The Call of Zulina (34 page)

“It is good to see that you still live,
mi amigo
,” Antonio said.

And yet, this apparition certainly looked and sounded real. Pieter opened his mouth, and then he shut it. Again he opened it, but all he could think of to say was, “Lingongo. Is she here?”

“
No, señor
,” Antonio said with a grin. “Only me … and I brought this.” He held up a ring of keys. Only then did Pieter allow himself to attempt a crooked smile … and release a spark of hope.

First, Antonio loosened the bonds that secured Pieter's swollen wrists. Henry Taylor had done his job well. Then Antonio slipped in the key and removed the manacles Lingongo had clamped on his lanky legs, now worn raw. His arms, weak from the beatings and his captivity, fell useless at his sides. Antonio gently took the Dutchman's right arm, and ever so slowly and carefully he moved it up and down and all around. At each movement, Pieter cried out in pain. Antonio took his left arm, and he did the same thing. But this time, Pieter's cries mixed with shouts of joy. His laughter boomed out loud. It was like being reborn!

“What happened?” Pieter asked.

“Mucho, mi amigo,”
Antonio said. “Too much to tell you now. I will leave it to others to explain.”

He lifted Pieter's legs and began to move them, first the left one and then the right.

“I heard such tremendous explosions that I thought the fortress would fall down,” Pieter said. “It sounded like a cannon attack.”

“Sí,”
Antonio acknowledged. “And fire,
también.
And gunpowder. You can thank God the lioness left you in this far place, or you would not be alive.”

Antonio helped Pieter to his feet. When Pieter's legs crumpled beneath him, Antonio asked, “Can you walk?”

“Yes,” Pieter said. “Oh, yes! Just give me a minute.”

“Señor,”
Antonio said, “you can wait here or you can come with me. There is another I must set free.
Uno más.”

“I’ll come with you!” Pieter said without a moment's hesitation. “I don’t want to spend one more second of my life in this hole.”

At first it was all Pieter could do to hobble painfully along. Although Antonio took great care to walk slowly, Pieter struggled to keep up with him. But after several minutes, Pieter's wobbly legs reaccustomed to holding him up, and then they remembered how to move him forward. With each new step, his walking became easier and easier, and steadier and steadier.

Halfway down the corridor, Antonio stopped abruptly. It wasn’t until he pushed his key into what appeared to be nothing more than a cracked stone that Pieter noticed a tiny cell recessed into the wall. One twist of the key, then a shove, and a hidden door scraped open.

In the tiny cell, a single man sat propped up against the far wall. He was secured only by a chain attached to a manacle bolted around his neck and locked to a stud in the wall. The man stared blankly at Antonio and Pieter. Reaching out to them, he struggled to get to his feet.

“Yao,” Antonio said. “
Su amiga
Grace sends you greetings.”

Yao opened his mouth, but so starved was he for water that when he tried to form words, little came out but a strained croak. In the far corner—too far for Yao to reach—stood a bucket of stagnant water and a filthy cup. Pieter grabbed the cup, dipped it in the bucket, and brought it to Yao. Yao snatched the cup and gulped greedily.

Antonio loosened the shackle on Yao's neck. “Come along! Follow us!” he urged. “Many others in here are also newly freed. Soon no more slaves will be shackled in Zulina.”

No longer was the hallway quiet. With both Grace and Antonio gone, others had also started to venture forth from the stuffy storeroom. Now almost everyone had left. Many wandered around the passageways. A few had gone off in search of loved ones, but most headed back toward the sunny corner room.

Antonio put his hand on Pieter's shoulder. “Now I will say
adiós, señor
,” he said.

“Adiós?”
Pieter looked at him in confusion. “Why do you say good-bye? I’m coming with you, Antonio.”

“Not
adiós
to you,
señor
.
Adiós
from me,” Antonio said. “I shall leave you. Capitán Carrillo sets sail tonight with the tides, and he offered to take me back on the ship as a crewman. Not as a slave,
no
. But as a free man.”

“Do the others know this?” Pieter asked.

“No,” Antonio said. “They would think me a traitor to sail with a white man who fought alongside our enemies. But I don’t belong in Africa,
señor
. My father and all his ancestors before him were born here, but I am a stranger to this land. I do not understand the African tongues, and I do not know the African ways. I have no one here and no place to go. All I know is the white man's world.”

“Antonio,” Pieter asked, “how can you be sure you will truly be free?”

Antonio's dark eyes clouded. “No black man can ever be sure of the truth of a white man's words.
[No?”

“Perhaps you should—”

“But I will go with him anyway,” Antonio said, “because I have no choice. And I will pray to God for protection.” Antonio grasped Pieter firmly by the hand and said,
“Gracias, señor
, for all you did for us.
Muchas gracias, mi amigo”

Antonio handed Pieter the ring of keys. “Here,” he said. “For all the cells, and all the chains and locks inside—for anyone who remains a slave.”

Antonio turned and walked down the passageway toward the sea. Toward the door of no return.

“iVaya con Dios!”
Pieter called after him. “Go with God, my friend!”

Antonio did not look back.

“O
thers ’ll come fer us, they will,” Joseph said to his wife. “They'll undo these chains an'—”

“No one will come,” Lingongo snapped. “Everyone has fled this disaster.”

“Them cannons is still out there, Woman, standin’ ready fer the other white men to use. When Stevens and the Spaniard come—”

“Joseph! Can you understand nothing?” Lingongo cried in exasperation. “The white men have left! The last few were willing to fight as long as my father's warriors stayed between them and the rebels. But when Obei turned the warriors against us and they refused to hunt down the rebels—when they turned on us
—
then your brave white men turned and ran like the cowards they are!”

“But they will—”

“They will do nothing!” said Lingongo. “They do not care about you, Joseph. They do not care what happens to Zulina. All they care about is their own hold of slaves.”

“Yer father, then,” Joseph said hopefully. “’E will send more warriors to fight again’ them wot turned traitors—”

“No! He will not. My father does not send his warriors out to fight on the side of those who lose wars. If we are to get out of this place alive, we have to do it ourselves.”

“An’ jist ’ow are we to do that?” demanded Joseph with rising impatience. “Looks to me like ye is ever bit as chained up as I is.”

“By thinking,” Lingongo said. “By being smarter than slaves.” Chained wrist and ankle, husband and wife sat together in one corner of a room guarded by a couple of African men they had never seen before. The men spoke no English. Lingongo knew this by the blank stares she and Joseph got from the guards as she talked openly to him in English.

Lingongo, dirty and disheveled, slumped back in the corner and gazed up into the faces of the men who held their guns at the ready. She sighed deeply, and in the language of her father she said, “Am I the only daughter of Africa still held as a slave in this fortress?”

The guards stared blankly at her. They glanced at each other and shook their heads in confusion.

“We do not understand your talk,” the shorter one answered in Tungo's tongue.

In the man's own language, Lingongo asked again, “Am I the only daughter of Africa still held as a slave in this fortress?”

“You are not a slave,” the short man answered. “You are a prisoner.”

“A prisoner?” Lingongo asked, her eyes wide and her face stricken with fright. “How can that be? This white man … ,” here she looked at Joseph, “this slave trader who looks at us Africans and sees only gold, he dragged me here in chains. Why am I now a prisoner of my own people?”

The short man paused and looked questioningly at the tall man. The tall man shrugged. “Tungo says she is a prisoner,” the tall man said in answer to the short one's unspoken question.

“You are a prisoner,” the short man repeated.

Joseph looked from one to the other, unable to comprehend a single word. “What ye sayin’ to ’em?” he demanded of Lingongo.

“They say you are a coward because you let a woman fight your battles,” Lingongo told him. “I tried to defend your honor.”

Strange
, Joseph thought.
Lingongo's cowering tone didn’t fit her words. And, anyway, if the guards were to say such a thing, why wouldn’t she join in the attack? That's what she usually did
.

“They say if you had the courage to fight for yourself, they would respect you and let you go,” Lingongo added.

Well
, Joseph thought,
perhaps it did make some sense after all. A man should act like a man
. So he jumped to his feet. But since the chain that bound him to Lingongo was wrapped tightly around both of them, his quick action immediately jerked her arms painfully to one side and up over her head. Joseph didn’t even notice.

“Ye bloody ’eathen devils!” he bellowed to the guards. “I’ll show ye I ain’t no coward!”

Lingongo whimpered pitifully, and a look of pained terror washed over her face. Joseph, who did his best to assume an appropriate fighting stance despite the restriction of chains, paid her not the least notice.

“Ye wants a fight, does ye?” he challenged the guards. “Jist loosen me chains and give me a chance. I’ll show ye wot I kin do!”

The guards jumped to their feet and both pointed their muskets at Joseph.

“Put down ’em guns and gi’ me a chance at a fair fight!” Joseph ordered belligerently. “I’ll give both o’ ye a good throttlin’, I will! One ye ain’t soon to fergit, neither!”

The guards looked questioningly from Joseph to Lingongo.

“He said he will kill me, and then he will kill both of you,” Lingongo sobbed out to them in Tungo's tongue. “Please … can you loose the chain that binds me to him? Then you can do whatever you want with me.”

The short guard hesitated.

“I will still be your prisoner,” Lingongo said. “But I will be a prisoner
alive.
If I am to die, should it not be at your hands instead of his?” She looked up at Joseph, who glared from one to the other in angry confusion. Lingongo cringed and shuddered. Another tear spilled from her eye and rolled down her cheek.

The short guard said to the tall guard, “I told you they were not together—not such a beautiful one with an ugly white slave trader.”

“Tungo told us—” the tall guard began, but the short guard waved him off.

“Tungo did not have time to tell us anything. We must be certain to protect her from the white killer of Africans.”

The short guard laid down his gun and cautiously approached Lingongo. He gazed at her face—so lovely, so vulnerable. He paused only a moment, took the key from around his neck, and unfastened the chain that connected her to her husband.

“It is working,” Lingongo mouthed to Joseph. “See? They have removed the first chain. Now is the time to show them what you can do!”

Encouraged, Joseph lunged at the guard. But since the chain was not yet untangled from Lingongo, it again jerked against her arms, this time even more violently than before. Lingongo screamed in pain. The tall guard charged forward and cracked Joseph across the head with the butt of his musket.

Lingongo lay her head back and let her eyes flutter closed. Her moans continued ever so piteously, even though the corners of her mouth tilted just the tiniest bit upward.