make him, or her, any less a slave to the branco. She wanted to grab his broad shoulders and shake sense into him. Tonight was the first, maybe the last, time that Briggs Hall would be theirs alone. Why had he brought her here instead, for some bizarre ceremony? Finally her frustration spilled out. "What if I told you I don't truly believe in your Ogun and your Shango and all the rest? Any more than I believe in the Christian God and all His saints?"

  He lifted her face up. "But what if you experienced them yourself? Could you still deny they exist?"

  "The Christians claim their God created everything in the world." Again the anger flooding over her, like the rain out­side. She wanted to taunt him. "If that's true, maybe He created your gods too."

  "The Christian God is nothing. Where is He? Where does He show Himself? Our Orisa create the world anew every day, rework it, change it, right before our eyes. That's how we know they are alive." His gaze softened. "You'll believe in our gods before tonight is over, I promise you."

  "How can you be so sure?"

  "Because one of them is already living inside you. I know the signs." He stood back and examined her. "I think you are consecrated to a certain god very much like you, which is as it should be."

  He reached down and picked up a cloth sack he had brought. As the lightning continued to flare through the open doorway, he began to extract several long white candles. Fi­nally he selected one and held it up, then with an angry grunt pointed to the black rings painted around it at one-inch in­tervals.

  "Do you recognize this? It's what the branco call a 'bid­ding candle.' Did you know they used candles like this on the ship? They sold a man each time the candle burned down to one of these rings. I wanted Ogun to see this tonight."

  He struck a flint against a tinderbox, then lit the candle, shielding it from the wind till the wick was fully ablaze. Next he turned and stationed it on the floor near the base of the mill, where it would be protected from the gale.

  She watched the tip flicker in the wind, throwing a pattern of light and shadow across his long cheek, highlighting the three small parallel scars. His eyes glistened in concentration as he dropped to his knees and retrieved a small bag from his waistband. He opened it, dipped in his hand, and brought out a fistful of white powder; then he moved to a smooth place on the floor and began to dribble the powder out of his fist, creating a series of curved patterns on the ground.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I'm preparing the symbol of Ogun."

  "Will drawings in the dirt lure your god?"

  He did not look up, merely continued to lay down the lines of white powder, letting a stream slip from his closed fist. "Take care what you say. I am consecrating this earth to Ogun. A Yoruba god will not be mocked. I have seen hunters return from an entire season in the forest empty-handed be­cause they scorned to make offerings."

  "I don't understand. The Christians say their God is in the sky. Where are these gods of Africa supposed to be?" She was trying vainly to recall the stories her mother Dara and the old babalawo of Pernambuco had told. But there was so much, especially the part about Africa, that she had willed herself to forget. "First you claim they are already inside you, and then you say they must come here from some­where."

  "Both things are true. The Orisa are in some ways like ordinary men and women." He paused and looked up. "Just as we are different, each of them is also. Shango desires justice—though wrongs must be fairly punished, he is hu­mane. Ogun cares nothing for fairness. He demands ven­geance."

  "How do you know what these gods are supposed to want? You don't have any sacred books like the Christians. . . ."

  "Perhaps the Christians need their books. We don't. Our gods are not something we study, they're what we are."

  "Then why call them gods?"

  "Because they are a part of us we cannot reach except through them. They dwell deep inside our selves, in the spirit that all the Yoruba peoples share." He looked down and con­tinued to lay out the drawing as he spoke. "But I can't de­scribe it, because it lies in a part of the mind that has no words." He reached to take more of the white powder from the bag and shifted to a new position as he continued to fash
ion the diagram, which seemed to be the outline of some kind of bush. "You see, except for Olorun, the sky god, all our Orisa once dwelt on earth, but instead of dying they be­came the communal memory of our people. When we call forth one of the gods, we reach into this shared consciousness where they wait. If a god comes forth, he may for a time take over the body of one of us as his temporary habitation." He paused and looked up. "That's why I wanted you here tonight. To show you what it means to be Yoruba." He straightened and critically surveyed the drawing. His eyes revealed his satisfaction.

  On the ground was a complex rendering of an African cot­ton tree, the representing-image of Ogun. Its trunk was flanked on each side by the outline of an elephant tusk, an­other symbol of the Yoruba god. He circled it for a moment, appraising it, then went to the cache of sacred utensils he had hidden behind the mill that afternoon and took up a stack of palm fronds. Carefully he laid a row along each side of the diagram.

  "That's finished now. Next I'll make the symbol for Shan­go. It's simpler." He knelt and quickly began to lay down the outline of a double-headed axe, still using the white pow­der from the bag. The lines were steady, flawless. She loved the lithe, deft intensity of his body as he drew his sacred signs—nothing like the grudging branco artists who had dec­orated the cathedral in Pernambuco with Catholic saints, all the while half-drunk on Portuguese wine.

  "Where did you learn all these figures?"

  He smiled. "I've had much practice, but I was first taught by my father, years ago in Ife."

  The drawing was already done. He examined it a moment, approved it, and laid aside the bag of white powder. She picked it up and took a pinch to her lips. It had the tangy bitterness of cassava flour.

  "Now I'll prepare a candle for Shango." He rummaged through the pile. "But in a way it's for you too, so I'll find a pure white one, not a bidding candle."

  "What do you mean, 'for me too'?"

  He seemed not to hear as he lit the taper and placed it beside the symbol. Next he extracted a white kerchief from his waistband and turned to her. "I've brought something for you. A gift. Here, let me tie it." He paused to caress her, his fingertips against her cinnamon skin, then he lovingly pulled the kerchief around her head. He lifted up her long hair, still wet from the rain, and carefully coiled it under the white cloth. Finally he knotted it on top, African style. "To­night you may discover you truly are a Yoruba woman, so it is well that you look like one."

  Abruptly, above the patter of rain, came the sound of foot­falls in the mud outside. She glanced around and through the dark saw the silhouettes of the Yoruba men from the slave quarters. The first three carried long bundles swathed in heavy brown wraps to protect them from the rain.

  They entered single file and nodded in silence to Atiba before gathering around the diagrams on the floor to bow in reverence. After a moment, the men carrying the bundles moved to a clear space beside the mill and began to unwrap them. As the covering fell away, the fresh goatskin tops of three new drums sparkled white in the candlelight.

  She watched the drummers settle into position, each nest­ling an instrument beneath his left arm, a curved wooden mallet in his right hand. From somewhere in her past there rose up an identical scene, years ago in Brazil, when all the Yoruba, men and women, had gathered to dance. Then as now there were three hourglass-shaped instruments, all held horizontally under the drummer's arm as they were played. The largest, the iya ilu, was almost three feet long and was held up by a wide shoulder strap, just as this one was tonight. The other two, the bata and the go-go, were progressively smaller, and neither was heavy enough to require a support­ing strap.

  The man holding the iya ilu tonight was Obewole, his weathered coffee face rendered darker still by the contrast of a short grey beard. His muscles were conditioned by decades of swinging a long iron sword; in the fields he could wield a cane machete as powerfully as any young warrior. He shifted the shoulder strap one last time, then held out the mallet in readiness and looked toward Atiba for a signal to begin.

  When Atiba gave a nod, a powerful drum roll sounded above the roar of the gale. Then Obewole began to talk with the drum, a deep-toned invocation to the ceremonial high gods of the Yoruba pantheon, Eleggua and Olorun.

  "Omi tutu a Eleggua, omi tutu a mi ileis, Olorun modu- pue ..."

  As the drum spoke directly to the gods, the line of men passed by Atiba and he sprinkled each with liquor from a calabash, flinging droplets from his fingertips like shooting stars in the candlelight. Each man saluted him, their baba­lawo, by dropping their heads to the ground in front of him while balanced on their fists, then swinging their bodies right and left, touching each side to the floor in the traditional Yoruba obeisance. The office of babalawo embodied all the struggles, the triumphs, the pride of their race.

  When the last man had paid tribute, all three drums sud­denly exploded with a powerful rhythm that poured out into the night and the storm. Obewole's mallet resounded against the skin of the large iya ilu, producing a deep, measured cadence—three strokes, then rest, repeated again and again hypnotically—almost as though he were knocking on the por­tals of the unseen. Next to him the men holding the two smaller drums interjected syncopated clicks between the iya ilu's throaty booms. The medley of tempos they blended to­gether was driving, insistent.

  As the sound swelled in intensity, the men began to circle the drawing for Ogun, ponderously shuffling from one foot to the other in time with the beat. It was more than a walk, less than a dance.

  Atiba began to clang together two pieces of iron he had brought, their ring a call to Ogun. The men trudged past him, single file, the soles of their feet never leaving the earth. Using this ritual walk, they seemed to be reaching out for some mighty heart of nature, through the force of their col­lective strength. They had come tonight as individuals; now they were being melded into a single organic whole by the beat of the iya ilu, their spirits unified.

  Some of them nodded to Obewole as they passed, a hom­age to his mastery, but he no longer appeared to see them. Instead he gazed into the distance, his face a mask, and methodically pounded the taut goatskin with ever increasing in­tensity.

  "Ogun cyuba bai ye baye tonu . . ." Suddenly a chant rose up through the dense air, led by the young warrior Derin, who had devoted his life to Ogun. His cropped hair empha­sized the strong line of his cheeks and his long, powerful neck. As he moved, now raising one shoulder then the other in time with the drums, his body began to glisten with sweat in the humid night air.

  All the while, Atiba stood beside the mill, still keeping time with the pieces of iron. He nodded in silent approval as the men in the line began to revolve, their bare feet now slapping against the packed earth, arms working as though they held a bellows. This was the ritual call for Ogun, warrior and iron worker. As they whirled past the design on the floor, each man bent low, chanting, imploring Ogun to appear. While the sound soared around them, the dance went on and on, and the atmosphere of the mill house became tense with expectation.

  Suddenly Derin spun away, separating himself from the line, his eyes acquiring a faraway, vacant gaze. As he passed by the musicians, the drumming swelled perceptibly, and Se­rina sensed a presence rising up in the room, intense and fearsome. Without warning, the clanging of iron stopped and she felt a powerful hand seize hers.

  "Ogun is almost here." Atiba was pointing toward Derin, his voice a hoarse whisper. "Can you sense his spirit emerg­ing? Soon he may try to mount Derin."

  She studied the dancers, puzzling. "What do you mean, 'mount' him?"

  "The Orisa can mount our mind and body, almost like a rider mounts a horse. Ogun wants to displace Derin's spirit and become the force that rules him. But Derin's self must first leave before Ogun can enter, since it's not possible to be both man and god at once. His own spirit is trying to resist, to ward off the god. Sometimes it can be terrifying to watch." He studied the men a few moments in silence. "Yes, Derin's body will be the one honored tonight. He's the
youngest and strongest here; it's only natural that Ogun would choose him. Don't be surprised now by what you see. And Dara"—his voice grew stern—"you must not try to help him, no matter what may happen."

  At that instant the young warrior's left leg seemed to freeze to the ground, and he pitched forward, forfeiting his center­ing and balance. He began to tremble convulsively, his eyes terror-stricken and unfocused, his body reeling from a pro­gression of unseen blows against the back of his neck. He was still trying to sustain the ritual cadence as he pitched backward against the mill.

  Now the drums grew louder, more forceful, and his entire body seemed to flinch with each stroke of Obewole's mallet. His eyes rolled back into his head, showing only a crescent of each pupil, while his arms flailed as though trying to push away some invisible net that had encircled his shoulders. He staggered across the floor, a long gash in his shoulder where the teeth of the mill had ripped the flesh, and began to emit barking cries, almost screams, as he struggled to regain his balance.

  "You've got to stop it!" She started pulling herself to her feet. But before she could rise, Atiba seized her wrist and silently forced her down. None of the other men appeared to take notice of Derin's convulsions. Several were, in fact, themselves now beginning to stumble and lose their balance. But they all continued the solemn dance, as though deter­mined to resist the force wanting to seize their bodies.

  At that moment the measured booms of the large iya Hu drum switched to a rapid, syncopated beat, a knowing trick by Obewole intended to throw the dancers off their centering. The sudden shift in drumming caused Derin to lose the last of his control. He staggered toward the drummers, shouted something blindly, then stiffened and revolved to face Atiba.

  His eyes were vacant but his sweat-drenched body had assumed a mystical calm. He stood silent for a moment, glared fiercely about the mill house, then reached for the long iron machete Atiba was holding out for him.

  "Obi meye lori emo ofe . . . " He was intoning in a deep, powerful voice, declaring he would now reveal who he was.

  "Ogun!"

  He abruptly brandished the machete about his head and with a leap landed astride the diagram Atiba had traced in the dirt.

  The other men hovered back to watch as he launched a violent dance, slashing the air with the blade while intoning a singsong chant in a voice that seemed to emanate from another world. The drums were silent now, as all present knelt to him, even those older and more senior. Derin the man was no longer present; his body belonged to the god, and his absent eyes burned with a fierceness and determina­tion Serina had never before seen.

  She gripped Atiba's hand, feeling her fingers tremble. Now, more than ever, she was terrified. The pounding of rain on the roof seemed almost to beckon her out, into the night, away from all this. But then she began to understand that the men around her were no longer slaves, in the mill room of a plantation in the English Caribbees; they were Yoruba war­riors, invoking the gods of their dark land.

  Now Derin was finishing the ritual chant that proclaimed him the earthly manifestation of Ogun. The words had scarcely died away when Atiba stepped forward and de­manded he speak to the men, offer them guidance for the days ahead. When Derin merely stood staring at him with his distant eyes, Atiba grabbed him and shook him.

  Finally, above the sound of wind and rain, Derin began to shout a series of curt phrases. His voice came so rapidly, and with such unearthly force, Serina found she could not follow.

  "What is he saying?" She gripped Atiba's hand tighter.

  "Ogun demands we must right the wrongs that have been set upon us. That we must use our swords to regain our free­dom and our pride. He declares tonight that his anger is fierce, like the burning sun that sucks dry the milk of the coconut, and he will stand with us in the name of vengeance. That victory will be ours, but only if we are willing to fight to the death, as worthy warriors.”

  Atiba stopped to listen as Derin continued to intone in a deep chilling voice. When he had concluded his declaration, he abruptly turned and approached Serina. He stood before her for a moment, then reached out with his left hand and seized her shoulder, tearing her white shift. She gasped at the tingle in her arm, realizing his fingers were cold and hard as iron. His eyes seemed those of a being who saw beyond the visible, into some other world. She wanted to pull away, but his gaze held her transfixed.

  "Send this one back where she belongs, to the compounds of your wives. Yoruba warriors do not hold council with women. She . . . will lead you . . . to . . ." The voice seemed to be receding back into Derin's body now, to be calling from some faraway place.

  Suddenly he leaped backward, circled the machete about his head, and with a powerful stroke thrust it into the earth, buried halfway to the hilt. He stared down for a moment in confusion, as though incredulous at what he had just done, then tremulously touched the dark wooden handle. Finally he seized his face in his hands, staggered backward, and col­lapsed.

  Atiba sprang to catch him as he sprawled across the re­mains of the trampled palm fronds. Several other men came forward, their eyes anxious.

  "Ogun has honored us tonight with his presence." He looked about the dark room, and all the men nodded in silent agreement.

  At that moment a long trunk of lightning illuminated the open doorway, followed by a crack of thunder that shook the pole supporting the thatched roof. Serina felt a chill sweep against her forehead.

  "That is the voice of Shango. He too demands to be heard. We must continue." Atiba turned to Serina. "Even though it displeases Ogun, your presence here tonight is essential. You were once consecrated to Shango. Perhaps you were never told. But you are Yoruba. Your lineage is sacred to him."

  "How do you know?" She felt the chill in the room deep­ening.

  "Shango animates your spirit. As a babalawo I can tell. It must have been divined the day you were born and sanctified by a ceremony to Olorun, the high god. There are signs, but I must not reveal to you what they are."

  "No! I won't have any part of this. It's pagan, terrifying." She wrapped her arms about her, shivering from the cold. "I only came here to please you. I'll watch. But that's all."

  Atiba motioned to the drummers. "But Shango will not be denied. You have nothing to fear. Most of his fire tonight is being spent in the skies." The drums began again, their ca­dence subtly changed from before. The lightning flashed once more, closer now, as he urged her toward the dancers.

  "We must know the will of Shango, but we are all men of Ogun. Shango would never come and mount one of us. He will only come to you, his consecrated."

  As the line of men encircled her and pushed her forward, into the crowd of half-naked bodies sweating in the candle­light, Atiba's face disappeared in the tumult of heaving chests and arms. She tried to yell back to him, to tell him she would never comply, but her voice was lost in the drumming and the roar of the rain.

  She was moving now with the line of men. Before she realized what she was doing, she had caught the hem of her swaying white shift and begun to swing it from side to side in time with the booms of the iya ilu drum. It was a dance figure she remembered from some lost age, a joyous time long ago. She would dance for her love of Atiba, but not for his gods.

  Now the rhythm of the drums grew more dizzying, as though pulling her forward. It was increasingly hard to think; only through the dance could she keep control, stay centered on her own self. Only by this arcing of her body, as the movement of her hips flowed into her swaying torso, could she . . .

  Suddenly she saw herself, in Pernambuco, being urged gently forward by her Yoruba mother as the slaves drummed in the cool evening air. It was Sunday, and all the preto had gathered to dance, the black women in ornate Portuguese frocks of bright primary colors and the men in tight-fitting trousers. The drums were sounding and the plantation air was scented by a spray of white blossoms that drifted down from the spreading tree. The senhor de engenho was there, the white master, clapping and leering and calling something to
Dara about her mulata daughter's new frock. He was watch­ing her now, waiting. Soon, very soon, he would take her.

  Lightning flashed again, and she felt its warmth against her icy skin. She wanted to laugh, to cry, to stay in that world of faraway whose warmth beckoned. But now she felt her own will beginning to ebb. Something was happening. . . .

  "No! Please, no!" She forced her long fingernails into her palm, and the pain seemed to restore some of the awareness she had felt slipping from her. Desperately she tore herself away from the dance and seized the center post of the mill, gasping for air and digging her nails into the wood until she felt one snap. Then she pulled away the African kerchief and threw back her head, swirling her hair about her face till it caught in her mouth. All at once she was thirsty, hungry, yearning for a dark presence that hovered over her body like a lover.

  Again the blossoms of Pernambuco drifted down, tiny points of fire as they settled against her face, and she began to hum a simple Portuguese song she had known as a child. It was spring in Brazil, and as she looked up she saw the face of the old Yoruba babalawo.

  "Dara, come." He was reaching toward her, beckoning her away from the Portuguese master, saying something about Shango she did not understand, and the sight of his sad eyes and high black cheeks filled her with love. But now there was a youthfulness in his face, as though he were here and pow­erful and young. Her old babalawo had come back: there was the same glistening black skin, the same three face-marks cut down his cheek, the powerful eyes she had somehow for­gotten over the years.

  She gasped as he pulled her back into the circle of dancers.

  He was Atiba. His clan-marks were Atiba's. And so was his voice . . .

  Lightning illuminated the doorway and its whiteness washed over her, bleaching away the mill, the moving bod­ies, the face of Atiba. As she stumbled back among the danc­ers, her mind seemed to be thinning, turning to pale mist, merging with the rain.

  ' 'Boguo yguoro ache semilenu Shango . . ." The men were moving beside her now, intoning their singsong chant. She suddenly recalled the long-forgotten Yoruba verses and wanted to join in, but the words floated away. She was no longer part of the men in the room; she was distant, observ­ing from some other world. Instead of the sweating bodies, there was the fragrance of frangipani and the faces of preto slaves on the Pernambuco plantation as they gathered around at the moment of her birth to praise her light skin. Dara's warm, nourishing breast was against her lips, and the world was bright and new.

  She gasped for breath, but the air was wet, oppressive. Its heaviness was descending over her, then her left leg seemed to catch in a vise, as though it belonged to the deep earth. She wrenched her body to look down, and felt a crack of thunder pound against her back. The world was drifting up through her, drowning her in white. . . .

  . . . She is floating, borne by the drums, while a weight has settled against her back, a stifling weariness that insists the dance must stop. Yet some power propels her on, swirls about her, forces her forward. She senses the touch of wet skin as she falls against one of the dancers, but no hands reach out to help. Only the drums keep her alive. But they too are fading, leaving her, as the world starts to move in slow motion. A white void has replaced her mind. Her breath comes in short bursts, her heart pounds, her hands and feet are like ice. She is ready now to leave, to surrender, to be taken. Then a voice comes, a voice only she can hear, whose Yoruba words say her mind can rest. That her body is no longer to struggle. She holds her eyes open, but she no longer sees. A powerful whiteness has settled against her fore­head. . . .

  ' 'Okunrin t 'o lagbara!'' A hard voice cut through the room, silencing the drums. "Shango!"

  The Yoruba men fell forward to touch the feet of the tall mulata who towered over them, demanding worship. Her eyes glowed white, illuminating the darkness of the room; her arm stretched out toward Atiba as she called for her scepter.

  He hesitated a moment, as though stunned that she was no longer Dara, then rose to hand her a large stone that had been chipped into the form of a double-headed axe. He had fash­ioned it himself, in anticipation of just this moment. As he offered the sacred implement, her left hand shot out and seized his throat. She grabbed the axe head with her right hand and examined it critically. Then she roughly cast him aside, against the mill. While the men watched, she raised the stone axe above her head and began to speak.

  "Opolopo ise I'o wa ti enikan ko le da se afi bi o ba ir oluranlowo. . . ."

  The voice of Shango was telling them that the Yoruba must join with the other men of Africa if they would not all die as slaves. Otherwise they and their children and their children's children for twenty generations would be as cattle to the branco. Even so, he would not yet countenance the spilling of innocent blood. Not until Yoruba blood had been spilled. They must not kill those among the branco who had done them no hurt. Only those who would deny their manhood.

  Suddenly she turned and glared directly at Atiba. The voice grew even harsher.

  "Atiba, son of Balogun, bi owo eni ko te eku ida a ki ibere iku ti o pa baba eni!”

  It was the ancient call to arms of Ife: "No man who has not grasped his sword can avenge the death of his father." But Atiba sensed there was a deeper, more personal message. The voice had now become that of Balogun himself, clearly, unmistakably. He felt his heart surge with shame.

  Her last words were still ringing when a sphere of lightning slid down the centerpole of the roof and exploded against the iron mill. Rings of fire danced across the rollers and dense dark smoke billowed in the room. Atiba had already sprung to catch her as she slumped forward, sending her stone axe clattering across the packed floor.

  “'Olorun ayuba bai ye baye tonu . . ." Through the smoke he quickly began to intone a solemn acknowledgement to the Yoruba high god. Then he lifted her into his arms and pressed his cheek against hers as he led the men out.

  She was only dimly aware of a whisper against her ear. "You are truly a woman of the Yoruba, and tonight you have brought us Shango's power. With him to help us, we will one day soon plant our yams where the branco's compounds stand."

  As they started down the pathway, single file, the lightning had gone. Now there was only the gentle spatter of Caribbean rain against their sweating faces as they merged with the night.