Robert Silverberg - Lord of Darkness

Nicolau Cabral indeed did not betray me, for he had turned the value of our trading mission into gold, and my share was waiting for me. That and the sale of my thirty slaves gave me such wealth as any man could desire, so the voyage that I had begun eighteen years previous had resulted, after many a turn and twisting, in the fortune I sought. And now for England!

I purposed to have shipped myself for Spain, and thence homewards, there now being peace between Spain and England. But for that I needed the writ of Governor Cerveira Pereira, and I went before him, saying, “You gave me license to go, and now it is my time to depart, and I would have the paper from you.”

This little man, who was so dark and gaunt, with a black beard that came to a point, did shuffle and shove the documents before him for long moments, making me no answer. Then at length he looked up to me where I stood uneasy, and said, “It may not be.”

“What, and you deny your word?”

This angered him. High color came into his face, and he rose, he being half my height, and cried out loudly at me, “I will let you go when I will let you go! But at this time you may not go, for you are needed.”

“God’s eyes, am I to hear that again? For close on twenty years you Portugals have needed me! Why am I so everlasting useful for you? Aye, and must I be a pilot again, or what? Shall I cut paths in the forest for you? Shall I caulk decks, and sweep away dust? In Jesu name, how can you ask more of me?” And I cried this forth, you may imagine, in no smooth flattering way, for I was bubbling with surprise and wrath and a fury that was close to a killing one.

“It is the Jaqqas that are once more upon Kambambe, almost,” said he, “and they must be driven back, and we know you are the match for them. So we are to begin the conquest, and you must aid us. I command you to go up to the wars, two days hence.”

God’s death, but I came close to striking him down!

Two days, and then I was to resume the wars? And they would take me out to do battle with the Jaqqas? Nay, nay, I would not, it was beyond all conceiving! In my long travail I had learned much philosophy of the Stoic kind, to be strong and all-withstanding, and bide my time and quietly pursue my purposes; but this was far too much, this went beyond the bounds, and there was no philosophy honeyed enough to help me swallow so prickly a lump.

At the least I was philosopher enough to take my leave of Governor Pereira without making any mayhem upon him. But it was close, aye, it was parlous close, and were I not a man of temperance I would have left him disjointed on the floor, fit for a Jaqqa stew and nothing more.

But I choked back my fury and got me out of there, though a red mist was in my eyes. Two days, to go off to the conquest! It would not be. Here was I determined not to yield.

But what now, what now?

There were Dutchmen in the harbor, that would give little heed to the writs and decrees of that coxcomb Portugal. I could go to one, as I had long before to Cornelis van Warwyck, and beg him to give me secret passage, and reward him freely with my gold. But what if the scheme miscarried? I bethought me how my dealings with Warwyck had ended, bringing me near to a sentence of death, and I knew it was not the part of wisdom to try the like again under Cerveira Pereira. He would not have the mercy on me that Don João de Mendoça had had.

But a much more easy solution offered itself that night, as I sat most morose in a tavern of the town, and heard some Portugals saying that a new governor had been sent out from Portugal, and would arrive in two or three days, or at most six. For I knew that Cerveira Pereira had no royal commission, but only served by vote of the soldiers, and he had had three years and more of that. Now was a rightful man, whose name was Manoel Pereira Forjaz, to arrive.

So my way was clear. I determined to absent myself for ten or twenty days, till the other governor came, and then to come to the city again. For every governor that comes does make proclamation for all men that be absent, to come with free pardon. And I felt certain this Pereira Forjaz would give me the writ to go home, I being of no use or significance to him.

The same day, at night, I departed frokm São Paulo de Loanda with my two Negro boys that I had, which carried my musket and six pounds of powder, and a hundred bullets, and what little provision of victuals that I could make. In the morning I was some twenty miles from the city, up along the river Mbengu, and there I stayed certain days, and then passed Mbengu and came to the River Dande, which is northward.

Here I was near the highway of Kongo, that I had taken the year before on my venture with Nicolau Cabral, and merchants passed it every day. I sent forth one of my Negroes to inquire of those that went by, what news was in the city.

The boy returned soon, saying, “There is no news.”

“What of the new governor?”

“He is not come. The old one still rules, and it is certain that the new governor comes not this year.”

At this dreary report, my heart did sink deep.

Now I was put to my shifts, whether I would go to the city again and be hanged, or to stay and live in the woods. For I had run away before, and they had never treated it lightly; and this time I had done a great crime, Cerveira Pereira having ordered me out to the wars, and I having fled instead. What could I do? Walk into the city and say to him, “I have given half my life to you Portugals, and that is enough. I will no longer do your service, so let me go to my home”? He would laugh in his foul way and reply that I was a fugitive from the conquest of the Jaqqas, and must die. God’s blood, it was enough to drive me to the side of the Jaqqas once again, and aid them in their war against all humankind!

But I kept my peace, and did none of that.

So I was forced to live in the woods a month, betwixt the rivers of Dande and Mbengu. Then I went to Mbengu again, and passed over the river near a place called Mani Kaswea, and went to the lake of Kasanza, where I had taken refuge once before. That was upon the time of my escape from Masanganu prison with the gypsy Cristovão, what seemed like eight hundred year before.

This lake of Kasanza was an easy place to make my habitation, for that such a great store of wild beasts did abound there. About this lake I stayed six months, and hunted the animals with my musket, such creatures as buffaloes, deer, mokokes, impolancas, and roebucks, and other sorts. The mokoke he is a very large gray animal, most graceful and swift, and the impolanca another of these running beasts somewhat similar, of a sort somewhat like a deer. These animals when I had killed them I dried the flesh, as the savages do, upon an hurdle, three feet from the ground, making underneath it a great fire, and laying upon the flesh green boughs, which keep the smoke and the heat of the fire down, and dry it. I made my fire with two little sticks, as the savages do. I had sometimes also Guinea wheat to eat, which one of my Negro boys would get for me of the inhabitants of the town of Kasanza nearby, by exchange for pieces of dried flesh.

This lake of Kasanza does abound with fish of sundry sorts, that gave me variety of my eating. I took once a fish that had skipped out of the water on shore, four feet long, which the heathen call nsombo. This fish is long and serpent-like, and does give off a sort of emanation, or power, that if you should be so rash as to touch it will feel much like a lightning-bolt. But when the life is gone from the nsombo, so also is its Jove-like force, and its flesh is passing fair to the taste.

The greatest danger of this lake is not the nsombo- fish but the river-horse, or hippopotamus, that wanders along the shore, especially by night. These creatures feed always on the land, and live only by grass, and they be very perilous in the water, because that their temper is most sharp. I think it is that they suffer from the bigness of their heads, that are heavy in the extreme, and this makes them churlish; for they will snap and snarl and bite at anything, though you would think them otherwise to be as placid as pigs. They are the biggest creature in this country, except the elephanto. The claws of their left forefoot are thought to have great virtue, and the Portugals make rings of them, and they are a present remedy for the flux. I saw many of these beasts and gave them a very wide passage, for I feared them more than coccodrillos, that also are not unknown here.