Lord of Darkness

1

So ended my sojourn among the Jaqqas. But there is much more to tell. For I was not yet done with Africa, not by a great long while, and much else went into the tempering and annealing of my soul before that land would let me free. Nor am I fully free yet. Nor have I escaped wholly from the malign sway of the Imbe-Jaqqa Calandola, to this hour.

Don João Coutinho would not have me walk with his army, but gave orders that I be carried by bearer as we left the place of the battle, and returned to Masanganu. There was no war now to be pursued, the Jaqqas having scattered in all directions, and that other army of Kafuche Kam-bara having decamped very swiftly and taken itself to its home territory some way south and east of this place. Which was just as well, since that the only advantage that this Portugal force had had was that of surprise, that now had been expended; for they were only some four hundred men, though they had in that night routed many thousands.

In Masanganu, that had been so hateful to me before but which now seemed like a veritable Jerusalem, did I quickly regain my strength. I was very well used by this new governor, who regarded me as some kind of holy sufferer, a pilgrim, even, that had undergone a great ordeal and must now be recompensed with the kindest of treatment. Thus as I lay at Masanganu he gave orders that I was to have the best of wine and drink; and his surgeons did what they could to close my wounds, and heal them without further mutilation of my skin. And the natural strength and resilience of my body did manifest itself, so that after some time I felt myself beginning to grow strong again, and recovering somewhat of my weariness. But all the same I knew I had been transformed, in a way from which there was no recovering. My body bore scars, both those of a tribal nature and those of warfare and rough usage. And now I had the visage of an old man, which was the outer mark of my experiences, the sign and symbol of the horrors I had witnessed and those that I had committed.

Dona Teresa visited me often in dreams those first nights, and said to me, “Weep not, Andres, I am with the saints in heaven.” Which was but mocking comfort to me. My philosophical quietude over her death had fled me. I bethought me often of the sage Marcus Aurelius, but his teachings just now seemed of no worth: for she was dead that I had held most dear and lost and unexpectedly regained, and I would not regain her again no matter how close I explored this sultry jungled land. And that great loss did burn more hotly in me the more fully my weary body renewed its health.

Then I went to Don João Coutinho in his place at the presidio of Masanganu and he greeted me most warmly, with an embrace and good wine, and asked what service he could do me.

To which I replied, “Only one, that you put me aboard a pinnace bound for São Paulo de Loanda, and you give an order that I am to be set free, and shipped to England, since that I am old now, and would die among my own people.”

“Why are you here at all?” he asked.

I told him everything of it, the great tangled tale of my setting to sea with Abraham Cocke and being taken in Brazil and made prisoner and then being a pilot and then imprisoned again, and so on and on and on down all the winding years of it, in which he was much interested. Only of the Jaqqa part of my life was I chary, telling him merely that I was kept by them.

When I was done he embraced me and said, “You shall have your freedom, Senhor Andrew. But no ship will be departing this land for some months.”

“So that I am aboard the next one, I can wait a little time more,” said I. “For in truth I am not fully ready to see England again.”

“Ah, is that so?”

It was indeed, though I could not tell him why. Which was, forsooth, that there was still too much Jaqqa in me; that my mind and soul were corrupted by the dark rites of that jungle people, in which I had partaken; that I needed some time yet to cleanse myself of all that, and to have a full purge, before I could enter myself into the clean quiet life of England, from which I had been absent so long that I scarce felt I belonged there.

The governor gave me his pledge that I was to go home. And in good sooth it was a pledge I had heard often before, as you know. But I think this Coutinho was sincere. I might go home whenever I pleased, said he, and in the mean time, could I do a little service for him?

Ah, I thought, it is the old song sung anew; it is the wheel to which I am ever yoked. If I am not to be a pilot for them, I am to be a soldier of the army, or some like thing, I who want only to retreat from the fray and meditate upon my travail. But yet was I beholden to him for my rescue. So what was the little thing he desired of me? Why, that he was going to march down into Kisama province, and bring all the rebels to heel and make an end to the Jaqqas if he could find them, and destroy for all time the power of the chief Kafuche Kambara. And since I knew these peoples so well, and spoke their languages as though I had been born to them, would I join with them in that endeavor?

Well, and what could I say, but yes? I was beholden. So then I journeyed again to the wars. The governor made me a sergeant of a Portugal company, with an hundred men at my command. We marched into Muchima first, the place where first I had seen the bloody fury of the Jaqqas expended long ago, and at the presidio there we gathered further soldiers; from thence it was south-easterly to a place called Cava, and then to Malombe, that was the city of a great lord subject to Kafuche Kambara. Here we were four days, and many lords came and obeyed us, so that our armies were swelled mightily with our black auxiliaries.

From thence we marched upon Agokayongo, where lately I had experienced such terrible events. The chief of this town was a Christian, and we settled ourselves here for eight days, finding it a very pleasant place, and full of cattle and victuals. But here a further misfortune came upon me, for the bountiful Don João Coutinho fell ill of the fever that is so widespread at Masanganu, and that he had carried secret in his body from that place. He sickened quickly and did roam wildly in his mind for a few days, and then he died, which was a great loss to us all, and most especially to me.

To serve as governor now the army did choose its captain-major, whose name was Manoel Cerveira Pereira. I did not find him greatly to my liking. This Cerveira Pereira was small of stature and very hard-fleshed and dark, as some Portugals are, as though the sun has baked all mercy and charity from their bodies. He was of somber mien and very deeply religious, constantly fingering his beads and crucifixes and the like such holy apparatus. The Jesuits of Angola did hold him in the highest esteem, and he gave them much advantage in the colony, which earned him the enmity of many of the powerful men. To me he made outward show of courtesy, and confirmed me in the sergeancy that Don João Coutinho had bestowed upon me. But because he was so devout a Papist and I a mere Protestant heretic, Cerveira Pereira privately did not regard me as one to whom he needs must be faithful of his oath, and he did sadly play me false in many ways.

Yet this will I say for him, he was a most excellent warrior. As soon as he had seen the late governor given proper funeral, he addressed his army and made ready to march. We were eight hundred Portugals, or more, and I know not how many thousand blacks: a very great army indeed, and well armed. Eastward we did press. The Jaqqas were wholly dispersed, having melted into the land like the phantoms they be, but the army of Kafuche Kambara was not far beyond Agokayongo, with more than sixty thousand men, whom we did fall upon mightily. We had the victory, and made a great slaughter among them, and took captives all the women and children of Kafuche Kambara. This took place upon the tenth day of August, Anno 1603, and in the very place where Kafuche had slain so many Portugals years before, so that that terrible defeat was wholly avenged.

After we had been two months in the country about Agokayongo, we marched towards Kambambe, which was but three days’ journey, and came right against the Serras da Prata, and passed the River Kwanza. At the great waterfall that was the holy place of the Jaqqas we did see signs that the man-eaters had been there of late: some remnants of their feasting, and certain painted marks on the rocks. But of the Jaqqas themselves we yet saw nothing, they being as elusive as ghosts. This was finely suitable to me, I having seen enough of those folk for one lifetime and being in little urgency to encounter them again. At night Imbe Calandola came to me in dreams very greatly often, floating through the seas of my mind like a malign monster of the depths, and laughing and stirring up turbulent maelstroms, and crying out, “Andubatil Jaqqa! Return unto me, Andubatil Jaqqa, and let us devour the world!” For which meal I had small appetite remaining.

Presently we overran the country at Kambambe, and built a fort hard by the riverside.

No chance presented itself to me for my return to the coast, nor to seek ship for England. Governor Cerveira Pereira, when I reminded him of the promise of Don João Coutinho to release me after a time, only shrugged and said, “I find nothing in his journals of such a promise, Don Andres.”

Aye, and what could I say?

So I bided my time, a skill in which I had developed no trifling aptitude. I lived a private life apart from the Portugals now, friendly with them but not close, nor had they much wish to befriend me. I think they knew not what to make of me, and, God wot, I hardly knew what to make of me myself, for I was so changed by time and monstrous event. I had seen a quantity of gore and horror sufficient to leave its impress on me in the deepest ways. Often when I closed mine eyes I saw the headsman’s blade falling upon Dona Teresa; or I imagined myself in Kulachinga’s greasy embrace, her body slippery against mine own; or I sat between Calandola and Kinguri at some dread festival, and awoke with the savor of human meat in my nostrils and on my tongue. I had made a voyage that was passing strange, into the darkest of the realms of this world; and though I smiled upon others, with a cheery greeting, a “Bom dia” for all and a friendly “adeus” upon parting, yet was I a man alone within their midst, one who has looked upon things that put him beyond the pale of common society. I felt almost like a wanderer out of some other world: which I was, in good sooth, in some five or six various ways.

We marched about upon the tribes outside Kambambe, and mastered many nations there. Among our conquered was Shillambansa, uncle to the King of Angola, that I had helped to sack utterly when I was with the Jaqqas. He had rebuilt his city to something of its old sumptuousness; when this chief did see me again in the triumphant army of Portugals, he looked upon me as a demon who particularly oppressed his destinies, and hissed “mokisso” at me, and “white Jaqqa,” and turned away in dread. Well, and I suppose he had no cause to love me for working two utter devastations upon him, and my appearance now was frightening to behold, with my scars and my long tangled white hair and my golden beard and my blue eyes to manifest me as a devil to him.

Cerveira Pereira founded a presidio at Kambambe, and once again the Portugals set about the search for the silver mines, but I think they got small share of silver, or perhaps none at all. This new upstart governor, who held no royal commission from his king, was very cruel to his soldiers, so that in time all his voluntary men left him; and by this means he could go no further. So we remained at Kambambe month upon month, I now being past forty-five years of age, but still, thank God, strong and healthy.

Then there did come to us a pair of Jesuits, that had traveled up the Kwanza to bring certain news to the governor, and not finding him at Masanganu had continued on to this place. These two were closeted with Cerveira Pereira a long while, and two days afterward messengers came to me, saying, Cerveira Pereira did wish to speak with me.

I went to him and he declared, without any pleasantries of conversation, “Your Queen Elizabeth is dead.”

“Nay, it is not so!” I cried, taking the news like a hard blow upon the back of my neck.

“It is brought me by the Jesuit fathers, who say she is long dead, of the April of 1603.”

“Then who is King in my land?”

“James of Scotland, that was the Scottish Queen’s son.”

“Aye, I suppose it would have been he,” said I. “For she died a maid, did Elizabeth, and the Scottish King is of the royal blood.” And I did fall to thinking inwardly, King James, King James, trying to get the sound of it to ring honestly in my head, for at the moment it was entirely false. King James. Never had there been a James King of England before, but only Henry, William, Edward, Richard, in the main, and your stray lone John and Stephen, so James was a strange noise upon the throne. And furthermore there had been no King of England at all in my lifetime, but only the Queen, that was Elizabeth, and before her Queen Mary Tudor, the bloody one, so that the rule of women had been customary to my mind. King James? Aye, then, King James, King James, King James: I would try to learn the music of it by heart, discordant though it now might seem. King James. Of that man I knew little or none, save that he was a Scot, and said to be not fair to look upon, and a Protestant, though his mother had not been one. A Protestant for good and aye, surely, else Elizabeth would not have bestowed upon him the crown.

“There is more news, Don Andres,” Cerveira Pereira said. “The war is ended between Spain and England, by command of King James and King Philip, and so there is peace between Portugal and England as well, this having been proclaimed in August last.”

“God be praised, then, I am no man’s enemy in this land!”

“That is the case,” said he.

“I do make petition to you, Don Manoel, to grant me license to go into mine own country, since that I am no longer a prisoner of the realm, but only a sojourner here.”

He studied me a long while out of those harsh and beady dark eyes of his, and I felt me to be a fish upon a hook, dangling in air while the angler decides if he is to be thrown back into the freedom of the water.

I said, into his silence, “You could consult the archives in São Paulo de Loanda of Governor Serrão’s time, that would record how I was brought here out of Brazil, upon my capture from a freebooter’s expedition, and—”

“This I know,” he replied. “And most bravely have you served us, Don Andres.”

“Surely that service is at its end now.”

“I think so,” said he.

“Then may I go?”

“Aye,” he said. “Make to me a petition by writing, and I will grant you license, and you may go home.”

Such simple and easy words! Such a trifle, falling from his lips! England to be mine again! I for King James’ land, by Governor Cerveira Pereira’s freely given license!

Aye, but not so lightly, for nothing is light or swift when one is dealing with Portugals. I did make my application that afternoon by writ to Don Manoel Cerveira Pereira, and then I went off apart to give thanks unto God for my deliverance, and to pray for the repose of Her Protestant Majesty Elizabeth of beloved memory, and to offer also the hope of God’s benevolence upon my new King and master James I, who unknown to me had been my monarch some two years already. But still was I in Kambambe, many leagues from the coast. Nor did Cerveira Pereira favor me with a written reply to my petition, though I had the promise in words from him.

Shortly it was time for the governor to return himself to his capital; and I departed with him and his train to São Paulo de Loanda. Scarce was I able to recognize that city, so great had it grown, with majestic new buildings now rising on the hill and in the flat places, and the old palaces and cathedral dwarfed in their midst. Slavery had become the main sustenance of the city, and it looked not much unlike the depot of São Tomé, with great pens everywhere in which the sad human merchandise of this commerce was penned.

Strange was it to be back in civilization, to sleep in a true bed, to eat Portuguese food and drink claret and wear fresh clothes. I still felt the Jaqqa pull, the lodestone force of the jungle. I was in part yet one of that nation, even after some years away from them; I think I will always be, for Jaqqa blood does throb ineradicably in my veins. And also was there in me a void and chilly place where Dona Teresa had occupied mine affections, that left me hollow and bereft.

In merely the few years that I had been gone from São Paulo de Loanda I had become a total stranger, without links to this place. I looked about most diligently, and all was unfamiliar. Those men known to me of old had died or gone elsewhere, even the streets I had known being engulfed into the new ones. I could not find Matamba, nor any who knew of her. The very names of Don João de Mendoça and Fernão da Souza and his wife Dona Teresa seemed lost to oblivion in this greater and noisier place. And as for Andrew Battell, why, he was forgotten also. I had no attention of any special kind, not even on account of my coloring, since my hair was no longer golden, nor was golden hair a scarcity here, the city being full of Dutchmen partaking in the slave trade, and some Frenchmen also.

Aye, and did I board the first ship bound for Europe, now that I had license to go? Surely that is what I did, you say. But I did not do that. For they would not ship me home by courtesy of the crown: I had to buy my passage, and at most dear a price. And among those who had forgotten me were those bankers to whom I had entrusted my store of wealth. I had placed at deposit in the counting-house in São Paulo de Loanda all the proceeds of my trading voyages to Benguela, before my abandonment into the hands of Mofarigosat, and a heavy sum it was, too. But when I came calling for it, thinking it had compounded into a pretty pile, they left me standing in their velveted outer chamber a long span, and when they returned to me they feigned not knowing why I had come, and left me standing there another long while, and so on, before coming at last to deny any knowledge of my credit with them. Had I any certificate of that funding? What could I say, that I had been roaming naked in the wilderness, wearing beads and paint, and had had no purse to keep my documents in? “You will see,” I said, “I am Andrew Battell, or it may be that you have me down as Andres, who served as pilot under Don João de Mendoça—”

But they knew not Don João, and they knew not me, and they had not my money, nor any record thereof.

I went to the governor to make complaint, but he would not admit me, and his secretary told me bluntly that the counting-house was known to be honorable. I had no further recourse. These Spaniards who kept the bank were sly dogs, and I was English, having no rights in this land. And they had cozened me of all my wealth and that was the end upon it. When I returned to England, so one official opined, I might bring an action in court against the counting-house. But without that money I was unable to return to England!

So, then, how to pay for my passage? Pawn my scars? I had no friends in this place, and of moneylenders there were none who would deal with me, and in fine I was as helpless a beggar here as I had been on the day Thomas Torner and I were led in chains into our prison.

But at that pass a good Portugal came to my aid. This was a certain merchant, by name Nicolau Cabral, that was the younger brother of Pinto Cabral that had sailed with me on my voyages when I was a pilot here. This younger Cabral, knowing of me from his brother’s stories, sought me out and said, “I intend making a journey of trade into the kingdom of Kongo, where I think there is much profit to be had. And my brother says you are a man of valor, and of skill in languages, and with great knowledge of the peoples of the land: so I would have you as my partner in this venture.”

I embraced this Cabral most warmly, and told him he was my salvation, for that I was penniless and seeking earnings for my homeward passage and the comfort of mine old age when I should reach England. And so it was agreed, that I would guide him and shield him from harm, and I was to have a portion of the profits of the venture to mine own, even though I put up no capital for it. Moreover, he said, even if we did not return a profit on our commodities, he undertook to pledge me enough money to pay for my passage. The which offer gave me great joy, although I said, “It will not be necessary to exact those terms from you, I think, since we will return well loaded with treasure.”

2

In this way I found myself yet again a wanderer in the forests and wastelands of Africa, who had thought by this time to be long since on his voyage home.

Yet was it not a burdensome ordeal. When one has been gone from home beyond fifteen year, as was now the case with me, what matters it to have a little more delay? I could not let myself go home a pauper. I confess to you also that I was fearful of returning to England, though it had been my dream so long, for it frightened me that I might be altogether bewildered in that land from its many changes. And the other thing that led me away from my great homeward goal was the knowledge still that there was too much African in me, that I was out of consort with the spirit of my native land and must yet strive to put Calandola behind me; for the taste of forbidden meat still sometimes rose to my tongue.

We set forth, Nicolau Cabral and I, into the province of Mbamba, that lieth northward of Angola, through cities that were named Musulu and Lembo and Nkondo. These were Christian places, having long been under the influence of the Portugals. Yet it was a strange kind of Christianity they did practice here, that I found strongly repellent.

This was, I suppose, in the town called Musulu. One evening an hour after sunset, I heard abundance of people singing, but in such a doleful tone as caused horror. I inquired of my servants what that meant, and they answered, it was the people of the town that came to discipline themselves in church, because it was a Friday in March. I went to the church to see it for myself, and found a Romish priest there, who lit two candles and rang the bell. The blackamoors in the meanwhile remained outside the church on their knees, singing the Salve Regina in their language, with a very doleful harmony; then being come into the church, the priest gave them all holy water. He offered some of it to me, but I did not take my place at the stoup. The worshippers were about two hundred men carrying great logs of wood of a vast weight, for the greater penance. The priest spoke a few words to them, saying, “If we do not undergo penance in this world, we shall be forced to endure it in the next,” and again he looked toward me, thinking me a good Paptist and expecting me to kneel down. I did not, but I stayed to watch, telling myself that although I could never do penance enough for my sins, yet I was not about to do it under the auspices of Rome.

The blackamoors were all on their knees, and they disciplined themselves a whole hour, I suppose, with leather thongs and cords made of the bark of trees. Several times did the priest with gestures invite me to participate. But of what value would flagellating my body be to the purging of my soul? It was prayer that I needed, and the descent of divine grace, not whips. So the ceremony soon grew wearying to me, and I went out, to find Nicolau Cabral in search of me.

“What,” he said, “are you a Roman now, Andres?”

“Not quite yet,” said I. “But I have been witnessing a most joyless rite.” And I took him within, and showed him the blackamoors still flogging themselves in Jesu’s name. And the priest still exhorted them, saying that they had committed sins against the majesty of God, who is merciless to the penitent but most harsh to those who are not. Cabral drew me by the arm and took me out of there, saying it saddened him to watch it; for though he was of the Roman faith he held no sympathy for this flogging, and I think he inwardly believed it had been better to leave these folk in their paganism than to give them so bitter a taste of the love of our gentle Savior.

But before we left that place we found the true reason for this extreme penitence, which was that the people of the town had learned that the Jaqqas were menacing the frontier, and by punishing themselves did somehow hope to win God’s favor against the man-eaters. At the sound of the name “Jaqqa” I caught in my breath, and bit down hard on my lip, for I was much appalled.

I said, “And are they far from here?”

“No one knows that,” replied my informant, a Bakongo man named Nsaku that had been traveling inland. “They flit like ghosts from place to place, as always.”

“Is Imbe Calandola yet their king?” I asked.

“Their king is said to be a dread monster, that eats children for his noon-meal,” said Nsaku, “but I know not his name. I know only that we must implore God’s mercy against these creatures, or they will destroy us.”

Cabral to me said, “It is reported that you lived among them a time, Andres.”

“Aye,” said I. “That I did, before they were defeated under Don João Coutinho.”

“And was it a terrible torment to be their captive?”

“Aye. I would not speak of it, so painful was it.”

“I quite understand, my friend. The marks of the suffering are inscribed on your face.” And he smiled kindly upon me, and we gave Nsaku some shell-money for his information, and we made ready to move on from that place. As we went forth into the dark forest I felt heavy fear descending upon me, like a tangible weight, that we might meet with a troop of Jaqqas in this deep wilderness. It is not that I dreaded dying at their hands; I think I had long since passed beyond such fear of death as I might once have had. Nay, what I truly feared was that I would see them encamped in some clearing, with their kettles and their music and all, and I would throw off my Portugal clothes and run to them, and fling myself before Imbe Calandola and beg his forgiveness, and give myself into their nation once again.

Does that sound like madness to you? Aye, so it does to me. But it was a most plausible madness; for Calandola was real to me and England only a phantasm, now, and much of the time my mind lay in a hazy borderland between the real and the unreal. I had at first embraced the Jaqqa way only so that they might bring me closer to the coast, and hope of home; but in some fashion along my travels with them the infection of them had entered my flesh, and I was still raging with it in a distant corner of my being. I thought I had broken with the Jaqqas when I did send Kulachinga to Don João Coutinho to betray Calandola; I thought then that it marked my adherence forever to civilized Christian things; and yet here was I in the Kongo forest all atremble, lest I should find them in yonder ollicondi grove and be swept willy-nilly into new allegiance to their dark lord and master.

But we encountered no Jaqqas, God be thanked, and came unhindered into the capital zone of the kingdom of the Kongo.

Now this was the place where the Portugals first had taken root on this side of Africa, insinuating themselves into a kingdom that already was rich and well advanced to civility. There were black kings here long ago, some of them great ones. When the Portugals came, an hundred year and some ago, they gulled these folk into accepting the Papist faith, and into becoming allies of Portugal, which meant, in time, that Portugal swallowed them up. Christians did they become, with Christian ways and dress and names, and strutted about telling themselves they were much enlarged by these new customs, while quietly the Portugals did suck the wealth from their land through flattery and deceit. It is the old story, that will be repeated wherever the guile of Europe meets the innocence of Paradise, I fear.

The capital city of this kingdom was named Mbanza, which in their tongue only means “the city” or “the royal court,” and when the Portugals settled here they named it São Salvador de Mbanza, which is how it is called now. Though it was somewhat fallen from its greatest days, owing to the Jaqqa invasion of thirty years ago and other calamities, yet was it still a grand sight as we came upon it, traveling as we had through thick forest, past marsh and swamp, over ravines and rivers, to the highland on which it is seated, about one hundred fifty miles from the sea.

It is upon a great and high mountain that the Portugals call Outeiro, being almost all of rock, but yet having a vein of iron in it, whereof they have very great use in their housing. This mountain has in the top of it a great plain, very fertile and furnished with houses and villages, containing in circuit about ten miles, where there do dwell and live the number of one hundred thousand persons. The soil is fruitful, and the air fresh, wholesome, and pure: there are great store of springs of good water, and of all sorts of cattle great abundance.

This town of São Salvador has neither enclosure nor wall, except a little on the south side, which the first king built and afterwards gave to the Portugals to inhabit. Also enclosed are the royal palace and the houses of the nobility. In the midst between the Portuguese district and the royal compound is a great space, where the principal church is set, with a fair marketplace beyond it. The walls of the Portuguese town and the king’s are very thick, but the gates are not shut in the night time, neither is there any watch or ward kept therein. The buildings of the great men are of chalk and stone, but all the rest are of straw, very neatly wrought: the lodgings, dining-rooms, galleries, and other apartments, are hung after the European manner, with mats of an exquisite curiosity. Within the innermost courts are gardens, pleasantly stored with variety of herbs, and planted with several sorts of trees. There are ten or eleven churches, in honor of various saints, and a Jesuit college, and schools where youths are brought up and taught the Latin and Portuguese tongues.

We called first at the court of the king. This monarch’s name was Don Alvaro II, though his private name was Nempanzu a Mini, but it was an offense to call him that, it not being Christian. He had already been king more than thirty years and was said to be a zealous Christian, but not fond of the Portugals. Cabral told me that he had given favor lately to Dutch merchants, of whom many now abounded in the Kongo; and I knew already that this king had leagued himself several times with the King of Angola and other enemies of the Portugals during the wars.

Yet did he receive us graciously enough, and in high pomp. When we came upon him, amid a great noise of trumpets, fifes, drums, and cornets, we found him clad with a scarlet cloak and gold buttons, and white buskins upon carnation silk stockings. Cabral remarked that he has new clothes every day, which I could hardly believe in a country where fine stuffs and good tailors are scarce. Before him went twenty-four young blacks, all sons of dukes or marquises of this kingdom, who wore about their middles a handkerchief of palm-cloth dyed black, and a cloak of blue European cloth hanging down to the ground, but all of them bareheaded and barefooted.

Near to his majesty was an official who carried his sun-shade of silk, of a fire-color laced with gold, and another who carried a chair of carnation velvet, with gold nails, and the wood all gilt. Two others clad in red coats carried his red hammock, but I know not whether it was silk, or dyed cotton. We bowed and saluted His Majesty, who spoke with us in passing good Portuguese, and asked me if I was a Dutchman.

I said I was English, and he found that worth noting, saying, “There has never been an Englishman to this court. Come closer, and let me see you near.”

Which I did, whereupon he spied the Jaqqa markings on my face, and said, “What are these, and how did you come by them?”

“They were placed on me by the man-eaters, when I was captive among them.”

At that he made the sign of the cross, and told me how when he was a child the Jaqqas had come into this city, and slaughtered thousands and driven his father to take refuge on the Hippopotamus Island in the Zaire River. All this I already knew, but I listened most attentively. Then he asked me if I had seen with mine own eyes, in my sojourn with those folk, the great Jaqqa Imbe Calandola.

“That I did,” said I, “and a most frightsome being he is.”

“Then he is real, and not just a tale told to frighten boys?”

“He is as real as is Your Majesty, by my faith!”

“And he is a monster?”

“He is most frightsome,” I did say again, and nothing more, not wishing to speak of the feasts and other secret things that I had shared with the Lord Imbe-Jaqqa.

King Alvaro closed his eyes, and seemed to brood inward; and then after a time he said, “It is fated that the Jaqqas will eat the world, and bring us all unto judgment, but that Christ will rise upon the last and overthrow them. I hope that warfare is long yet in the coming.”

“As do I, most fervently, Your Majesty,” I responded, thinking that this was a most strange kind of Christianity that had the gentle Savior doing battle with the terrible Imbe-Jaqqa at the end of the world. But I did not say it. I think these people are very fine Christians indeed, that obey their priests and go to Mass and all the rest, but I do quietly suspect that mixed into their catechism is a very great store of encrusted pagan belief, that would give high surprise to the men of the Vatican if they did but know. Yet that is no business of mine, if these good black Romans have stirred a few mokissos into their creed, and have made an Antichrist out of Calandola. For all faiths are true faiths, and if the Imbe-Jaqqa be not an Archfiend he is something very close upon it.

When we had paid our respects, and met other members of the court and certain sons of the king, both true ones and bastards (for so were they introduced to us) we were free to go about our trading. Cabral had brought to this land all manner of useful commodities, such things as chamber pots and shaving bowls and iron kettles and blankets of Flanders and Portugal and French linen and dyed caps and much else, which we took into the marketplace. Here we found fine brass ware and pottery, and splendid woven mats, and elephanto teeth, and the skins of leopards and other handsome beasts, and carved staffs of a most beautiful design, and other such produce of the land, which we were able to buy at a most advantageous exchange, so eager were the Kongo folk for our foreign goods. Let it only be made in Europe and they will rush to own it, however humble an object it may be.

Also did I acquire two young Negro boys to be my servants, they being offered at a good price and I feeling the need of their aid with my baggage.

Now had we turned enough of a profit to see me safe aboard a ship to Spain, but I was not ready to halt in my trading, nor was Nicolau Cabral. We went on deeper into Kongo to Ngongo and to Bata, where they had great heathen images set up. Then, having sold most of our commodities, we brought ourselves back to the coast at the mouth of the Zaire. Here a pinnace was waiting for Cabral, to bring our goods south, but here also was another ship of the Dutch bound northward, and I proposed to sail with them a little way, leaving our merchandise with Cabral. This shows you how much faith I had in that man, that he would not cheat me of my share; and that faith for once was not misplaced. We parted most warmly and I journeyed up the coast a few days with the Dutchmen.

I tarried briefly in the province of Mayombe, which is all woods and groves, so overgrown that a man may travel twenty days in the shadow, without any sun or heat. Here they have great store of elephanto flesh, which they greatly esteem, and many kinds of wild beasts; and great store of fish. The woods are covered with baboomas, monkeys, apes, and parrots, that it will fear any man to travel in them alone. But the Jaqqas are not feared in this land, indeed are scarce known among them except as some sort of distant menace.

Here dwell two other kinds of monsters of which I had once heard from my dear friend Barbosa of blessed memory, that are apes, the pongo and the engeco. This pongo is in all proportions like a man, but that he is more like a giant in stature than a man; for he is very tall, and has a man’s face, hollow-eyed, with long hair upon his brows. His face and ears are without hair, and his hands also. His body is full of hair, but not very thick, and it is of a dunnish color. He differs not from a man but in his legs, for they have no calf. He goes always upon his legs, and carries his hands clasped upon the nape of his neck when he goes upon the ground. They sleep in the trees, and build shelters from the rain. They feed upon fruit they find in the woods and upon nuts, for they eat no kind of flesh. They cannot speak, and have no more understanding than a beast. I saw these creatures now and again, but always from a great distance, they being very shy.

The people of the country, when they travel in the woods, make fires when they sleep in the night. And in the morning, when they are gone, the pongos will come and sit about the fire till it goes out, for they have no understanding to lay the wood together. They go many together, and kill many Negroes that travel in the woods. Many times they fall upon the elephantos, which come to feed where they be, and so beat them with their clubbed fists and pieces of wood that they will run roaring away from them.

Those pongos are never taken alive, because they are so strong that ten men cannot hold one of them, but yet they take many of their young ones with poisoned arrows. The young pongo hangeth on to his mother’s belly, with his hands clasped fast about her, so that when the country people kill any of the females, they take the young one which hangeth fast to her. I did much desire to purchase a young pongo, that I might take it back to England with me as a curiosity to present it to King James, but I could not obtain one. This being a great pity, for I am sure no such monstrous ape has ever been seen in that land.

The engeco is much different, being smaller, to the height of a boy of twelve years, and covered with coarse dark hair. It walks upon its legs, that are bandy and have bright pink feet, and its face is most comic, like unto that of a mummer’s or buffoon’s. They also eat no flesh, or very little, and are said to be much quicker of wit than the pongo. Here also did I attempt to obtain this creature for England, and in the city of Mani Mayombe one was brought for me that was no more than a babe, and most piteous, being like a little very hairy human person, with sad eyes and a great ugly yawning mouth. I think the King would have made me a knight had I given him that creature, but I did not have the purchase of it, for it died of yearning for its mother soon after.

There is another lord to the eastward of the town of Mani Mayombe, which is called Mani Kesock, and he is eight days’ journey from Mayombe. Here I was with my two Negro boys to buy elephanto hairs and tails. And in a month I bought twenty thousand, which I later sold to the Portugals for thirty slaves, so that I was again a wealthy man. From this place I sent one of my Negro boys to the prince Mani Sette with a looking-glass. He did esteem it much, and sent me four elephanto teeth of great size by his own men, which did further increase my wealth.

To the northeast of Mani Kesock are a kind of little people called Matimbas, which are no bigger than boys of twelve years old, but are very sturdy, and live only upon flesh, which they kill in the woods with their bows and darts. They pay tribute to Mani Kesock, and bring all their elephanto teeth and tails to him. The women carry bows and arrows, as well as the men, and one of these will walk in the woods alone, and kill the pongos with their poisoned arrows.

Here ends my recitation of the wonders of this province, for I had now acquired such riches, by God’s grace, that I needed no more, and I did return to the coast, where in good time the Dutch traders did call for me and carry me back to São Paulo de Loanda. It had now become Anno 1607 and I was well ready to begin my passage at last back to England: as ready as I could be, though still I feared somewhat the entry into that placid sweet land out of this realm of nightmare. For I had not shaken free, in the inwardness of myself, of the grasp of this land. I dreamed sometimes still of Imbe Calandola, shouting and raging and marching to and fro with blood dripping from his jowls, and into my mind at untoward moments came images out of the death of Dona Teresa, and other such horrors, and now and again some loathly coccodrillo would drag its scaly huge form through my slumber’s repose. Yet I told me that if I waited for such matters to escape themselves from my mind before I set forth for home, I would dwell in this land to the end of my days. If one goes among devils, one must expect certain dregs of deviltry to crust the borders of one’s soul forever, said I to myself. And so I resolved to take me to England now that I had the funds for it, and complete my healing there. But as usual I was too hopeful of a happy outcome.

3

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.

After I had lived six months with the dried flesh and fish, sharing my abode with hippopotamus and coccodrillo, and seeing no end to my misery, I wrought means to get away. For though I was dwelling quietly and in peace here, with a strange tranquility of my soul that I think arose from a deep and utter weariness of adventure, yet did I hope for a change of habitance, and perhaps to resume my long-interrupted voyage home. For, like wandering Ulysses, though I might dwell this season among the Lotus-eaters and that season on the isle of Calypso, and in this place and that, yet always did I dream fondly of mine own bed and mine own hearth in the land of my birth, even if that land had become as strange to me as any place in the world.

So did I make a departure. In the lake of Kasanza are many little islands that are full of trees called bimba, which are as light as cork and as soft. Of these trees I built a jangada or raft with a knife of the savages that I had with me, in the fashion of a box nailed with wooden pegs, and railed round about, so that the sea should not wash me out; and with a blanket that I had, I made a sail, and prepared three oars to row withal.

This lake of Kasanza is eight miles over, and issueth into the River Mbengu. So I entered into my jangada and my two Negro boys with me, and rowed into the River Mbengu, and so came down with the current twelve leagues to the bar that crosses the rivermouth. Here I was in great danger, because the sea was great, and my boys, seeing the upheaval of the waves, did cry out that their last hour was come.

“Have no fear,” I told them cheeringly, “for I am Andrew Battell that comes of a great line of mariners, who are pilots of the Trinity House.”

I will confess long after the event that I, too, knew fear just then; but I could not believe that God my Provider, having sustained me so long and through so much, had it of His plan to drown me in this surf. And I carried my raft safely over the bar and rode into the sea, and then sailed afore the wind along the coast, which I knew well, minding to go to the kingdom of Loango, which is toward the north.

And why did I not go to São Paulo de Loanda? Ah, but I knew naught of what befell there, except that in all likelihood Manoel Cerveira Pereira was yet governor, and he was mine enemy. It seemed me much wiser to chance the voyage in this little raft of my devising, and be blown along the upper coast, than to put my head back into the jaws of the lion in that city. And if I spent the rest of my days in Loango, never seeing England again, well, so be it, but at the least I would cheat the Portugals of my death.

So northward aye I went, and the boys with me, all that day and the night. The next day I saw a pinnace come before the wind, which journeyed from the city of São Paulo de Loanda, and she came near to me. There was no escaping from this ship, so I stood by, waiting for her to fall upon me, and ready to sell my life at a very fine price, and it come to that. But when the Portugals drew nigh and hailed me, great was my amaze and joy, for the master of this ship was my great friend Pinto Cabral of old days, elder brother to Nicolau. Who looked at me high and low and said, “Andres? Is this Andres the Piloto, that I shipped with in years gone by, and had the saving of my life when I was drowning upon that devil-shoal?”

“The same,” said I. “Much changed without and within, and yet somewhat unaltered in essence, I do hope.”

We embraced, and he gave me wine, in which I greatly joyed, and some beef and biscuit, and fed my boys also. I asked him of the city’s news, which was very little. Cerveira Pereira was yet governor, said he. Pereira Forjaz was said to be sailing soon from Lisbon, but they had been saying that for a year. “I know not this little Cerveira Pereira well,” declared Cabral, “for I have been to the north, in São Tomé, these two years. But he is much hated, and I think will not be lamented when he goes.”

“Most especially by me,” I said, “for that he did deny me my passage home, after pledging it.”

Pinto Cabral laughed, and said, “It is ever thus with you, Andres, is it not? But your time will come, and your breeze will waft you homeward at last.”

“May God grant it, friend,” said I.

I asked him of his brother Nicolau, my partner. But here the news was grievous: for that faithful man was dead, slain by brawlers in the streets of the city. This left me downcast, both for that I had loved that man in the little time I knew him, and that I had entrusted the major part of my gold to his keeping, which surely was all vanished now. Of my treasure there remained only the pouch at my waist, in which I had prudently taken some pieces of gold when I slipped away from São Paulo de Loanda. And Pinto Cabral, in recognition of my misfortunes, did give me some other gold also.

He was bound for São Tomé to do business in slaves. But because that we had been shipmates together, he took me for pity’s sake to Loango, and set me on shore in that port, where I had gone with him in ancient days when I was the pilot of the governor’s pinnace; and there he left me.

Well did I remember this place, where I had seen the coocodrillo that ate the eight slaves, and the dead Jaqqa that so frighted everyone, and the burial-ground of the kings, and other wonders that struck me so strange when I was new in this land. Now I walked the three miles from the waterside to the town, calm as a tree, and when I saw the people of the place I saluted them and bade them good morrow in their own tongue most fluently, and entered into the city like a townsman coming home. I remembered, as if I had seen it but yesterday, the great house of the Maloango or king, and the wide street to the market, and all the rest. And at audience-time I did go to the Maloango and sit before the king, which was the same king from my past visit, much older and white of hair, and I cried “Nzambi! Ampungul” in salutation, that is, 0 Most High God.

To which he replied with that greeting once so mysterioius to me,”Byani ampembe mpolo, muneya ka zinga” that means, My companion, the white face, has risen from underground and will not live long, which was so strange a thing to hear, though it was but a ritual phrase.

“Are you come in trade?” said he then.

“Nay, I am come to take sanctuary here from the fury of the Portugals, who have barred me from my native land. And I have been here before, when my hair was golden.”

This king the Maloango Njimbe remembered me then, and spoke of the time when I had gone diving in the sea in the hope of recovering the mokisso-idol that they had dropped there. And then came forth another who remembered me, which was his white-skinned ndundu wizard of the red eyes, that had seen me long ago and at that time did send a coldness into my soul. This creature was now of great age, and withered and hideous, and came shuffling forward to inspect me.

At length he said, “You are the white Jaqqa.”

“Aye, so you called me once, and I did not understand it.”

“But now understanding has come into you?”

“That it has, and burned me deep.”

“You are a Jaqqa still,” the albino creature said, “and yet there is no danger about you. For you have made your voyage, and you have come to rest, and all is well within you. You are a Jaqqa-ndundu now.”

Now that is a hard thing to comprehend, a Jaqqa-ndundu, nor did I ask him to spell me the meanings of it. Yet so far as I can fathom, what he was saying was, I was a white man who had turned black inside, and now was white again, but my color now was the whiteness of the albino, the changeling, and not the whiteness of the white man. Well, and I do not pretend to be a penetrating scholar, but I think I have the drift of it. The one thing is certain, that on my first visit here this sorcerer had looked on me with dread and loathing, a monster to be shunned, but now he bade the Maloango make me welcome in this land, as something holy that had been cast up on their shores.

So it befell me. I remained in Loango three years, and was well beloved of the king, because I killed him deer and fowls with my musket.

Another thing that I did was go down again in the recovery of that sunken idol, which in all these years they had hoped to bring to the surface. This time I caused to be made a suit of leather all greased and pitched, that no water could enter into it, and I caused a great head to be made all pitched, with a great nose, and at the nose were three bladders, and at the mouth two. Putting on this suit of leather, I had them cast me into the sea in eighteen fathom deep, with a mighty great stone tied about me. The weight of the stone carried me downward, but yet I was able to breathe somewhat, although the air quick became hot and foul. In the depths did I grope about, and lo! there was the leg of the mokisso coming forth from the muck and silt that had enveloped it. I was in much pain by then, for the stone pulled me downward and the air in the head pulled me upward, so that I thought the cord I was tied withal would have cut me in pieces. When I felt myself so tormented, I took a knife that was tied in my hand, and cut the cord, and held fast to the idol. Upward was I carried, and as soon as I came above water, I tore the bladders from my face, and cut my suit before, for I was almost stifled. After this I was greatly dizzied and walked in circles close upon an hour, and did not feel a healthy man for some days or peradventure a week. But I had found them their idol after all so many years, and they hailed me as a great hero for this, and bestowed many rich gifts upon me.

I think I would have passed all the remainder of my days in Loango. For, as the ndundu said, I had made my voyage, and I had come to rest. Striving was no longer my way. I lived peaceably among them and ate of their foods and went to their festivals, and was not shunned by them. When I passed the house of Kikoko the great mokisso I did clap my hands for good luck, as they did. The king gave me a wife, who was the last of my African wives, whose name was Inizanda, and gentle and tender she was, though she spoke little, and I think regarded herself as my slave rather than my wife. Yet when we lay together she stroked me soothingly and gave me good pleasure, such times as I required it. Which was not so often as in other times, I now being fifty years of age, and a little more. That is a fine full age, and the fires burn a little low when one comes to it, if one has lived as arduously as I have lived. But when I turned to my Inizanda and placed my hand upon her thigh, her legs did open to me and she did take my head against her breasts, and my yard into her warm nest, and that was a great comfort upon me.

So was I lulled by life in Loango, and one year glided into another. And I thought me of all my struggle and avowal to reach my homeland, and how far from my soul that aim was now; and I smiled over that, to think I now no longer cared. England? What was that, and where? I was in the Lotus-eater land! Be the English nation under the rule of King James, or King Peter, or King Calandola, it meant nothing whatsoever to me. Did Englishmen now dress in Scots garb? Were shilling coins struck these days of clay? Had London slipped into the sea? Why, it was all one to me: foreign, dreamy. I was content. I had made my voyage, and I had come to my rest.

Then one day a band of Portugals did march into the city of Loango, and at the head of them was Pinto Cabral, who was returning to São Paulo de Loanda from yet another voyage to São Tomé, and who had come to inquire after me.

I was summoned. I came forth in my palm-cloth skirt and my necklace of shells, which took him somewhat athwart. But he laughed and embraced me and said, “At last we find you! We stopped here coming north, but you were away on a hunt. I carry good news for you, Andres.”

“And what might that be?”

“Why, that you are sought, and urged for England, by Governor Pereira Forjaz! Your tale is known to him, and he has sent word along the coast, that your pardon is fully granted.”

“Nay, it is a jest,” said I. “They will take me, and send me off to make war on King Ngola, or some such service. Or make me pilot on their voyage to the Pole Antarctic. It cannot be that I am pardoned.”

“You are too much hardened by adversity,” Cabral replied. “This is God’s own truth.”

I laughed at that.

“Why do you laugh, Andres?”

“I laugh because I no longer care,” I replied. “It is ever thus, that we are granted our deepest wishes when they have come to have no weight. I am happy here. My life is quiet. It is a good harbor for me, this place. And now you come, saying, I am pardoned, I am free, the ship is waiting to bear me home. Home? Where is my home? I think sometimes Loango is my home.”

Pinto Cabral at this grew most solemn, and stared me close, and took my hand.

“Is this so? Shall I leave you here, old friend?”

I did not at once answer. I was not sure of my way.

He said, “It is all the same to me, stay or come, if only you be happy. I would not tear you from this place.”

“Nay,” I answered, after a long quietness. “Nay, I am old and foolish, and I know not what I say. But it is England that I want. Take me from hence! Of course, take me, friend Cabral, take me and send me toward England, for that is what I want, and nothing other!”

“Be you sure?”

“I am sure,” said I.

And I was, after that moment of hesitance; for Andrew Battell had awakened in me, that was slumbering, and did say unto me, You are an Englishman, you are no man of this black world, no Jaqqa, no ndundu, you are Andrew Battell of Leigh in Essex, so put off your beads and your palm-cloth, and get you down to the city, and take you home to England where the cold rain does fall all the year long, and sit by the fire and tell your tales to the fairhaired children that crouch wide-eyed at your knees. And I did hear that voice within me say those things, and my strength returned, and my resolve sharpened, and also there came back to me my sense of who I was and where God had designed me to dwell.

And I gave over my habitation in Loango and went with Pinto Cabral down into São Paulo de Loanda.

4

This time there were no deceptions practiced upon me. This time they meant to deal most honorably with me.

Governor Cerveira Pereira had gone home to Lisbon to face certain very serious accusations concerning his rule in Angola, and the governor now was Pereira Forjaz. Cabral said that this man was no better admired than his predecessors, for he was laying heavy taxes on the tribal chiefs and draining this money into his purse and those of his favorites. But such things were mere vapors to me; and to me this Pereira Forjaz was a veritable saint and a Solomon of wisdom. For he said to me, “I have looked into your record, and a great injustice has been done upon you these many years. So you are to go home.”

“And may I have a writ to that effect?”

“That you may,” said he, and gave me a document in writing, and a purse of gold as well. It was not much money, and little enough recompense for the fortunes I had twice lost in this land, but I would at any rate have some coins to jingle when I set foot in England. There was but a short time to wait, until the next ship departed from Europe for Spain. I was sure that in that short time they would find some means of retracting this gift of my liberty, but it was not so.

Whilst I was in São Paulo de Loanda waiting, a Dutchman named Janszoon that was trading there said to me that there was another Englishman in the city, old and ill, living in an inn by the waterfront. The news that a countryman was here did buoy my spirits greatly, for that I had not seen anyone of mine own race in twenty years, since Thomas Torner had made his escape from Angola. Indeed, I did have some wild notion that this old Englishman might even be Torner, who perhaps had been wandering all this while on paths similar to mine, and in the end had been beached upon the same place. So I went me to the inn, and said to the Portugal that was the keeper, “Do you have an English lying here?”

“That I do, but he is a foul wretch, and most surly.”

“I would see him, even so.”

“You will only catch a plague of him.”

“And if I do, then I will die aiding a countryman, which is not a scurvy thing to do.”

The innkeeper shrugged, as if to say it was on my own head whatever happened, and took me to an upstairs room, dark and stale, and called inside, saying, “You have a guest, fellow!”

Out of the darkness came a bitter grumbling muttering noise, and no more.

I went in. So sure was I that this was Torner that my mind was filling already with the tales to tell him, of all my travels and pains and wives and the like, one story tumbling over another in a wild hasty scramble in my head, and which was I to tell him first?

But the man in the room was not Thomas Torner.

He was a small pasty-faced shrunken withered man, with a round bald head and a stringy thin beard, who sat palsied and feeble by the window. When I entered, he looked up at me but did not see me, for his eyes were pale and sightless, and he sniffed at the air as though he would find me out by smell alone.

I said, and it was not easy to frame English phrases after so long a sojourn here, “They say you are an Englishman.”

“Aye.”

“So am I also, that has been twenty years on this shore.”

To this he said nothing.

I said, “Are you unwell? Can I give you any aid?”

“I would die, but I cannot. My life is over, yet I live on.”

“Never say you would welcome death, until the moment when death is upon you. Come, brother, let us walk about, and seek the fresh air of the shore.”

“Let me be.”

“The breeze will set your blood coursing again, and restore you to life,” said I.

“Let me be. I have no wish to be restored to life.”

“I beg you, brother—”

“Damn you, let me be!” cried he in a screech-owl cry, that had more pain than anger in it. Spittle flecked his face, and he rose part way from his seat, making claws at me, but he could not rise, and trembling he fell back, huddled, shaking. In a very low voice he said, “D’ye see, I am too weak to stand! And yet I am unable to die. Yet death spurns me.”

“I see that,” said I. And my heart went out for him, for that he was a sorrowful mortal man in dire distress, and it was my Christian duty to comfort him. I pulled over a second chair, and sat beside him, and said, “Let me help you in what way I can, for if one Englishman does not help another here, who will do it for us?”

He looked at me less darkly, and some ease came over him.

“Tell me how you came to this place, friend,” said I.

“By the Portugals,” he replied, “who had me a slave in their galleys five years, and whipped me once until I could no longer walk aright, and then afterward my sight went from me; and they had me in São Tomé, but did not want me there, and dumped me down to die.”

“You have suffered much.”

“I am altogether destroyed at their account. But they had reason to injure me, for I once was a privateer captain, and roved King Philip’s seas and took heavy plunder from his ships, until I was taken in my turn.”

“Ah,” I said, “and I was a privateer once also, though precious little plunder fell to my share. What is your home place?”

“Essex,” said he. “I am of the town of Leigh, that is close by the sea. Do you know it, perchance?”

“Aye,” I said.

And a great shiver did run down my spine at what I had heard from him, and I was half stricken by amaze, and my breath came in sudden ragged bursts out of my pounding bosom; for I did peer close, seeking to discern the outlines of his face beneath the changes the years had worked on him, this being a man not so much older than I, from my very town, and I saw that I did know him, though it was almost outside the scope of belief that this man could be—this man—

“My name,” said he, and though he said it in a scratchy whisper it exploded in my ears like the bombard of an hundred cannon, “My name is Abraham Cocke.”

“Ah, so I thought!”

And for an instant I thought me to strike him dead, as many times I had fancied I would do, if ever I met with that man again. But how strike this feeble ancient villain, that was so ruined by time and adversity already?

“You know of me?” he said.

“You are that great captain,” said I, “that sailed out of the Thames in the April of 1589 with two pinnaces bound for the River de la Plata, that were called the May-Morning and the Dolphin.”

He half rose again, and opened his blind eyes wide, though it availed him naught to do it, for he could see me not.

“You know those ships? You recall that voyage? Who are you? In Jesu’s name, who are you, man?”

“I am Andrew Battell.”

“Andrew Battell?” He said the name quietly, curiously, as someone would who had never heard it before. “Battell? That is a name of Leigh, is it not?”

“Thomas James Battell was my father, and my brothers were the mariners Thomas and Henry and John.”

“Ah. I know those names.”

“And the name of Andrew Battell is unknown to you?”

“It rings in my mind, but I do not place it properly.”

“Nay,” said I, “it is so many years, you surely have forgotten. But we fought together against the Armada, on the Margaret and John.”

“Aye. I remember that ship well.”

“And afterward, you were going with the May-Morning and the Dolphin privateering—”

“Aye.”

“And I was of your crew.”

“It is so long ago, good Andrew.”

“Aye, twenty-one years, this April. And we sailed in African waters first, to São Tomé, even, and then westward, a hard voyage, and much loss. D’ye recall, Captain Cocke?”

“Aye, a hard voyage.”

I shivered with the rage I felt, remembering. “And there was an isle called São Sebastiao, beneath the Tropic of Capricorn, where we were sore hungry. And you did choose a party of men to go ashore for gathering food and water.”

“It was so long ago. I cannot recall. There were so many voyages, so many islands.”

“You did choose a band of sailors, and send them to the isle, and then a party of Indians fell upon them. And slew some of us, and some escaped. But we were lost there on that isle, for that our captain had sailed away without making search for us, and I was among those men, Captain Cocke.”

“Ah,” said he, in a voice from the tomb. “Ah, I do think I recall it slightly, now.”

I put my face near to his and most sternly said, “I recall it more than slightly, for it stole all my life from me, to be marooned there. For I came into the hands of the Portugals, and by June of ‘90 they had me in Angola as a prisoner, and I have been here ever since.”

“Ah. And you are Andrew Battell, of Leigh?”

“The very man.”

“I thought those mariners were dead, that went to the isle for food and water.”

“And never came near to look for us?”

“But if you were dead, why then should we have risked the lives of the others?”

“And if we were not dead? And if we still lived, Captain Cocke, and were to go on into a life of slavery, because that you would not turn about to seek us?”

His face was gray, his head was bowed. His body shook as if with tears, but his cheeks were dry.

I said, “I vowed that if ever I found you I would tear you arm from leg, Cocke, for destroying my life.”

“Aye. Then slay me,” said he bleakly.

“You had my life from me. You sent me into monstrous perils and torments.”

“Slay me, then,” said he again. “It was not my intent, leaving you there. I felt sure you were all of you dead. But it was a sin, a most grievous sin, not to have looked. Slay me.”

He was not afraid. He was pleading for my vengeance.

Ah, then! Strike him now?

“I will not,” said I.

“What is that you tell me?”

Darkly I said, “We are old men, and my life has gone its course, and I think the sands are nearly run out for you. What pleasure is it in killing you now? What revenge? Will it give me back my twenty years, Cocke?”

“For Jesu sake, do it!”

“That I will not.” And I said, “Why are you so eager to die?”

To which he said, “Do you not see me. Blind and broken and feeble as a trampled spider? Why should I live? Ah, you hate me so much that you will punish me by letting me live, is that it, Battell? Aye. Aye, I understand that. I took your life from you, and you punish me by giving me mine. But that is cruel of you, most monstrous cruel.”

“I hate you no longer,” said I. “I loathe the deed you did me, but you were only the first of many betrayers, and how can I have room in my heart to hate them all? Nay, Cocke, I feel nothing toward you now, nothing!”

“I am in pain. For Christian mercy’s sake, put me away, and end my suffering.”

“That I will not do,” said I. “Sit here and reflect upon your life, and tremble, and grow old in this room, for aught I care. I sail soon for England. Shall I convey your greetings to friends in Leigh?”

“I know no one... no one...”

He commenced the weeping movement again, and this time tears in faith did come, most copious, a river down his withered cheeks. I rose and departed without taking my leave of him.

“Battell, in Jesu name!” he called after me. “Come back! Give me my despatching!”

I walked swiftly through the dockside streets, my head all in a whirl at seeing him here, and him brought so low, and begging for death. I thought of the words that had passed between us, and my telling him that I hated him no longer. But did I? Nay, my anger had not subsided; but the Cocke I detested was the one of the isle of São Sebastiao, and not this wretched old man. I would gladly have struck dead that other; for this one I felt only sorrow and compassion, that he was a sufferer on the earth like us all, and a sinner, who was in his punishment and would have punishment more, and who showed at least the outer signs of repentance. Methought me that the finest revenge I could have taken upon him was the one I had taken, that is, to leave him alive in his misery and his pain, and not to destroy him, which I think I could have done with the back of my hand, as one destroys a buzzing fly. Now there sat he in his room, knowing that the deliverance of his death had been within ten inches of him and had not been granted him. That must be bitter indeed to him.

And so did I leave him, for another two days. Then did my heart soften to him: even unto Abraham Cocke of the May-Morning and the Dolphin. And I resolved that I would meet evil with good, as the Lord hath enjoined upon us. So I did send one of my Negro boys to the marketplace to obtain a certain poison that the blackamoors do use in the hunting of fishes, by which they cause the stunned creatures to rise to the surface of a pond to be netted. And I told the boy to take the phial of this stuff to the inn, and give it to Cocke, and say to him, “This is of Andrew Battell, for charity’s sake, to speed you on your way.”

I know not if he did use it, but I think he did. For the next day my wanderings took me toward that inn, and I saw a coffin being carried from it, and I asked of the innkeeper, who said, “It is the churlish Englishman, who died in the night most suddenly.”

And so his soul now undergoes purgation for his many misdeeds, even the grievous one that by negligence or malevolence he did upon me; and that account is now closed, between Abraham Cocke and me. I have sometimes said a prayer or two for his repose: even for the repose of that man Cocke.

In my last days at São Paulo de Loanda I did also meet a second person out of prior years, that was also mightily transformed and gave me much surprise. This was as I passed outside the great church of the town, when its bell was tolling, and a dozen black nuns did come forth, all clad in their zevvera-striped habits, and their heads downcast. These holy women went in a file past me and toward their nunnery, all but one, who dropped from the rank and stood hesitating, looking back to me. And I looked to her, but only in a casual way, for I knew no nuns. Yet did she stand, and look, and search my face, and at last she moved closer to me, and said in a soft and gentle voice, “You are Andres, are you not?”

“That I am.”

“And am I a stranger to you?”

I smiled and said, “I know you not, good sister.”

“Ah, I think you know me very well,” said she.

I peered close, and still it was a mystery, she being a woman of middle years with a round hearty face, and bright warm eyes, and a skin that was more of a reddish-brown hue than black. And as I stared upon her, the veil of the years did drop away, and I saw in my mind not a nun, but a girl of perhaps fourteen, bold and naked, with high outrising breasts and strong plump buttocks, and a mark of slavery inside her thigh over against her loins; and I felt shame at that, for it is no noble thing to hold so intimate a vision of a nun. But also I did see that saucy naked girl entwined about my body, and in my memory I heard her gasping sounds of delight, and hot waves of astoundment did surge through my soul.

“Matamba?” I said, with a stammering.

She nodded. “But that is not my name now. It was not ever my name, though I did not mislike it that you called me that, Andres. I am Sister Isabel now, and as Sister Isabel will I die.”

“Ah, this does my heart good, to see you once more!” I cried. “For I searched some long time for you upon my return to this city. But no one knew of you.”

“Nay,” she said, “the Matamba that was your slave is dead, and the Matamba that was used so commonly in the whore-market is dead, and only Sister Isabel lives within this body. Oh, Andres, Andres, how I joy that the Lord has preserved you! Come, take my hand, let us renew our friendship!”

And she did seize both my hands in hers, and squeeze them most firmly, which caused me new shame.

“Is this permitted?” I asked. “You a nun, and all?”

“There is no harm in our touching,” said she. “For we are old friends, and we have no secrets between us. Will you follow me within?”

“Aye.”

I went with her into the church, Roman though it was, for it was cool and dark and empty in there, and we could sit, I no longer being eager to stand about under the hot sun. We took to ourselves a bench and sat facing one another, this nun and I, and her eyes did gleam with pleasure, and her smile was like the clear dawn light.

“I thought you had perished among the Jaqqas,” said she. “For so was the story given about, that you had been taken by them, and slain long ago.”

“It was not so. I gave myself unto them, freely, preferring their company to that of Portugals.”

“Aye, and did you? You dwelled with the Jaqqas, then?”

“And dined beside their king, and mixed my blood with the king’s brother, and did many another strangeness of which I do not care to speak. For these things I know some little guilt.”

She studied my face with care, and said after a time, “God will pardon you for all.”

“So do I entreat Him constantly. And you? This nunning—what led you there?”

“Why, what other harbor was there for me? When you were gone, they would have made me a whore again, and indeed some of the Portugals did treat me so; but I took me to the Fathers, and offered myself into their service, and they gave me my vows four years past. And I am greatly happy. I am escaped of all torments now.”

“Aye,” said I. “Your voyage is made, and you are at rest.”

“So it is. I comfort the ill; I console the dying; I make my prayers and do my offices. It is for this that I was put into the world, Andres, though I was a long time finding it. And to you I owe my life.”

“To me, forsooth?”

“Aye,” said she, and took my hand again, warmly, more like a lover than like a nun. “For that you bought me out of slavery, and took me to dwell with you, and showed me how it is that decent Christian men do live their lives. That was my salvation, since otherwise I would have been a slave in America, and very likely long ago worked to death. And then you saved me a second time, when I had been thrown to the whore-market; and you nursed me, and recovered me into my health. I give thanks ever, that you were bestowed upon me by God.”

“And I have given thanks many times for you, Matamba.”

“Sister Isabel, am I now.”

“Pardon. Sister Isabel. But I have been mindful of our love, and the sweetness of it. Is it a blasphemy to think of such things now? Now that you are—”

“Nay,” she said. “It was true, and real. It need not be denied. I gloried in your embrace, Andres.”

“And I in yours.”

“And we had our time, and a fine time it was, and now we have moved on into other worlds, and so be it. What will you do now?”

“Return to England at long last.”

“Ah. When is that?”

“A few days, no more.”

“The Lord go with you, and speed your journey, and give you a happy return.”

“So pray I also, Sister Isabel.”

“You go alone?”

“I have two boys, slaves. I will ask them to accompany me, for I know not what will become of them here, and they are fond of me, and I of them.”

“There was a Portugal woman once—”

“Dona Teresa, yes. The Jaqqas slew her.” And I looked away of a sudden, for that terrible scene awoke in my mind, and I heard sounds and saw sights that I fain would not have had recalled to me.

In my anguish Sister Isabel did draw close beside me and say, “You loved her greatly, I know.”

“I will not deny that.”

“It does not matter. I know that you loved me, and you loved also her, and there was room in your heart for us both.” With a laugh that was almost girlish she said, “Do you remember, when she and I did fight like wild beasts, and claw and scratch each other naked for jealousy?”

“And how could I forget that?”

“Nor I. She was like a demon. But I gave her as good as I received. I think that woman was a witch, Andres, and I think she is suffering for that.”

“She prayed God for forgiveness, at the end, and she prayed sincerely. I was with her.”

“So long ago, Andres, so very long ago.”

“There were good times, then, when we were together.”

“There were. Without shame I tell you, I had great joy of your body.”

“And I of yours,” I told her. “Dare I say such things, with a holy sister?”

“In that time, it was rightful that we did what we did, and our joy was the measure of its rightfulness. I am so pleased, at seeing you this last time, and looking back upon all of those things with you.” There was a deep glow in her eyes, of remembrance of things past, that was altogether radiant. Then she stood to her feet. “Come. I have my duties, and I must not shirk them.”

“But a minute more with you,” said I.

“Of course.”

I looked toward her. A fantastic scheme then did blaze into being in my mind, that she should come back to England with me, and we live together—chastely, that is, she and I—in the renewal of the love we bore one another. For we were the only survivors of the past time, and it was pity that we should part, having found one another again at this latter day.

But that scheme, which for an instant did seem so valuable to me, decayed into absurdity the moment after, as I considered the madness of it, that I should set up housekeeping in England—chastely or no— with a black Catholic nun in that Protestant land. It could not be done. Nor was she likely, even for love of me, to follow me away from her devotions and her native continent. So I did swallow back the words even as they were rising in me, and said nothing, and only pressed my hand to hers in all of love.

Then said I at last, “Farewell, Matamba Sister Isabel.”

“Farewell, Andres. God’s love go with you. You know that mine own does.”

And she made with her lips the little shape of a kiss, that never was part of her lovemaking craft when we were lovers; and then she was gone from me, most serenely gliding toward the door of the church and into the bright blaze of sunlight without.

5

Soon after, a messenger from the governor came to me at my lodging, and said that the ship was ready, and that I should prepare myself to go. Which I could scarce believe, after having dreamed of this day so long. For when we dream too long upon a thing, the coming of it becomes indistinguishable from the dream, and loses the power to sustain. I thought I would weep for joy when the day came when they told me I could go; but the day had come, and I did not weep. Joy indeed I felt, but of a subdued sort; one does not weep for joy when one has rehearsed in one’s mind that very weeping. It must take one unawares, I do believe.

I gathered my few things, and my bit of gold, and walked one last time about the city of São Paulo de Loanda under the hot African sun. That sun was descending, and in the west a stain like blood lay upon the horizon, of terrible fine beauty. I felt a strange sorrow rising in me that I should be leaving this place, that I had so unwillingly entered. It had become my home, in these twenty years.

But England is ever the greater and truer home, no matter how wide we stray. And the ship was waiting, and I had no farewells to pay, having taken already my leave of Matamba, and Pinto Cabral being abroad on a slaving journey, and most everyone else of my African life being now in the next world: Dona Teresa, Don João, Serrão, Barbosa, Nicolau Cabral, Kinguri, and all those many others, save only, I think, the Imbe-Jaqqa Calandola, who would not die. And of him there was no leavetaking never: he rides forever in my soul, like a black fog that rises unbidden out of the depths by night.

The ship was a merchant-carrack of six hundred tons, the Santa Catalina, that was richly laden with a cargo of elephanto teeth and other such African treasure, with a mixed crew of Portugals and Spaniards. She was bound for Cadiz and then Lisbon, where I was assured of obtaining a passage to England. Her captain was a Pedro Teixeira, of great courtesy and kindness to me, who offered me a good cabin that gave me comfort. “You are old,” he said, “and they tell me you have given great service to Portugal, and I would have you sleep well of these nights.” Which was a statement that struck me deeply in two ways: for I did not inwardly comprehend that I had become old, nor would I say of myself that I had given great service to Portugal, that was my country’s enemy so long. Yet those two things were altogether true, whether I like it or like it not.

I took me only one of my blackamoor boys to accompany me, that was twelve years old; for he was greatly desirous of seeing England, but the other would not go at all, and begged to be sold in Angola, which I granted him. This boy that I took with me had no name whatever, he having forgotten it in his captivities, and I now gave him one, which was Francis, in honor of the great Drake.

On a March day of superb brilliance of the sun in Anno 1610 did we hoist our sails and make our way past the isle of Loanda and into the open sea. And I did turn, and look back at the baked earth and thick trees of Angola, and at the fortress of the city atop its hill, where I had lain prisoner. And it was as though all my life in Africa did pass in review before mine eyes at once, my warfares and my servitudes and my injuries, and my dealings with the Portugals and with the Jaqqas, and my wives and beloved women, and all of that, in one great flash that dizzied me and made me grasp at a spar to hold me upright. And a Spaniard sailor did leap toward me and say, “Lean on me, old man, and I will bear you safe.”

“I am not so old,” said I, pained to hear that word twice in the same hour, velho from the captain’s lips and viejo from the other, but the meaning being identical, and cutting identically deep. To which the boy smiled, for he was no more than three-and-twenty, and I old enough to be his father with some years to spare. In my own mind I was yet the golden-haired lad that had come out of England, but to his eyes, I fear, I seemed much parched by time, and whitened and shrunken. Well, and he smiled at me, but he did not laugh. And I said, “It was the rush of memory that unsteadied me, for I leave a land that I have dwelled in for a very great long while.”

“And are you loath to leave, father?”

“Nay,” said I, “I go home joyously.”

But yet I knew there was a mixture in my feelings on that score, all the same.

I stood a time longer, looking backward at the hills. And a cloud came and darkened the land, and I thought I saw the face of Imbe Calandola in the curvings and twistings of the great hill, and that he was calling out to me in his great deep voice, “Andubatil! Andubatil!” So I did turn my back on him, and all of Africa, and looked to the vast sun-sparkled blue-green breast of the ocean sea.

Our ship was heavy and slow, and the winds were wayward as winds always are; but yet we beat our way up the coast in steady order. I looked landward again, thinking as a pilot does, that this cape I know, and that, and over there must be Zaire mouth, and there Cabo de Palmar in the land of Loango, and there Kabinda, and so on and on. These names I did speak to the sailors, who had done little African service and were unfamiliar with those marks; and they, too, smiled at me, doubtless thinking me a foolish gaffer, but a good-hearted one.

But some did come to me and ask me my tales of Angola, and I told them a few, and shared with them some of my piloting knowledge that still was sharp in my mind. These were good sailors, men of valor and sufficiency, from youth bred up in business of the sea. I was uneasy at first being among so many Spaniards, they having been the enemies of my nation since I was a boy. But that war was ended, and these bore me no enmity. And why should they? Most had been only babes at the time of the Armada. They said that England and Spain were not only at peace but did do much trade with one another, and there was talk that the King of England’s son Charles might be married to a Spanish princess, which I found most marvelous to consider.

“What?” I said. “And do Drake and Ralegh swallow all this, and pay civil calls at the court of King Philip?”

But the names of Drake and Ralegh meant nothing to these lads; and it was from Captain Teixeira that I had the truth, which was that Drake was long dead, having died in ‘96 with John Hawkins on the Spanish Main of fevers, in some miscarried voyage; and Ralegh had fared little better, having been clapped into the Tower by this our King James in Anno 1603 on charges of treason, and being still prisoner there these seven years later. So I knew me that I was entering an England greatly altered, where old heroes were branded traitor and the Spanish lingo was heard in the chambers of our King. And that taught me much about the changes carved by the tooth of time.

We journeyed under a burning swollen sun into the high tropic lands, and to Guinea, and off the headland of Sierra Leona, and into the latitude of Cape Verde; and a few days thereafter we were directly under the Tropic of Cancer. On the next day we had sight of a ship to the windward of us, which proved to be a Frenchman privateer of ninety tons, who came with us as stoutly and as desperately as might be, and coming near us, perceived that we were a merchantship, and judged us to be weak and easily taken. The Frenchman then thought to have laid us aboard, and there stepped up some of his men in armor and commanded us to strike sail; whereupon, we sent them some of our stuff, crossbars and chainshot and arrows, so thick that it made the upper work of their ship fly about their ears, and we spoiled him with all his men, and tore his ship miserably with our great ordnance.

And then he began to fall astern of us, and to pack on his sails, and get away; and we, seeing that, gave him four or five good pieces more for his farewell; and thus we were rid of this Frenchman. Such are the hazards of the sea. In this hot action I took no part, being a mere passenger, and not needed. But it put me in mind of my young days, this being the most vigorous passage at sea I had witnessed since the Armada. Which I did remark to the sailors, and the young ones looked as empty-eyed at mention of the Armada as though I had been speaking of the Crusades! Well, and they will be fifty years of age one day also, those that are granted such good fortune. For no man be immune and exempt from the passage of time, however much he may think so when he be young.

Then sped we onward, and in an amazing short time we hove into the road of Cadiz. Here we unladed much of our cargo, and I went ashore, to say I had put foot in Spanish soil. There was some rain then, and the air was cold, and I did huddle close into myself, this temperate air being most intemperate to me, that had become thin-skinned from long African life. And afterward shipped we for Lisbon, where I lay two weeks in kinder weather, until I could board the English vessel Mary Christopher, that took me home.

This was a journey finally that went by so swiftly it seemed a dream; for one day I entered the ship, and—thus did I fancy it—the next was I in mine own land. But in sooth it did not quite occur that way, except that I took a fever and was raving for some few days; but I was restored fully to health. The captain’s name was Nicholas Kenning, and his pilot John Loxmith, and they looked upon me, as did their men, as though I were something most rare and fragile, for they knew I had long been abroad in African captivity. We took a merry wind for England and by the good blessing and providence of God brought ourselves by the twenty-seventh day of June in Anno 1610 to the sight of the Lizard, where we bore in under heavy wind, and the next day about nine of the clock in the morning we arrived safely in Plymouth, and praised God for our good landfall. Kenning and Loxmith were beside me as I came on deck, and the captain did say, “Well, and you are in England again.”

“I thought I would weep for joy at this sight, but look! Mine eyes are dry, for I can scarce believe I am here.”

“Be most assured, this is England.”

And as so he spoke, the sky that had been gray did release some rain upon us, by way of my welcome; and at that trick of fortune I laughed very heartily, which all of a sudden turned to tears, most copious ones. For indeed this was England and I was in it once again, and as I have said, tears come in unexpected ways: I who had looked dry-eyed into the harbor of Plymouth was surprised by joy in this rainfall.

I came forth onto the land and would not do anything for show, such as kneel down and kiss the earth, or the like. But I felt a quiet gladness that was deep and pure in every fiber of my being. For I was an Englishman in England again, after ever so trifling a side-journey of only one-and-twenty years.

Plymouth always is full of sailors fresh in from strange corners of the world, and so no celebrity was made upon me, for the which I was right grateful. I desired only to slip back into this land in quiet, and adapt me to its ways, that had become more strange to me now than those of Calicansamba and Mofarigosat. But it was not so easy. From a moneychanger I got me English money, and found the silver pieces showing King James’ face to be most very curious, though he did look kingly enough, with his sweeping mustachio and beard and heavy brow. I stepped into a tavern, and took a lodging for the night for me and the black boy Francis, that was all eyes, wild agog with wonder at this country. That night I dined on meat pie that to me had no savor at all, and was mere bland stuff without spice after the foods of Africa, and I drank some tankards of foamy beer, but I missed the heavy sweet taste of palm-wine. And in the chill of the night I thought I would perish, though I hid deep below my blankets, on my soft bed that seemed altogether oversoft.

And so on and so on: it was my first day, and I knew not England any more, but I was as Moses had said of himself, a stranger in a strange land.

There was another odd thing about my first impression of this new England. It seemed I had entered a smaller and a quieter time than was the one I left. In Elizabeth’s day all was bubbling and excitement, a great upheaving turmoil of life and vigor and earthy outspanning growth: and now, under James, I sensed right at the first that men trod more cautious, and looked often over their shoulders out of timidity, and spoke in less robust voices. Was it an illusion? I think not; for that first impression was confirmed by my succeeding days and weeks. A certain great moment of time has gone by, for England, and is but memory now. It is as though once the world was all fire and crystal, and now it is mere wool and smoke, and dull red sparks in the ashes. And I do regret that I was not here for some of that time of fire and crystal; but, by Jesu, at least I saw its borning and its early ripeness!

As ever, I swiftly accustomed me to my surroundings; and in a day or two, Plymouth seemed quite ordinary to me’again, not much altered from my memories of it, and its houses and lanes and carts and such all having the semblance of a proper town, though not very like the towns in which I had spent the last twenty years. I found me the captain of a fishing-skiff out of Essex who was going homeward, and hired him to take me as far as my village of Leigh, and in that afternoon we put to sea, under a brisk and loving wind. That captain did carry me to my native place without ever once asking me where I had been, nor how long absent: some English lack these curiosities, I suppose.

At last, then, did I step forward into those familiar streets of Leigh, that I had never abandoned hope of seeing again.

My wanderings were over. Even as wily Ulysses was I come home again; but there was a difference, for no faithful Penelope waited me here, nor good son Telemachus, nor trusty dog and herdsmen and the rest. In these lanes and byways of Leigh I was as lonesome as if I were trudging the avenues of ruddy Mars: though I knew this house and that one, and this grassy spot, and that stable, yet was there reflected from those places a sheer chill unknowingness, as if the whole town did say, What man are thou, old stranger, and why have you come upon us?

Yet were there quick amazements for me. My feet did take me along one lane and another, until, like one who drifts in dream, I found me standing before the house of my father, where I was born. There was an old woman, much bowed and shrunken, sweeping out the steps most vigorously with a broom, and when I paused there she looked up, with beady suspecting eyes, at me with my scarred and sun-blackened face, and at the Negro lad gape-mouthed beside me, as though we were both of us apparitions.

I said, “Be this the dwelling of Thomas James Battell?”

“It was, but he is dead these many years, and all his sons as well.”

“That good Thomas is dead, I know right truly,” said I. “But not all of his sons have perished.”

“Nay, and is it so?”

“So it is. For I am Andrew, that went forth from this place in ‘89.”

“Nay! It cannot be!”

“In good sooth, grandmother, so it is, and I am back from the wars in Africa where the Portugals took me, with this blackamoor child as my companion, and a bit of gold in my purse.”

She did squint and scry me this way and that, twisting her head and peering at every angle. And with a shake of her head she declared, “But Andrew was a fine strapping great lad, and you are bowed and bent!”

“Ah,” said I. “He was a man of thirty year when he went from here, which is no lad. And I am one-and-fifty, and time has used me hard. But I am Andrew Battell.”

“Aye, I think you are,” said she a little grudgingly.

“I swear it by my father’s beard!”

“Ah, then, you swear most strongly. Andrew Battell, come home again! So I do perceive, that you be he. But how is it that you are Andrew Battell, as you say, and you know me not?”

“Good my lady,” said I, thinking her to be some domestic of the house that once had been my father’s, “it has been so many years—”

“Indeed. And I did not know you at first, true. Yet you should have known me, since I am less changed by time than you.”

I gave her close scrutiny. Her cheeks were like the map of the world, all lines and notations. I thought of all the old women of Leigh that I could recall, and she was none of them; and then I thought of the younger women, those that might well be seventy or thereabouts now, the mothers of my friends; and then the truth broke through to me, and I was overcome with shame for my folly, that I had searched all about the barn, and had not gone straightaway to the essence of her identity.

“God’s blood! Mother Cecily!”

“Aye, child.” And she laughed and dropped her broom, and gathered me close, and we did embrace. For who was this, if not my father’s wife, that had raised me from a babe, and taught me my first reading, and walked with me by the Thames mouth to give me my early taste of the salt air? Without thinking had I taken it as granted that she was dead, since that so many years had passed; but she had been much my father’s younger, and must now be no more than six-and-sixty, or even less. Why then should she still not live, and in the same house?

When at last I released her, we stood back and looked at each other anew, and she said, “Once I held you at my breast. And now we are two old people together, more like brother and sister than mother and son. Oh, Andrew, Andrew, where have you been, what has befallen you?”

“It would take me twenty year more to tell it all,” said I.

We went within the house. It was all much the smaller with time than I remembered, and darker; yet was it familiar, and beloved. I had me a long look in silence, and stood before the portraits of my father Thomas and my mother Mary Martha, and bowed my head to them as a greeting, the father I had revered and the mother I had never known, and said, “I am come back, and I have done much, and I tell you, the blood of yours in my veins is good substantial blood, for which I am grateful.”

And then I remembered that I had the blood of the Jaqqa Kinguri in my veins as well, by solemn transfusing, and I turned away, confounded and shamed.

To Mother Cecily I poured out questions so fast she could scarce answer them, of this person and that, playfellows and schoolmasters and all, and some were dead and some were gone to London and some, she said, were still to be found in Leigh. Lastly I asked her the question that should have been first, save that I did not have the strength to confront it without long postponement:

“And tell me also, mother, about my betrothed of years ago, Anne Katherine. What became of her, and how did her life unfold, and did she ever speak of me? Where is she now?”

And I waited atremble in the long silence that was my stepmother’s reply to me.

Then at last she said, “Wait here, and have yourself a little ale, and I will return anon.”

So did I sit there in the kitchen of that ancient house, and my heart was racing and my lips were dry, and I did not dare to think, but sat as stiff as a carven statue. Long minutes went by, and the boy Francis wandered off, touching walls and floors in wonder, and putting his lips to the windows, and the like. Then did I hear footsteps on the stairs, and my stepmother came back into the house. And with her was such a miracle that I received it as a thunderbolt.

For she had brought Anne Katherine. And I mean not the wrinkled aged Anne Katherine I might expect to see in this Anno 1610, but the fair and golden maid of long ago, of no more than sixteen or seventeen year, or even younger, with hair like shining silk and bright blue eyes, and about her neck, resting on the sweet plump cushion of her breasts, was the pearl that looked like a blue tear, dangling from a beaded chain, that I had had of my brother Henry an age ago and had given as a gift to her, by way of betokening our betrothal.

I trembled and shrank back and threw up my hands, and cried out, “God’s death, woman, are you a sorcerer now?”

“Andrew—” cried my stepmother, afraid. “Andrew, what ails you?”

The girl, in fright at my wild outburst or perhaps at my rough looks, did back away most timidly, she who had been smiling a moment before.

“How can this be?” said I in a thick and fearful voice. “She is unchanged, in one-and-twenty years! What nganga-work is this, what wizardry?”

My stepmother, understanding now, came to me and said in a sharp short voice, “The sun has addled your wits, boy! D’ye take her for your Anne Katherine?”

“She is the very image.”

“That she is. But it’s folly to take the image for the reality. Girl, tell him your name.”

“Kate Elizabeth,” answered she in a tiny voice, but sweet.

“And your parentage?”

“The daughter of Richard Hooker and Anne Katherine Hooker, that was Anne Katherine Sawyer before.”

“Ah,” said I. “Her daughter! Now is it made clear! But you are just like her, Kate Elizabeth!”

“So it is often said. Only they tell me she was beautiful, and I think I am not so beautiful as she was.”

“Was?”

“Aye,” said the girl, “my mother is long dead.”

“Ah,” said I. I came a little closer to her, and looked, and said, “I thought you were her image, but it is not so. For you are even more fair than your mother, girl.”

Color blossomed in her cheeks, and she looked away. But she was smiling. And excited, for her breasts did rise and fall most swiftly beneath her frock, as I could not help but see.

“And when did your mother die?” I asked.

“It was seven years Michaelmas.”

“I will visit her grave. You know, that she and I were once betrothed?”

“I heard tell, there was that sailor she loved, that went to America apirating.”

“I was that sailor.”

“Yes,” she said. “That I know.” Her shyness and her fear of me were melting swiftly. She touched the pearl and said, “My mother often spoke of you, when I was a child. She said you gave her this, and promised to come back from the Spanish Main with caskets of doubloons, but that you were lost at sea, and perished in some raid against the Brazils.”

“Ah. So it was reported, eh?”

“She would not believe it, when they said you were dead. She waited long for you, looking toward the sea, hoping you would come in from Plymouth some afternoon.”

“This is true, Andrew,” said my stepmother Cecily. “Every day did she go down to the water, and look, and pray. And she was urged to marry, but she said she would not. Until at last it was certain you must be dead, and then she did at last bestow herself to Richard Hooker, the lawyer’s son.”

“I think I recall him. A dark-haired man, very brawny, with a gleaming good smile?”

“Aye, that was he!” cried the girl.

“I trust he cherished her well, then.”

“Aye, he was a most loving husband. And he gave her two sons and a daughter, and then she died, and he was sore bereft. Which I think led to his too early death as well.”

“Then he is also gone. I see.”

“These three years past.”

“How old are you, girl?”

“Fifteen, sir.”

“Fifteen. Aye. And you keep the household yourself, as the eldest?”

“That I do,” said she.

Fifteen. Well, and then Anne Katherine must have waited three or four years in hope of me, and then had yielded to Hooker’s suit in ‘92 or ‘93, if this girl had been born by ‘95. So I did calculate. Well, and that was as good a display of love as anyone need make, to wait those many years. And I was not grieved that she had married at last, for had I not done the like, with my Kulachinga and my Inizanda, and also my Matamba and my Dona Teresa, that never were my wives, but might just as well have been?

I said, “This gives me great pleasure, to see that my Anne Katherine is reborn in you, with all her grace and beauty unaltered, or perhaps enhanced.”

“You are very kind, sir.”

My stepmother said, “Kate, have the goodness to go outside a moment, will you, girl?”

She curtseyed and departed; and when she was gone, Mother Cecily did say, “It is almost like sorcery, is it not, Andrew? She is Anne Katherine come again, indeed. I comprehend now why you looked so amazed when I fetched her.”

“Aye. The same age, even, as when first I fell in love with her mother.”

“She is fatherless, and bears the toll of keeping her house.”

“So she just has said, aye.”

“And you are far from young, and newly returned from great adventures, and I think would settle down and spend your years quietly.”

“So I would, Mother Cecily.”

“Well, then—”

I looked to her in utter amaze. “What are you saying?”

“Is it not plain?”

“That I am to take her as wife?”

“Ah, you are slow, Andrew, but you do find the answer in time.”

I scarce believed mine ears. She was altogether serious. I blinked and gaped, and imagined myself in the marriage bed with that girl, the old leathery hide of me rubbing against her tender bare skin, and my hand that had groped so many strange places probing her maiden fleece, and my yard that had warmed itself by Jaqqa loins and so many others gliding into her tender harbor—aye, it was tempting, but it was also monstrous, was it not, such a mating of April and November! I played the idea in my mind as I had played the bringing of the nun Sister Isabel to England, and found it just as impossible. And shook my head, and turned to my stepmother, and said softly, “She is not Anne Katherine. And I am not the Andy Battell of five-and-twenty years ago, that gave Anne Katherine that pearl. I do love this child, but not as my wife, Mother Cecily. I could not ask that of her.”

“I told her you might ask it, when I went to fetch her.”

“You did?”

“She is of an age, almost. You would be husband and father to her at once. I thought it was a good match.”

“And did she?”

“So I believe. Though you dismayed her a little, with your wild hair and beard, and that cry you made, when she came in. But you were taken then by surprise; and the hair can be trimmed.”

“Nay,” I said. “It is beyond thinking.”

“She would do it.”

“So I know. But I could not. It would not fit my sense of the Tightness of things. But I have a different idea. Summon her back, Mother Cecily.”

Which she did, and the girl came into the room, and I saw the fear still in her eyes; for I knew she would marry me if I asked, since she needed a man’s protection, but that she did not greatly crave so old and worn and rough a seafarer as I.

I said, “Kate, I have come home to live, and I am weary by my adventures, and I would not live alone. Will you dwell with me, and be my daughter?”

“Your—daughter?”

“Aye. The child I might have had by Anne Katherine, had fate treated us another way. For I have no one else, save old Mother Cecily and this black boy my servant. And this world of England now is greatly strange to me. So we can aid one another, you and I, in facing the mysteries ahead, for that I have some hard-won wisdom, and you have youth and vigor. If you share my house we can share our efforts and our strengths. Shall we?”

“Your daughter,” she said in wonder.

“Stepdaughter, let us say. I will adopt you as mine own. Will it be thus, Kate Elizabeth?”

“Aye,” she said. “Aye, let us do that, for I like it very much!”

And her eyes did glow with happiness, as much, I trow, of relief as of joy.

6

Thus have we lived, these three years past, in the old house of the Battells: Kate Elizabeth in her bedroom and I in mine, and Mother Cecily in her own, until death came for her last Easter quietly in her sleep. Kate Elizabeth cares for me, and I for her, and we both for her two young brothers and my blackamoor Francis, who serves us well. And to the world we are father and daughter, and so shall we be until some swain comes and takes her from me. Which I suppose will be any month now, so much courting does she do.

I wonder often whether I should have wed her when I could. For she is warm and beautiful and loving, and would have gladdened my bed greatly; and I am not yet entirely without lust, for once I did see Kate Elizabeth by chance at her bath, and the sight of her breasts and thighs and golden loins did awaken in me a desire so fierce as to wring tears from me; but it was quickly enough quelled. She knows nothing of that, nor will she ever.

I have occupied myself in these years by setting down this my memoir of all that befell me. It is a great long tale, I know, but for that I make no apology, since much befell me, and I would record it complete. Not that I am anything unusual in myself, only a simple and fortunate man, honorable enough to win God’s grace, and sturdy enough to have endured mine adversities. But where I have been and what I have seen are not unimportant, and I would make record of it, just as other travelers of the past have made their records, from Marco Polo of Venice onward.

For I do have a vision of a new world of England overseas, and I hope to advocate it with my words in a way that will leave an imprint. This is a very small island, and it has little wealth of its own, only some sheep and some grass and some trees, and the like. But we are English, which means we have an inner strength that has not been given to most other folk, and I believe that we should go forth upon the world, and shape it to our pattern, and put it to our increase and the general good.

It is not a new idea. When that I was a little lad I heard Francis Willoughby saying to my father that the time had come for us English to be scattered upon the earth like seeds: or thrown like coins, he also said, bright glittering coins. That is a prettier image, but I like his one of seeds better, for seeds do in time have great growth into mighty oaks. Well, and many of us have been truly scattered upon the earth: but it is time to think what the deeper purpose of that scattering is to be. The present way of England, in pirating and such, is futile. We cannot grow great by stealing the wealth of others. Nor can we merely go into tropic lands and and take from the people there the treasures they have. We must settle, and plant ourselves, and build; and we must create an empire that sinks deep roots everywhere, like the most lofty of trees. For in that way will we achieve the greatness that is marked and destined in our blood.

The Portugals have done a fine thing by opening Africa, by the efforts of their valorous explorers of more than an hundred years ago. But they have opened only its edge, with their ports widely spaced, and have made no successful ventures to the inland.

I think the Portugals could be displaced with ease—or, better, peacefully contained and overmastered—if we were to move from the Cape of Bona Speranza upward, and through the interior. Then the wealth of Africa would be ours: not its slaves, nor its elephanto teeth, but the truer richness of its farmland and its pasture. We could build a second England in that wondrous fertility, an England fifty times as grand as ours.

And if we went among the blacks not as tyrants and overlords but as elder brothers, giving them our wisdom and forcing nothing upon them, I think we might incorporate them into our commonwealth as partners, rather than slaves. This is a most bold and strange idea: but I do know those people, more closely than anyone else of England, and I tell you it could be done, if only we grasp the nettle now, and seize our moment. For in another fifty years it will be too late; the Portugals and Dutch and French will have sliced Africa amongst themselves, and they will destroy it, as in the New World so much has been destroyed already by the coming of greedy men of Europe.

So that is my vision. Of course, there is another vision as well, which I may not forget, and that is the vision of the Imbe-Jaqqa Lord Calandola.

That dark being comes to me yet, in my sleep or sometimes even as I sit by the fire, drowsing over my ale. He visited himself upon me just a week before, turning solid out of a pillar of smoke, in the way of magic, and filling my sight, that enormous hulking mass of power, black as night, shining with the evil grease on which he dotes.

“Andubatil?” he said, in that voice deep as the deepest viol.

“Aye, Lord Imbe-Jaqqa!”

“Are you comfortable, there in England? Look, the white snow falls outside. Do you not freeze?”

“I am inside, Lord Calandola.”

“Come back. Come and join me, and bring a hundred English of your quality, and many muskets. For we will soon march. The world cries out for destroying.”

“I have no taste for destroying, Lord Calandola.”

“Ah, Andubatil, Andubati! I thought you were one of us! I thought you had adopted my wisdom. Look ye, you dream of building great empires as you sit there dozing: that I know. But it is altogether wrong, Andubatil! Tear down! Build nothing! Make pure the earth! The great mother is stained and defaced by all this building. Can you not hear her weeping? By my mokisso, it is loud as thunder in my hearing! I still see my task, and I yearn to complete it.”

“I think you will not succeed, O mighty Imbe-Jaqqa!”

He laughed then his diabolic laugh, and said, “I sometimes fear you may be right, Andubatil. There is not time, there is not strength enough. I have had defeats, and they have wasted years for me. But I will persevere at it. It would have been easier, had you been loyal, and not betrayed me. But I do forgive you. Did not your Lord Jesus know betrayal, and forgive his Judas?”

“You are not content with being Satan, you must be Jesus as well, O Imbe-Jaqqa?”

“I am the world and all it contains,” said the Lord of Darkness unto me. “I grant you forgiveness, and I call you back to my side, and we will be brothers, you and I, the white Jaqqa and the black.”

“Nay, Calandola. That is all over for me.”

“Is it, then? But there is Jaqqa in you. There is Jaqqa in every man, Andubatil, that I know: but especially is there Jaqqa in you. It is a part of you and you can never escape it.”

“But I can resist it, Lord Calandola. That is my pride: that I do resist the Jaqqa within my soul, and put him down, and triumph over him. Go, Lord Calandola, let me be: I am old, I have no wish left to wage war, and I have defeated you within my heart.”

“Ah, and is it so?” It is so.

“Very well,” said he. “I will go on alone. And if I have not time enough for my task, why, there will be other Imbe-Jaqqas after me. I know not who they are, and peradventure they will be Jaqqas with white skins, born in your Europe, or in lands yet unknown. But they will rise, and come forth, these kings of the sword, and they will complete my work, and sweep away that thing which is known as civilization, and then will the earth be happy again. That I do foretell, O Andubatil. That I see quite clear. And now farewell: but I think I will return to you again.”

And he did turn once more to black fog, and was gone, and I sat alone with my tankard.

I pray he be wrong in his vision.

Yet with a part of my soul, that is perverse and mysterious to mine understanding, I do almost welcome such a sweeping away. It would be like unto the flood of Noah, ridding the world of evil. You see, do you not, how intricate I am, that talks in one breath of building empires, and in another of purging them? But you know from the tale of this my long adventure that I am a man of opposites, and great inner differences. I would not have the world despoiled; and yet I see the strange beauty of the Imbe-Jaqqa’s dream. And if the end is to come, and he is to have his way, why, perhaps it will be for the best, since that it would give us a new beginning, if only the best of us survive and endure and prevail, to build again. For so the eternal cycle goes, from building to destroying to building again.

But it will all happen without me. I sit here and write, and dream on far lands, and grow old, and the world moves about me. They say Walter Ralegh will lose his head, for having given offense to Spain by going to search for the land of El Dorado. God’s death, but his fate rings strange in mine ears! And I can hear what Queen Bess would say, if she knew that her Ralegh would be chopped for being overly unkind to Spain. But this is a new time, and it is not much like her time, nor Ralegh’s, nor mine. I do write my book, only, and think, and sometimes shake my head.

My sweet Kate Elizabeth has brought a man to see me, a little dreary pedantic man named Samuel Purchas, who is the vicar in Eastwood, that is two miles from Leigh. This Purchas is a dry and pious fellow, forty or fifty years of age, that has his degree in divinity out of Cambridge, and pretends to scholarship. He has inherited the papers of Master Richard Hakluyt, that compiled so great a volume of the travels of the famed voyagers, and this Purchas means to put together a new work, even larger.

Now, I have read the Hakluyt books, and a great epic they are, the work of a supreme compiler; and I do not think this Purchas can fashion their equal, for though he is industrious he also seems haphazard and hasty of ambition. He talks of “abridging the tedious” from his narratives, by which I think he means to take out all the details of routes and pilotage, and leave only the wonders and marvels. Master Hakluyt was wiser. But Master Hakluyt is dead, and Purchas is our only hope for bringing our tales to print. I have talked several times with him, he pumping me thoroughly about my adventure, and taking copious notes. He will write about me, and tell the world where I have been and what I have done. God grant he get it true.

And he will take my big book and slice it down, to put it in his collection of voyages, and I think he will mangle my words into some silly garboil, and put everything out of order, for that seems to be his way; but I pray that he will not. I know these scholars, that take a man’s book and change it all around, so it bears no more resemblance to what he has written than a discarded greatcoat does to the earl who wore it. But we shall see. I will not see, for I think I will not much longer be here; but perhaps my words will outlast me. And if not, why, it may not matter, if the Imbe-Jaqqa Calandola has its way, and all this our world is swept to oblivion under the tide of destruction.

That my time is close gives me no dismay. I have fared far, and seen much, and done my best. I went forth, as England and Her Majesty required of the men of my day, and I was sown upon the earth like good English seed: and, God willing, I shall have left some crop behind me, and some increase of the realm. I am reminded now of some words of Marcus Aurelius, that are much like other words that I heard in Africa near the end, from the old ndundu-wizard that said I had made my voyage and come to rest, and all was well within me. For what Marcus wrote is near the same: “Thou hast embarked, thou hast made the voyage, thou art come to shore; get thee out.”

So I will do, when I am called.

Almighty God, I thank Thee for my deliverance from the dark land of Africa. Yet am I grateful for all that Thou hast shown me in that land, even for the pain Thou hast inflicted upon me for my deeper instruction. And I thank Thee also for sparing me from the wrath of the Portugals who enslaved me, and from the other foes, black of skin and blacker of soul, with whom I contended. And I give thanks, too, that Thou let me taste the delight of strange loves in a strange place, so that in these my latter years I may look back with pleasure upon pleasures few Englishmen have known. But most of all I thank Thee for showing me the face of evil and bringing me away whole, and joyous, and unshaken in my love of Thee. This is the book of Andrew Battell of Leigh in Essex, that went voyaging on the Spanish Main in Anno 1589 and was carried to many another place before he found safe harbor. It is offered to Thee, to whom be all glory, and praise everlastingly, world without end: Amen.