by Scott O'Dell
17
The news reached Governor Gardelin soon after dawn. At noon he was at Master van Prok's door. I expected to see him in a fury, but he was calm and smiling, as if he had come to pay a friendly visit.
The two men sat on the porch looking at the blue sea. They drank two mugs of beer, smoked their long-stemmed pipes, and talked. The governor asked about Dondo.
"He's a stout young man and the wound's not serious," Master van Prok said. "He should be around by tomorrow or the next day."
"You mean he will be walking?" the governor asked.
"Limping," the Master said.
"Limping or not, I'll be back to see him," the governor said.
An evil look cast a shadow over his face. Again, he sent for the captain of his small army and told him to visit all the nearby planters as he had the first day, to see that they and three of their slaves were on hand at noon of the following day.
He and Master van Prok drank another mug of beer and talked about the clouds that were gathering in the west. Then he left and returned to his ship, with a happy smile.
He was back in the morning with a long line of sailors, who sang as they climbed the trail from the beach. They had baskets of food, as much food as on the first day. At the end of the line they carried a curious thing of wood and wheels. Never in my life I had seen anything like it. It turned out to be a rack, a thing that pulls people apart.
The field slaves did not go to work that day. After a handful of dried pot fish, the bomba marched them and their children to the tower and had them stand with their backs against the stone wall until the sun went down.
We were quiet through the night. We had slept fitfully. Fear was in the air, in the wind that swept down from the hills, in the poor earth that was sad and packed beneath us. What the governor would do during the coming day no one knew or could guess. But we were sure that it would be bad.
Two of the youngest girls came and lay down beside me. I held their hands and talked to them about the time when rain would fall and flowers bloom.
Soldiers were lined up on both sides of the slaves. The owners of ten plantations sat on benches in front of the tower. Their bombas crouched behind them, and their slaves were gathered with our slaves. Mistress Jenna looked out from the window barred with pinguin thorns, at her husband and Governor Gardelin.
They stood at the cave door where Dondo was locked in. They watched a man who was tinkering with the rack's straps and wheels. I had not seen him before. He had a scraggly gray beard and his chest was covered with a mat of gray hair. He had curly gray hair on the backs of his hands and he was part white.
Governor Gardelin spoke to him. "When, my trusted executioner, will you be ready?"
"I am ready now," the man said. "I have been ready for a long time."
"Good," the governor said.
The locked door was opened and Dondo was pulled out of the cave. It took him a while to stand up.
"You know why you will be punished?" Governor Gardelin asked.
Dondo straightened his shoulders, took a deep breath, and was silent.
"Answer me," the governor said quietly, "or it shall go doubly hard with you."
Still Dondo was silent.
"Look at me respectfully and answer," Governor Gardelin said.
Dondo looked beyond him at the sea and the dark clouds above it and said nothing. He stood with his wounded leg bent. He was in pain but tried not to show it.
"Very well," the governor said, "since you choose to remain silent, whether from stupidity or arrogance, I shall tell the gathering why you are being punished. You have helped a felon to escape. You have tried to escape yourself. These are crimes that insult God and myself, Philip Gardelin, governor of St. Thomas and St. John, chief of the Danish West India and Guinea Company."
He glanced at the fire burning against the wall, where long-handled pincers were heating. He nodded to slaves, who fastened Dondo hand and foot to the trunk of a tree that grew beside the tower door. He made a sign to the executioner. The man drew the pincers from the fire, spat upon them, I guess to test the heat, then put them back in the fire to heat some more.
Isaak Gronnewold rode into the courtyard while the governor was talking. He sat listening until the talk was finished. Then he got down from his donkey and went up to the governor. He was covered with white dust from the trail.
Angry at what he had heard, he stood with his back to the tongs heating in the fire.
"How do you know that Abraham helped the boy escape?" he said. "How do you know that Abraham tried to escape?"
The governor was surprised that anyone would dare to criticize him. His white wig had tilted to one side. He set it carefully on his head and did not answer.
"There has to be a trial, a regular trial," Isaak Gronnewold said. "A man can't be punished for a crime someone decides he has done."
"Someone?" the governor asked. "It's not just someone who has decided. It's the governor of St. Thomas and St. John, the chief of the Danish West India and Guinea Company, who has decided."
Preacher Gronnewold turned to the plantation owners seated on the bench. "What do you say?" he shouted. "Should Abraham be tried?"
"No," Erik Peter van Slyke shouted.
"No," Master van Prok shouted.
A chorus of "nos" rang out. The bombas joined their masters. Our slaves huddled against the stone wall were silent.
"See," the governor said, "you're wrong. Those who struggle to save their fields and mills, who live day and night in constant fear of their lives, say 'no' to you."
Isaak Gronnewold stared at the plantation owners and the bombas, then at the governor.
"They live in terror because their slaves live in terror," Gronnewold said.
He squared his bony shoulders. He stared at Governor Gardelin. He stared at the plantation owners and the bombas. "The Lord has said, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' "
The governor curled his lips.
"And the Lord," Preacher Gronnewold said, "will punish you."
The governor gave him a cold look. "And you will be punished with the iron if you do not cease your chatter."
He turned to the executioner. "You have much to do," he said, "so set about it."
The man took the tongs from the fire. They were a glowing white. He didn't need to spit on them. He began with Dondo's naked feet. There was a faint crackling sound and wisps of smoke rose up. Dondo's legs strained against the ropes that bound him but he did not open his eyes or cry out.
The executioner got ready to clasp his ankles between the pincers. With a shout of "Enough!" Isaak Gronnewold lunged forward and grasped his arms. The man pushed him aside, then knocked him down with a single blow. Soldiers picked him up and carried him to the house, where Mistress Jenna opened the door and let them in.
With one brief glance the executioner measured the size of Dondo's chest. He opened the pincers to fit the size he had measured. With a grunt, he clamped them shut, one tong on each side of Don do's bare chest. Then he opened the pincers, put them back in the fire, and stood with his arms crossed.
Now there was the odor of roasted flesh on the wind. Excited talk came from the row of plantation owners. Their bombas giggled. Bomba Nero clapped his hands. The governor and Master van Prok exchanged smiles. Mistress Jenna left the window. Our slaves turned their backs, their tongues stiff in their mouths, stiff as mine.
Governor Gardelin spoke to his executioner, who still stood with his arms crossed. "Since we have just begun, let us move along," he said.
The man got out his flogging whip and snapped it a couple of times, first at a flying gull.
"No," the governor said. "The rack before the whip suits us better."
The man gave the rack a glance, turned one of its many wheels, and said, "I am ready, governor, when you are."
"Ready," said Governor Gardelin.
Soldiers untied Dondo. To the governor's surprise, but not t
o mine, Dondo moaned once and collapsed in the ropes that bound him.
"Wake him," said the governor.
The executioner picked up a handy bucket of seawater and threw it over Dondo's body. The salt and the water did nothing. The governor asked for a second bucket.
Dondo's eyes were closed from the beginning. I believe that his ears were closed, too. He had not heard the talk and the laughter and the crackling fire. He had heard only the big drum at Mary Point. He was not with us anymore. He was back among the green hills of Africa.
18
Mistress Jenna was trying to put medicine down Isaak Gronnewold's throat when I rushed into the house to tell him that Dondo was dead. She had him on the porch where there was some wind from the sea for him to breathe. His face was pale and swollen but his eyes showed fire.
He got to his feet at the news of Dondo's death and staggered outside.
I started to follow him. Mistress Jenna called me back.
"Are your things together?" she said. "The governor is leaving this afternoon."
"Yes," I said, telling her the truth. In my hut under the mat I had the gunpowder I had taken from Dondo, and the net to catch pot fish. I needed a small sack of muscovado, a bush knife, not too large, and tinder, tinder especially, for a fire. There were other things I could use, a pan to cook in and salt, but there was no way I could get either one.
"Do not stop to hear the preacher and Governor Gardelin argue," she said. "Get your things together and come back. Do not tarry."
And the two men were arguing. They stood face to face at the sugar mill, the governor stiff as a poker and Preacher Gronnewold flailing the air with his bony arms. Master van Prok was listening to them. Nero was talking to the executioner, who was explaining how the straps and wheels worked on the rack that pulled people apart.
I slipped past them without being seen. The mill was deserted. It hadn't made sugar since August, and it was now November. There were four pieces of tinder, one for each of the big kettles. I took the smallest, hid it in my hair, and left.
Nero and the executioner were still talking. I went to the cave where the soldiers had laid Dondo and said goodbye to him. Then I walked past the two men. When I was out of sight I ran.
Our slaves were back in the fields. I picked up a bush knife in one of the huts. It had a broken handle and a dull edge, but it was the only small knife I could find. I took the necklace, all the things I had hidden, wrapped them in a goatskin sack and my sleeping mat, balanced the mat on my head, and started for Whistling Cay.
There were two trails, one the white people used and the secret trail that Konje used. I knew where the secret trail started, but it wound back and forth and doubled back on itself, from what he had told me. I could get hopelessly lost.
I took the trail the white people used and went fast, stopping only to listen for donkey hoofs on the stony ground. At Cinnamon Bay I heard voices. It was three slaves carrying casks of seawater up from the shore. I hid in the bushes until they were gone.
At Maho Bay I came upon two white boys playing with a dog. They paused to glance at me and one of them asked whose slave I was. I didn't answer him. The other boy said that I looked like a runaway. Then both of them ran toward a house sitting up on a hill among some trees.
I went faster now and didn't stop until I reached Francis Bay. There I left the trail and followed the shore until I came to a place close to Whistling Cay where the sea was shallow. I waded out to my shoulders, then I had to swim for a short way. I didn't worry about the gunpowder and muscovado. They were wrapped tight in the goatskin sack.
The water was as clear as the air. I could see bottom and hundreds of bright little fish. A school of stingrays—at least twenty of them, with their gray-green eyes that stuck up on small stalks—swam along beside me. Like guides, as if they knew where I was going.
There was no beach where I landed. I had to scramble up one coral ridge after another to reach a level place. From here I could see the cliff at Mary Point rising straight up from the shore.
At the top of the cliff, which was the color of fresh blood, was a grove of palm trees. In their midst were huts, thatched with palm leaves. People moved about among the trees.
This was the camp of the runaways. This was the camp that Konje ruled. I imagined I saw him. And toward dusk as a big fire started and people began to sing, I imagined that I heard his booming voice rise up above all the other voices, up and up to the stars.
19
Night was coming fast. Higher up lay another ridge of coral. Between it and where I stood was a small valley. You could throw a stone from one side to the other. Trees were growing there that would give me shelter from the hot land wind that had begun to blow.
In the darkness, I made my way through clumps of cactus to the bottom and spread my mat among the trees. The big drum at Mary Point had started to talk, but the rattling leaves and the shrieks that came from the caves drowned out all of the words.
The wind died during the night. The sun rose in a cloudless sky. I was amazed to find that I was surrounded by fruit trees. Long ago, it seemed, when heavy rains fell, water had collected in the meadow and made soil where birdborne seeds could grow.
I jumped to my feet and looked about at my little kingdom. I counted two coconut trees with clusters of nuts hanging from them, a banana tree with a bunch of green, finger-length bananas, and a breadfruit tree bearing six shriveled fruit. There was enough fruit to last for a month.
Against the far side of the valley, on a flat place in the coral, I found African writings, symbols of the Aminas tribe. My idea about the fruit trees being planted by nature could be wrong. Runaway slaves might have lived here years ago and planted them.
Water I had worried about. I could gather wood to build a fire to boil seawater, but I had nothing to collect the steam and let it form into water I could drink.
I needn't have worried. Organ cactus and Turk's head cactus grew everywhere on the slopes around the meadow. After the spines were cut off or burned off and the cactus split open, there was water hidden away in the pulp. You would chew it and the water would seep out. Although it tasted like cooked feathers, still it quenched your thirst.
A thought took my breath away. As I looked around at the fruit trees and the cactus, I saw that I would have enough to live on for weeks. With the fish I caught there would be more than enough.
I could not go to Mary Point, or so Konje had told me over and over, because they suffered from lack of food. If I lived on fruit and cactus and dried the fish I caught and saved it, I could go to Mary Point. I would have enough food for myself, and for someone else. I would not be a burden on the camp.
That morning I set the fish trap in a pool where the tide flowed in and out and baited it with a sea cucumber. Before noon I had more than a hundred small fish in the trap. They were the length of a finger and if you held one up to the light you could see clear through it. For a meal you had to cook three dozen of them, but they were as good as anything that came from the sea.
I spread the pot fish out on a ledge to dry and covered them with strips of cactus to keep the gulls away, as we did at Hawks Nest. Then I set the trap again, this time in a different place, at the mouth of a cave.
I went into the cave, thinking that it might be a good place to hide if anyone came looking for me.
The opening was narrow for a short distance, then it spread out into a wide room, round in shape, with straight walls. The roof was round also and barely high enough to walk under. In the center of the roof a jagged hole let in a little of the sun so that the room was streaked with moving shadows.
I heard faint sounds, like someone sighing. It was air going through the hole over my head. When the wind blew hard, the sighs could become the deafening shrieks I had heard before.
Beyond this room a passage led on, perhaps into other rooms. The sun went down while I stood there. I did not stay any longer; but it was a good place to hide if anyone came.
Drums were
talking when I got back to the meadow, the big drum at Mary Point, a drum at Maho, and one at Cinnamon Bay.
The big drum still spoke about Dondo's death. But it also spoke something new. In six quick beats and three pauses and six quick beats again, using the name I was known by, it said that I had fled from Hawks Nest and had come to Mary Point.
The big drum lied to encourage other slaves to flee, yet Konje knew that I had fled, that I was hiding somewhere near Mary Point. This made my heart beat fast.
I ate half a breadfruit for supper and thought about eating a few of the fish. At dawn the trap was bulging with twice as many fish as I had taken before. The sun had not found its way through the hole in the roof. But I built a fire there anyway, for fear a fire in the meadow would be seen, and finally ate six of the fish I was saving.
I set the trap again in the same place and carried the fish to the meadow to dry in the sun. The fish I had set out the day before were gone. The gulls had not taken them. I found the tracks of an animal, a strange animal, for there were claw marks in the dust and marks that only something with a long tail could have made.
The loss upset me. It took two days to build a platform in one of the trees, as high off the ground as I could reach.
The giant lizard with a tail as long as my arm that had taken the fish, that sat watching me from a high ledge during the day, could not climb a tree. The gulls got some of the horde, but still it grew, with more than a hundred fish caught every day at the mouth of the whistling cave.
I didn't keep count of the days. But I guessed from the number of fish I had stored and the news from the big drum that more than a month had passed and it was early December.
The drum urged the slaves to flee the plantations. It talked about the day they would revolt and kill their masters. The day had not been chosen, but it was coming. It was near, the drum said.