The Call of Zulina (27 page)

“I, too, made a choice,” Pieter said. “I am pleased to inform you that those poor wretches now have a fighting chance to also be slaves to no man—and to no woman.”

“You made a foolish choice,” Lingongo replied flatly. “One of those poor wretches betrayed you. All I had to do was promise free passage out when the rest are killed.”

“You are wrong. I made a wise choice,” Pieter replied. “Eight of them did not betray me. And those eight will fight all the more bravely because I gave them what they needed most. I gave them hope.”

J
ust after Antonio closed the opening, while Gamka and Cabeto heaved the heavy pot of beans over to the corner and Ikem complained that no one got him a lion's tail to use as a proper good-luck war charm, the first sounds of trouble echoed up from below. Antonio had started to explain that white men had no lions’ tails because they didn’t use them, but his words were cut short by sudden scuffles pierced with cries. Antonio sprang into action.

“Water barrels … ammunition crates … push them in front of the door!” he commanded.

Stacked together, those barrels and crates formed a sturdy blockade. Tungo and Gamka took up defensive positions, muskets tamped and ready to fire, just in case anyone should climb up the tunnel and attempt to force through.

Horrible screams had followed—something beyond the usual fortress distress—something less distinguishable, but equally unsettling and ominous.

“Lingongo!” Grace cried in alarm. “It's her! I know it is! Oh, she must have caught the Dutchman!”

While Lingongo stood over Pieter DeGroote down below and lashed him with her whip, up in the dungeon the captives caught their collective breath in a gasp of pure horror.

Antonio lurched backward as though he had been punched in the stomach.
“iComo puede saber?”
he demanded. “How could she know? The Dutchman was always
muy
careful when he came in and out of the tunnel. How could the lioness know?”

“You underestimate my mother,” Grace said in a voice hushed with grudging respect. “She is not easy to fool. The admiral talks and yells and boasts and threatens, but Lingongo, she is the one to fear.”

Not an hour later, the pounding began.

The boy Hola looked up at Safya. “Maybe it's the Dutchman coming back?” he asked, his small voice quivering with hope.

“Hush,” Safya told him a bit too roughly. “It is not the Dutchman. It is her. The lioness is sealing us in.” Instinctively, Safya reached for Hola and pulled him close. The boy didn’t resist.

Since Safya and Oyo were in charge of provisions, Cabeto said to them, “We must watch our rations, both of food and of water.” There was no need to say more.

“Come,” Ikem called to the group of older men he had assembled. In his pile of armaments were the five knives Pieter DeGroot had delivered through the tunnel. Then Ikem went over to Hola and grasped the boy by the shoulders. “You also,” he said. “Come now. It is time you learn the way men of Africa make war. Come and see boys become men. We teach you the way our fathers taught us, the way our grandfathers taught our fathers.”

Safya gasped and clutched the boy more tightly. But when she looked up at Ikem, respect flooded her eyes, and she slowly released her grip. Without a word Hola got to his feet and followed Ikem and his men. Single file, they climbed to the open grate and out through the broken door.

There was no time to spare.

“Sunba! Tungo!” Cabeto called. “Have you set men to guard the doors to the outside?”

“Yes, Brother,” Sunba answered. “Men armed with muskets and plenty of gunpowder.”

An unexpected rush of tears flooded Grace's eyes. In Cabeto's powerful black face, in his gentle voice that knew how to be strong and challenge others to strength, she saw a reflection of Yao's determination. Oh, how long ago and far away Yao's words seemed! Where was he now? If only he could be here to see the birth of a new hope. If only he could join the fight for freedom!

“… three cells and one dungeon,” Cabeto was saying. “Tungo, Gamka, Antonio—each of you will oversee one cell. Choose between you who will take which one. Sunba, you will oversee the dungeon. Ikem, it will be for you and your men to guard the corridor.”

Tungo swaggered forward. “And you, Cabeto?” he called out with a touch of sarcasm. “What is it that you will be doing?”

Cabeto stepped forward to meet the challenge. “I will oversee the fight, my friend,” he said in an even voice. “I will make certain we all work together. As the wise ones say: when spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion. Those are good words for us, for alone we are but single strands, and we have a lioness to defeat.”

Although Cabeto's words were controlled, an unmistakable blade of authority cut through his voice and gave his words a razor edge.

Tungo frowned and swaggered, but he said no more.

“Tungo,” Cabeto called out, “you assign each person to one of the four rooms, and give each a job to attend to when the fight starts. Sunba, it is up to you to guard the guns. You decide who will use them and when. Antonio, you take charge of the gunpowder, balls, and wadding. All the munitions are your responsibility.”

“The lioness is nothing to us!” Tungo yelled, waving his musket wildly.

“You are wrong,” Grace said gravely. “To underestimate her is a great mistake. Lingongo is always something. Cabeto does well to plan and prepare.”

Tungo glowered at her, turned his back, and stalked away. Bent over the case of guns, Sunba pulled one out and held it up, and then carefully laid it aside. One by one, he unpacked the others and also stacked them along the wall. Antonio and Gamka moved off to begin their preparations too.

Grace turned to Cabeto and pressed, “What of me? What is my job?”

“I will not ask you to fight your own mother,” Cabeto said. Grace turned away and fixed her attention on the activity that buzzed all around her. But she didn’t move away, and neither did he. After a few minutes, she turned back and searched Cabeto's face.

“When I was very young, herds of elephants occasionally trampled the grasslands outside our compound,” she said softly. “They stripped so many young saplings that nothing remained but bare limbs. Those elephants uprooted entire trees. Everything in their path, they destroyed. But the elephants never grazed near villages. My mother would tell me, ‘I am stronger than those elephants, Grace, because I would not spare the villages. I would trample them first because that is where the grass is the most tender, and because no one would expect to find me there.’”

Cabeto watched Grace, his expression unchanged. When she paused, he waited in silence for her to continue.

“It is a great mistake to think my mother will show mercy because I am here,” she said.

“But your father—”

“No,” Grace said. “I am a disappointment to the slave trader. He could not make me white, and I failed to make him rich and respected.”

Tungo's men reluctantly gave up their guard positions at the opening that now led nowhere. Impatiently, Tungo paced back and forth, back and forth. The endless hammering jangled his nerves. Suddenly, he sprang to the door and slid it open.

“Alto!”
Antonio called out in warning. “Stop!”

Tungo never glanced in Antonio's direction. He forced his way past the others, thrust his head into the tunnel, and bellowed, “Thank you, Lioness! You do our work for us! You keep your murderers out of our fortress!”

Cabeto grabbed Tungo, and with one blow of his fist he knocked him flat. Sunba dropped the musket he had just lifted out of the crate and dove into the fray. With one quick move, he pinned Tungo to the floor.

“You will die, Killer Lioness!” Tungo screamed as he struggled and kicked. “My hands will squeeze the last breath from your throat! With your own blood, you will pay for the blood of my people!”

The hammering stopped. And from the far end of the tunnel, Lingongo's answer echoed back.

“You want a contest between you and me, little man? Then you will have your contest.”

With a leap, Grace raced past Tungo, whom Sunba still held pinned to the floor. Without the least hesitation, she rushed through the open doorway and plunged into the dark tunnel. Half running and half sliding, she charged blindly downward until she ran up against the planks nailed across the opening. Her face flooded with tears, Grace slammed against the barrier and screamed, “Mother! It doesn’t have to be like this! You don’t have to kill everyone!”

“Never again call me ‘Mother,’” Lingongo declared in an icy voice that chilled Grace's soul. “If it will ease your mind, not
everyone
will die—but you will. And now that you finally have friends, so will they.” She paused a moment. “You have squeezed from me the last drops of pride and honor. On my word, Grace Winslow, not one person who is important to you will leave Zulina alive.”

G
race stirred from a restless sleep and opened her eyes to the first beam of dawn. Instantly, she was alert and on guard. Something was wrong.

Long ago—back in another life, it seemed—Grace had learned to be wary of fears that crept up and attacked in the dark of night. Back then, she blamed it on the cries that wafted in on the howling wind to stalk the darkness and haunt her dreams. But now the harmattan winds couldn’t be to blame. Now the sounds of anguish and terror came from inside the stone walls, and they never stopped. It was the cries of men and women on her left and on her right, in front of her and behind, all of them forced to endure yet another sweaty night crowded together on the stone floor.

As Grace lay still, Safya shifted uneasily next to her and cried out in her sleep for Hola. But Hola wasn’t there. He had taken to sleeping with Ikem and the old men.

Oyo felt Safya push against her, too, then groan and pull away.

As Grace's apprehension grew, her body tensed. Menace floated heavy in the air. She forced herself not to tremble. Slowly, she sat upright. A few people had begun to stir, but most were still asleep, bunched together in small groups. Grace slipped her hand along the floor until she felt the musket she had tucked up close. She clutched it and moved into a crouched position. Grace crawled on her hands and knees along the crowded floor, picking her way over to where Cabeto lay with the other men.

Cabeto's eyes were wide open, watching Grace. “You feel it too?” Cabeto's mouth hardly moved as he spoke, and his voice was barely perceptible. He more breathed the words than spoke them.

Grace nodded.

Smoothly and silently, Cabeto eased onto his haunches and slipped his hand over his own musket. Just at that moment an explosion ripped through the walls, rocking the dungeon. Chunks of stone broke loose and rained down on the sleeping people. Men, women, and children jumped up and screamed in terror. In their panic, they ran into each other.

“Stay low!” Cabeto ordered in a hoarse whisper.

A blast of musket fire roared through the sagging grate, and the dungeon immediately flooded with smoke. A new wave of terror swept over the already panic-stricken Africans. Their dreadful shrieks ripped the darkness. People clawed over each other in a desperate attempt to get to the stairs.

As the smoke cleared, Grace saw two newly freed captives dead on the floor. Several other captives cried out that they were injured. When a panicked woman next to Grace started to shriek, a wild-eyed man behind her covered his ears and begged her to stop. But her cries only grew louder and more shrill. So the frantic man grabbed a chunk of rock and hit her over the head. The woman sank to her knees and fell to the floor, silent.

The first guard of attackers—a strange assortment of white men—immediately prepared their muskets to fire again, but Cabeto and Grace were ready. Their shots rang out
—
Cabeto first, then Grace
—
and two white men Grace had never seen before fell to the floor. The attackers stopped short. In blind puzzlement, they stared into the smoke-filled dungeon.

“Who be shootin’ back at us?” one mumbled. “No resistance is wot Winslow told us. No weapons in ’ere, he said.”

Hurriedly, Antonio and Sunba rammed charges into their muskets. Tungo and Gamka scrambled for their weapons.