by Scott O'Dell
He came up shouting, waving his arms, and was rowed back to his ship. I didn't see him until nearly noon. They had a horse for him now. He came up from the beach surrounded by guards, with two musicians playing. Slaves were called from the fields to stand and bow. I was invited to join them. He talked to Isaak Gronnewold, who was going to Mary Point to talk to the runaways.
The governor gave him a paper with his new laws written on it. "Read to them," he said.
"They know about the laws already," Preacher Gronnewold said. "The drums have told them."
"Be sure to tell them again," the governor said.
"I will gladly do so, sir."
"And tell Konje that if he sends his runaways back to the plantations they have foolishly fled, I will forgive them despite the law. None will be punished except for two bites each from the tongs and ten stripes. They will lose no legs or arms or their lives."
"Yes, sir." Isaak Gronnewold said.
He put the paper between the leaves of the Bible and tied it on his donkey's back. The Bible had a wood and goatskin cover. The wood was splintered and the long goat hair was worn off. He got on his donkey and started up the trail for Mary Point. I ran along beside him.
"Please give all my love to Konje," I said.
"I will do so."
"But save some for yourself."
"I will."
He stopped when we reached the gully that swooped down, then up again. He was riding a gray donkey. He liked donkeys better than horses because he liked to swing his long legs and touch the earth.
"Shall I tell Konje to come back?" he asked me.
"Konje will not come back, whatever I say."
"Do you want him to come back?"
"No. I will be with him when there's enough food at Mary Point."
Isaak Gronnewold reached out with a bony hand and grasped my shoulder. "Listen," he said, "there will never be enough food at Mary Point. The runaways only get what they steal and what the slaves give them. That will end with the new laws and the guards that will scour every hill and valley on the island, starting this very day."
I wanted to be angry with him but, though I stopped breathing at the awful thought, I knew that he spoke the truth.
As if he were a prophet speaking from the Bible, he said, "Unless Konje and his runaways give up, they shall be slain, man, woman, girl, and boy."
"Perhaps the Lord will think of a miracle, like the miracle when he parted the sea in the middle and walls of water were on both sides of the children of Israel and they went through on dry land and were saved from the Egyptians."
"The children of Israel slaved in Egypt for four hundred and thirty years before they were saved. The slaves of St. John have slaved on this island for scarcely ten years."
"Do we have to slave hundreds of years before the sea parts in the middle and we can go free?"
"I pray day and night that the sea will part much sooner. You must pray too, and ask the others to pray."
"I do pray. All the slaves pray."
"The Lord will hear us," said Isaak Gronnewold.
We came to the bottom of the gully. There was a hollow place to one side of the trail where a pool of water had collected. Grass had started to grow around the edges. The donkey veered from the trail and began to graze.
Preacher Gronnewold pulled on the halter, but the donkey went on eating. He spoke to it, saying gentle words from the Bible. He sometimes spoke to the birds and animals as if they were people.
The beast went on cropping the grass. Preacher Gronnewold explained that they had miles to go and work to do. The beast pricked up its ears and listened but went on eating. I also had work to do.
"My friend," Preacher Gronnewold said to the donkey, "if you move on, I'll read from Exodus, your favorite part of the Bible. You can eat the rest of the grass when we return."
I searched around, as he kept up this conversation, and found a branch from a dead tree. With it I gave the beast a good whack, which sent them on their way.
"Give my love to Konje," I shouted again.
He didn't answer, but raised the Bible and waved. His legs were flying. It looked like a six-legged donkey plunging up the trail.
When I got back, running because I was late, Governor Gardelin and his red-coated guards, nearly fifty of them, were in front of the mill. He was telling the guards what he wanted that day. They were to divide into four squads, one squad going to the north, one to the south, one to the east, and one to the west.
"Stay on the regular trails, do not wander," he said. "Visit every plantation. I am giving the officer of each squad a list of my laws. Plantation owners will gather their slaves. The officer is to read to them every one of the new laws, slighting none."
The noonday sun seemed not to move in the sky. Drops of sweat formed on the governor's forehead. He stopped to rub them off.
"You are not to use your guns," he went on, "unless you are attacked, which is not likely. And you're to return to this plantation not later than Wednesday morning, this being Monday."
The guards rode off on their fine horses, straight in the saddle, laughing among themselves. They were happy, it seemed, to be leaving Governor Gardelin.
15
After I bathed Mistress Jenna, I brought her breakfast in from the cookhouse and food for Master van Prok's and Governor Gardelin's noonday meal. The governor had six guards standing watch outside the house. He worked on a paper as Dondo fanned him and swatted sand flies. Then he went back to his ship.
Master van Prok worked outside in the hot sun. He called the slaves down from the fields and had them gather bundles of pinguin. Pinguin has hundreds of crooked thorns that don't stick like cactus but tear your flesh. The slaves made pinguin ropes and tied them over the six windows of the house.
"Nobody will suddenly crash through a window," Master van Prok said to his wife, when he came in at dusk.
"Can't the pinguin be cut with sharp knives?" Mistress Jenna asked.
"Yes, but that takes time. It gives us a chance. We won't be surprised. We won't look up to see someone standing over us with a cane knife."
I was fanning the hot air, keeping the midges away from Mistress Jenna. At these words, a shudder ran through her body.
"I'm scared," she said.
She had been scared for weeks now. Master van Prok had heard these words many times. She was drinking a little more every day, which he did not like.
"You should go to St. Thomas," he said. "It's much safer in St. Thomas. They've had less than a dozen runaways and all have been caught and punished. You can leave with the governor when he leaves in a day or two."
She turned to me. "What do you think, Angelica?"
It was not an easy question to answer. I knew that she was in danger. All the white people were in danger. The danger grew more and more every day. I hunched my shoulders and said nothing.
"Speak up!" Master van Prok said.
"I don't know about the danger."
"You must know something."
At that moment, as the dusk deepened, the big drum at Mary Point began to talk. Another, a smaller drum, south toward Cruz Bay, broke in.
"You know the drum talk, Angelica. What are they saying?"
"The small drum says that soldiers on horses have come and gone."
"The big drum says what?"
"It's jabbering."
"Jabbering about what?"
"Nonsense."
"What kind of nonsense?"
"It's just making a noise."
This was the truth but Master van Prok got up from his hammock and paced the floor. His heavy boots on the stones drowned out the sound of the drums.
He quit pacing. "Noise. Nonsense. Huh! You're the one making a noise. You're the one talking nonsense."
He pointed a finger at me. "You're lying, Angelica. Stop the fanning."
I put the fan aside.
"Look at me," he said.
I had never looked at Master van Prok, not since the first day on t
he plantation when he had reached out and touched my skin. I was angry then. I had looked him straight in the eye. He slapped me and said that I was not to look at him or at his wife or at any white person. I was to look up or down or to one side, but never straight into a white per son's eyes. That was the custom on the island of St. John and the island of St. Thomas. If I ever did, I would be pinched with red-hot tongs.
Now that I had stopped fanning Mistress Jenna, she complained of the flies and the heat. Master van Prok asked her to be quiet.
"Angelica, look at me," he said.
I tried to look at him. But my eyes shifted about the room, at Dondo, at the house lizard stalking a fly, at Master van Prok's ringed finger, which he pointed at the ceiling.
"Look at me," he said, "not around the room. You have seen the room before. Look at me!"
My eyes felt heavy. I looked at the part in the middle of his wig. My eyes watered and tears ran down my cheeks. I could look no more.
He glanced at the whip that lay coiled beneath his hammock.
"Look at him, dear," Mistress Jenna said.
I lowered my eyes. I looked straight into his. It was like looking at the blazing sun.
"Good," Master van Prok said. "Now tell me what the drums talk about."
They boomed loud now that he had stopped pacing the floor. To the south a third drum had joined in.
"They talked noise and nonsense," I said. "Now they are talking about the day the revolt begins."
Mistress Jenna raised herself in the hammock and put her feet on the floor. "The day? When is that?"
"The drums don't say when."
A small gasp caught in Mistress Jenna's throat. She flung herself back in the hammock. I felt sorry for her, she looked so pale and frightened.
Master van Prok said, "Gardelin's laws, once the runaways think about them for a day or two, will cool them down. They'll think twice before they attack the plantations."
Mistress Jenna stared at the ceiling as I fanned her.
"I'll send you to St. Thomas. You'll feel better there," Master van Prok said gently.
"And leave you here alone?"
"Only for a month or two. By then the drums will be quiet and you can come home," he promised.
"A month is such a long time."
"You have been starving, Jenna, spending sleepless nights. I worry about you."
"I am worried about you, my dear Jost. I wish you could go to St. Thomas, too. But of course you can't. What awful times have befallen us."
A fourth drum, a small one over the hills to the northeast, was talking now.
Mistress Jenna asked for a drink of rum and I brought it. Kill Devil was all that we had left. She sipped it for a while. Her face brightened.
Suddenly she nudged my foot and told me to pack her things. "Four dresses for daytime," she said. "Three for evening. That is all. I plan to be quiet."
I caught my breath at the thought of leaving St. John.
"And start packing soon," she said. "We don't know when the governor will leave."
She had heard me catch my breath.
"Don't fret," she said. "You'll have more to eat on St. Thomas. You'll like that, won't you, Angelica?"
I was careful not to make her suspicious, to let her know that I would never leave St. John. They could put me in the black hole under the mill and burn me with red-hot pincers.
"I'll pack your clothes tomorrow," I said.
Past midnight, after the van Proks were asleep, Dondo followed me outside. "I heard you talking to Mistress Jenna," he said. "Did you lie when you let her know that you'd go with her?"
"Yes."
"You're not going?"
"No."
"What can you do?"
"Run."
"Where?"
"I don't know. I can't go to Mary Point. Not now. But Whistling Cay is just opposite the point and close. What do you think?"
"I was there once. Caves and places to hide in. They'd never find you."
Nero stood half-hidden in the mill doorway, watching us. Without another word, we parted.
16
Toward evening Gardelin's red-coated soldiers rode into Hawks Nest. They brought the governor bad news. Most of the plantations had missing slaves. Some had lost two slaves. Erik van Slyke at Hurricane Hole had lost four slaves.
One of his runaways had been caught hiding in a tree. He was very young, younger than I, no more than a boy, with scars from two-pronged pincers. Governor Gardelin had him put into the black cave under the sugar mill. The cave was too small to lie down in and the only air came through a crack in the door.
The slaves were called in from the fields. Mistress Jenna and Master van Prok watched from the courtyard. Dondo and I watched from the house, from a window covered with pinguin thorns.
Governor Gardelin gave a speech about runa ways. What a crime it was to leave your master who had paid good rigsdalers for you, who fed and housed and protected you.
Raising his voice so that not a single word would be missed, he said, "This man who ran away from Erik van Slyke's plantation was gone longer than three days, longer than five days, longer than seven days. He was gone eight days. Therefore he shall be punished under Article Five of the new laws. He shall receive one hundred and fifty lashes, given to him by Nero, your respected bomba."
There was no sound from the slaves. No sound from the black hole.
Dondo said, "I know this boy. He's called Leander by the whites. I don't know his name. You'll remember the time I was sent to the van Slyke plantation?"
"I don't remember."
"Well, I was sent there by Master van Prok to bring back a child he had bought. The mother didn't want the girl to leave. When Leander and I came to her hut, she set it on fire. I stood there and could not move, as if I was bound with chains. Leander pulled me out of the way. He rushed through the flames and saved the mother but not the child. I remember him well."
The drums had started up and were talking back and forth. Not yet about the boy Governor Gardelin was about to punish.
"One hundred and fifty lashes," Dondo said to me, "will strip the flesh from half his bones. If the boy lives he will be a cripple."
Governor Gardelin said, "I will return tomorrow at noon to see that my orders are promptly carried out."
Before the governor went back to the ship, Isaak Gronnewold talked to him. I was too far away to hear what they were saying, but I saw the governor shrug his shoulders and turn away.
Dondo said quietly, "The boy shall not be punished."
"Be careful," I warned him. "Soldiers are camped close by. And the bomba will be on the prowl."
"The boy shall not be punished," Dondo said again.
The van Proks came and he said no more.
I brought Mistress Jenna a drink of Kill Devil. As she sipped it, she said to her husband, "He's such a young man. It's a shame to punish him so much. You could purchase him from van Slyke and speak to Governor Gardelin. Perhaps the governor would relent since you wish to use the boy here at Hawks Nest."
"I do not have the money even if his owner wishes to sell him," Master van Prok said. "As for the governor, he is a man who does not relent."
Dondo glanced at me and made a sign that meant the boy was safe. He would not be punished. Mak ing a sign back, I warned him yet again to be careful.
Mistress Jenna drank two more Kill Devils before I put her in bed. She was happy about going to St. Thomas. The governor had told her that he was leaving tomorrow after the boy was punished.
It was midnight when I left her and went outside. A moon among some slow-moving clouds made light shadows everywhere. The drums had picked up the happening at Hawks Nest. The soldiers were playing at cards, shouting and laughing as Dondo left the house.
He passed me without a word. He walked fast to the black hole and lifted the iron rod that barred the door. He pulled the boy out of the hole. He pointed to the north and said, "Run!"
The boy raced by me. I think he was dazed.
"Run," I said, "run up the shore to the camp of runaways. It's about..." He was gone before I finished.
Dondo had disappeared. I heard Nero scuttling along far up the trail on his midnight prowl. I went to the storehouse and filled a gourd with muscovado. The brown sugar would last me for days.
I hurried halfway up the trail and hid in the cactus by the big tree and waited for Nero to pass on his way back to the tower.
He took a long time. I needed to start for Whistling Cay before the tutu called the slaves to work. I began to worry. Had he seen the boy? Had he seen Dondo? Was he following them? I had to leave before dawn. In the daylight it would be dangerous.
I listened for the noises Nero always made as he shuffled along. A dry wind was blowing down from the hills, rustling the leaves of the mimosa. There were soft, drawn-out sounds from the sea, all kinds of sly sounds, but not the bomba's footsteps.
Suddenly, on the trail between me and the huts, a shot rang out. It was followed by a second shot and a muffled cry. A torch flared through the trees.
I dropped the muscovado and ran. Around a bend in the trail I came upon the bomba. In one hand he held a branch of torchwood, in the other hand, a musket. On the ground in front of him lay a figure crouched in pain.
The boy had escaped. A musket shot had struck Dondo below the knee. It had gone through his flesh but not the bone; still it had brought him down.
The bomba strutted around, muttering threats. He thrust the torch at Dondo's face. "You will pay for this, you scoundrel," he shouted.
Men came. They carried Dondo back to his hut. We bound up the wound and I got some malaguette from the house. As I was giving him the medicine, my hand touched a small packet he had hidden in his hair. It was the gunpowder, the last powder he planned to take.
He fell asleep. The bomba and Master van Prok stood nearby. I slipped the packet into my own hair and hid it under my sleeping mat with the pot fish net. Then I went back to Dondo's hut and stayed with him the rest of the night.