Mistress Jenna smiled at these words and drank another cup of Kill Devil. Every day now she drank more of this heavy rum.
11
The sun stood overhead when six men and their body servants rode in from plantations close by. It was a very hot day. A firkin of beer was carried in and everybody drank to Governor Gardelin, then to themselves.
Wonderful smells came from the cookhouse. I helped to put the daytime meal on the table. Everybody was too hungry to listen much to the governor, who went on talking about the happy days in Denmark.
Before the meal was over, Master van Prok sent Dondo out with a message for the field slaves. They had started work at four o'clock in the morning and had not eaten yet. The message invited them to the cookhouse, where a pig was roasting.
The slaves came trooping down in a happy mood. They gathered around the fires and were given slices of the roasted pig. Then they were told to go to their huts and sleep for the rest of the after noon. They thanked the governor and went off singing.
At dusk Master van Prok called them down to the cookhouse again. They gathered around as they had before, looking for more of the roasted pig. There were nine women, nine children, and twelve men. Three of the men had run away.
The planters came out of the house and sat on the stone wall in front of the cookhouse with their servants behind them. Carrying his Bible, Isaak Gronnewold came out, then Governor Gardelin and Master van Prok. Mistress Jenna, who had drunk two cups of Kill Devil rum, fell asleep in her chair.
Now it was night. Slaves with torchwood flares stood on each side of the governor. He had a sheaf of papers in his hand.
"Apollo, who ran away from this plantation, is causing trouble at Mary Point," Governor Gardelin said. "He plans to revolt against all the plantations on St. John. To send him a warning, and to solemnly warn all slaves who may be tempted to follow him, I have written a new set of laws. The old laws for civil behavior, I have made stronger."
The night was stifling hot. Not a wisp of air came down from the hills or rose from the sea. Governor Gardelin paused for a drink of beer. His body servant handed him the sheaf of papers and the torchbearers moved closer to him so he could see.
"The leader of runaway slaves," he read from the paper, "shall be pinched three times with red-hot irons, then hanged.
"Each runaway slave shall lose one leg, or, if the owner pardon him, shall lose one ear and receive one hundred and fifty stripes."
Isaak Gronnewold broke in upon him. "If these laws are held to, then the island of St. John will be the home of cripples, the dying, and the dead."
The governor held up a hand for quiet and went on. "Any slaves being aware of the intention of others to run away, and not giving information, shall be burned on the forehead and receive one hundred and fifty stripes.
"Those who inform of plots to run away shall receive ten dollars for each slave engaged therein.
"A slave who runs away for eight days shall have one hundred and fifty stripes; twelve weeks, shall lose a leg; and six months, shall forfeit his life, unless the owner pardon him with the loss of one leg."
These five laws were new. No one gathered there on that awful night had heard them before.
In the deep silence, even the children were quiet. Iron pinchers that glowed red hot we were used to. Master van Prok had a pair that hung in the sugar mill for all to see. There was also the whip that he carried everywhere. One hundred and fifty lashes would strip the strongest man of his flesh and his life.
"Slaves who steal to the value of four dollars," the governor said, "shall be pinched and hanged; less than four dollars, to be branded, and receive one hundred and fifty stripes.
"Slaves who receive stolen goods, as such, or protect runaways, shall be branded, and receive one hundred and fifty stripes.
"A slave who lifts his hand to strike a white person, or threatens him with violence, shall be pinched and hanged, should the white person demand it; if not, to lose his right hand."
Governor Gardelin paused again to sip his beer. The planters spoke in low voices and passed around a mug of Kjeltum rum.
"One white person shall be sufficient witness against a slave; and if a slave be suspected of crime, he can be tried by torture."
A woman began to cry. Torture was something new on the island of St. John.
The drums on the near side of Hawks Nest Hill began to talk. They talked with two words, Torture and Death. The words were picked up at once by drums on the far side of the hill and by drums to the north and west.
The governor paused at the sounds. He took another sip of beer and wiped his mustache with his hand.
"No slaves will be permitted to come to town with clubs or knives, or fight with each other, under penalty of fifty stripes.
"Witchcraft shall be punished with flogging.
"A slave who shall attempt to poison his master shall be pinched three times with red-hot iron, and then be broken on a wheel."
The drum beyond Hawks Nest Hill said, "Torture. Death." Then Konje's big drum at Mary Point spoke the words over and over, "Torture, Death, Torture, Death..." The drums filled the night.
"A free negro who shall harbor a slave or thief shall lose his liberty, or be banished," the governor said.
"All dances, feasts, and plays are forbidden unless permission be obtained from the master or overseer.
"Slaves shall not sell provisions of any kind without permission from their overseers.
"No estate slave shall be in town after drumbeat; otherwise he shall be put in the fort and flogged.
"The King's Advocate is ordered to see these regulations carried into effect.
"And I, Philip Gardelin, the King's Advocate, will see that they are carefully carried out, so help me God!"
He handed the papers to his body servant. He took his sword from its sheath and held it above his head. His sword glinted in the light of the torchwood flares.
12
Master van Prok was happy with the new laws. As soon as the governor put away his glittering sword, he clasped him around the shoulders, so excited he could hardly speak.
"Your laws are what we have prayed for," he said. "Many prayers are answered. Praise you, Governor Gardelin."
Master Duurloo, who owned a large plantation nearby, shouted, "Good work, Governor!"
But a planter from Cruz Bay was worried. "What happens," he said, "if one of my slaves is punished and can't work? I am not a big planter. I have only seven slaves. It would be a hardship to lose even one."
"Don't be disturbed," Governor Gardelin said. "My company will pay you the full worth of a slave if he's crippled, or, if you wish, replace him with a healthy slave."
"One good slave for a crippled slave?"
"Exactly."
"When?"
"As soon as a slave ship comes in."
"What if a ship does not come in?"
"You'll wait until a ship does come in," the governor said. He was getting impatient with the planter from Cruz Bay. "Would you like to go along the old way? Slaves disappearing into the bush one by one?"
"Oh, no."
"A hundred runaways gathered at Mary Point, ready at any moment to swoop down upon us and cut our throats?"
"God forbid!"
There were no more questions from the planters. They trooped into the house, drank the rest of the beer, and fell asleep on the porch. Minister Gronnewold hung his hammock under a tree. Governor Gardelin took his soldiers back to the ship, where he felt safer.
Without a sound, like so many naked ghosts, the slaves trudged silently to their huts. But at midnight, when I had given Mistress Jenna her last drink of Kill Devil for the day and settled her in bed, I found them whispering beside a small fire among the rocks.
All the slaves were there except Felicity. She was an accustomed slave—that's someone born in slavery and knowing nothing else. She was a pretty woman, twenty years old, and had four children. She would never think of running away.
The other
slaves didn't like her. Truthfully, they didn't like me, either. They were suspicious of me because I was a body servant and worked in the house, not with them in the fields. Not one of the slaves was loyal to the van Proks. They stopped whispering when I came up, so I said good night and went to my hut.
Master van Prok wandered up the path with his whip. He had drunk too much and the whip didn't crack as it usually did. Still, the slaves heard it. When he went past they were silent.
He paused and called my name. "Are you asleep in there?"
I did not answer.
He thrust his head under the crossed branches that held up the roof. "Angelica, do you hear me?" He said this with a slur. He had swallowed a lot of rum and beer. If I was asleep, he would wake me up. I sat up and said, "I hear you, Master van Prok."
"Good. I want you to know that Governor Gardelin's new laws don't mean you. They are meant only for the thankless, the senseless, the scum who have forgotten how fortunate they are. Do you understand?"
"Yes," I said, crossing my middle fingers so as to turn the word Yes into a lie.
"It's been a hard year for us. The hurricane that leveled our fields, the terrible drought, which still holds us in its grip. Poor crops of sugar cane and therefore little rum, our livelihood. Now the runaways and the awful threat of a revolt. You can see how we are pressed against a stone wall."
I did see. For a moment I even felt sorry for Master van Prok and his troubles. For all the planters on all the islands.
"You have read Gronnewold's Bible," he said. "You know that the law of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth was the rule in ancient times. It was successful then and it will be successful now."
Never before had he talked to me in this way.
"We have tried everything else and failed," he said.
I felt bolder than I had ever felt since the day I stood in the slave pen. "You have tried everything except freedom," I said.
His shoulders stiffened. He cleared his throat.
"Freedom will come," he said.
"When, sir?"
"When the slaves are ready."
"They are ready now. They have had enough of the hot pinchers and whips and the hammers that crush bones."
He stepped inside the hut and stood over me. "Freedom," he said. "They do not know what freedom means. Do you?"
"In Africa I was free."
"To do what? Sleep in the sun? Eat monkey meat and dance?"
The big drum was talking again. "Boom de, Boom de, Boom."
Master van Prok flung out his arms and began to dance to the sound of the big drum. Then he said, "Sleep, eat, dance. That's all you know about freedom, like the rest of the slaves, those who have sawdust in their heads instead of brains."
Out of breath, he stopped dancing and stood over me again. "You know what?" he said in a hoarse voice. "I am going to set you free. Tomorrow I will sign papers and send them to the office in St. Thomas. But you are free now, right now, at this moment."
I lay stiff with fear.
He leaned over me. His shadow filled the hut. "You are free, I tell you. Why do you not rise up and dance with joy?"
I did not move.
"Dance!" He shouted.
I could not move.
I shouted back at him. "Free the slaves on this plantation, then I will dance."
He gasped. "God in heaven! Free the slaves? You wish to ruin me?"
"Free them," I said quietly.
"Not one. And not you either. My mind has changed. You are still a slave and always will be."
He backed away and cleared his throat. "I've had too much to drink."
He stumbled out of the hut. I heard him stagger down the trail, cracking the tschickefell.
13
Master van Prok and his tschickefell were still moving down the path when Dondo came. He sat down and pulled a thorn from his bare foot.
"When Prok left the house I got into the powder," he said. "I took enough powder for eighteen or twenty pistol shots. I hid it where you told me to, beyond the mimosa tree, in the cactus. I wrapped it up. If it rains it won't wash away. Not tomorrow, but soon, I will take more. But that's the end. I am afraid to take more."
I lay awake after he was gone. The big drum at Mary Point was talking, seven notes over and over, ten times, then a pause. It was counting the time before the day of the revolt. All the slaves from Mary Point to Coral Bay were listening. Across the bay on St. Thomas Island the slaves would be listening, too.
Before dawn a north wind sprang up. The sky clouded over and rain began to fall. I hurried down the trail to the cactus bush to see if the powder was dry. It was gone. I searched carefully. The powder was gone. Konje had been there.
I felt angry that he hadn't bothered to tell me. Then I felt ashamed of myself. He was always in danger when he traveled from Mary Point to Hawks Nest.
The rain drifted off and the sky cleared, but the wind still blew. A short distance from our shore lay Whistling Cay, a tumbled pile of rocks and caves with a coral reef surrounding them.
If a north wind blew, strange noises came from the cay. Sometimes they sounded like a child. Sometimes like the cries of a wounded beast, a serpent from the deeps. Other times the sounds were like the cooing of doves. On this night, while Konje was on his way back to Mary Point, the sounds were like his footsteps in the dust.
The sky clouded over yet again. A breath of rain sizzled in the dust. Nero the bomba blew the tutu. The horn roused the big red rooster. He stretched his neck and helped to rouse the field slaves. In the black dark before dawn they went to work building a terrace on the hill behind the mill for the cotton roots Master van Prok hoped to plant.
Usually, I slept beyond the bomba call. But sooner than an hour, with the first light, Isaak Gronnewold would be up. This was the time we talked together when he came to Hawks Nest.
I hurried down the cliff to the beach and took my bath. The water was clear as air. I waded out shoulder deep, then swam back to the shore and put on the dress Mistress Jenna had given me.
I watched Preacher Gronnewold walk down the trail. I thought he would never reach the shore. He would take a step or two, then stop and read his Bible, then look at the sky and the sea, then take another step or two.
"Good morning," I shouted when he was only halfway down the trail. He didn't answer, but after that he closed the Bible and came fast. He had long thin legs like a stork. They straddled the rocks, leaped the bushes.
I met him at the bottom of the trail and fell to my knees, for Isaak Gronnewold loved all the slaves on the island of St. John, even the runaways, even black-browed Nero. It was strange to me that he could love everyone, good or bad, yet he did, he did.
Isaak Gronnewold put out a long, bony hand and got me to my feet. He didn't like my bows, what he called "prostrations," yet I made them anyway, I had to.
"Last night," he said, "you heard Governor Gardelin set down new laws?"
"I heard."
"The other slaves heard?"
"They heard."
"But do you believe, do the other slaves believe, that the new laws are only threats to scare the timid, to warn the bold?"
"I don't know what the others believe. I believe that the governor is a cruel man. He is pleased to have an excuse to be cruel. The laws were cruel enough before he changed them."
"The new laws are not threats. They are real. You and all of Master van Prok's slaves must understand this."
"They understand. I understand."
"Before the new laws, when we had the old laws, I went from plantation to plantation. And I read from the Bible many Sundays during the last year."
"Yes, you read over and over, 'What doth the Lord require of thee but to walk humbly with thy God?'"
"That was not done. Slaves from Cruz Bay to Hawks Nest and from here to Mary Point and from there to Coral Bay and back did not walk humbly. Instead, many ran away and hid in the bushes. Now there are runaways scattered all over the island, three hundred of them. More t
han three hundred. And more flee every day."
"You read other things from the Bible, too. You read what Christ told his friends when he went into the mountain. He told them, 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.' He said other things, but these are the words that you said every time you talked to us. You said them at every plantation on the island. 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.' I remember that I didn't know what 'inherit' meant and you said, 'It means "own." ' The meek shall own the earth."
Minister Gronnewold pulled at his nose. "I remember," he said, as if he did not wish to remember.
"Is that what you are going to say to us now? Do you want us to obey the new laws?"
"The new laws are bad. So bad they will destroy themselves, one by one."
"But until that time, until they do destroy themselves, we should obey them?"
"You must obey them. There's no other choice."
"We can run away. Dozens have. Over two hundred are hiding at Mary Point right now."
"Yes, but they starve."
"Better to starve..."
Cannon shot rang out from Governor Gardelin's ship. It lay anchored far out in the bay, too far to be surprised by enemies. Puffs of dirty white smoke drifted up and floated toward us. A yellow flag fluttered in the wind. The deck swarmed with guards in bright red uniforms.
"That is true, dear Raisha." He and Konje were the only ones who ever called me by my true name. "It shall come to pass."
"When?"
He looked away, far out into the distance.
"When?" I asked again. "When will the meek inherit the earth?"
He shook his head. "It has been many years since Christ spoke these words. And it may be many more."
"While we're alive?"
"Alas, no. But never unless we are meek."
"I understand," I said, though I did not.
14
Cannon roared. Puffs of smoke floated up again. Governor Gardelin came down the ship's ladder. He scrambled into a boat draped with flags and was rowed toward shore. In the shallows he climbed on the shoulders of two guards. But after a few steps, as one of the guards stumbled, the governor fell into the water.