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THE CHIEF CHARACTER IN THIS NARRATIVE IS THE CARIBBEAN Sea, one of the world’s most alluring bodies of water, a rare gem among the oceans, defined by the islands that form a chain of lovely jewels to the north and east. Although bounded on the south and west by continental land masses, it is the islands that give the Caribbean its unique charm. On the north lies the large and important trio: Puerto Rico, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and great Cuba. On the east are those heavenly small islands that so artistically dot the blue waves: Antigua, Guadeloupe, Martinique, All Saints, Trinidad and remote Barbados among them. The southern shore is formed by the South American countries of Venezuela and Colombia and the Central American nation of Panamá. The western shore is often overlooked, but it contains both the exciting republics of Central America—Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras—and the wonderful, mysterious peninsula of Yucatán where the ancient Maya flourished.

The Caribbean, nearly nineteen hundred miles wide from Barbados to Yucatán, does not include either the Bahama Islands or Florida, but does contain near its center an island which at intervals assumed an importance greater than most of the others, Jamaica with its turbulent history.

But one must always keep in mind the salient fact about this sea and its islands: the dominant settlers of the area would become the black slaves who arrived in such droves from Africa that in time they outnumbered and eventually outpowered all other groups combined. Many islands would ultimately become black republics with blacks holding all major offices like governor general, prime minister and chief of police.

In the nineteenth century a heavy influx of Hindus and Muslims from India introduced unique influences, making certain islands and regions even more colorful, while in recent decades businessmen predominantly from Canada and the United States have streamed down to invest their intelligence and money in efforts to make the islands tourist havens and international banking centers.

The Caribbean is often referred to erroneously as the Mediterranean of America. In a strictly geographical sense the comparison is apt: both seas are landbound, they are almost identical in size (Mediterranean, 969,100 square miles; Caribbean, 971,400). Both have been important historically, but there the similarities between the two great seas end. The lands bordering the Mediterranean gave rise to many outstanding civilizations and the three great religions, while the only great indigenous civilization that operated in the Caribbean area was the Maya in Yucatán, and even it was dying out before the explorers arrived from Europe.

But however magnificent the sea is, the stories of human endeavor must focus on the scattered islands, just as in the larger world, history concentrates on the settled continents. We have neither the time nor space to deal with all the islands, each worthy of its own treatment, but we shall visit in close detail more than a dozen, and in the process observe many diverse civilizations dominated by a wide variety of mother nations: Spain, Holland, England, France, Denmark, the United States, and the societies unrelated to Europe: Arawak, Carib, Maya, African, East Indian. It is a rich tapestry we shall be inspecting.

The story begins in the year 1310 on an island—which would later be named Dominica—lying in the middle of the eastern arc.

Tiwánee suspected there might be trouble as soon as she heard that strangers had settled on the other side of the island. She learned this disturbing news from the most reliable man in the Arawak settlement, her mate Bakámu, who on one of his constant roamings had espied the three strange canoes from the top of a hill where he was digging for an agouti. The canoes were much larger than those familiar to the island, and the people taller and darker-skinned.

Forgetting his pursuit of the agouti, which had burrowed deeper than usual, he ran back across the island, beneath the branches of the tall clustering trees that covered the hills, to shout to his woman: “They have come.”

He had pondered the mystery of why his small island contained people, while its larger neighbors had none, but could find no answer, and talked with no one about it. He kept his silence even after he took Tiwánee as his wife to live with him in the shelter he had built for them. She has great wisdom, he thought, and someday I will tell her. But now Bakámu was caught up in the discovery that his wife had accumulated rare knowledge, and better than other women, she knew when to plant manioc and sweet potato, how to cultivate corn, and where in the forest she could find star apples, guava and especially the rich, sweet cashew nut. And when her man brought home an iguana, once or twice a year, she knew how to prepare the first joyous feast and then dry the rest of the meat and save it for later.

Tiwánee’s skills were respected by all in the village, and they formed one of the most attractive couples on the sunset side, he a man of robust build and somewhat ponderous, she a darting little brown bird looking into everything. Since he demonstrated unusual ability in whatever physical activity he attempted—running, leaping, swimming, games—he commanded the respect of his fellows and in public his words carried weight, but everyone knew that in the home he listened to and obeyed his wife. Although men did not consider her beautiful, the wonderful animation of her pert little face when she talked or smiled attracted special attention. And when they walked together along the beach or through the village, Tiwánee in her brightly colored garment, Bakámu in a dun-colored breechclout, she invariably stayed in front, as if she with her rapidly scanning eyes and natural inquisitiveness was scouting the way for him. But regardless of where they were or what they were doing, they laughed a lot, and it was clear to all that they were happily mated.

It was easy to determine where Bakámu and his wife lived, for although their round hut built of wooden poles, wattles and mud resembled all others clustered in friendly circles, the plot of land on which it stood was outlined by a remarkable hedge which glowed when sunlight reflected from it.

A hedge of croton was a perpetual bewilderment and joy, because the individual plants were a rowdy lot; they grew in wild profusion, obedient to none of the sensible laws that governed ordinary plants. Had Tiwánee used in her hedge any of the glorious red flowers her village produced—those that would later be called poinsettias, anthuriums or hibiscus—she would have had a known quantity; those flowering shrubs grew to a preordained height, behaved themselves, and clung together as if ruled by only one benelovent spirit: “You were intended to be thus and so you will remain, to gladden men’s eyes.”

But croton was an outlaw. Again and again Tiwánee would trim her hedge all of a level and then one morning she would find that two of her plants had taken off like seabirds leaving the bay to soar aloft. They would grow like determined little trees, until they were so out of proportion that she had to eliminate them, for they ruined her hedge. Or again, she would have in one section of her planting crotons of one color, perhaps all yellow, a gorgeous plant, when out of nowhere would spring up one that became a dark purple, and again her design was destroyed.

No one could make a bunch of croton behave, not in size, or color, or general appearance. The most irritating behavior of all was when some especially beautiful plant, showing perhaps a combination of four colors, would suddenly stop growing upward and decide to grow with great proliferation sideways, its leaves becoming ever more glorious as its form degenerated.

“That one reminds me of you,” she said, “going your own way.”

She was right in thinking that Bakámu acted according to his own rules, and when he finally shared with her his knowledge of the other islands he had discovered, she snapped: “You should have told me sooner. Doesn’t it stand to reason? If we’re here, won’t someone else be there?” Most earnestly she wanted to go back with him to inspect those lands more closely, but that, of course, was impossible, for if any woman touched Bakámu’s special canoe, which had the form of a man’s genitals, he believed she would destroy its magic, and were she actually to get into the canoe for a voyage, that exploration would surely end in disaster.

But that did not keep her agile mind from traveling even further than he had gone, and she reasoned: “Remember the legends, Bakámu? That we came from a great water to the south, down there, and that when we came here we first settled on the sunrise side where the waves are intolerable? There all bad things happened to us till we came around in our canoes to the sunset side. Then we prospered.”

Bakámu nodded, for that was the accepted truth of his people, and his own experience confirmed the old stories, for when he had first started exploring in his canoe he had paddled and sailed around the island, and on the sunrise side had encountered only trouble and destructive waves and forbidding cliffs, and he had been wise enough to detect that the ocean, the one to be called the Atlantic, controlled a far more powerful type of magic than the sea which would come to be known as the Caribbean: “No protection over there. Powerful waves. Darker, too,” and then he added the fact which really condemned the sunrise side: “No fish.”

He was widely admired in his village, and in other villages along the sunset coast, as a prodigious fisherman who knew the secrets of the deep. He would remain for hours in his canoe, long spear at the ready, awaiting the arrival of fish in the waters below, and usually he had anticipated where they would come. Now he paddled far to the west trailing a huge manatee that had strayed into these waters, and he stayed with the great sea animal even when he lost sight of the coast, for he knew that if he could somehow bring that huge beast to land, all the villages along the sunset side would have enough meat for feasts untold.

While he was having these agitated thoughts at sea, Tiwánee was in their hut, protected by her croton hedge and wondering in terror what might be happening to her man, and like others in the village when the hurricane abated she looked out to the empty but still turbulent sea and concluded: Oimé! The great fisherman, the daring explorer, is dead. And the villagers, after burying those who had died on land, helped organize a mourners’ ceremony for Bakámu who had died at sea.

When two boys playing along the shore spotted a canoe approaching two days after the great storm had subsided they began to shout, and everyone streamed down to the water’s edge to see this amazing sight, their man Bakámu bringing his canoe back through the waves and towing behind the body of the manatee he had tracked again when the storm subsided. It was then, in that moment of joy, that an old man cried: “He has struggled back!” and the name Bakámu gained even greater honor.

Now, as they talked about the strangers in the big canoes and he reminded Tiwánee of how desolate the sunrise side was, she asked thoughtfully: “Is it as bad over there as our legends say?”

“Worse.”

“Maybe so.”

“And won’t they do what our people did? Come over here to the better side?”

“They might.”

At this point she began the kind of intense interrogation she engaged in when her suspicious mind felt the need for more specific knowledge: “You say they were darker in face than we are?” Yes. “And their women crept about like frightened animals?” Yes.

Continuing with her questions, her inquisitive face close to his, she uncovered two facts about which Bakámu wanted to talk in greater detail, for he too was eager to understand the newcomers and fathom their intentions. Accordingly, he volunteered this information: “Their leader, a bigger and rougher man, carried a huge club which he often swung about his head, driving everyone back. And once I saw him so angered that he struck a man with it, knocking him flat.”

“Killing him?”

“I think so. Others carried him away.”

Now came a painful pause, for Bakámu wanted to share with his wife a fearful doubt he had been unwilling to admit even to himself: “Tiwánee, I must say this. Soon after, the ones who took the dead man away came back with large pieces of meat. Not agouti, not manatee, and they threw the meat into a pot and prepared for a feast.”

Tiwánee listened to the awesome words, sucked in her breath, and asked quietly: “You think they ate their own brother?” When Bakámu remained silent, she broke into a wail, crying: “These are evil times,” and terror fell upon them both.

Her questioning had been so orderly and its revelations so conclusive that she began that afternoon to take those prudent steps which would enable her to protect her family and herself against the brutal newcomers when they came over the mountains, which she was certain they would.

Bakámu was astonished to see her do this. The Arawaks on this and other islands were one of the most peaceful peoples in the world: they had no word for war, for none was needed, and they reared their children in abounding love. They revered their old people and eased them along their journey through the years, bringing them portions of maize and collecting taro roots for them, and even sometimes sharing with them a succulent little coney if they caught one sunning itself beside its burrow. They lived in harmony with their small universe, reveling in the abundance and beauty of the island and accepting the hurricanes when they roared in to remind them that nature was omnipotent, not man.

Indeed, their lives were measured principally by the sunset. At the end of each long day it was customary for them to sit along the shore in the evening and watch the glorious orb of the sun as it dipped swiftly toward the distant waves; then mothers assured their children: “It will come back.” When the sun disappeared the Arawaks renewed their faith, and in the following darkness retired in peace to their small circular dwellings and an evening meal.

Tiwánee, as the mother of a lively baby girl, named Iorótto after the hummingbird, realized that she had a special responsibility for protecting and cultivating the child’s promised beauty. The Arawaks were one of several tribes throughout the world who believed that the human face was most attractive when the forehead sloped sharply backward from the eyebrows; a head which rose directly upward from the nose bridge was considered gross and somehow offensive. So, each night, in a patient effort to make Iorótto more beautiful, her mother bound against her forehead a wide, flat board which would press the frontal part of the skull slowly backward until the desired slant was attained. In this position the little girl slept, for among the Arawaks beauty was both prized and desired.

Precisely as Tiwánee had predicted, they had been on the ocean side of the island only briefly when their leader, one Karúku, a violent man in his mid-twenties, with black hair shorn so that it fell down toward his eyes, decided that his clan must move across the island toward what he was sure would be a gentler climate with food and fish more abundant. But he was impelled equally by the fact that this sunrise side was unpopulated and therefore provided no targets for the warfare in which he excelled. He longed to have his warriors intermingled with people against whom they could exercise their martial arts and from whom they could take prisoners, but he also had a strong personal motive: on the voyage north from the jungles of the Orinoco River his wife had died, and since all the women in the three canoes were taken, he was left without a wife and was not happy about it. Guessing that the other side of the island must be more clement and possibly inhabited, he directed his Carib warriors to prepare for scouting expeditions into the mountains in search of settlements from which he might capture a wife.

This tactic of stealing women was an important part of Carib culture, one that had been practiced for hundreds of years; the warriors might eat the men they captured in battle, and they castrated young boys to fatten them like capons for later feasts; but they did not eat women, they were too valuable for breeding and as the creators of future warriors.

So with varied purposes Karúku the Carib laid plans to conquer whatever he might find on the island, and the end of the battle was clear in his mind: the extermination of the others.

In many corners of the world at this time similar expeditions were being launched with similar goals, as groups of human beings, finding it impossible to coexist with those of a different color or religion, were concluding that extermination was the only solution. This conviction would continue to scar the world for the next eight hundred years and probably long after that.

The heritage of the Caribs was brutality, warfare and little else. They would bequeath to the world words originating in force and terror: cannibal, hurricane, the war canoe, the manly cigar, the barbecue, in which they roasted their captives. As they marched they had war drums but only a few songs of battle and none of love. Their food habits were totally primitive and graced with none of the refinements that the Arawaks and other tribes had developed; the Caribs ate by grabbing with dirty fingers scraps of meat from the common platter, the men invariably snatching theirs before the women, who were allowed the leftovers. Their canoes were heavy and crude, not the flying things of delicate line created by others, and even their personal adornment was invariably of a warlike nature, and it was the men, never the women, who were decorated with the whitened bones of their victims.

But like the military Spartans of ancient Greece, who also seemed brutal when compared to the more cultured Athenians, the Caribs were very good at what they chose to do, and were the terrors in any area into which they wandered. They believed that by eating the most powerful of their enemies they inherited their prowess, and that by taking the most beautiful and healthy of their women they enhanced the vitality of their own group; in this latter belief they were, of course, correct. They were a hybrid group of people, constantly reinforced by fresh blood, and they profited from the brutal strength that such hybridism often produces.

When Karúku and three others left the sunrise side one morning to explore their newfound island, they moved stealthily and with intense purpose, and after they had probed through the forests for some hours without spotting any signs of habitation, they began to ascend the high mountains that filled the center of the island. Night overtook them before they had seen anything, but this did not distress them, for they were accustomed to sleeping in the open, and for food, they carried with them fragments of fish and meal of which they would eat sparingly, for they could not anticipate who or what they might encounter before they returned to their own people.

For the rest of the day the spies moved cautiously, always westward, until they reached a high spot from which they could look down upon the village they had been seeking. There it lay in the sunlight of late afternoon, a collection of well-made huts to be occupied when the present owners were dispossessed, canoes already built, fields close at hand in which foodstuffs could be grown. But there was also the placid sea, so much gentler than the wild ocean to the east, and as the sun set on that first evening, the Caribs were convinced that they had come upon a paradise much more desirable than any they had known along the Orinoco or elsewhere on their journey north.

“We shall go back,” Karúku said, “collect our men and return to take this village.” As he uttered these commands he was looking down at the hut surrounded by varicolored croton, and to himself he said: That one for me, and with purposeful strides, as if he could hardly wait to assault the sleeping village, he led his men back to their dark side of the island.

Bakámu and his wife, because of the valuable skills they possessed, enjoyed special positions in their village, he as an athlete of unusual ability and strength, she as the keeper of a secret that accounted for much of the tribe’s good fortune.

Tiwánee understood the ways of manioc, source of four-fifths of the stuff her people ate, and one of the world’s most remarkable good-evil foods. Like potatoes, yams and beets, manioc produced under the surface of the earth a bulbous growth which when rooted out and shredded yielded a potatolike food that looked and smelled most inviting. However, in this stage of its existence, it contained among its fibers a thick, deadly poisonous juice, and manioc culture required that this juice be extracted, and totally, before the residue could be processed into an excellent flour from which a nutritious and highly satisfying bread could be baked.

She did this, fabricating an imitation snake called a matapi, some ten feet long, very narrow, very strong, and into its insatiable maw she crammed all the manioc she and her neighbors had grated that day. And now her genius manifested itself, for after she had squeezed the snake by hand for some time she discovered two facts: the plan worked, for the poisonous juice did spew forth; but it was murderously difficult work: I’d go mad squeezing like this all day!

So she constructed a device which enabled her to apply such extreme pressure on the snake that she could extract the poisonous juice with relative ease. First she attached the top of her ten-foot snake to a rafter some dozen feet above her. Then, using a pile of rocks for a fulcrum, she converted a long plank into a child’s seesaw, with two little girls at one end, a heavy woman perched on the other. To the seesaw she attached the tail end of the snake, placing a large wooden bowl below to catch the liquid. When the woman weighed down her end of the plank, the tension on the woven sides of the snake expelled the poisons, then the woman ran forward toward the fulcrum, and the two girls were able to pull down their end and the snake relaxed. And so it went.

When the game ended, the dried contents of the imitation snake were ready for baking. This manioc flour was called cassava; from it, big, flat breadlike pancakes were made, and on it the Arawaks thrived.

“Tiwánee!” he shouted. “Don’t be foolish!” but despite his pleading she dipped a finger into the altered substance and gingerly brought it to her mouth. As she had expected, that first exploratory taste was reassuring: salty, sharp, with an invitation to try more, which she did, without apparent danger to herself. In succeeding days she kept tasting her brew, finding it increasingly good, and at last, without advising her husband of the bold step she was about to take, she gulped down such a generous amount of her new substance that had it been the original poison, she would surely have died. She didn’t. In fact, she felt extremely well, and after two days had passed without ill effect she told Bakámu: “It’s safe and tastes good.”

When this accolade was bestowed upon her, she became a changed woman. She grew noticeably wiser, as if powers long dormant were suddenly codified and whipped into shape, as if knowledge which she had been quietly accumulating mysteriously blossomed to produce new and totally unexpected fruit, and she was recognized as a leader. Throughout the known world this miracle was duplicated: an ordinary man or woman would be elected to some office, and during the conduct of its business would mysteriously become able enough to discharge the duties of that office, so that in the end someone who might originally have been a rather common person developed into a genius.

Having undergone such a metamorphosis, Tiwánee now found little pleasure in her exalted position, for although she was pleased that she had brought her village wise leadership, she realized that with her new position came new responsibilities, and she continued to brood about the possible dangers that might ensue if strangers had indeed settled upon the opposite side of her island.

One of her duties as a leader in the village was to make the decision as to when it was time to plant the manioc. But because this was of such extreme importance to the village, a matter of life and death, that decision could not be left to her alone; responsibility was shared with the old shaman whose counsel had kept the spirits of the other world favorably inclined toward this village. Fortunately, Tiwánee and the old man cooperated easily, he taking charge of all in the other world, she of the sun, the rainfall and the coming of summer in this, and between them they kept the manioc maturing just when it was most needed. Had they in any way been at odds, their people would have suffered, and they knew it.

The one at Bakámu’s village was located on a majestic spot parallel to the seashore, so carefully oriented that neither team would enjoy any advantage from the changing positions of the sun. It was a splendid green field, with grass chopped low and protected to the east by mountains clothed in purple. It had witnessed games of great excitement and notable performance, games that lived in memory, and some of the best had occurred at times like this, when the entire village came out to celebrate the replenishment of human life. In this village, at least, the great ball game was a thing of zest and wild cheering and victory for everyone, even the vanquished, who knew they had suffered defeat in a joyous cause.

The game required a large rubber ball, but the islands had no rubber trees, and communication between them by canoe was almost unheard of, except for Bakámu’s tentative explorations north and south. Rubber trees grew only in the jungles on lands of continental magnitude, but yet rubber balls on which the near-religious sport of the region depended did circulate even to the most remote islands. It was as if these Arawaks knew what was important in their lives and cherished as national treasures any rubber balls which came their way. At any rate, this village had had a series of such balls, each arriving as its predecessor was about to expire, and each was kept in the protection of the shaman, for it was a treasure beyond mere value: it was almost the soul of the village, for without it the wild games could not proceed, and in their absence the manioc plants might die, and the people, too.

Hands could not be used. If one touched the ball, the player was sent to the sidelines, for the ball must be struck primarily off the shoulder or the hip; not even elbows could be used, nor heads nor heels, but even under these limitations the players became wonderfully adept in moving the ball around. Since the strategies of the game demanded that players be prepared to throw themselves on the ground to obstruct opponents or dive for the ball, men wore knee and elbow guards, always on the right joints, but the captain of each team wore in addition a remarkable piece of equipment. It was a huge stone ring, unbroken in its circle but with an opening just wide enough for him to step into it, then bring it up over his knees and wide hips until it rested easily about his middle. Since it weighed twenty-four pounds, it gave extraordinary power when he struck the ball either with it directly or with his weighted hip.

When the teams lined up, the two captains, each with a stone circle about his waist, obviously located themselves as goalkeepers, sending any ball which came their way far back in the opposite direction with a tremendous blow.

On this day of special significance the spectators crowded the platforms behind the two goals and lined the spaces between the big upright stones. Flowers festooned the perimeters of the field, and boys with drums made a lively racket. In the interval before the game started, women sang and men danced stately measures intended to placate the spirits who determined the growth of manioc. When the excitement was at its height, an older man serving as a referee sounded a horn made from a big conch shell, the revelers cleared the field, and the play began.

As the game progressed, it looked as if Bakámu’s team would be defeated, because for each time his team had a shot at the far goal, the other team had three or four at his. But he was so agile that he deflected them when the situation looked least promising, and thus kept his team in the game.

Then, suddenly, he took one enemy shot on his hip, struck it with his big stone girdle, and sent it adroitly into the face of one of the standing stones, from which it reflected in such a way that he was in the right spot to give it another shot onto the face of another upright. In this remarkable manner Bakámu ricocheted the ball five times from stone to stone until he had it clear down the field, where, with a mighty swing of his heavy girdle, he smashed it home for a score.

It had been a prodigious feat, a one-man gallop through the entire opposition made possible only by the exquisite skill with which he used those upright stones for his carom shots. There could not have been many young men in the world that day who could have duplicated his amazing combination of agility, skill, precision and endurance, and when he completed his tour de force, the crowd broke into ecstatic cheers, with the old shaman coming down onto the court to congratulate him: “This year the manioc will grow.”

In the ancient days among the Arawaks, at such a moment of triumph it was customary for the captain of the losing team, the guardian of the far goal with his own heavy stone belt at his waist, to be decapitated and his blood to be scattered over the playing area to ensure that the grass there would remain green for the next ritual game, but after some centuries of such sacrifices the practical-minded Arawaks had reasoned among themselves: “Isn’t it rather ridiculous and lacking in profit to kill off each planting season the second-best player we have?” And when it was found further that grass outside the playing area grew just as green without the constant application of human blood, it was decided to halt the decapitations. Henceforth, the losing captain bore the pain of having lost an important game but not the greater pain of losing his head, and everyone in the village applauded the new rule, for it was certainly more sensible in that they preserved good players for later games.

But Tiwánee’s great-great-grandmother many generations back had been a woman of powerful reasoning, and she argued: “Some say we must behead people to solve two important problems. To ensure the growth of manioc and to ensure that the sun comes back. Sometimes manioc does not grow well, so maybe sacrifice is needed to make the choice. But there has never been a time when the sun did not come back, so maybe that sacrifice is unnecessary. Then again, we’ve already proved that manioc can grow whether there’s sacrifice or not—even if you do sacrifice and it doesn’t rain, no manioc—so why continue sacrificing good men when we know the sun always comes back?”

She carried the day, whereupon the outraged shaman predicted that she would die within the year that the sun sacrifice ended—but she lived for another sixty.

So this year the glorious day of the ball game in honor of manioc ended in near-perfection. After Bakámu’s unparalleled feat of bouncing the ball five times against the upright slabs and catching it each time on a dead run, two more games were played, with Bakámu’s side winning two goals to one. A feast ensued, at which Tiwánee supervised the distribution of cassava cakes and small bowls of her pepper-pot stew made from what had once been poison. There was dancing, and lovemaking for the young, and singing far into the night. These eminently practical people who had long ago dispensed with human sacrifice loved the joyousness of living. They revered the wonderful mysteries that came with the setting of a blood-red sun and the ending of a perfect game and the soft approach of night with its own triumphs, like the golden moon which rose to irradiate the beach and the sea and the watching mountains.

It was incomprehensible to him that men of fighting age should not be constantly ready to fight and that a village with obvious advantages had taken no steps to protect itself from possible invaders: What kind of people are they, down there? No army? No weapons? No defenses? What do they think life is? And he reached the only conclusion that concerned him: Properly led, my men could capture that village and everyone in it without the loss of a man. And then he ticked off on the fingers of his left hand the unprotected booty that awaited him: Women for breeding. Boys for fattening. Men for feasting. And as the sun set over the peaceful and even benevolent scene he smiled grimly, and started planning how to prepare his people for the task that confronted them, a task of extreme simplicity, it seemed to him.

When Karúku returned to his temporary ill-constructed village on the Atlantic shoreline north of the cliffs, he shared with his people the results of his spying, and with cunning and skill outlined a clever three-pronged assault on the unsuspecting village: “I’ll lead my men in from the north and make a noise. But then you, Narivet, make a big attack in the middle, and when they’re confused, running this way and that, Ukalé from the south will start the real assault. I’ll wait till they run to that side, then I’ll rush in, no stopping, and kill them from the rear.”

Three times he drilled his cadres, arranging signals and making it clear that he intended his men to sweep forward into the center of the village regardless of what belated defensive steps the Arawaks might take: “If any man on our side falls back, he is dead. Even if they start fires to hamper us, we run right through them. Everyone!” And he indicated by the fury with which he spoke that he included himself in that command.

This first battle would foreshadow many more that would scar the islands of this beautiful sea. In far western reaches, brutal warriors from central Mexico would crush the kindlier civilizations of the Maya. Exploring newcomers from Spain would decimate the peaceful Indians they found. Englishmen on far western Barbados would harry peaceful cargo ships and put all to the sword. And in island after island white owners would treat black slaves with a sickening barbarity. The assault of the warlike Caribs upon the peaceful Arawaks was merely the first in an unbroken chain of brutalities.

On the day of attack the Caribs struck according to plan, with the first group under Karúku rushing in from the north and making a considerable clamor, which drew the frightened Arawaks to that quarter to protect their village. But when they ran in that direction, the second group of Carib warriors rushed toward the middle with even greater noise, and all became confusion.

Led by Bakámu’s fierce determination and encouraged by his shouts, they gave such a strong account of themselves that they drove some of the attackers from the fight, an event which infuriated Karúku, who directed four of his men to seize Bakámu and immobilize him. When this was done, at great risk to the assailants who felt the power of the Arawak’s resistance, Karúku rushed up, spat in the face of the prisoner whose arms were pinioned, then swung his deadly club in full circle over his head and brought it down with bone-crushing force on Bakámu’s skull, killing him on the spot.

Then, in Carib battle ritual, he called for branches from a tree, and when these were provided he gently placed them over the dead hero’s chest and cried: “This one was the bravest. On him will we feast!”

Next he ordered his warriors to parade before him, as he sat on the edge of the playing field, the entire group of Arawak prisoners, and he delivered his judgments: “Those three boys, to be castrated and fattened. Those four little girls, too young for any good, kill them. Those older women, no good. Kill them. These women, yes, save them.” And then his eyes fell on Tiwánee, pale and weeping over the slaughter of her husband, and she was most desirable, so he cried: “That one for me!” and she was thrust aside.

On and on he went, ordering his men to kill the old ones, men and women alike, and the very small girl children who would require years of care before they could breed, but saving young women for his men. Most of the Arawak men were slain on the spot, there on the playing field which they had once graced, but some sixteen of the hardiest were saved for later feasts. The young boys were castrated, also on the spot.

Tiwánee, forced to sit by Karúku, watched with growing horror as his orders were carried out. But the strangulation of her beautiful daughter Iorótto, her forehead already sloping backward, was more than she could bear, and she started to faint. In that moment she felt beneath her thin garment the fire-hardened wooden dagger she had concealed there at the beginning of the attack. “I will never allow them to use me,” she muttered as the slaughter continued. “Either they kill me, or I kill myself.”

The first was a desecration, for Karúku strode in triumph to the middle of the playing field and shouted: “Knock down those silly stones!” and brawny Caribs threw down the upright stones defining the field on which the lovely, spirited game had taken place. “This will be a training place for warriors,” he cried, and Tiwánee wept as the site where so much good had occurred was obliterated. Here young men had proved themselves without harm to others; here contests had been held in which all were winners; and now the field was converted to death. She felt a dull numbness, as if the world had gone mad. And when the blood-red sun started to drop toward the west, Karúku waved his deadly club and Carib warriors lugged to the middle of the field great burdens of wood, which they stacked so as to ensure a roaring fire when set ablaze.

At this moment Karúku saw something which irritated him mightily, the rubber ball used by the Arawak men in their game, and he shouted scornfully: “Destroy that plaything of children! This village is now occupied by men!” Carib warriors hacked the precious ball into halves and then quarters, which they threw upon the rising fire. Flames leaped at the segments, dark smoke swirled from the pyre, and the ball which had appeared on the island so mysteriously vanished forever.

But it was the third obscenity that was in some ways the worst, for it not only destroyed a thing of robust beauty but also foreshadowed what the new world would be like. When Karúku chose for himself the hut once occupied by Bakámu and Tiwánee, some of his men, acting on their own, began to knock down the croton plants, both those in front and those in back, and when Karúku himself protested, shouting: “Keep them!” one of his lieutenants explained: “Assailants might hide in those bushes in a plot to murder you,” and Karúku, acknowledging the advisability of clearing the area, nodded: “Clear the space!” and the crotons were slashed to the roots.

As they fell, Tiwánee realized that the tyrant Karúku had acted not through strength but through fear, and she felt contempt for him: Despite his great power, he has not found courage. He is driven by demons. He does not move like a hero, but like a coward. And scorning the frenzied acts of Karúku, Tiwánee whispered: “He has to be afraid of his own men! He’s frightened of shadows! But Bakámu, living freely, was afraid of nothing.”

As she bade her farewell to the croton, she realized that the three hideous events which had repelled her so violently had not involved the killing of human beings, but the assassination of benevolent ideas, and when she saw the destruction of these great good things, she felt herself so outraged that she was prepared to fight even the spirits of hell to resist the new order.

The formalities of the victory feast began. Four women specially designated to honor heroes slain in battle reverently lifted Bakámu’s corpse and bore it to the edge of the flames, where they recovered the branches which had been placed across his breast. These they delivered to Karúku, who accepted them, carried them solemnly back to the pyre, and tossed them as votive offerings into the flames. Then, whirling about with arms upraised, he shouted: “Victory! Victory! Our new home!”

The fire roared, the human flesh was roasted, and the feast began, but Karúku would not be allowed to enjoy it. For when Tiwánee saw the leaping flames, she uttered a sigh of tragic resignation, as if she could no longer absorb what she had been forced to witness this day. Quickly her ancient courage reasserted itself, and she cried out: “I can bear this outrage no longer!” And from the folds of her garment she took the fire-hardened dagger, intending to kill herself rather than submit to the brutality that now controlled her village. But then she saw Karúku reveling with the victors, and she was so mortally offended that with a strength she had never known before she broke from her captors, dashed up behind the Carib leader, and plunged her dagger through the middle of his back and deep into his heart.

ON JULY NINTH OF THE YEAR 1489 ACCORDING TO THE CHRISTIAN calendar—a day noted as 11:13.8:15.6. in the much more accurate Maya rendering—on the remote island of Cozumel at the extreme western end of the Caribbean, the thirty-seven-year-old widow of the High Priest who served the local Temple of Fertility faced a grievous crisis.

She was Ix Zubin—the first name signifying female—and she was admirably qualified for what loomed ahead. She was robust in health, just under five feet tall, and built as if constructed of three sturdy globes: buttock, breast and dark round head. Her very black hair met her eyebrows in a straight bobbed line, creating the effect of a permanent scowl, except that her face could suddenly break into a generous, warm-hearted smile, as if some bit of fortunate news had made her feel good all over. But her sharp, penetrating eyes were dominant, darting here and there, demanding to know everything that happened about her, for she was a woman of unusual intellect.

Left to govern their own affairs, the islanders became increasingly pessimistic: “With things falling apart on the mainland, pregnant women no longer flock here for our services. The temple is expensive to maintain. The world is different now, and old centers like this no longer serve any useful purpose.” A rumor circulated that no new High Priest would be appointed and the building would be abandoned to the salt winds blowing in from the sea. But some perceived another problem: “Boatmen have grown lazy and no longer care to ferry travelers to us from the mainland.” One cynic summarized the situation: “We’ve been forgotten. Not enough pilgrims coming to keep us alive. Desolation is upon us.”

If the rumor was true, Ix Zubin would face a double loss, for she not only loved the ritual which ensured the birth of strong children but she also had nurtured a plan whereby her son Bolón might one day ascend to the position of High Priest. Thus both her religion and her family were in jeopardy.

This little bundle of energy was no ordinary woman. Because of the extraordinary position she had held in Cozumel during the lifetimes of her grandfather and her husband, she had during the past three years convinced herself that Bolón was the ideal person to inherit the priesthood. Had the boy’s father lived another four years, till the boy was twenty, she was certain she could have maneuvered him into the office of High Priest, thus ensuring the continuation of the valuable temple and its records, but her husband’s premature death had put a tragic end to that plan.

The unique position she enjoyed in Cozumel society had begun when her grandfather, Cimi Xoc, a noble man of wisdom who knew the stars as brothers and was one of the greatest High Priests, famed even among the rulers at Mayapán for his mastery of the calendar and the orderly procession of the stars, realized that his only son, Ix Zubin’s father, was not capable of mastering the intricacies of Maya astronomy upon which the welfare of the world depended. Grieved by his son’s deficiency, he found solace in the fact that his granddaughter, the amazing child Ix Zubin, did have that peculiar gift, awarded to only a few in each generation, of being able to comprehend almost intuitively the mysteries of numbers and calendars, the moon’s motion and the wanderings of planets.

That insight led to her unprecedented education, for normally women in Maya culture were prevented from any contact with the sacred learning that enabled civilization to move forward. The mysteries of astronomy were kept hidden from them; they were never allowed to participate in the sacred propitiatory rites that ensured the benevolence of the gods; and there were a score of secret places in any temple into which women would never be admitted. A hundred rules were enforced to keep them obedient.

So when Cimi Xoc decided that his genius of a granddaughter should be instructed in the mathematical mysteries, it was a decision of tremendous significance, for it flouted the ancient belief that women should not be involved in such sacred matters. But like all keepers of treasured knowledge, he was determined that the lore he had accumulated during a long lifetime be preserved for later generations, realizing that it constituted an emotional bridge between past, present and future.

Ix Zubin had inherited this passionate respect for the history of her people and made repeated efforts to instill in her son a regard for his ancestry: “Our people are the wisest,” she told him. “Others are better at warfare, obviously, since strangers from the west did overrun us and install their gods in place of ours, but in all else we are supreme.” Her comments on history invariably referred to migration from the west, sometimes to relationships with the south, and occasionally to influences drifting down from the north, but the east where the great sea rolled was never mentioned.

In other respects, Maya knowledge was prodigious in both volume and precision. Two thousand years before the old man made his calculations, Maya astronomers, always seeking to refine their measurements, had determined that the year was not 365 days long but 365:24. Europeans, who failed to achieve this precise computation, stumbled along with their calendar falling each year into deeper error. Not until 1582, nearly two centuries after Cimi Xoc’s death, did European astronomers catch up with the Maya, who had also determined that the journey of Venus through the heavens required exactly 583:92 days.

Such basic facts had for centuries been recorded in tables inscribed on papyruslike sheets and jealously guarded by the priests who perfected them by making minute adjustments. But the intellectual accomplishment of Cimi Xoc and his peers that would amaze subsequent civilizations was their ability to forecast eclipses of the sun: When the old man first showed his granddaughter the tables, he chanced to point to a date five hundred years in the future which indicated that on Sunday 29 March 1987 a total eclipse of the sun would occur. To Ix Zubin’s astonishment, her grandfather’s table of predictions continued through two hundred years beyond that.

Long before the birth of Christ the Maya had devised a multipart numerizing system which enabled them to calculate with the most elegant exactitude dates going back ten thousand years or more, and, for an equal span, into the future. In their five-number system the first figure represented a very large number, the second a somewhat smaller, the third a portion comparable to one year, the fourth the number of units close to a month, and the fifth the number of days.

When European scholars in the early twentieth century unlocked the secret of the Maya calendar system, they found that the precise day of the week for any date reaching back three thousand years could be correlated, as could dates probing far into the future. Each group of five Maya numbers meant a specific day in a certain month of a given year. But more significantly, they formed a throbbing tie to the ancestors.

“This one speaks of things that happened more than a thousand years ago,” he said reverently. “A priest of our line helped this ruler,” and here he indicated the specific king reigning in that distant period, “to consolidate his power. You can see the slaves kneeling before him.”

He then showed her symbols dating the stela’s events to Friday 9 May 755—9:16.4:1.17 7 Imix 14 Tzec—and it was with this clearly defined time that she began her involvement with the Maya numbering system. Soon she was able to read other stelae, one recording events from November 939, another more recent, in February 1188.

From that simple start with the reading of the Cobá stelae, which she accomplished with ease, he taught her the intricate systems which his son, her father, would have to master were he to take charge of the temple’s calculations, but which the young man had proved too limited intellectually to learn. Gradually Ix Zubin began to perform her father’s calculations, and in a surprisingly short time she was working in astronomy, then in the calculations for Venus, and finally in formulae for predicting eclipses. “There are very few parts of our priestly art,” her grandfather said, “more useful to us and more awesome to the people, including our rulers, than our ability to warn: ‘Next month the sun will disappear, and unless you help us build that new room in the temple, the sun will not reappear and we shall all die.’ The threat is useful, because when the sun actually disappears as we predicted, they listen, even the rulers. And the house is completed.”

In those early years when Ix Zubin first became aware that great changes threatened to engulf and modify the Maya empire, she was—though completely unknown—one of the most effective astronomers in the far-flung realm and much superior to any then working in Europe or Asia, for her subtle knowledge of the passage of the earth through its seasons and the movement of the stars through their heavens was unsurpassed, while her mastery of numbers and the calculation of time were equaled in no other part of the world.

Those were years of contentment. Often she thought that her father, her husband and she were the happiest trio in Cozumel, and when her son Bolón was born life seemed complete. Later, when her father died and her husband inherited the outward trappings of High Priest, she continued to provide that office with its astronomical calculations. But she also strove to perfect her knowledge, grasping secretly for the crumbs of other experiments being conducted in other parts of the Maya lands, but the time came when both she and her husband realized that she ought to be passing along to their son the lore she had accumulated, and from this impulse, more scientific than motherly, she began to instruct Bolón in her mysteries.

He had been fourteen at the time, and she quickly saw that he had none of the insights she had had at five, for even then she had been a genius, one of those miracle children born attuned to the universe and its arcane movements, and that kind of knowledge no mother could automatically impart to her son; such geniuses arrive in the world at broken intervals and their coming is inexplicable. But if she could not bestow on Bolón her veiled power, she could teach him to be a solid mathematician and to use the tables her predecessors had compiled over thirty centuries, and this she did.

In the two months following the death of his father, the High Priest, Bolón, then sixteen, and Ix Zubin faced a series of difficult problems, for it became evident that the rulers of Cozumel, having received no orders from Mayapán about the Temple of Fertility, were determined to shut it down, but were prevented from doing so immediately by the continued influx of women from the mainland coming to seek assurance from the gods that they would become pregnant. Deciding to wait until steps could be taken to halt this flow, they turned their attention to a great ritual ceremony which was being planned to terminate worship at the temple.

The affair was to have a dual purpose: a dismissal of the old gods of the ancient Maya and a showy confirmation of the new gods of the newer religion. To accomplish this most effectively, the civil authorities decreed that an offering be made to Chac Mool, the powerful rain god, whose benevolence assured proper amounts during the growing season. When Ix Zubin heard of this decision, she was sickened, for there was no god in the pantheon that she detested more than Chac Mool. With ample reason she felt that his savage rites debased the fine temple whose high quality had been protected and enhanced by the men of her family.

Chac Mool, in both appearance and function, was one of the ugliest gods which the conquering strangers from the west had imposed upon the Maya, a deity from strange lands demanding strange sacrifices. He appeared in hundreds of massive stone statues throughout Maya lands, a fierce warrior shown lying flat on his back, his chest propped up by his elbows, his knees flexed, his feet resting firmly on the ground. This unnatural posture meant that his cramped stomach area provided a broad flat space into which was carved a big saucer held in place by the idol’s two stone hands. Obviously, the waiting receptacle was intended to be filled by donations from women who came to seek help from the gods, and on festive days it overflowed with flowers and bits of jade and even pieces of gold, a form of worship to which Ix Zubin did not object.

When Ix Zubin heard news of the impending festival of rain, she quietly took her son to the temple, being careful not to step in any areas forbidden to women, and led him to the statue. “Look!” she whispered. “Have you ever seen a more terrifying face?” With her customary insight she had identified the real horror of Chac Mool, for in an already awkward position his stone head was turned ninety degrees to the left, so that his warrior face, topped by a big stone helmet covering his hair and with protuberances jutting out from his ears, glared malevolently, the corners of the mouth drawn into a ferocious grimace at whoever might be approaching.

It was a brutal, deformed depiction of the human body, but she had to admit that it was powerful: the figure of a vindictive god demanding his sacrifices, and wherever he appeared throughout the land he was instantly recognizable, for his curious posture was invariable, except that occasionally his ugly stone face was turned to the right rather than to the left. Chac Mool was a god calculated to produce terror in the heart of any beholder, and that had been the purpose of those who had inflicted him on the people.

“He’s waiting for a human heart,” Ix Zubin whispered. “That was never intended in this temple. He’s an impostor.”

“When did he arrive?”

“In my grandfather’s day. They placed two Chac Mools on the island, but not in our temple, and sacrifices became quite common, slaves usually but our own sons when required, and Grandfather spoke out against the practice.”

“What happened?” Bolón asked, staring at Chac Mool.

Pointing to the stone saucer held by the statue, ugly in every perspective, she shuddered and led her son from the temple, with Chac Mool’s evil gaze following them as they left.

Ix Zubin spent the month prior to the impending sacrifice adding two pages to the papyrus record of Cozumel, and in them she summarized the achievements of her renowned grandfather and the lesser accomplishments of his son. With Bolón watching and confirming the accuracy of her symbols, she added the specific dates during which each had exercised power, and when she had finished, mother and son looked at the scrolls with pride. “There the record will be,” she said. “Your forebears were men to be remembered.” Then she pressed her son’s hand: “And so shall you be. To guide us through the stormy days ahead.”

She had barely made this prediction when the clouds began to gather, for three burly messengers from the island leaders came to confiscate the scrolls: “These are to be kept by those in charge,” and for the first time in centuries the scrolls left the confines of the temple. As the messengers disappeared she called after them: “Why?” and one called back: “They believe all that your grandfather did was wrong. That’s why they want to close down what they call ‘his temple.’ ”

Stunned by this desecration of the sacred scrolls, Ix Zubin wandered for two days about her lovely island, nodding to the pregnant women climbing out of the canoes after their long journeys. Then from a hilltop she studied the endless sea as it came to the eastern shore, but always she came back to that handsome assembly of nine buildings at the shrine, with their white-pebbled walkways, tall trees and flowered nooks. They formed a noble scene, one to gladden the heart, and she was not prepared to surrender it to mean men who lacked vision or appreciation. Her mind was made up.

But now Ix Zubin was confronted by an almost insurmountable problem, for according to Maya custom it would be unthinkable for a lone woman accompanied only by a sixteen-year-old to make a journey of any distance, and to make one of protest to the faltering power of Mayapán would be preposterous. It was obligatory that she find some man older than herself to serve as head of her expedition; she might be the most capable woman in all of Yucatán, but tradition insisted that for her to make such a journey, she must have a man to lead her.

She spent the next two days discussing the situation with Bolón, reviewing and discarding candidates: “Too frightened. If a fox jumped, he’d cry for help.” “Too stupid. I’d never be able to explain.” “Too indebted to the rulers, whoever they might be at any time.” Irritated by her inability to visualize a trustworthy man, she fell silent. Just then, as they sat quietly under a tree near the temple, she saw, picking his way among the flowers, the answer to her needs: her aged uncle Ah Nic (Ah indicating male)—a minor priest at the Cozumel temple who had few interests in life save for his love of flowers and his tender concern for orphaned children. A man who minced when he walked and smiled when things went poorly, he was easily dismissed by better men but tolerated by them for his gentleness. Ah Nic’s going would occasion no comment, so as he moved toward her she called “Uncle! Please, I need your help,” and when she outlined her plan to approach the authorities at Mayapán, he said quietly: “If you are willing to waste your time going to that powerless place, I will accompany you. But first I think we should show your son a real monument—Chichén Itzá.”

“Then why would you go back?” her son asked, and she explained: “But I also saw greatness, and long after the hideous gods retreated from my dreams, I remembered the noble temples and the beautiful courts. You are entitled to see them, Bolón, so that you’ll know what greatness is.”

So, in the dark of night, without a light to guide them lest it attract attention, the three gathered the clothes and goods they would require: the good cotton tunics Ix Zubin had woven and sewed, the extra pair of boots shod with heavy skins, the rain covers made from tightly woven reeds and slender lianas, and most important, the three types of money they would need for the purchase of food along the way: jade, gold and cacao beans.

Ix Zubin produced from various hidden places the bits of green jade she had sequestered through the years; some of them, she knew, belonged to the temple, not to her, but she justified what amounted to theft by telling Bolón: “Your father and I worked for this jade. It’s only proper.” Bolón had gathered up wealth of a radically different kind, and in this case he was certainly entitled to it, for he spread before her the precious cacao beans, each one worth a meal, that the Maya used for money. It was, perhaps, the most interesting kind of coinage used anywhere in the world, for after it had passed as currency for a year or two, it finally gravitated into the hands of some man already wealthy who ground up the beans to make the delicious chocolate drink which Maya people craved. Bolón, treasuring the bag in which he had accumulated such beans by doing small jobs for important families, assured his mother: “This takes us there and back.” Both Ix Zubin and Bolón were surprised when Ah Nic brought forth a small horde of gold pieces which through the years he had hidden from offerings made to the temple, and in the middle of the night they set forth.

The men who owned the big canoe they would be using for the important first leg of their journey were not happy about venturing south in darkness, but since they had taken such trips twice before they knew that disaster was not inevitable, so when Bolón took from his bag four cacao beans, the canoe men grabbed them and started paddling.

Bolón was not really listening, for her reasoning was so personal and mystifying that he could not follow it; his attention was on the musical, mysterious sea, that strange body of water that he had never before ventured upon, and it captivated him: “Why don’t we build really big canoes and explore this great body of water?” and Ah Nic gave the answer that had been given for the past thousand years: “We’re land people. We know nothing of water like this,” and he told Bolón of how adventurous it had been, many generations ago, for the Maya to quit the land which was their home and make the bold leap across water to Cozumel, a distance of not much more than eleven miles, with land visible at all times: “It was a brave act, and many of those first people died still convinced that catastrophe must overtake them because they had broken with tradition by crossing water to an island.” Ah Nic enjoyed giving such explanations.

“Would you have that same fear about venturing into that sea out there?” and the way in which Bolón phrased his question revealed that he thought of the waters they were traversing as safe, because land was visible throughout the starry night, while that “other water” would be terrifying beyond belief once the reassuring land had become invisible.

His mother confirmed this fear: “When Grandfather first took me down to Tulúm in a canoe like this, four big men paddling, I was sure we were heading for the end of the world. And I can tell you, I was relieved when we climbed back onto safe land.” Chuckling at her fears, she added: “As for venturing out there, I’d be terrified.”

“So would I,” Ah Nic agreed.

It was only about forty miles from the departure point at Cozumel to Tulúm, and since waves could be high and progress slow, it was not until dawn of the second day that they approached the temple area. As the two sailors beached their canoe, the occupants could look up and see some forty feet above them the grim outlines of a fortress tower unlike anything on Cozumel. Poised on the edge of the sea, it appeared to shout a warning to those down below: “Do not attempt to assault the city I guard, for we are impregnable!”

But the three had inspected only one temple when Ix Zubin expressed her disgust at the sloppy, inartistic manner in which the edifices had been built: “They’re as gross and brutal as our Chac Mool.”

Tulúm had been built in the days when Maya glory was fading, when architects were content to use rude chunks of rock on which no attempt had been made to achieve a finish. The buildings showed façades that were inherently ugly and were so oriented that no lovely vistas resulted. A few apertures did look out upon the Caribbean but they were very small, as if the priests inside had been afraid to face the frightening sea, preferring instead the scrub woodland which attacked from the west and with which they were familiar. The principal temple did serve one useful purpose: it was convenient as a pilgrimage center for those who could not afford the longer journeys to Cozumel or Chichén Itzá, but the men who served it were as uncouth as their building. The temple had as its prized adornment an exceptionally hideous Chac Mool whose reclining body was so cramped and distorted that it seemed hardly human and whose brutal scowl was terrifying. There was little else that might awaken spiritual understanding, and Ix Zubin was harsh when she helped her son evaluate what he was seeing: “It’s a hodgepodge. No beauty. No lifting of the spirit. No inner sense of majesty inspired these architects and sculptors. No reason, really, for the temples at all, except maybe to serve a population that couldn’t afford the trip to a real one.”

Her son, acquainted only with the temples on Cozumel, could not agree: “Tulúm’s twice as big as anything we have. I like the way it overlooks the sea. It’s high, too, up on this cliff, much higher than any of ours.”

“What is that?”

“Create a sense of awe … a feeling of mystical power.”

“When I see that stone saucer resting on his belly and imagine what’s to go in it, I feel awe,” Bolón said, but she would not accept this: “Bolón, look at the hideous thing. It offers nothing but shock,” and she elaborated on the principle that had guided both her grandfather and her in their service to their island: “Whenever you do a job, do it right in its essentials, but then add something to make it more important than it would otherwise be. I hate our Chac Mool, you know that, but I admire the way the sculptor took pains to make the boots so perfect, the helmet so right. Let that be your guide when you become High Priest of our temple.”

As they prepared to leave Tulúm for the journey to Chichén Itzá, Ix Zubin had an opportunity to study her son, and the more she saw of him as he stood on the verge of manhood, the more pleased she was. “Look at him!” she whispered to herself as he marched ahead. “What a handsome body, what a quick mind in its own way.” And she saw with motherly satisfaction that the countless nights she had spent binding boards against his forehead had borne fruit, for his face sloped backward in a perfect unbroken line from the tip of his nose to the top of his head in the way a Maya head was supposed to. No forehead bone interrupted that unblemished sweep, and with such a profile her son was assured of being judged one of the most handsome young men in any community. She could not understand why some mothers, and she could name a few in the better families of Cozumel, failed to train their son’s heads properly, for all it took was patience and the application of pressure every night for the first six years.

There was a haphazard, poorly tended trail from the temple at Tulúm to the congregation of great buildings at Chichén Itzá, but it could not be called a proper road. However, along it did come, now and then, some important personage riding in a chair covered like a tent with woven mats and carried on the shoulders of four slaves. Bolón, watching one such entourage sweep hurriedly by, with those behind the chair following at a run, told his mother: “That’s the way I’d like to go,” and she reprimanded him: “What a lofty ambition! To ride on the backs of others,” and he blushed at having been so presumptuous.

When they broke out of the low woodland they saw stretching far before them the great, flat plains of Yucatán, broken only occasionally by forlorn groups of scraggly trees. Now the sun beat so relentlessly upon them that they feared they might faint. But their good luck persisted, for one day when they fell exhausted beneath a tree that offered meager shade, they were joined by a group of pilgrims who had come from another part of the forest. These men and women carried with them light woven mats which they attached to pairs of forked branches, to form a comfortable protection above their heads, and since they were taking surplus mats to a trading center near Chichén Itzá, they allowed Ix Zubin and her companions to borrow some to make their own head coverings.

The strangers, having no interest in Chichén Itzá, broke away well before the ancient site, but Ah Nic, loath to lose the protection of his head covering, cried like a little child: “I want to keep mine!” and when Ix Zubin offered the traders a small piece of jade for the three mats, the purchase was completed. The strangers gone, Ix Zubin said: “I’m glad we’re alone, for these are solemn moments,” and when Bolón asked why, she explained: “When you travel you must not only look but also think,” and as they sat in their newly purchased shade she talked with her son regarding the glories of their people. She was delighted when she saw that he was following carefully what she said, and that night when she lay stretched upon the ground she thought: He’s becoming a priest. Given enough time, he’ll make it.

As they approached the vast collection of buildings, now empty because leadership of the Maya had passed to Mayapán, Ix Zubin saw that temples she had so vividly remembered, and with such frightening memories, were now even more awesome, for they had been captured by crawling vines which passed over them like clutching fingers. Confronted by this mystery of the land reclaiming the temples, she became a different woman, a priestess self-ordained and inspired by her memories of dreams and nightmares. She was again that child of dazzling brilliance, the adventurous young woman who had preserved the long memories of her Maya people. Her first visit to Chichén Itzá had so awakened her to the terror and glories of Maya life that she now became hungry to instill in her son an equal appreciation. With that resolve, she strode past the Chac Mool and plunged her son into the grandeur of the Chichén Itzá ruins.

But it was a trial of a different order that she wanted to impress upon her son, and as she stood over one of the cenotes, she told Bolón: “Whenever the city faced a crisis that required immediate instruction from the gods, the priests brought twelve naked maidens here at dawn and tossed them one by one into the deep water down there. At noon they came back with long poles to fish out as many girls as had survived, and these lucky ones were supposed to bring with them specific instructions from the gods.”

“What if none survived?”

“That meant the city was in trouble.”

“I think it was the twelve girls who were in trouble,” Ah Nic ventured, but his niece reproved him for making light of a religious tradition, horrible though it was.

It was two quite different features which Bolón would remember longest: the noble pyramids falling into ruin but with high temples still atop their pinnacles, and the artistic excellence of the Chac Mools who, with their gaping saucers on their bellies, seemed better carved than the ones he had known at Cozumel and seen briefly at Tulúm.

But his mother now called his attention to something else: “Look at how these temples were built, the perfection of their stones, the magical way in which one blends with the other,” and as he studied these details she continued in an almost mystical monotone: “These temples were built by men who talked with the gods, who had seen a vision of a more perfect world.” At one point, when the three stood together sharing a view of four temples whose façades seemed to intertwine, each serving its prescribed purpose, Ix Zubin grasped Bolón’s hands and cried: “In spite of the horrors I saw here, if I’d never seen the glories of Chichén, I would have died blind,” and she continued in an unbroken litany to describe its wonders.

In the morning Bolón was up early, eager to resume the journey to Mayapán and test his will against the rules of that city, but before they could get started they were surprised by the arrival at the temple of a group of eleven somber men and women, obviously dispirited and without a leader. When Bolón ran forward to interrogate them, one said sullenly: “We’re from Mayapán,” and he cried: “That’s where we’re going!” whereupon all spoke at once: “Don’t do it!” and “No reason to go!” and “We’ve just left and all is confusion.”

Ix Zubin hurried up to ask: “What happened there?” and a man with a black spade beard said almost tearfully: “When our leaders saw their power slipping away, great Mayapán sliding into the dust, they became frantic and did all the wrong things. Stupid laws, beheading citizens who disobeyed those laws, riots everywhere. Flames, houses gone and temples too. The end of the world.”

When the Cozumel people moved among the newcomers they heard ample confirmation: “Yes, Mayapán was in turmoil for many years. When all was chaos, new invaders swarmed from the south with new gods and new laws. Many loud promises …” The speaker, a workingman, shrugged his shoulders, and his wife, gathering her daughter to her, completed his observation: “Promises … and now … who knows?”

“Even to attempt to go there,” the man with the beard warned, “would be to risk life and reason.”

“Where, then, are you going?” Ah Nic broke in, and a very old man with white hair gave a long evasive reply, punctuated with lamentations: “Ah me, when the heavens fall in tempest, wise ones huddle close to the earth so that lightning does not strike them.”

The verbose old man smiled, and said with condescension: “It’s many days travel, west and south. As a woman, you couldn’t possibly—”

Boldly Ix Zubin interrupted: “I’m the granddaughter of Cimi Xoc,” and when the man with the spade beard heard that august name he held out both hands to greet Ix Zubin, but then he posed certain sensible questions whose answers would prove or disprove her relationship with the revered astronomer. She responded properly, going far beyond expectations and revealing herself as one who had some knowledge of the secrets of the planets and even considerable information about how the Maya people had governed themselves in ancient times.

Her questioner was a prudent man who did not want his group to be saddled with weaklings, so before he gave his answer he pointed to the heavens where a waning moon still showed visible in daylight, and said: “Palenque is far. Before we reach there, that moon will stand once more where it stands today. Before we are able to return, it will have stood there twice.”

Turning to her men, Ix Zubin started to query them to see if they deemed themselves equal to the task of continuing on to Palenque, and when Ah Nic, whom she questioned first, displayed the reticence which she expected, she heard the people from Mayapán murmuring against admitting him to their group. This distressed her, for she could see animosities festering which would destroy their expedition, so with great force she challenged her uncle: “You are a priest of the Temple of Fertility in Cozumel. These women from Mayapán would travel a far distance to receive your blessing. You are the conscience of our people, the custodian of good things. Brace yourself and assume the leadership to which your rank entitles you.”

Although the Mayapán men were impressed by the old man’s willingness to assume command, they needed two more assurances. “This could well be the last journey any of us will ever make,” they said, “so we must be sure. When you walk from here to Palenque, you travel through jungle, swamps, streams overflowing suddenly … Days without seeing the sun … A million insects, snakes … Few villages …” Staring at the would-be voyagers, the spokesman asked: “Can you face that?” and Ah Nic said grandly: “Yes.”

Then came the crucial question: “We’ll have to buy many things along the way … whenever we have a chance. Do you carry anything of value?”

Bolón started to tell them that yes, they had … but Ah Nic gently placed his hand on the young fellow’s arm, smiled at the Mayapán people, and assured them: “We do,” and they, approving of his reluctance to disclose the exact level of their wealth, nodded and said: “In that case, off we go,” and the company of fourteen started the thirty-three-day walk to Palenque.

Bolón was amazed that a major road to a place as important as Palenque had been should now be only this grudging track through jungle. But Ix Zubin knew that this experience with the power of the jungle to smother land would be the best preparation for what he would probably see at Palenque, if it remained as it had been when her grandfather described it; she doubted that the ancient city could provide anything equal to what Bolón had already seen in the dry-lands of Chichén Itzá.

There were, of course, a few small villages in clearings where the pilgrims could find food and water, but they were such mean affairs that Bolón asked the white-haired man: “How could Chichén be so grand and these places so miserable?” and the old fellow replied in sorrow: “People and places know greatness for a while, then decline.”

“Why are you making this long journey?”

“To see, once again before I die, the greatness our people knew in the old days, and to mourn its passing.”

The man was so patient with Bolón that the boy stayed close to him, discussing ideas relating to temples and proudly explaining the important role played by his family in the Temple of Fertility at Cozumel. The old man listened attentively, but what really intrigued him was Bolón’s insistence that his mother really did know the secrets of astronomy and the manipulation of numbers, for he had never known a woman conversant in such matters. When he had heard Ix Zubin say earlier that she understood something about astronomy, he had assumed that she knew where the starry figures stood in the sky. Real astronomy? Never. But now, discovering that she really was learned, he sought her out.

“I wonder what the missing part would have told us?” the man mused, but not even Ix Zubin was clever enough to reconstruct that.

On the long days when nothing happened except dull plodding through jungle, Ix Zubin and her son pursued different interests, the boy heading off with the other hunters to see what food he might find or catch, and Ix Zubin talking with the two women who had accompanied their husbands from Mayapán. One interested her especially. This strong-minded woman had a daughter of fourteen, Ix Bacal by name, who was especially beautiful by Maya standards in that her mother had carefully trained her to be conspicuously cross-eyed: “When she was four days old I kept a feather dangling before her eyes on a length of grass, and as she stared at it, day after day, her eyes began to cross rather nicely. Then, when she was older, I asked her father to get us a piece of bright shell, and this was hung so that light from the sun reflected into her eyes, and this too helped to train them inward, the way a mother wants them. Finally, when she could walk, I would stand before her and bring my finger from way back here straight to the point of her nose, and in time her eyes locked properly, the way you see them today.”

Then the mother apologized for her own inadequate eyes: “My parents did not take such pains, and you can see that my eyes barely cross, and for certain they’re not locked. Eyes that wander get a woman into trouble. Eyes that turn in bring illumination to her soul, and you can see that Ix Bacal has such eyes.” So the two Maya women, as they rested in the jungle, congratulated themselves on the proofs of their maternal care—Bolón’s nicely sloping head and Ix Bacal’s lovely crossed eyes.

To Ix Zubin’s dismay, her son seemed unaware of the beautiful girl, and since he was soon to be seventeen, she was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to discover the other sex, for to have an unmarried priest in charge of a fertility temple would be unacceptable if not preposterous.

He noticed also that the Mayapán travelers treated these workmen with considerable deference, but even this recognition of their power did not prevent the ugly fellows from trying to grab at Ix Zubin, for they had not seen women for many days. When this happened, Ah Nic cried out in protest and Bolón leaped forward to defend his mother. But the men’s gestures had been a ruse, for what they really wanted was the young girl of fourteen, Ix Bacal, but when they tried to drag her away, Bolón heard her screams, and he and two of the travelers leaped at her attackers and drove them off while Ah Nic tried to hit them with a switch. Hurriedly, Ix Zubin and the man with the spade beard collected the pilgrims and fled the area of the malevolent rubber gatherers, who jeered at them as they left.

Back in the safety of the arched-over jungle trail, Bolón found himself trapped in an enticing mental problem: What would the ugly men have done with Ix Bacal if they had made away with her? and he now looked at the girl in a new way. No more long conversations with the old man, no more consultations with his mother. In his spontaneous leaping to the defense first of his mother and then of the girl, he had unknowingly taken the subtle step from boyhood to young manhood, and it was a development that Ix Zubin approved. She knew that her son’s ultimate effectiveness as a priest at their temple would depend in part upon the kind of young woman he would have as his partner. Her famous grandfather had been helped in many subtle ways by his good wife, and she herself had been of inestimable value to her husband, therefore, there was good reason to hope that Bolón would find himself a worthy mate.

So she took as much interest in this young girl as did her son. In appearance Ix Bacal was already a superior girl and gave promise of becoming an even finer-looking woman, but when Ix Zubin attempted to engage her in conversation, she quickly learned that the girl was ignorant and not interested in any aspect of Maya life, not even in her potential role as a mother. She was a pretty nothing, and for a young man as promising as Bolón, that was not enough.

After many days the pilgrims reached the edge of the once-great religious and political center of Palenque, and both Ah Nic and Ix Zubin, knowing the disappointment the others in the group were about to experience, prepared to soften the blow. Ix Zubin moved close to her son, but this did no good, for when he looked at Palenque, all he could see were trees, in a jungle of such profusion that nothing was visible more than six lengths in any direction. “Where is Palenque?” he asked fretfully, for this had been a long journey to end in so little, and his mother said: “Climb that tree and look about you,” but when he did he called down: “I still see nothing,” and she cried: “Bolón, look at the clotted mounds!” and when he did he began slowly to see that the area was covered with spots where the trees leaped upward as if they were hiding something below, and he called down: “It’s like the waves on the sea at Tulúm,” and indeed it was. There were great temples below him and scores of revealing stelae and beautiful palaces too, but none were visible, for human beings had left the area nearly a thousand years earlier, leaving the jungle free to confiscate the place, and it had.

Palenque, as Bolón saw it from his tree that October day in 1489, was nothing but a vast collection of mounds buried under a sea of trees, twisted roots and creeping lianas. Not even a vestige of the grandeur that once characterized the site was discernible, and as he climbed down to rejoin the other pilgrims waiting amid the jungled mounds, the site of one lost building rarely visible from another, all were overcome with a sense of mourning for past glories.

Then the man with the spade beard began, in whispering voice, to explain what had happened: “In its time, thousands of moons ago, this was a place of noble range, but it lived its day. Its people lost their enthusiasms. Its proud message was moved to other centers, and it perished.

In the morning they hurried to their exciting task, but they had worked for only an hour when everyone realized that it would be impossible to clear the entire mound; that would take a moon of effort, but they could, as others had done on visits past, clear a tunnel of sufficient size to allow reasonable inspection of some portion of what lay hidden below, and to this more limited task the diggers applied themselves.

On the second day Bolón was deep in the tunnel, ripping away roots that clung avariciously to some hidden object, when, with a mighty pull of his arms, he tore the last roots free and cried: “It’s here!” and the others rushed up behind him to finish enlarging the passageway so that their companions could stoop and walk through to see at least this remnant of Palenque’s greatness. Then, when a substantial surface of the buried temple had been cleared, all could examine the exquisite workmanship that had characterized Maya building at its zenith.

“Look!” the bearded man cried, his eyes alight with wonder. “See how each stone fits exactly every other, on all sides. And how the surfaces are polished. And if we could locate a carved stela, we’d see real wonders.”

“Our ancestors knew that a man was a limited creature,” the bearded man explained, as if he were living at that time, “so they adopted a headdress that made them taller, that brought all mystical powers to their support.” Then he smiled and added: “Also, it impressed and even frightened the ordinary people.” Turning to the others, he asked: “Can you imagine standing before that judge, with those snakes and jaguar teeth staring down at you, and admitting that you’d done something wrong?” The headdress of the life-size figure was three feet high.

Only a corner of the little temple had been cleared by the diggers, but now Bolón and another man decided to probe just a bit farther, and in doing so, came upon the blocked entrance to an inner room. When this was opened and torches brought, Ah Nic led them inside to the true miracle of Palenque, for there in the dim and gloom, protected by thick outer walls from the inquisitive roots, rose an inner wall some seven feet high and twelve feet long, covered completely with glyphs and scripts and figures of the most beautiful composition, some carved, some painted, summarizing an account of what must have been a heroic action in times long past.

Ah Nic knew the answer. “The hills near here gave them a remarkable stone, easy to crush, easy to mix with sand and broken pebbles and lime and just enough water. It formed a plaster, not solid, not liquid, and it was easily worked. As it dried it could be carved, but when it hardened …” Picking from the floor a small rock, he banged it mightily against the carved face of a ferocious god, and the pebble cracked while the god’s cheek remained unscarred. “We call it stucco,” Ah Nic said, “and it accounts for the beauty of Palenque.” When Bolón inspected this little treasure room he saw that the walls, the ceiling, the decorations and the statues were all of stucco, and when he left, reluctantly, looking back till the last flare died, he realized that the first figure he had admired had been constructed in the same way: a pillar had been covered with wet stucco which, when hardened, could be carved into fantastic configurations.

As the time approached to start the return journey, Ah Nic led the group through a jungle morass to the edge of a massive mound reaching high into the air and covered by a literal forest of trees: “If that little corner of such a minor temple revealed such wonders, can you imagine what grandeur will be seen when great mounds like this are uncovered?” Then he allowed his voice to fall to a whisper: “And as we have seen, there are scores of such mounds, scores of temples lying hidden all around us,” and in the silence that followed, Bolón understood why his mother had insisted on this pilgrimage, for he knew that knowledge of the past gave men courage to face the future.

When Ix Zubin led her son, now a proven man, back to the point on the mainland where they would catch the ferry to Cozumel, they found confusion, for the men who customarily sailed the large canoes were nowhere to be seen, nor were their craft. Instead, a group of catch-as-catch-can little craft were swarming around in the hands of men who knew little about them. When the three travelers chose one in which they had scant faith, the young fellow in charge told them a doleful story: “Much bad this year. Nobody in Mayapán to give orders. Nobody in Cozumel to set rules.”

When they landed, ignoring people who might want to interrogate them about having been absent for more than half a year, they walked benumbed toward their temple, and wherever they looked they saw scars and things torn away. Then Bolón, running ahead, stopped aghast, for the Temple of Fertility which he should have inherited had been wantonly destroyed, its walls torn down, its cluster of supporting buildings burned. Even its detestable Chac Mool had been carried off to a more exposed site where human sacrifices could be staged with greater spectacular effect.

But what appalled Ix Zubin beyond consolation was that the precious papers on which her grandfather had computed his calculations on the planet Venus had been burned, along with his predictions of eclipses for centuries to come. She was enraged when she learned of this savagery, but she did not confide her feelings to Bolón lest he react spontaneously as he had when the rubber tappers assaulted her. She did, however, caution him: “We may have caused the destruction of our own temple … going on pilgrimage without their permission … Beware, son. They may have other punishments awaiting us. Beware.” And she monitored whatever he did, trying to keep him away from his superiors in hopes of protecting him.

To his superiors, Bolón explained: “They are like the long-ago people you spoke about. They want from us only two things. Pieces of jade and rubber balls for their games.”

“What have they to offer?”

“Beautiful mats, best ever seen,” Bolón said with enthusiasm, betraying the fact that he had become excited by the mysteriousness of their sudden appearance. “Seashells, beautifully carved. Rowing paddles of a strong new wood.”

When the rude men who now ruled Cozumel growled: “We have no need of paddles,” Bolón unwisely protested this decision, pointing out that the time could very well come when the men of Cozumel might want to venture out upon the sea which these strangers had apparently crossed with ease.

“No!” the new rulers snarled. “The sea is not for us. We’re people of the land.”

But Bolón found himself opposed to them, for he had fallen under the spell of the sea that rolled in such majesty onto the eastern shore of his island, and he began to speculate upon its significance: If these men have come to us in their large canoe, perhaps others will arrive in much larger ones? Cherishing his thoughts, he began walking for hours along the shore, staring eastward as if striving to glimpse the lands which he suspected might rest invisibly in the distance. At electrifying moments during his speculations he began to comprehend secrets of the sea, and it seemed as if bolts of lightning struck his imagination: Is it not possible that the future of Cozumel will lie not with the mainland to the west where all things seem to be crumbling, but rather somewhere in this unknown sea to the east where things seem fresh and new? At the conclusion of one such vision he strode into the waves and cried: “Waters of the world, I embrace you,” and from that moment his decision was made.

Both charges were true. Bolón had been so awed by his visit to Palenque that he had returned to Cozumel yearning to do something that would re-create the grandeur lost in that buried city. But now, with his temple destroyed and any possibility of his becoming a priest erased, he was casting about for other areas in which he could exercise his energy, and the idea of carrying Maya concepts of life to new lands became inviting. So one morning, without carefully exploring what such an emigration would entail, he hurried down to where the canoe was loading and indicated to the rowers: “I’d like to go with you,” and they replied that he’d be welcome.

That night, after sunset, still unaware that the Cozumel authorities were closely watching his behavior, he told his mother: “I’ve been thinking. With the loss of everything here, maybe it would be better if I sailed with the strangers when they leave in the morning.”

For some moments Ix Zubin did not reply, for since their departure from Palenque she had been worried about her son’s future. Some of the signs she detected were ominous, like his constant association with the newcomers; others reassuring, like his increased maturity and willingness to discuss important matters with her. But what really disturbed her were his frequent wanderings along the shore, for she guessed that he had become infatuated with the sea. Recalling how profoundly it had affected him during their trip to Tulúm, she warned: “Bolón, do not fall in love with a stranger. Keep your feet dry.”

Trying desperately to determine whether her son was still a boy or had truly become a man, one night she shared her assessment with him: “At Tulúm you said you liked it better because it was bigger than Cozumel. Remember that foolish statement? Also, when the official in the palanquin passed us on the road, you said your ambition was to ride in one when you grew up. How silly. And on the ball court at Chichén you were a mere boy, playing with dreams.”

For some moments she rocked back and forth, bending from the waist, then she leaned sideways and embraced her son: “I took you away from Cozumel a boy. I brought you back a man.” Then, taking his hands, she whispered: “You say you may be going away with the strangers in their canoe. That’s the kind of decision only a grown man is eligible to make. Well, you’re a man now. Think carefully, son,” and she drew his hands to her lips and kissed them in a kind of benediction.

The realization that he might be leaving Ix Zubin forever overwhelmed him and he fell silent, not knowing what to say. Ill at ease about revealing the love he felt for her, he made a totally different observation: “It’s difficult when the world’s changing … when the old dies but you can’t yet see the new.”

In the hours that followed, these two good people who saw so clearly that their world was disintegrating, with nothing better to take its place, sat in a darkness alleviated only by the stars which they had studied so faithfully, and they became mourners for the death of Palenque and Chichén Itzá and even huge Mayapán that had served a useful purpose during its good days. They had been great cities motivated by worthy purposes, but they had either vanished or were in the process of doing so. Cozumel, too, was doomed, as fatally wounded as Tulúm, and soon there would be no need for astronomers or mathematicians or men who knew how to make and use stucco. “Everywhere the jungle will reclaim the land,” Ix Zubin said, but she refused to lament. Straightening her little shoulders as if to muster new resolve, she said: “New worlds, new tasks,” but she could not envision what purpose either she or Bolón, trained as they had been, could serve in the new order.

Ix Zubin, watching from a distance, felt a surge of joy in knowing that he would stay with her, but this euphoria vanished when she asked herself the question that would haunt her remaining days: Should I have encouraged him, even driven him, to leave this doomed place and find a better life? Her fears that she might have acted improperly were temporarily assuaged when her son strode back from the sea with a decisive step, spotted her watching, and came to her, saying in a voice from which irresolution had been cleansed: “My life is here. To help you rebuild our temple. To save this island from a terrible error,” and he led her off to launch their first steps in that effort. Following behind, her heart sang: He has become the man we needed.

But as they approached their shack seven guards leaped upon Bolón lest he try to run down to the departing canoe, pinioned his arms, stripped him of his clothing, and informed him in loud voices: “You’re for the next sacrifice to Chac Mool. At the feast, three days hence,” and they rushed him away to the wicker cage in which the human sacrifices were imprisoned while awaiting the feast day.

In wild panic Ix Zubin tried to rescue her son from this terrible end, but she was powerless; the rulers had lodged such serious charges against her that her pleas were nullified. She had gone on pilgrimage without permission. She had encouraged her son to have dealings with the strangers. And worst of all, she had kept in her possession pages of papyrus containing mystic calculations which ought to be administered only by men. Had custom allowed women to be sacrificed to the rain god, she would surely have volunteered to take her son’s place in the waiting pen. Instead, she had to suffer her grief and outrage alone.

She knew the answer: I could have demanded that he flee this dreadful island with those men in the canoe. He knew that his destiny lay in the sea to the east, but I intruded. Then came the most terrible recrimination of all: I helped to strike him down in the very moment when he became a full man, and to her mind’s eye came that final vision of him as he strode back from the seashore, his body bronzed by the sun, his mind and courage forged in the fires of his generation. Wailing to herself, she cried: “He was the best man on this island, and I helped destroy him,” and she cursed the gods.

Bolón, held tightly in his cage, knew neither rage nor fear. His recent experiences at majestic Chichén Itzá and sacred Palenque had given him a new understanding. He realized that civilizations waxed and waned and that he was unfortunate in having been born into an era when old values were dying, dying beyond recall. He was glad that his mother had rejected her original plan of going to Mayapán, for he sensed that such a visit to a moribund center would have been not only unproductive but also depressing. Palenque, on the other hand, had been like a flame in a dark night, throwing beautiful shadows in corners that would otherwise have been completely dark. He was proud to be the inheritor of the men and women who had built Palenque.

Also, he remembered his sudden courage in fighting off the rubber tappers, for it had made him aware, now that he was seventeen, that a world of women waited with their own mysteries; life was twice as complicated and interesting as he had perceived it earlier. This thought did bring flashes of regret; he did not want to die before those other avenues were explored; he was unwilling to go before he knew from what lands to the east the strangers had come.

But above all, he was a Maya, profoundly indoctrinated in the lore of his people, and he truly believed that if he behaved poorly at his execution, he would bring shame upon his mother and a punishing drought to his island, and this he would not do. So he huddled in his cage, erased all fear, and awaited the moment when he would be taken to the stone altar beside which Chac Mool waited with the stone saucer resting on his belly.

Now the guards threw him roughly, face up, on the big stone altar, whereupon four young acolytes leaped forward to grab his arms and legs and pull them tightly backward so as to force his chest upward. Bolón actually watched with personal concern as the high priest, wearing a robe covered with arcane symbols painted in gold and blood and a tremendous headdress two feet high crawling with snakes and jaguars, lifted his obsidian knife, plunged it into the left side of the rib cage, drew it deeply across, and while Bolón was still alive, reached in and grabbed the beating heart, ripping it from its hiding place. Bolón remained alive just long enough to see his own heart placed reverently in the waiting saucer of Chac Mool.

On the very day that Bolón died on the island of Cozumel, a council of some importance was meeting in the Spanish city of Sevilla, where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella listened attentively as a team of three learned savants cited six reasons why the Italian navigator Cristoforo Colombo, now converted into the Spanish supplicant Cristóbal Colón, was egregiously wrong in his preposterous theory that Asia could be reached by sailing westward out of a port in southern Spain:

The courtiers laughed. The royal couple looked at him in dismay and shook their heads. The wise men congratulated themselves on having helped Spain avoid error. But Colón marched out of the court still determined to pursue the great adventure in which he had unfaltering faith.

IN THE SPRING OF 1509 THE COURTIERS ATTENDING THE KING OF Spain in his temporary headquarters at Segovia just north of Madrid awaited anxiously the arrival of a caped horseman who had been expected some hours earlier. When he came clattering into the paved courtyard they rushed to help him dismount, but he vaulted from his horse, ignoring the offers of help.

“How dare you keep the king waiting!” they cried.

“Gypsies camping under a bridge,” he said curtly. “Set it afire cooking their stolen meats.”

“Three times the king has summoned you.”

“And I wasn’t here to answer, was I?” he snapped, but then as he brushed himself and discarded his cape, throwing it across his saddle, his momentary brusqueness dissolved into a gracious smile: “He’ll understand,” and he headed for the palace door.

Ocampo bowed with the lean grace of a gallant courtier and waved his left hand toward the king: “As always, Majesty.” The familiar manner in which he moved and spoke, avoiding the word king as improper to be used among two men who had long worked together, almost said in words what each knew: Did I not lose this eye and gain this scar in your behalf?

Ferdinand nodded slightly to acknowledge his friendship but he did not relax his sense of irritation and urgency. Throwing his arms about Ocampo’s shoulder, he led him to a divan covered with gold and purple embroidery and pulled him down beside him: “It’s those damned Colón heirs. They’re driving me crazy with petitions and noisy claims.”

“Still? I thought that had long been settled.”

“No. When their father died three years ago they began pestering me in earnest. Said that since he had discovered the New World for Isabella and me, I owed them, as his heirs, huge amounts of gold. More than the treasury has!”

“I am a lawyer, Majesty, but I do not bemire myself in family inheritances. In such battles honest men always lose.”

“That’s my problem, Ocampo. Yours is to sail out to Española and ascertain the truth as to how Cristóbal Colón discharged his duties there in my behalf.”

Ocampo moved away from the king, and placing his left thumb under his chin, he began, with the forefinger of that hand, to stroke his right cheek, closing his good eye; in this posture which he often used when trying to delay a decision, he gave the strong impression of a man immersed in deep thought. The king, seeing this, allowed him time to reflect, and when Ocampo finally spoke he surprised the monarch: “But didn’t you send an inquisitor out there eight or ten years ago to do the very thing you’re now asking me to do?”

“Didn’t he do a good job?”

“That’s what this problem is about. Isabella and I accepted his report, and we thought that finished the matter. But now the Colón heirs are claiming that Bobadilla was both prejudiced against their relative and a liar. If so, their pleas for more rewards might be justified.”

“What kind of man was Bobadilla?”

In answer the king rose, took Ocampo by the arm, and walked with him out into the garden of the palace, and there, among the spring flowers and budding trees, he gave a sharp summary of his onetime secret agent: “As different from you, Ocampo, as a man could be. Where you are slim, he was so fat he was almost ridiculous. Where you have a cautious, well-trained mind, he was impetuous. And where you bear the scars of honorable service to your country, he was terrified of a mouse, and the sound of a cannon sometimes unhinged him.”

“Why did you give such a man an important job?” and the king said: “Isabella favored him, and I could deny her nothing.”

These words produced an astonishing result, for as the king walked beside a line of tall, thin cypress trees, reminding him of those that had marked the cemetery where funeral rites for the great Isabella had been held, he broke into tears. Turning to Ocampo, he clutched his trusted friend to him and sobbed: “I have been desolate since her death. Ocampo, she was the finest queen the world has produced. None ever served their king more graciously …” He stopped abruptly, then said in a much different voice: “She was in many ways more brilliant than I am. I work hard, keep my eye on the task, adjust to the storms about me. She was calm and steady, like a flower-filled meadow when the wild storm passes.”

They had reached a point in their walk from which, across fields, the famous Roman aqueduct of Segovia could be seen, and this notable structure, now almost fifteen hundred years old and still delivering water to the city, reminded them of empire and government and the powerful things they themselves had helped create in Spain. Sitting on a wooden bench, the king said: “We united this country. No one thought it could be done, all those warring principalities. But we triumphed.”

“You mean like throwing the Muhammadans out of Spain and Europe?”

“But also evicting the Jews.”

“That was a strong move,” the king agreed. “But you must remember, we did give them a fair chance. If they converted to our religion, we allowed them to stay. If not …” He hesitated ominously, then fingered a gold medallion that hung suspended upon his chest by a silver chain: “I am as proud of this medal as anything I have in the world. The pope gave it to me when he awarded me the title El Católico. Said I was the premier Catholic in the world, because I strive to see that all my realms—Castille, Aragon, Sicily and New Spain across the seas—are as Catholic as I am.”

The two friends were particularly proud of their role in establishing the Holy Inquisition to defend the church. Its task, under the directions Ferdinand had spelled out when instituting the office, was to root out heresy wherever found in the world: “The priests have been doing a splendid job, Ocampo, and when you reach Española you must harass the infidels there—atheists, pagans, Jews, stamp them out!”

Before Ocampo could affirm his determination to support the faith in the New World as he had in the Old, the two men were joined by a sprightly Frenchwoman, Germaine de Foix, niece of the King of France and Ferdinand’s new wife. He seemed pleased to see her, but after she had led the men into a salon where a tasty repast awaited—meat, cheese, chewy bread and strong Spanish wine—she left them, and when Ocampo asked: “Has she adjusted to Spain comfortably?” the king said brightly: “Oh yes! Better than any of us could have expected. And our friendship with France is stronger, thanks to her.” Then he paused, looked toward the door to be sure she was out of earshot, and said: “But she does not compare with Isabella.”

Ocampo saw that the great man, who had accomplished so much good in Europe, was about to break into tears again, so he started to turn away, but Ferdinand, seizing control of himself, caught Ocampo by the arm and swung him around: “Please, trusted friend, uncover the truth about Colón.”

“We know what he did at sea. I want to know what he did on land.”

“Which land? If we can believe him, he touched on many lands, perhaps China, Japan, India, but for sure, the islands he named, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica …”

“We’re interested only in Española. He served us there as our viceroy, and it’s from there the charges against him came.” As the king bade Ocampo farewell and God’s speed he said with great warmth: “Solve this problem for me, Hernán, and any position in the kingdom is yours, any title you choose,” and they embraced.

“I’m completely lost.”

“When an army fights, it must have a banner that all can recognize, a signal of our side against theirs. Have you never seen the banner we Spaniards used against the Moors? A red and gold flag, two magnificent colors, don’t you think?”

“I do.”

“So when I lost my eye in the siege of Granada, I swore: ‘I shall proclaim the colors of Spain until I die.’ And here I am.” With that he resumed his watch on the waiting land.

Española was a big island offering a hilly profile, and as it grew clearer Ocampo detected an appealing aspect: it contained numerous white-sand beaches edged by palm trees dancing in the breeze. He would always remember that first poetic image: a curving beach, inviting and clean, with a ballet of swaying palms.

When the captain cried: “That’s your town, Santo Domingo,” Ocampo saw the first organized settlement of the New World, capital not only of this island but of all Spain’s possessions in the lands Colón had discovered. As Ocampo watched the city emerge from the sea he saw that it was still only a collection of one-storied wooden structures, dominated by one obviously important stone building of two floors.

“Whose is that?” he asked, and the captain replied: “One Pimentel, the lieutenant governor. Man of high family. Seems to dominate the place.”

When a small fleet of canoes manned by Indians swarmed out from the shore, Ocampo noticed that the men were savage in appearance—low foreheads, very dark hair, brownish skin, wearing no more than a loincloth—but sharp-eyed and eager to conduct their simple commerce with the ship. Then he looked above their clamoring hands and waving paddles, and he caught a remarkably clear impression of the town itself.

It contained, he calculated from imperfect evidence, about nine hundred people, a chain of rude houses along the beach and a central square of sorts from whose northern side rose a wooden church with a proud steeple topped by a sturdy cross. It was in all respects, he judged, the kind of solid Spanish town he had seen so often in the hill country south of Madrid, and he felt reassured by its comforting appearance: In this town I will not feel a stranger.

They were impressed when he signaled back to the ship, from which two scribes now descended, men in their twenties carrying bundles of papers. No sooner had they hit land than they began to scurry about, looking for an appropriate building to commandeer for headquarters. Rather quickly they focused on the two-story stone house which the captain had said was occupied by a man named Pimentel, but when they asked to inspect the place, the owner, anticipating their mission, coldly informed them: “This house would not be appropriate. My wife’s family occupies more than half, and grandchildren romp everywhere.”

When Ocampo joined his scribes he asked: “What’s the matter here?” but before his men could explain, the owner stepped forward and introduced himself: “Alejandro Pimentel y Fraganza, representative of the king,” and Ocampo bowed, for the man’s last two names were distinguished in Spanish history.

“I am Hernán Ocampo of Sevilla, personal emissary of the king and eager to find headquarters for the work he ordered me to do on his behalf.” In this courteous manner each informed the other that he was a man of some importance, not to be treated lightly.

Pimentel, an austere man in his sixties, bowed stiffly and assured the newcomer: “I shall do everything to assist you, but as I have explained to your men, this house would not be convenient for you. My wife’s family—” His sentence was interrupted by the appearance in the doorway of Señora Pimentel, an attractive woman in her thirties accompanied by an older woman who had probably been her dueña in the years before marriage and who now served as a kind of confidential maid, for she moved close to her mistress as soon as she saw that strange men were present. “I have been explaining to the king’s special emissary that since your family occupies much of our house …”

As soon as Ocampo and his men satisfied themselves that the house suited their purpose and was available, the two scribes sprang into action, requisitioning furnishings in the king’s name and directing sailors how to unload and place the items Ocampo had brought with him from Sevilla. The principal piece was a magisterial oak chair, with a heavily carved back and two massive arms, which caused anyone who occupied it to appear aloof and formidable.

“Place it so that I face the shaded wall,” Ocampo directed, “and put the chair for the person I’m interrogating facing the bright light from the window. Your two tables can go wherever you find it most convenient.” But when the four chairs were in position, he studied them, readjusted them slightly, them demanded a saw.

After some searching through the town the saw arrived, and Ocampo revealed his strategy: “Cut a meager fraction from each front leg of the witnesses’ chair. I want to be relaxed and comfortable as I lean back in my big chair, them to be nervous and slipping forward in the small one.”

In those first days the citizens of the island looked with quiet awe at the newcomer, seeing a man whom they could not easily characterize: “Look! Tall and straight like any grandee, with the piercing eyes and pointed beard of a gentleman, but he didn’t get that scar and eye patch playing cards in a garden. If you move forward to speak with him, he smiles and welcomes you.” One of the scribes, hearing such comments, warned listeners: “Suave like a turtle dove, tenacious like a hawk,” and this epigram circulated. Before the week was out Ocampo and his men were listening to a flood of testimony relating to the behavior and performance ashore of the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, the late Cristóbal Colón, né Cristoforo Colombo.

The opening statement in that final report was made by one Vicente Céspedes, a rough seaman thirty-nine years old from the famous seaport of Sanlúcar de Barrameda at the mouth of the Guadalquivir from which the galleons of Sevilla regularly set sail. Growling pugnaciously, he said: “If they’ve told you about me, which I’m sure they have, because there’s some as wants to silence me, you already know that I don’t think much of the admiral, seein’ that he stole money from me.”

“If this concerns the withholding of your pay, we already know about that.”

“It does not. It concerns what happened on a Thursday, the eleventh of October in 1492.”

When Ocampo heard this notorious date he cringed, remembering the king’s orders: “We know what he did at sea. I want to know what he did on land.” Staring sternly with his good eye, he told the sailor: “I warned you. We’re interested only in what happened on Española.”

“But that’s what this is about, if you’ll listen, excusin’ my roughness as I can’t read or write or speak like a gentleman …”

Seeing that he could not halt this torrent of words, Ocampo said: “Do proceed.”

“That afternoon the captain general summoned all hands to the afterdeck, very nervous he was, and he said: ‘What did I promise yesterday when you were near mutiny?’ and a man near me bellows: ‘That if we don’t see land in three days, back we go safe to our homes in Spain.’ And he said: ‘That’s still the promise,’ and we cheered.

“Why were you so sure there would be land?”

“I’d studied the sea, every day. I could tell by the look of the water, its feel maybe, that we were passing into a new area. The big waves had disappeared and the quiet sea looked like some precious jewel that women wear.”

“So your dream came true?”

“It did. Sometime toward midnight I spotted a light on what had to be a shore, it had to be, so I called out: ‘Land ahead!’ and prepared to don my silken doublet and pocket those lifelong maravedis, but can you guess what actually happened, Excellency?”

“I’m not an excellency. What did happen?”

“Captain General Colón refused to honor my discovery and pay me my rewards. And do you know what he did that was much worse? Next mornin’ he suddenly shouts: ‘Land ahead!’ and he claims the maravedis and gives himself the silken doublet.”

“What has this to do with Española?” Ocampo asked, being careful not to sound too impatient, for he had learned long since that it was the most wandering testimony that sometimes produced the most valuable kernels of truth.

“I’m comin’ to that, and when you hear you’ll have to admit it does small credit to Colón. On the fifth of December, after explorin’ south and west near the island that the captain general later named Cuba, our three caravels landed for the first time on this island.” With a kind of mock salute, he told Ocampo: “So you now have me on this island of Española, where you wanted me.”

Ocampo, ignoring the familiarity, merely nodded: “Go on.”

“Where was General Colón? Fast asleep. Second in command? Third? All sound asleep. And in that condition the Santa Maria gently, silently slipped onto a sandy reef and before the men runnin’ wildly about the deck could break her free, big waves setting in from the northwest drove her ever higher onto what you might call the land. It was horrible. Colón should have been ashamed of himself, for in the hour before sunrise it was clear to us that our ship was a total loss and we shifted over to the little Niña, which could ill afford to accept us, seein’ that her regular crew of twenty-two had already used up all space available and we would be forty more.”

“And then?”

“The captain general said: ‘We’ll take the plankin’ from the Santa Maria and build the first Spanish city in China,’ for he insisted that that was where we were. We built two shacks and Colón and the priest, or the man who passed as one, held a service and dedicated the place as La Navidad, out of memory for the day, Christmas, when we landed there. And when the time came for the little Niña to carry us back to Spain, Colón saw that twenty-two of her men plus forty of ours was far too many to make the trip, so he appointed thirty-nine men to man the new town, and I was one of them. Then off he sailed to save his own skin.”

As soon as these words were spoken, Ocampo knew them to be false, for earlier testimony had established without question that everyone left at La Navidad in January of 1493 had perished: there had been no survivors; and thus Vicente Céspedes had revealed himself as one more romancer with a grudge to settle against Colón.

Leaning forward, Ocampo asked harshly: “Why do you come to me with such lies? You know all the men at La Navidad died?”

Céspedes, almost sliding from his sloping chair, said, with almost boyish eagerness to clear himself: “It was a miracle, Excellency, I’ve never been able to fathom it. But as the Niña was about to sail, one of the men aboard, a friend of mine from Cádiz, shouted: ‘Céspedes! I’d like to stay … see the natives,’ and we exchanged. He died and I didn’t.”

Ocampo was enormously interested in the sailor’s simple statement. It touched directly upon Colón’s sense of responsibility toward his men: “What steps were taken to protect the lives of the thirty-nine left behind?”

“None?”

“Maybe one half-barrel of flour, some scraps of pork.” Céspedes shook his head, then added brightly: “But my friend from Cádiz, the one who traded with me because he wanted to stay, said: ‘We can fish and hunt game and depend on help from the natives.’ ”

“There were natives?”

“Many. And since we’d had good relations with them, we supposed the thirty-nine would depend on them for assistance.”

“But General Colón did leave the men in a kind of settlement? I mean, there were paths and latrines and places to sleep?”

“Oh yes! It was the beginnings of a town. After all, it did have a name, La Navidad.”

“But no real houses? No women?”

Céspedes laughed nervously: “The men thought of that. A year, maybe two years with no women. My friend from Cádiz said: ‘Maybe we’ll take the women we need from the natives.’ ”

“When you sailed, you ordinary sailors, did you expect the thirty-nine to survive?”

“Yes! Just as we parted I loaned my friend my good knife. ‘I’ll be back to claim it,’ I told him. But as I said, he died and I didn’t.” He dropped his head, brought his hands to his lips, and stared at Ocampo, then whispered: “The natives killed them all, but even though I don’t like Colón, I don’t think you can blame him for that.”

“How did you get back to Española?”

One important question remained, but it was Céspedes who brought it up: “Sir, will you give sailors like me the money the admiral stole from us?”

“You still believe he did that?”

“Not only from me, from all those poor men who died at La Navidad.” When he saw Ocampo glaring at him for repeating such rumors, he ended lamely: “Maybe he felt their money would be safer that way. Besides, what could they have used it for in a place like La Navidad?”

An old sailor, a widow and an abandoned son each came forward to relate how men had been paid only a portion of their wages or none at all, when it was clear that funds were available for this purpose.

A local resident named Alonso Peraza, whose manner and speech indicated that he had profited from the education his priest in Salamanca had given him, offered a partial explanation of why Colón may have acted in this miserly way: “The admiral was insane about money. He said the king and queen wouldn’t pay him what they promised. He said they owed him a tenth, an eighth and a third.”

“What do those terms mean? I’m unfamiliar with them.”

“When Colón returned from his first trip it was some time before he was recognized as a great hero. Then King Ferdinand and his Queen Isabella agreed to a document written on parchment and sealed by notaries which formalized a preposterous proposal, put forth by Colón, that he receive in perpetuity one-tenth of all the wealth generated by the new lands he discovered.”

“In that document, did perpetuity mean what I think it does?”

“Yes, for Colón during his lifetime, and his heirs forever after.”

“A fortune, eh?”

“What was left?” Ocampo asked sardonically. “A third part of anything is apt to be substantial.”

Peraza broke into disrespectful laughter: “Colón seriously demanded the right to levy a tax in that amount on every business transaction carried out in the Indies. Yes, one-third of everything.” Ocampo leaned back and studied his thin fingers as he made a calculation: “Those three taken together—tenth, eighth, third—would have added up to more than half the total wealth developed in the entire New World. It would have made him the richest man in Christendom, and no king could permit that.” Leaning forward, he asked: “Yet you say he demanded it?”

“He did, and his heirs still press those ridiculous claims. They seek to be richer than the king.”

Ocampo’s attention now began to focus on one of the most serious charges against the admiral. The testifier who broached the subject was an ordinary sailor, one Salvador Soriano, who had served on the famous Niña and returned to Santo Domingo to live out his life: “It’s a miracle I’m here to answer your questions, Excellency.”

“I’m not really an excellency, you know. What do you wish to tell me?”

“We called him Colón the Killer because when he was viceroy in charge of this island he had a passion for ordering men to be hanged. There were gibbets all over the place … six … eight, all bearing fruit, men dancing without their toes touching the ground. And the hangings would have continued if Special Emissary Bobadilla had not had the courage to halt them.”

“What were the charges? Mutiny?”

“Anything that irritated him at the moment. Hiding gold from the appointed collector. Speaking poorly about the admiral or one of his family. He kept going back and forth to Spain and bringing more and more of his family and they were sacred here. Two men were hanged for using a fishing boat without permission.”

“I see you’re still here. Did the admiral relent?”

“Not him. He hanged a score of us. Fearful temper.”

“Then who saved you?”

“Bobadilla. You might say he saved the whole island. Because the way Colón was going, there’d have been revolution for sure.”

Since this was the fourth time Ocampo had heard the name Bobadilla, the first having been when the king himself referred to him, it became clear that he must fix firmly in his mind who this shadowy figure Bobadilla was, for regardless in what direction Ocampo turned, he found himself face-to-face with this elusive man who seemed to have played a major role in Colón’s life. Setting aside an entire afternoon, he sat with his scribes and asked: “Now what do we know about this Bobadilla? The king told me several things. Bobadilla was Queen Isabella’s choice, not his. He was a man of distinguished background, overly fat, an errant coward.”

“Doesn’t sound appealing,” one of the scribes remarked.

“Very intelligent. And most important, he arrived on this island to track down Colón’s misbehavior armed with five different letters empowering him in ways far beyond my commission. In fact, the king told me: ‘Because Bobadilla abused his five letters, I’m giving you only one.’ ”

“You mean you have no power to arrest? To force a man to give evidence? The rack if necessary?”

“I do not have such powers, nor would I want them.” He concluded the meeting with an order: “Let us direct all our attention to learning as much about Bobadilla as possible, for if we first understand him, we may understand Colón.”

“You say hangings? Plural?”

“There was a score of condemned like me waiting in this area or that. In the little town of Xaraguá far west of here, sixteen of us prisoners were held in a deep well, all sentenced to be hanged. It was Bobadilla who saved our lives: ‘Get those men out of there. Set them all free.’ ”

“You have a high opinion of him?”

“The finest. A man of common sense and order.”

Ocampo began to acquire a balanced assessment of a man whom neither he nor the king liked. He might have been cowardly in battle, but he was certainly not afraid to confront ugly messes. He seemed to have exercised solid judgment and was certainly not a cruel man. He was honest, so far as could be seen. But there the list of positive aspects stopped, for again and again he emerged from the testimony as an obese, gluttonous, self-important functionary who used his five royal letters in an obscene way, like a cat using her claws to play with a mouse.

Supporters of Colón, and there were many, especially those who owed their jobs to the admiral, excoriated Bobadilla as an unfeeling, vengeful man who delighted in bringing the great explorer down, but more sober citizens assured Ocampo that Bobadilla had done a masterful job in a humane way, and it was almost impossible to discern who was telling the truth. And so the questioning about both Colón and Bobadilla continued.

In the late afternoons, when the interrogations ended, Ocampo liked to leave his office and take an evening walk along the beautiful waterfront of Santo Domingo; he preferred to walk three paces in the lead, with his two scribes trailing behind him. In this way, the three Spaniards from the homeland formed an elegant trio: Ocampo in front, tall and rigidly erect, with his conspicuous eye patch and scar attesting to his valor, the two scribes dressed in black marching behind in orderly fashion, and all comporting themselves like grandees from earlier centuries.

When his oldest scribe said: “But you’re a licenciado,” he replied: “Once a Spaniard has borne arms, he’s a soldier forever.”

In his walks Ocampo learned much about this tropical capital, not yet twenty years old, for to its harbor came all the ships traversing the Caribbean or putting in to islands like Puerto Rico and still-unsettled Cuba. Watching these daring ships, he saw clearly that it was Spain’s destiny to rule this inland sea, but he was equally interested in the natives, whom men were calling Indians, a name Colón had proposed when he finally had to admit that he had not reached China. In his obstinacy he had said: “Then it must have been India,” and thus the natives, offspring of those early Arawaks who had escaped annihilation by the Caribs, received a name totally inappropriate and erroneous.

Sometimes as he took his evening stroll he would meet Alejandro Pimentel y Fraganza, the lieutenant governor, and the two proud men, each suspicious of what hidden powers from the king the other might have, would bow formally, say nothing, and pass on. It was obvious to Ocampo that Pimentel feared that he, Ocampo, had arrived on the island to investigate Pimentel’s behavior. Once Ocampo told his men: “I am so relieved we’re getting on well with that fellow. I’m sure he is suspicious of us, but I like him.”

On two occasions when the strollers met Pimentel, they saw with pleasure that his young wife was with him, but she was so closely guarded by her onetime dueña that they had no opportunity to speak with her.

Ocampo felt that he must correct such a gross misstatement lest it find its way into his official report: “But certainly, Señora Bermudez, there could not have been seven Colóns here, because there weren’t that many in Spain. His brother Bartolomé, his brother Diego, and his own son Diego and maybe one of his brother’s sons. Counting him, that’s only five, and it’s not unusual for the head of a Spanish family to find jobs in his retinue for five family members.”

Señora Bermudez, once started, was not one to surrender easily: “You’re right in your count, as far as it goes, but you’re forgetting men related to his wife, or his brother’s wives, or associated in other ways. Seven?” and her voice rose. “More like a dozen.” Then she became conciliatory: “But Colón did discover this island … and all the others. He alone kept his ships from turning back. He alone persevered.”

But as she rose to leave Ocampo’s office she stopped, sat down again, and began speaking as if her interview had just begun: “The worrisome thing about Colón and his endless relatives, all of them absorbing money that should have come to us, was that he was an Italian. Not Spanish at all. And to think of him as lording it over good Spaniards like my husband and me, who come from the great families of Spain, was intolerable. It was simply intolerable!”

It was a woman of much different character who provided Ocampo with his most valuable information about Colón. As Ocampo had been about to sail from Sevilla to take up his duties in Española, a grandee from a noble family had come secretly to deliver a bottle of perfume distilled by Arab experts working in Venice. And it was so valuable that the nobleman begged: “Protect it with your life, Don Hernán, and when you reach Española deliver it privately to Señora Pimentel. Her going desolated me.”

He therefore dispatched one of his scribes to the Pimentel house to inform Señora Pimentel that he would like to question her about the Great Admiral, and in due course she appeared, attended as always by her remorseless watchdog. Displaying no irritation, Ocampo started to question his visitor about Colón, engineering it so that he could block out the dueña’s view, whereupon he slipped the señora the vial of perfume. Then he returned to his desk and looked at her meaningfully for a moment. “In Sevilla,” he said casually, “I met many who remember you and your husband with pleasure,” and he made arrangements then to interrogate her further at another time.

On the next visit, with the hawklike servant still in evidence, Ocampo noted that Señora Pimentel had deposited somewhere about her face or neck a drop or two of the rare perfume, for its soft aroma permeated his office in a most alluring way. It was then that she started talking about the Great Admiral, and her shrewd conclusions made more sense than those of any of the other testifiers: “Cristóbal Colón has fascinated me from the first day that I arrived here, when he was hanging men by the dozens. I saw him then as a monster, and when I learned how he had mismanaged his first two settlements, La Navidad and Isabela, a forlorn, doomed town on the north shore, far away from the first one, I could not understand how their majesties tolerated him. My husband and I visited there in its last days, a miserable boat trip, smooth as glass here in our sea, turbulent beyond words when we reached the ocean. It was a heartbreaking place to have been named after our great queen. No decent port for ships. Not a stone house in the place. Fields had been chopped from the woods but had not been tended, and I’m told the last settlers there nearly starved, because the Indians would not bring them food. That was Colón at his worst, incapable of launching any village and sustaining it.

“But my husband and I also saw his flaws, and they were monstrous, almost disqualifying. He rarely followed through on what he started. He could not govern for the simple reason that he could not keep his eyes on the task at hand … always looking to the future. He was a brutal man at times, arbitrary to the point of hanging anyone who disagreed with him, and he was certainly avaricious, mean, untruthful and petty, even when dealing with his own men. And his greatest fault was his almost insane nepotism and favoritism.

“However, when the grand balance is struck, Colón was the man who gave us this New World, and I doubt I shall ever see his like again.”

She had permitted no interruptions, and when she finished she indicated to her companion that they must go, but as Señora Pimental left the room, the aroma of her presence hanging in the air like a memory of flowers, she told Ocampo: “I was interested to hear that you were once in Sevilla.” And then she was gone.

Ocampo had supposed that this was the last he would see of Señora Pimentel, so he was surprised when only a few days later one of his scribes came into the interrogation room to announce an unexpected visitor. “A woman to see you. I think she’s the one that comes with Señora Pimentel.” Into the room came the dueña, with bows and apologies: “Excellency, Lieutenant Governor Pimentel and his lady seek the honor of your presence at the evening meal tomorrow night, and he apologizes for the lateness of this invitation.”

The house which the señora had modestly described as being “nothing more than a shack” was now a colonial mansion as fine as a visitor might have found in a rural town in Spain. The stone masonry was strong and well joined; the floor of the main room was of some hard tropical wood, neatly polished, those of the lesser rooms of tile brought from Sevilla. The entire home bespoke the quiet dignity of a Spanish gentleman’s residence. The Pimentels had obviously imported many things from home, including first-rate carpenters and stoneworkers, but there was no garish display of rich fabric or precious metal. If anything, the rooms were underfurnished, though Ocampo was pleased to note that the best of Spain had reached this capital of the New World.

“This house will stand forever,” he predicted, to which Pimentel replied: “It must. Spain must seek deep roots here, because soon envious others will appear in this golden sea to wrest the islands from us. Or try to.”

The dinner was impeccable, with at least four different servants appearing at intervals to serve it. “My wife’s cousins,” Pimentel said offhandedly, but Ocampo observed that at least one was an Indian and the others were from peasant stock.

Since Señora Pimentel took no part in the conversation, Ocampo was bewildered as to the purpose of his being there, but when the rich wine of Cádiz passed at the end of the meal, the lieutenant governor said: “We delayed so long to invite you to our modest home because, frankly, we could not guess why you had really been sent to our island. Now we have cause to believe that what you said from the start was true. You came here to investigate the dead Colón, not us.”

Thus the remarkable dinner with the distinguished family ended, with no word having been spoken regarding either Colón or Bobadilla, for which Ocampo was grateful: “I’ve been hearing so much about those two adversaries that tonight was a pleasant respite. Thank you.”

On the walk back to quarters, he told his scribes: “It’s time we restrict our summons to those older men of good judgment who can tell us truthfully about Colón as a business administrator, for we must remember that he had for quite a few years been the all-powerful viceroy of our holdings in this part of the world.”

The first witness Ocampo summoned was Gonsalvo Pérez, an older man who had held high office under Viceroy Colón and who had that sagacious approach to problems that sometimes comes with increasing years. He was a handsome man, the deep lines in his face attesting to a maturing character and a detached, amused attitude toward life, for on the frequent occasions when he smiled at some injudicious act of his own about which he was forced to confess, his entire face lit up, the lines becoming frames for flashing eyes which had seen so much of the world’s nonsense and had understood it all.

“It seems to me,” he said, nodding to the scribes as he tried to relax in the witness chair, “that one should judge a viceroy on how successfully he performed those certain tasks which form the very base of any viceroy’s job, whoever he might be. Did he settle the new lands placed under his control? Did he protect the king’s money? Was he just in dealing with men under him? When he left were things better or worse than when he came?”

“The very questions I’ve been trying to find answers to.”

“Let’s first clean up the crucial points. Was he honest in dealing with the king’s funds? Scrupulously, and I was in a position to know. He never diverted the smallest coin to his own use, not one maravedi, and would allow none of us to do so, either. So on that basic point, you can halt your investigation right now.”

“Second fundamental, did he leave things better or worse than when he took command?”

“Neither. Our island had not deteriorated, but neither had it progressed the way it might have. But the fault was not Colón’s. It was Spain’s.”

“You mean … the king’s?”

“I cannot follow you.”

“We should have brought to this island, twelve years ago, carpenters and weavers and shipbuilders and sixteen or seventeen men of middle age who knew how to run things like shops and bakeries and ironmongeries, men who could do things.” He accented this word heavily, then added with a touch of regret: “Instead, we brought out the sons of rich families, young fellows who’d never in their lives done a day’s work at anything constructive and whom Colón was simply unable to discipline. He set them a good example. He worked, believe me. I worked on his accounts because I knew my numbers and how to write. His brother Bartolomé worked because he had a position to defend. But the vast majority of the dandies worked at nothing. They had come across the Atlantic to fight, collect gold in buckets from the streams, and go home rich.

“And that leads us to the first of Colón’s great failures as viceroy. He was unable, with the kinds of men he had at his disposal, to build settlements. All failed. When he found La Navidad had been destroyed in his absence, he started a second settlement—Isabela he called it out of his love for the queen who had done so much to spur his career. It was a disaster, a place of infinite sadness, and I think you should enclose in your report some account of what happened there, for I heard it firsthand from my cousin to whom it happened.” And he interrupted his comments to recount this true adventure:

“False. He did get the place started on the right track, the south side of any island is always better, but real progress came only when Bobadilla took over with those plenary powers the king had given him.”

“You say he wrested control from Colón?”

“And not a moment too soon. Now the growth of the city is ensured. Bobadilla also saw to its protection, and when I concede that, it means something, because I was always a Colón man. I never really liked Bobadilla, especially not after I watched how he treated Colón.”

Ocampo interrupted: “You just said something most interesting—‘I was a Colón man.’ Were you one of those who represented the admiral’s weakness for nepotism?”

Pérez smiled most engagingly, held his two hands palms up as if crying “Mea culpa,” and confessed: “I was the perfect example. You see, my wife’s brother, a real ne’er-do-well, married a sister …” He broke into self-deprecating laughter and concluded: “It’s too long a story and not a happy one, but you’re right. Colón knew we Spaniards resented him for being an Italian upstart, so he felt he had to surround himself with men who were completely loyal, and how better than to give the crucial jobs to his relatives … and in my case, to relatives of his relatives?” He shrugged: “So in the case of the Pérez relatives, he got one total failure, my wife’s brother, and one very hardworking expert who helped hold things together, my wife’s husband.”

“I’m told you were exceptional,” Ocampo said with a slight bow. “And now about the other criteria of a good viceroy?”

“Did he extend the king’s landholdings? He certainly did. Did he subdue the rebellious natives and bring order where chaos had been? He did, he did. And most important of all, I think, he was always attentive to bringing Christianity to them. Yes, that was foremost in his mind, for he often reminded me: ‘Pérez, Queen Isabella personally begged me to make sure that the natives became Christian, and that I’ve done.’ ”

“So if I accept your testimony, the Great Admiral was a success in things that mattered, not so in certain minor concerns?”

“Exactly what I intended to convey.”

“I’m not an excellency, ma’am. Just an honest scholar trying to do his best.”

“Where I’m concerned, anyone who comes with your powers from the king is an excellency. Now, what I want to remind you of is something that the others may be too delicate to speak of, but did you know that Cristóbal Colón was a Jew?”

No, Ocampo did not know, and he was offended by the intimation, but the woman continued in her confidential, raspy whisper: “Yes, unquestionably a Jew. A converso. Made a false show of converting to Christianity but continued to practice the Jewish rituals, and if you and I reported him to the Inquisition, he’d be burned at the stake.”

“Ma’am, I find it impossible to believe that a man who has been so amiably accepted at court …”

“The court! It’s infested with Jews, and many of them ought to be burned, too.”

Striving to discover how this woman had penetrated the secret of Colón’s Jewishness, he asked her various questions there in the hallway, but she always retreated to her first justification, that “everyone knows his ugly secret.” But later, when questioning through the town, Ocampo learned that only this woman and a few other malcontents mentioned anything of Colón’s supposed Jewishness, and even though he remembered the king’s determination to stamp out the Jewish religion wherever it appeared in his realms, he now concluded that there was no substance to the charge against Colón.

Ocampo’s attitude was that of most sensible educated Spanish gentlemen of the time: He respected those Jews who, recognizing the superiority of Christianity, had converted to that faith, and he welcomed them without reserve to the core of Spanish life; he had extended his friendship to converts many times in the years since the great expulsion of the Jews in 1492. But he was repelled by those Jews who made a public gesture of converting but who then continued to practice their ugly rites in secret; they were beyond the pale and deserved the harsh treatment the Inquisition handed them. He had attended several big public burnings in Sevilla and had seen God’s hand in them.

But there was another matter regarding Colón which involved a question of somewhat similar moral gravity for which Ocampo was quite unprepared. It was presented to him by a most unusual visitor who came unannounced to his office, a young priest of twenty-six named Father Gaspar, a nervous sort of fellow, with stringy hair, a bad complexion and fidgety hands, whose awkward behavior betrayed the fact that he knew he was stepping outside his field of responsibility. But there he was, sitting in the witness chair, showing every indication of staying there until he had said his piece: “With your permission, Excellency …”

As always, Ocampo declined that title: “I’m like you, Father, a worker in the vineyard.” The disclaimer reassured the young priest, and he said with a rush of words: “Sir, everyone is aware by now of what you’re doing, and what I have to relate is important in the completion of your portrait of the Great Admiral.”

“That’s well said, Father. Very aptly phrased. That’s what I’m trying to do, paint a portrait of the viceroy as he conducted his important office on this island.” Leaning forward, he added: “So what are the brush strokes you think I might have missed?”

“The natives.”

“You mean the Indians?” Ocampo asked.

“Indians, if you wish, Excellency.”

“It’s not important,” Ocampo said as he leaned back.

The priest continued: “We in the church have been told that a principal mission, especially insofar as Queen Isabella of sacred memory was concerned, of any Spanish activity in our New World is the conversion of Indians to Christianity …”

“No higher mission on earth, Father. Why do you raise the subject?”

“Because the admiral did not try to convert the Indians …”

“Not from members of the church,” the young man said stoutly, and when Ocampo started to reprimand him again, the priest astonished him by interrupting: “Please let me finish my statement.” The licenciado, slowly awakening to the fact that he had a rather difficult situation on his hands, nodded to the young man as if the latter were a cardinal: “Please continue.”

“I was saying that Colón was supposed to convert the Indians but instead he slaughtered them.”

“An appalling statement.”

“Yes. That’s why I’m here, and the others, and we labor mightily to achieve that salvation.”

“And so did Colón. Everyone says so.”

“Not those of us who work in true conversion.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“Conversion of men’s souls. The bringing of light to dark places so that even the Indians can know the love of Jesus Christ.”

“Isn’t that what we all work toward? Isn’t that the mission of Spain in the New World?”

Father Gaspar, only twenty-seven that year, made bold to smile at this idealistic version of Spanish goals: “I would rather say that our mission in the New World is fourfold: finding new lands, conquering them, finding gold, and Christianizing the savages, in that exact order. The hundred thousand Indians missing in this first four violent years were needlessly slaughtered under the orders of Admiral Colón.”

Profoundly agitated, Licenciado Ocampo rose from his heavily ornamented chair, strode about the room, and returned to stand over the priest: “I cannot accept that word needlessly. Surely Colón chastised the Indians for their own good.” He stopped abruptly, realizing the essential foolishness of that statement, and as a man of good sense he altered his argument: “I mean, weren’t the savages threatening our settlement?”

Father Gaspar broke into a nervous laugh: “Excellency, did your ship stop at Dominica on the way here? Did the sailors tell you of how those fierce Carib Indians, cannibals all, killed every Spaniard who tried to land on their island? That’s what the word savage means. Our Tainos are not like that at all. They fled the Caribs. Gentlest people in the islands. At no time did Colón have any excuse for destroying them.”

“Now just a minute, Father. I’ve sat here for days listening to how your gentle Indians killed every one of the thirty-nine men Colón left at La Navidad in 1493. And how they killed so many of our men at Isabela in those bad years around 1496. Don’t tell me that your precious Indians were gentle—”

Ocampo recalled that memorable phrase of the sailor Céspedes reporting what his friend from Cádiz had said: “Maybe we’ll take the women we need from the natives …” but he said: “I would hope that self-respecting Spanish men would not have—”

The licenciado had listened to this narrative with close attention, then sent for local officials, whom he questioned on the spot with Father Gaspar listening: “Was there an expedition against Xaraguá Province?” Yes. “Did Governor Ovando lead it?” He did. “Were many caciques slain?” There had to be. “Was a beautiful lady cacique burned alive?” That was the order, but this good priest here signaled to me and two others to strangle her, which we did.

Ocampo sat silent for some moments, forefingers propping his chin as he tried to visualize what had happened, but then he coughed and leaned forward as if to say: Now let’s get to the facts in this case. “Tell me, Father Gaspar, are you one of those who hold that black men and Indians have souls?”

“I am.”

“What justification for such belief have you heard?”

“That all men who live are human, all equal in God’s love and the care of Jesus.”

“Even savage Indians who know not God … or Jesus?”

“Then you hold that white men are wrong in making blacks their slaves?”

“Yes. It would be better if they treated them as brothers.”

“Then you condemn our king and queen for having slaves?”

“I do.”

“But if by making these savages slaves, we are able to bring them into the sheepfold of the Good Shepherd Jesus, is that not a path to salvation?”

Father Gaspar studied this neat dilemma for some moments, then conceded: “If that is the only avenue to salvation, yes, it would be justified. But I would think that as soon as the black man or the Indian became a Christian, he would have to be released from his bondage.”

“To get back to my original question. Do you really believe that black men and Indians have souls, like you and me?”

“I do. Else, by what means could they see the light of Christianity? Through their eyes? Their ears? Their stomachs? It can only be apprehended through their souls.”

This gave Ocampo trouble, and after a while he asked, almost tentatively: “You know, I suppose, that many learned doctors of theology deny that savages have souls?”

“I’ve heard that argument, and all who make it have a lot to explain.”

“I make it. I have tried incessantly since landing on this island to understand how the savage Indians I see, the ones our Great Admiral had to chastise so harshly, could possibly have souls. Nor can they be classified as human.” He said this forcefully, then asked: “I suppose, then, you consider them human beings?”

“I do,” and before Ocampo could respond, he added: “And I do for this reason. I cannot believe that the uninstructed Indian standing over there under his tree has no soul, but if he comes over here and listens to my instruction and accepts baptism that somehow I confer a soul upon him. How? In the water I pour over him? I think not.”

“What do you think?”

“But at the beginning of our talk, you were very harsh with Colón.”

“He lost sight of his primary mission. He was satisfied to become a killer, not a savior.”

“Are you still as harsh … after this exploration we’ve had?”

When the young man nodded, unwilling to yield an iota to his superior, Ocampo rose in some agitation, walked about his office, and stopped at a window that looked out upon the busy street, where his eyes fell upon an unfamiliar and startling sight—a big, handsome black man, his sweaty skin glistening in the sunlight as he strode along behind his master. The slave had come to Española on a Spanish trading ship, having been bought in a Portuguese port on the African coast since at this time only the Portuguese were engaged in that trade. From his viewpoint Ocampo had a sudden vision of what was to come—turbulent days when the streets of the town and the roadways of this island would be crowded with such black men and their women, and he was both fascinated and disturbed by this prospect.

In real perplexity he summoned Father Gaspar to stand beside him, and when he pointed to the black man, he asked: “Father, do you really believe that that one, the big black fellow … does he have a soul like you and me?”

“Yes,” Father Gaspar answered, and then the gift of prophecy came upon him, for he had brooded upon this matter since the day Admiral Colón started massacring the Tainos because they did not conform to his idea of what a subservient people should be, and he predicted: “The history of this island, and all of the islands Spain has captured in this lovely sea, will involve the slow and even reluctant admission that the big black man down there has a soul.”

Melchior Sánchez, an unpleasant man and an avowed enemy of Colón, gave it as his opinion that Bobadilla had arrived three years too late, had performed brilliantly in clearing up the mess, and had treated Colón justly and even mercifully. Sánchez thought that Bobadilla would have been justified in hanging the admiral, but this evidence was neutralized by Ocampo’s discovery that Colón had justly hanged the oldest Sánchez boy for repeated theft.

Alvaro Abarbanel, a responsible merchant in goods imported from Spain, whose trade the admiral had assisted by bringing in merchandise in government ships, said briefly and harshly: “Bobadilla should have been horse-whipped for treating a great man as he did. The admiral would have been justified in shooting him, and I came close to doing so.”

And so it went, back and forth. After some sixteen witnesses had split about nine in favor of Bobadilla, seven supporting Colón, Ocampo told his scribes: “We had now better get some rational statements, no opinions, no heated animosities, as to what actually happened,” and an official who had served each of the viceroys of the island, one Paolo Carvajal of good family and better reputation, laid out the facts: “Francisco de Bobadilla arrived here on 23 August 1500, bringing with him a complete set of papers from the king awarding him plenipotentiary powers, but the important thing was, none of us knew the extent of these powers, and Bobadilla conducted himself, I must say, brilliantly. No general, master of strategy, ever did better.

“First he called us together and had the notary read out what one might call a standard commission to look into things generally. Men like that with letters like that visit Spanish territories, here and at home, frequently, so we thought little of it, and we helped him as he made routine examinations, which did not focus on the admiral at all. In fact, Colón showed his disgust for the whole affair by stalking out of town in the middle of the investigation. ‘I’m off to chase down Tainos,’ he said with an insolence that infuriated Bobadilla.

“Well, that created a storm, but the arrogant Colón brothers, and they were Italians, mind you, refused to obey him, and again Bobadilla was all patience, but on the next day he had the notary read his third letter, which gave him power over all military establishments in the island, and under this edict he began to assemble power about him. But it was the reading of his fourth letter, on the next day, that gave him the power to strangle the three Colóns. Again I hear the notary’s voice, for its message affected me personally: ‘Our loyal and trusted friend and brother, Francisco de Bobadilla, shall have the power to pay all loyal subjects who have wages coming to them but have had them sequestered.’ You can see what this meant. Men like me would now get, immediately that we applied to Bobadilla, all the money that the Great Admiral had kept from us. Naturally, we became outspoken supporters of Bobadilla, and when Colón finally returned to the town, all were against him.

“And then came the crushing blow, for with this support behind him, Bobadilla revealed the most powerful letter of all, the one which gave him complete power to make whatever changes in administration and arrests he saw fit. And before its words had died in the tropic air, the three Colón brothers were grabbed by Bobadilla’s police, thrown into jail, and forced to undergo the indignity of holding out their arms and ankles while the blacksmith fastened iron fetters about their extremities, with heavy chains linking wrist to wrist, leg to leg.”

At this point the licenciado interrupted: “You mean like common criminals? Like robbers or smugglers or murderers?”

“The same.”

“Not the admiral?”

“Especially the admiral, and in that condition the three were unceremoniously dragged down to the waterfront, tossed onto a small ship, and sent off to trial in Spain.”

“I visited with him often on that long trip and in time I became accustomed to seeing him in his bondage, for he wore the chains as a badge of honor, and I developed immense respect for this fighting hero. One thing, however, perplexed me, and still does.”

Ocampo, much moved by this portrait of a stubborn hero fighting the world, said: “Don Paolo, you speak of him as if you loved him.” And Carvajal reflected on this before answering, which he did in slow, carefully chosen words: “Love is not the word you’d use for him, because lovable he was not.” He stopped, then started brightly, as if opening a wholly new conversation: “One noon when I took him his bowl of gruel he pushed it away and said almost pleadingly, as if eager to convince me who needed no convincing: ‘They never understood, Carvajal. They didn’t send me to serve as viceroy in Sicily, settled for a thousand years with roads and men who could reason. No! I was sent to where no man had ever been before.’ And I protested: ‘The Indians were here, of course,’ and he snapped: ‘I was speaking of Christians.’ ”

Before Ocampo left Española with his amazingly even-handed report on the behaviors and misbehaviors of the Great Admiral, he had two additional interviews, each accidental, each compelling. The first involved an ordinary sailor, an illiterate, who brought with him his priest, who could read, a man Ocampo had not seen before. And the sailor said: “I heard people were telling you bad things about the admiral and I was afraid you might take them as truth. I wanted you to hear the real truth. Colón was a sailor, first and last, and a better never sailed. I was with him on two voyages, but the one I’ll never forget, nor none of us, was the last, after he got out of his chains, that was.”

“To tell the truth, Excellency, I thought we’d perish there and that no one would ever know how we died, for no ships would come to Jamaica.”

“How did you escape?” Ocampo asked, and the sailor said: “Only through the courage of the admiral. He never flagged. Each new day he’d assure us: ‘Somehow we’ll be rescued,’ and when we were starving, he promised: ‘Somehow we’ll find food,’ and he led us in making clever traps for catching fish. Also, he himself tested new kinds of fruit to determine which were safe to eat. He was tireless in driving us to build better huts.”

“Huts! How many days were you marooned on Jamaica?”

Aghast, the sailor simply stared at his interrogator: “Days? Excellency, it was months, June of one year to March of another. Excellency, we were at the end of the world. Nobody could know where we were. In Española they thought we were dead, and some said ‘Good riddance,’ because the admiral could be a difficult man, especially where young nobles were concerned.” Wiping his nose with his left forefinger, he leaned close to Ocampo and said: “Excellency, we were all dead. The last months was special hell.”

“How?”

The sailor hesitated, uncertain as to how to explain that terrible isolation and loss of hope. Then he cleared his throat: “If ever you get into trouble, you’ll need no friend more trustworthy than Diego Méndez,” and he spoke the name with such reverence that Ocampo was driven to ask: “And who was he?” and the sailor said: “Our savior,” and Ocampo said: “Tell me.”

The sailor did not answer directly, for he had important things to say about Méndez and did not propose to be diverted: “Most young noblemen who shipped with us were swine, especially when handing out orders to the likes of me, but Méndez once said to me: ‘Those leaks have to be caulked, so let’s caulk them,’ and in the worst days, when we seemed about to sink, he worked the pumps as long as any of us.”

Ocampo nodded in respect for an unknown young nobleman who seemed to have been a paragon, and what the seaman said next proved that he was.

In the silence that followed, Ocampo looked not at the sailor, whose emotions overwhelmed him, but at the priest the sailor had brought with him: “And what brings you here, Father?”

“While the Great Admiral was marooned on Jamaica, convinced that he would die there without ever reporting on his last voyage, he wrote a very long letter to the king and queen, telling them of his adventures and reviewing the high points of his later life. It was the kind of testimonial a good man imagines writing when he is dying and wants his children to know the outlines of his career, a truly remarkable document.”

“Why do you tell me?” Ocampo asked, and the priest said: “Because a copy of that letter, signed 7 July 1503, was left by Colón when he returned to this island from Jamaica, and I think that before you write your report you ought to know what Colón at the door of death thought about himself. When all the brawling about his errors here and there are forgotten, this is the Cristóbal Colón who will live.”

The priest took a breath and began by giving in his own words an account of an unbelievable affront thrown in Colón’s face by the governor of Santo Domingo, the port at which he himself had once been viceroy: “Seeing that a storm we call the hurricano was brewing, Colón sent a message ashore advising two actions: ‘Let me come into your harbor and anchor. Do not dispatch to Spain the fleet that appears ready to sail.’ Both suggestions were denied, probably because the acting viceroy feared he might lose his sinecure if Colón came ashore. The result? Listen to the Great Admiral’s report of that hurricane.”

“My husband, a stalwart man, protested: ‘Excellency, a storm is brewing, and if it develops into a hurricane, his ships really must be allowed entrance.’ But the viceroy was adamant, and poor Colón was forced to remain outside, and that very night, as my husband had warned, a tremendous hurricane struck. Have you ever seen one of our hurricanes? They can be terrifying.

“And what do you suppose happened? A major fleet headed for Spain, for which Bobadilla was responsible, was torn apart by the storm—thirty vessels in peril and thirteen lost with five hundred sailors and all their cargoes.”

“What happened to Colón’s little four?”

“Great navigator that he was, he maneuvered his ships majestically, right in the teeth of the hurricane, and saved every one. But even after that display, Bobadilla refused to allow him entrance, so off Colón sailed to his final burst of exploration. He found nothing, and ended on the beach in Jamaica, no gold, no ships, no hopes, no assignments in the future, with death staring him in the face each day for nearly a year.”

Ocampo, awed by her sagacity and mature judgment, asked if he might seek her guidance on two nagging questions, and she, grateful for his treating her as an intellectual equal, nodded, so he asked: “Did the petty nobles accuse him because he was Italian?” and she replied with vigor: “Yes, a few presumptuous idiots. But that was ridiculous, for he wasn’t really an Italian any longer. Pure Spanish all the way. So far as we know, he never wrote one word in Italian, because Spanish was his only language, Spain his only home, and good men like my husband were proud to serve under him as their leader.”

“Was he a Jew?”

“Not when I knew him.”

“Was he, perhaps, a renegade converso, living in danger of the stake?”

“When he lived with us after his rescue from the shipwreck in Jamaica, he went to Mass every day to give thanks.”

“Even so,” Ocampo said, “it’s rather pleasant in a gruesome way to know that your Bobadilla did drown right out there in the harbor from which he had barred the admiral during that hurricane.”

“More local legend. The ship did sink, as we all remember, but he wasn’t on it.”

“Where is he?”

“Back in Spain. One of my cousins saw him in Sevilla, large as life and awaiting a new assignment from the king.”

After Señora Pimentel left the room and Ocampo could see her walking sedately along the waterfront on her way home, he said to his scribes: “There goes the soul of Spain. A woman who brings the best of our land to the Colonies. Her home, the one you saw, is a beacon of civilization in this sea.” Before he finished speaking, his scribes began to laugh, and when he asked, visibly irritated, what they thought amusing about his reflections, the senior one explained: “That night while you were feasting with the Pimentels in the big room, we were talking with his people in the kitchen, and we began to hear hints—no accusations, you understand—that his finances would not stand scrutiny. His fine house seems to have been built solely with money belonging to the king. His stonemasons were supposed to work for the government, not for him. He uses the king’s ships for carrying on his own trading, and when we asked a few quiet questions we began to discern that he is completely corrupt.”

Ocampo was appalled by these facts, which he should himself have uncovered, but before he could say anything, his junior scribe struck a hard blow: “Pimentel is a thief, but the members of his wife’s family are worse. Real bandits, and she encourages them.”

Ocampo gasped, but the most serious revelation was still to come: “It is believed that the big chest they keep locked, there in the room where you were, is filled with silver belonging to the king. Three different men have seen Señora Pimentel place money they’ve given her for the right to do business on the island in that chest. It must contain a fortune, and we think you ought to report this to the king.”

Ocampo was furious: “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“We wanted to be sure.”

“Yes! We’ve written it here!”

Ocampo accepted their papers, studied one, and pushed them back: “Burn them.” And when they had lit a fire on the tile floor and destroyed the accusations, he said: “I’m a soldier. I have but one commission from the king. To inquire into Colón. You and I have done that properly, and now it’s time for us to take our report and sail home.”

“Leaving the Pimentels free to continue their abuses?”

“If they don’t do the stealing, someone else will,” and he stomped from the room, going for the first time out into the streets alone, while his honor guard remained behind.

He walked toward the sea, and the first building he saw was the fine stone house of the Pimentels, and he laughed at himself: I saw the chest of silver but neglected to investigate what was inside.

Ocampo walked for several hours, reflecting on the confused data he had uncovered, and his straightforward judgment was: Colón, Bobadilla, Pimentel. All honorable men, as Spanish gentlemen are required to be, but also rascals and thieves, as Spanish gentlemen are prone to be. Colón earned his honors, no man on earth more honorably than he, and the king must let his heirs have their rewards, within reason. Bobadilla, if he is really alive, does little harm in pretending to be a knight. And Pimentel, with his silver, will become a marquis or better.

He had a sense of frustration that a simple soldier would feel whose tests of honesty had always been on the battlefield, where a man either did his duty with courage or shirked it in cowardice, and he felt repelled by the complexities and nuances of political life. As he stared out at the sea he cried: “That town behind me. Everything in it is for sale or prey to thieves … or already stolen. I would like to be with King Ferdinand on a ship out there, sailing to Sicily for an honest battle. Friend here, foe over there.” But then he wondered: Ferdinand could trust me, but could I trust him?

Stepping toward the water, he ventured a short distance, even though his Cordoba shoes might be damaged, and he looked westward to the island of Jamaica: In all this testimony the only man I would feel I could trust was one I never saw. That fellow Diego Méndez who sailed his canoe across the sea to rescue Colón and his men. Shaking his head in sorrow, he cried with regret: “Spain! Spain! I wish you could create a thousand such men.”

IN THE LATTER YEARS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, 1567–1597, two fabled mariners, one Spanish, one English, waged an incessant duel throughout the Caribbean. The two men fought at the extreme western end at Nombre de Dios, and beyond the northern limits at Vera Cruz in Mexico. They fought on the isthmus, the approaches to Panamá, at little ports on the coast of South America and at the huge harbor of San Juan in Puerto Rico. But most often they faced each other at Cartagena, the walled city that became in the early 1500s the capital of Spain’s empire in the Caribbean. In heritage, training, religion, manner and personal appearance, these men differed conspicuously, but in personal heroism and eagerness to defend their honor they were identical.

The Spaniard was a tall, thin, beardless aristocrat with the hollow-cheeked austerity that El Greco liked to depict in his scowling portraits of Spanish noblemen and church authorities; he usually wore a Toledo blade with an elegant, filigreed hilt, a deadly instrument he was ever ready to wield in defense of King Philip and his Catholic church.

The Spaniard carried the insolent and resonant name of Don Diego Ledesma Paredes y Guzman Orvantes. If he had been a proper Englishman, his name would have been a simple James Ledesma and let it go at that, but the Spanish style had a grace that gave it added attraction. The various names evoked memories for any Spaniard hearing them; for example, on the father’s side the Ledesmas had always been notable defenders of the king and to have Ledesma in one’s name signified honor. The male branch also sprang from the Paredes family of northern Spain, and its contribution to the last defeat of the Moors in 1492 had been heroic; this was a name worth preserving.

The letter y indicated that whatever names followed belonged to the maternal side of the family, and here the Guzmans were as distinguished as either of the paternal ancestors, while the Orvantes men were considered, at least in the little region from which they came, the most outstanding of the four because of their bravery in helping expel the Moors from Spain. To make things more complex, at his birth adoring and important members of his family had to be honored, so that his full name became Juan Tomas Diego Sebastian Leandro Ledesma Paredes y Guzman Orvantes. But this occasioned no trouble, for everyone called him just Don Diego, omitting the other eight names, laden with honor though they were.

Don Diego was inordinately proud of his family’s ancient fame and saw in his three unmarried daughters—Juana, María and Isabella—an opportunity to enhance it if he could find acceptable young men to marry them, but he never lost sight of his primary obligation: augmenting his family’s present power. As a young naval officer of unusual daring, he had won an enviable reputation for defending against pirates the Spanish armadas which carried Peruvian gold and Panamanian silver across the Caribbean on its way to Sevilla in southern Spain. His bold successes enabled him to rise swiftly to the rank of captain, and in 1556, at the age of only twenty-four, he had been appointed governor at Cartagena. During his first day on the job he issued the order which would characterize his long tenure: “The Caribbean is a Spanish lake, from which all intruders will be expelled.” The first step he took to enforce this boast was to make his home city of Cartagena so impregnable that no enemy would dare attack it.

And if the arriving enemy continued some easy miles to the south, he came upon Boca Chica, Little Mouth, a deep entrance but treacherous because of its extreme narrowness and certain intruding islands. Should a determined ship captain work his way through, he would find himself lost in the first of four distinct bays: big Southern leading into smaller Middle, which led into small Northern, which debouched into tiny Harbor atop which rose the battlements of the city. Cartagena was well-nigh impregnable.

In the late summer of 1566, King Philip of Spain dispatched to Cartagena the kind of investigating ambassador who had tormented Cristóbal Colón at Española eighty years earlier. But unlike Bobadilla, this man, after the most inquisitive probing, uncovered no malfeasance, though his shrewd report anticipated weaknesses that might cause trouble in future years:

Yet even as King Philip read this reassuring statement, there was on the cold east coast of England a tough seafarer, twenty-three years old, with his one small ship, who was swearing in blind fury: “I shall fight the King of Spain until I die. And I shall exact full recompense for every slave the Dons stole from me. When I’m through, Cartagena will lie in ruins.”

The sailor who made this fiery boast was not a large, aggressive man; only five feet four, of a stocky build and with a bulletlike round head and a jutting chin already covered with a closely trimmed beard, his dominant feature was a pair of sharp blue eyes which could flash fire. Much older seamen had learned to avoid him if trouble brewed, for in any argument he was accustomed to have his way. A difficult, capable young man, he was not only eager to be sailing back to the Caribbean; he was lusting to do so. His reasons for this burning hunger were manifold, involving religion and slaves.

Afraid to return to their old home, the fourteen Drakes scuttled off to a naval base near the mouth of the Thames, and there the family lived miserably in the hulk of a discarded ship. Here again they were made to pay heavily for being Protestants, for when Queen Mary ascended the throne, determined to take all England back to Catholicism, family friends who resisted Mary’s order were hanged, and the Drakes themselves barely escaped execution. After this unfortunate second brush with Catholicism, young Francis generated that intense hatred which would dominate his wildly active life.

Toward the end of 1567 he suffered intensely from an additional reason for despising Spaniards—the dreadful thing they had done to his friend Christopher Weed—and, burning for revenge, he hurried out to Plymouth to consult with one of England’s greatest sea captains, John Hawkins—whom he called Uncle, although what the precise blood relationship between them was nobody knew. Most called the two kinsmen and let it go at that.

Hawkins was a remarkable seaman, one of the greatest the world would know, for in a day when compasses were uncertain and there were no means of determining longitude, no powerful guns or reliable medicines or any of the appurtenances which later captains would take for granted, he drove his ships far and wide through storm and enemy action, always bringing them to safe and profitable harbor.

Thirty-five years old, he was of medium stature, with small head, steel-gray eyes that did not blink, big mustache and small beard to make him look more impressive; he had oversized ears of which he was ashamed and a bulldog determination which never flared into excessive posturing. He was a man’s man, and from those who served under him he exacted a loyalty that verged on fanaticism. To sail with John Hawkins was the ultimate challenge for a seafaring man.

Curiously, he was not by nature a warrior; he thought of himself as a merchant and a navigator who would go to any lengths to avoid a battle at sea. When he drifted from one Spanish-held island to the next, selling his slaves, officials he encountered had no cause for fear, for they had learned that he did not sack cities or burn towns.

Hawkins placed a restraining hand on Drake’s knee: “Mad desire for revenge is never a sound base for action, Francis. I’m almost afraid to take you with me.”

“But I have cause, Uncle. The Spaniards …” and a great hatred burned through his words.

“Must I remind you? If you do sail with me, it’s so we can sell our slaves to the Spaniards, not fight against them.”

“I’ll trade with them all right … at the point of a gun … my gun.”

“I would like to take you with me. I need men of your courage when we’re on the Slave Coast. Pirates, Portuguese adventurers trying to steal our slaves, the flotsam of the world always attacking English ships.”

“That’s the kind of action I seek,” Drake said eagerly, but again his uncle reproved him: “To fight off pirates in Africa, yes. To fight our peaceful Spanish customers in the Caribbean, no.”

“Peaceful Spanish customers?! Let me tell you about those peaceful Spanish customers. Early this year, at Río de la Hacha,” and Drake spat out the Spanish name as if he loathed it, “the governor lured me ashore with my ninety slaves, which he offered to buy. But when the time came to pay me, he whistled for his soldiers. They drove me back to my ship, and he kept my slaves. Paid me nothing.”

“It happens, Francis. My slaves have often been stolen by corrupt officials. But the slaves I have left I sell to honest officials at strong prices. In your battle with the Dons, you came home a winner, did you not?”

Drake leaped to his feet: “Uncle! Forty of those slaves were mine! Not the queen’s! I paid for them in Africa with my own money. Those Dons stole my profits from me, personally. And I’ve sworn I’ll get them back.”

Hawkins, growing impatient, snapped: “Don’t be a fool. Never allow revenge to get in your way of earning a decent profit.”

“You don’t understand,” Drake blurted out. Then he whistled for a young sailor of nineteen to join them: “Tell Captain Hawkins what happened to Christopher Weed.” Then, turning to his uncle, he explained: “You remember young Weed? Son of Fleet Preacher Timothy Weed?” and Hawkins said: “I know him.”

“We sailed from Plymouth,” the young sailor said, “to trade our goods for those of Venice. But as we passed the Spanish coast our little ship was captured and we were thrown in prison. They announced that since we were Englishmen, we had to be heretics and must be duly punished.”

“Then what?” Drake asked, eyes flashing.

“Half our crew recanted—said they’d always been faithful Catholics and were still. They were lashed for having ventured into Spanish waters, then released. The other half, and I was one, refused to recant, so we were sentenced to the galleys. Six years … ten years … life.”

“And you? How many years?”

“Ten, but our ship was attacked by pirates and I escaped.”

“God was watching over you. But what of Christopher Weed and the other two?”

“Somehow the Spaniards learned that they were the sons of Protestant ministers—”

“But so were you,” Hawkins interrupted, and the young sailor said: “Yes, but no one revealed that to the Spaniards.”

“Tell him what happened to the three ministers’ sons,” Drake said, his hands clasped so tightly that no blood showed beneath his fair skin.

“All of us, we who were headed for the hulks, even those to be released, were led to the great square in Sevilla. There, before the cathedral and the beautiful tower—I shall always remember them—stakes were driven into the ground, bonfires were built about them, and Weed and his two fellows were lashed to the stakes and burned alive. One of our men standing near me shouted: ‘For love of Christ, shoot them!’ but they let them burn. To teach the rest of us a lesson.”

Grimly, Drake said: “You may leave us!”

When the two seamen were alone again, Hawkins said harshly: “Francis, when I see the blazing hatred in your eyes I have no wish to take you with me.” Then he sighed, and said reluctantly: “But I think for various reasons I may have to. The ships I’ll be taking belong to the queen and must be protected. Two-thirds of the slaves we capture will belong to her, and two-thirds of our profits, all hers. This is her expedition and she has ordered me to take along only the most trusted men, for she cannot afford to lose the great wealth this adventure might bring. Desperately she needs the money.”

In reply, Hawkins, trusted friend of the queen, gave an explanation which revealed the curious state of affairs in Europe: “You remember that our Queen Mary of sacred memory,” and he crossed himself, “took as her husband King Philip of Spain, and even though Mary is dead, Philip still wants to be King of England. He begs Elizabeth to marry him … bring England back to Catholicism. She needs money to fend him off, every penny we can earn on this slaving voyage.” He paused, broke into a mischievous smile, and added: “Do you see the humor, Francis? You and I stealing from King Philip in order to do him harm … with his own money?”

“And if we return to Río Hacha, will I have your permission to bombard that wretch who stole my slaves?”

“No! And now I want to show you why I need you.”

Leaving the naval headquarters, the two men walked to an anchorage where Drake saw for the first time the great vessel Queen Elizabeth had recently purchased with her own money to serve as flagship for her slaving ventures. It was the Jesus of Lübeck, a ship to gladden the heart of any sailor, especially one who might have to be aboard as she sailed into battle. Built in Germany some thirty years earlier, she had been intended from the start to be a mighty man-of-war.

“Look at her!” Hawkins said as Drake’s eyes widened. “More than seven hundred tons, those four masts each twice as thick as any you’ve known. That long bowsprit, the great fortresslike towers soaring high into the air, fore and aft. And the flags!”

From various protuberances eight flags of England flew and at the deck level another ten, but Drake was noticing other aspects: “Look at these monster guns and the hoard of smaller ones … the room below for sleeping soldiers as well as sailors … that clean deck space for swordplay if we have to repel raiders. That’s a ship that’s crying to be fought properly, and we can do it.”

He then indicated to Hawkins that he would be honored to sail in her, but his kinsman shook his head: “No, Francis, you’re not to sail in the Jesus,” and when Drake scowled, Hawkins added: “I want you always on my starboard, in your own ship, as captain,” and he pointed to a handsome little fighting ship, the Judith, in which Drake, after he had purchased her, would sail to both glory and shame.

In the weeks that followed, Drake was busy visiting ship’s chandlers in Plymouth and ordering supplies for the long voyage. A list in his handwriting of purchases indicated the level of his rough education and his freedom to spell as he wished: “vi pynazzes, bysket, beare, bieff, chiese, rieze, vyneger, sweete oyle, hamars” (6 pinnaces, biscuit, beer, beef, cheese, rice, vinegar, sweet oil, hammers), but purchase was also made of “Caste ordenanunce, forged same, and divers munytions mownts,” for Drake insisted that his little Judith be prepared for battle.

On 2 October 1567, Hawkins headed his little flotilla for the coast of Africa, where it would pick up some five hundred slaves to be carried into the heart of the Caribbean, where they would be peddled from one Spanish island to another. But wherever Hawkins and Drake sailed as partners, one vast difference would separate them: Hawkins, the cautious older man, wanted peace; Drake, the impetuous younger, sought vengeance against Spaniards wherever and however he met them.

In the spring of 1568, while Hawkins was heading westward from the African coast, the holds of his vessel crammed with slaves, Governor Ledesma of Cartagena was listening to an ugly report from the captain of a small Spanish trading vessel out of Sevilla: “Esteemed Excellency, when I left Spain I was directed to enter the Indies by the extreme southern route to report on conditions on our island of Trinidad, and as you well know, for it lies within your territory, there has been no serious Spanish settlement there, nor any other that I could detect. Trinidad was empty and safe.

“But some seven leagues after we had sailed west along the coast of America, we came to our great salt pans of Cumaná, and it was fortunate for me and my crew that we were comfortably out to sea, because a horde of some dozen ships, which I took from their build to be Dutch renegades, had deposited their teams of thieves onto our salt beds and were stealing a fortune.”

The apparent ease with which Ledesma received this report of Dutch incursions into the salt flats masked the considerable fright the news had caused, and after the captain left, Don Diego hurried to his wife, his face flushed: “Darling, walk with me on the battlements. I want no one to hear,” and they paced for some time atop the defensive wall that protected the center of their city.

“Ugly news. The Dutch have trespassed on our salt flats again.”

“Cumaná?”

“Yes. This time they’ve come in force.”

“How do you know?”

“A ship captain, just out from Sevilla. He saw them robbing us. And if he’s warned me, he’ll certainly warn the king, and Philip will expect me to act … to drive the scoundrels off.”

“Isn’t Cumaná a long way from here?”

“It is. More the reason why we must keep the Dutch away,” and as they walked he spoke briefly of this treasure spot, so important to Spanish trade: “A long hook of land starting east and running west cuts off a shallow bay. This happens often along seacoasts. Remember the handsome one we saw when we laid over in the island of Jamaica, southern shore?” And Doña Leonora nodded.

“The gulf at Cumaná looks the same, but is different. It’s shallow, and every summer when the sun is high the water evaporates, leaving an enormous deposit of salt. There’s so much salt there, you can scrape it up with shovels.”

“But don’t we station soldiers to protect the flats?”

“What I must do,” Ledesma told his wife, “is take a fleet out there before the king orders me to do so.”

“Can’t you send one of your captains?” she asked, and he replied honestly: “I suppose I could, but would it not look better …” He hesitated, because as the father of three unmarried daughters and the uncle of two nephews with limited futures, he faced what could be called “The Spanish Problem”: “How can I protect and extend the interests of my family?”

In the Spanish society a man like Don Diego acknowledged tremendous obligations to four entities: God, God’s church, the king, his own family, though in reverse order if he was a prudent Spaniard. One could argue as to whose claims were greater, God’s, the church’s or the king’s, but any sensible man would have to admit that first came his family’s. And Don Diego had a most demanding one. His three daughters needed husbands of wealth and importance and his wife’s two able nephews deserved jobs. Then there were his three brothers, who had no titles but did have ravenous appetites for good things, and Doña Leonora’s inexhaustible array of cousins. If he played his cards cleverly and retained his governorship for another fifteen or twenty years, he would have a reasonable chance of placing all his relatives in profitable positions, and no man could discharge his family obligations more honorably than that.

So it was advisable that he conduct in person this campaign against the Dutch interlopers, for in doing so he might be able to connive two promotions for his wife’s nephews and at the same time ingratiate himself with a young captain of troops, a man of excellent family in Saragossa whom Doña Leonora had settled upon as a proper husband for their eldest, Juana. If, during action, Don Diego could find an opportunity to promote the young man, and then commend him in his report to the king, a marriage might very well be attainable. Getting the nephews started young in the naval service could mean that he might later be justified in placing them in command of one of the treasure galleons that sailed each spring from Cartagena for Havana and Sevilla. In fact, the more Don Diego thought of this expedition to the salt flats, the more attractive it became. A man could kill a chain of doves with one arrow well shot.

These assignments were shocking, for as one of the captains who had to surrender his post grumbled: “Those whelps aren’t past the age of twenty-five and know nothing of the sea.” But the answer from another old sea dog touched reality: “True, but you must remember they’re his wife’s nephews, and that does count.”

Satisfied that he had made two judicious moves, Don Diego now attended to the young nobleman who had been courting Juana Ledesma, and for him he created a wholly new position, vice-regent to the admiral; no one knew what it entailed, but it did evoke in the young man a feeling of great warmth toward Don Diego and his entire family. When one of the old-line captains asked: “What are the vice-regent’s duties?” Don Diego replied without hesitation: “He relays my orders to my vice-admirals.” When he went to sleep that night, with three more members of his family taken care of, he felt not even a wisp of shame at having abused his position so blatantly. If the truth were known, the long-dead bearers of the distinguished names he bore had probably gained their high places in history by similar attention to the promotions of their sons, nephews and cousins, for that was the Spanish way.

Toward the end of March, the fleet approached Cumaná from the west, and found at the mouth of the salt lagoon a group of three big renegade Dutch traders, each protected by heavy guns. Without the least hint of indecision Don Diego attacked, and in forty minutes the Battle of Cumaná, as the Spanish scribes would name it in their enthusiastic reports, was over, with one enemy ship sunk, one smoldering on a reef, and the middle one a captured prize.

When his crew climbed aboard their prize and all the Dutchmen had been crammed into the leaky old craft, Don Diego called down: “What’s the name of this ship?” and they pointed to the stern where the words had been neatly carved in oak: STADHOUDER MAURITZ. While the Dutchmen argued about which way to head, a horde of bright yellow butterflies seeking land saw the captured ship and alighted upon her rigging, clothing it in gold.

“An omen!” Don Diego cried, and before nightfall carpenters had fashioned a new board with the lovely new name MARIPOSA. When it was in place, each member of the crew was issued a bottle of captured Dutch beer with which he toasted the admiral when he poured his bottle over the new name and shouted: “We christen thee Mariposa!”

That night, flushed with victory, Don Diego directed his scribe to compose a letter informing King Philip of the capture of the Dutch ship, adding in his own handwriting: “Without the exceptional bravery and shrewd military judgment of the vice-regent and the two vice-admirals, this victory over three huge Dutch ships would not have been possible. They did their fighting on the decks of the enemy and deserve both commendation and promotion.”

Suffused with this euphoria, Ledesma completed his long run westward, then headed south for home, and as he coasted down the western edge of Cartagena’s island and saw on the cliffs above him the safe, solid town which he commanded, he was inspired to discharge seven salvos to inform the citizens of his victory.

But as he was luxuriating in his defeat of the Dutch and the capture of their fine ship, his future son-in-law, the vice-regent, showed what a perceptive young man he was by asking permission to address the admiral, and when Don Diego gave assent, the young man said: “You know, Excellency, that my great-uncle was once governor of Peru?”

“Of course! That’s one reason why Doña Leonora and I have been so proud to think of you as a possible member of our family. Don Pedro, one of the finest.”

“Then you also know what happened to him?”

Don Diego’s easy smile turned into a frown: “Terribly unfair. Enemies brought all sorts of base charges against him. Reports to the king were biased …”

“And he was hanged.” There was silence in the cabin, after which Don Diego asked: “Why do you remind me of that sad affair?” and the young man said: “Because you must not boast about your victory at Cumaná. Neither in your report to Spain nor in your comments here in Cartagena.”

“What would be the peril … if I did … which I certainly won’t?”

“Envy. The envy that your enemies here and in Spain will feel.” In the silence that followed, the young man mustered his courage, then continued: “You have promoted me to high office. Same with your two nephews. And before we sailed you did likewise with two of your brothers. Tongues will wag. Spies, even aboard this ship, will begin framing their secret reports to the king.”

But at the same time the suspicious kings encouraged a constant chain of spies to report on the misbehaviors of their viceroys and governors, with the result that after a man—like, say, Columbus—had been in one of those offices for a dozen years, he was almost certain to be visited by an official audiencia whose members might spend two years looking into his behavior and inviting his enemies to testify in secret against him, with the result that repeatedly an official who had enjoyed extraordinary powers in some far place like Mexico, Panamá or Peru finished his illustrious career by sailing home in chains, to languish in jail after he got there. The unlucky ones were hanged.

Don Diego felt driven to recall the mournful list of Spain’s great conquistadores who had met bitter ends, and as he recited their fates, his son-in-law nodded grimly: “Cristóbal Colón? Home in chains. Cortés in Mexico? Chains. Nuñez de Balboa? One of our finest. Beheaded. The great Pizarro of Peru? Slain by jealous underlings.”

These two good men, one a governor who kept his stealing within reason, the other the scion of a splendid family and himself destined to become a colonial governor, had identified the fundamental reasons why Spanish lands in the New World would fail, during the next four hundred years, to achieve any simple, responsible system of governance, democratic or not, in which good men could rule without stealing and alienating the riches of their countries.

A fatal tradition had already been codified during the rule of Diego Ledesma in Cartagena: provide reasonably good government for the time being, steal as much as decency and the envy of others will allow, and then, because your own position is tenuous, place every relative in the richest position possible so that he, too, can accumulate a fortune. This will mean that even if you are dragged home in disgrace, the members of your family will be left in positions of power, and after a few years they can ease their way back into Spain laden with wealth and titles, to become the new viceroys and governors or to marry into the families who do, and thus find new opportunities to steal new fortunes.

However, neither of these reflective men perceived the lasting damage their philosophy was creating: First, if it was known and condoned that their governor was appropriating public funds, officials on the next tier down were justified in doing the same, although to a more restrained degree. Then those on the third tier were invited to try their luck, and on down to the lowest functionary. All had their hands out and all levels of government proceeded by theft and bribery. Second, and equally destructive, if thousands of men like Don Diego returned each year to Europe with their booty, they left the New World colonies increasingly impoverished.

At about this time a Cartagena poet summarized such rules of conduct in six sardonic lines: “My Spain against all other countries. / Her religion against all other religions. / My part of Spain against all other parts. / My colony against their colony. / My big family against all other big families. / And my wife and children against my brother’s wife and children.” As one of the most congenial practitioners of this art of personal and familial self-protection, the governor of Cartagena applied nine-tenths of his energies to finding jobs for his family and treasure for himself, one-tenth defending his Caribbean against intruders. But his victory against the Dutch proved that when aroused, he could be valiant. For in the Spanish society a man could be a peculator but not a coward.

One of the Española frigates put into Cartagena’s well-protected harbor, where the messenger hurried to inform Ledesma: “Excellency, I hand you an ominous message. John Hawkins is heading this way, and Guzman in London has heard on the best authority, someone close to the queen, that he is heading for Puerto Rico, Río Hacha and Cartagena, with permission to land and destroy each place if we oppose him.”

Don Diego listened, nodded several times, and waited till he himself had read the instructions, then said in a judicial voice that betrayed no fear: “There are ways to handle Englishmen. They’re not like French pirates who slay and burn with no questions asked, nor the Dutch who flourish on sheer pillage.”

But then the messenger disturbed this tranquillity by revealing privileged information which had come by word of mouth: “Hawkins is sailing in a very powerful ship, the queen’s own Jesus of Lübeck,” and as the name of the famous warship hung in the air, Admiral Ledesma, as a well-informed navy man, could visualize that terror of the seas. To have the Jesus with its many guns bearing down upon smaller and poorly defended Spanish ships was not a happy prospect, but it was what the messenger added as his last bit of information that caused the governor his greatest worry: “Hawkins will bring with him a second major warship, the Minion, impossible to sink, and five lesser ships. Swallow, one hundred tons; Judith, fifty tons; Angel, thirty-three tons,” and as he ended the recitation he added: “In command of the Judith will be young Francis Drake, a kinsman of Captain Hawkins, on whom Hawkins will depend if fighting becomes necessary.”

That afternoon Ledesma issued a host of instructions for the further fortification of his capital. In the following days three more ships were sunk across Boca Grande to make it totally impassable and additional guns were emplaced to protect the entrance to Boca Chica. Each headland the Hawkins fleet would have to pass if it were to threaten the small inner harbor was given additional firepower, and troops were trained in tactics for driving English assailants back if they attempted to scale the battlements.

“Cartagena cannot be taken,” Ledesma announced when the work was finished, but a few weeks later a small boat scurried in from Río Hacha with the appalling news that not only had Hawkins returned to the Caribbean, but he had indeed brought the tough little fire-eater Drake with him.

“Excellency, my crew of three and I escaped miraculously from under the English guns, and I report only the truth, as these men will testify. On the fifth day of June, this year, Captain Hawkins, with a fleet of seven English vessels and some French acquired along the way, passed the salt flats of Cumaná without stopping, but he did sell some of his slaves at the pearl island of Margarita and at Curaçao, from where he sent ahead two of his smallest ships, the Angel and the Judith, the last under the command of Captain Francis Drake, to clear the way for his big ship, the Jesus of Lübeck.

“Drake was a reasonable choice for this mission, since he had visited Río Hacha last year, as you will remember. Immediately upon arriving he started hostilities, capturing the dispatch boat from Española and making the officials thereon his prisoners, something never done before. He then fired two shots at the town, not over the rooftops as the English are supposed to do when trading, but right at the house occupied by his great enemy, Treasurer Miguel de Castellanos, who took the slaves from him last year. And I am ashamed to say that one of Drake’s broadsides ripped right through the treasurer’s house and would have killed him had he been dining.”

“What did Castellanos do?” Ledesma asked, and the messenger replied: “For five days all he did was glare at those two little ships in his harbor, powerless to do anything against them but also strong enough to prevent Drake from landing with his soldiers.”

“You mean the assault on Río ended in such a stalemate? Doesn’t sound like Drake.”

“A serious battle ensued, with two English dead, but their attack was so relentless that Castellanos’ troops fled, and Hawkins found himself possessor of a town containing no women, no gold, silver, pearls or objects of value. Hawkins gave the obdurate treasurer three days to bring back his people and his treasure, and when the man refused, Hawkins threatened to burn the place. Heroically, Castellanos said: ‘Rather than give in to you, I’ll see every island in the Indies ablaze,’ whereupon Drake, who heard the vain boast, started setting houses afire, but Hawkins stopped him, saying: ‘There must be a better way.’

“After five days of patient waiting, an escaped slave showed Hawkins where the treasure was hidden. And so Hawkins won everything he wanted.”

“What do you mean, he won everything?”

“He sold us two hundred fifty slaves at fair prices. He made us give him extra money for the families of the two English soldiers who were killed. And then he asked us to produce the women belonging to homes that Francis Drake had burned, and when they stood before him, tired and dirty from their time hiding in the jungle with our treasure, he said: ‘Englishmen do not make war against women. I give you each four slaves to recompense you for your loss,’ and he turned over sixty additional slaves at no charge.”

“Very generous!” the governor said sardonically. “But he did have our treasure, didn’t he?” and the messenger said: “Yes. All of it.”

“And how did Captain Drake behave when Hawkins did these things?” Ledesma asked, and the man said: “He bit his tongue and obeyed, that’s what he did. But I was at the shore when he departed, and he growled at me: ‘When I come back as captain of my own fleet, I shall burn every house in this godforsaken town.’ ”

“Excellency, when the Jesus of Lübeck is in your harbor, assisted by six other English ships and two French, all guns pointed ashore, it can be terrifying.” He was about to add: “As you will learn in the next few days when Hawkins and Drake come into your harbor down there,” but he thought better of it and said merely: “As the English ships left us Drake shouted from the Judith: ‘On to Cartagena.’ ”

On 1 August 1568 the English fleet swept down upon Cartagena. Hawkins wanted only to sell his remaining fifty slaves at customary profit and trade his ordinary goods for such food and pearls as the Spaniards might have, but Drake hoped to invade the town and hold it for ransom. But though the English had a horde of sailors, they had only three hundred and seventy trained fighting men, while up on his hillside Governor Ledesma had five hundred Spanish infantry, two companies of highly skilled cavalry and not less than six thousand trained and armed Indians. So when Captain Drake dispatched a messenger under a flag of truce to inform Ledesma of the terms under which the English proposed dealing with Cartagena, the governor refused even to open the letter, advising the messenger to tell Drake that no one in Cartagena cared a fig what the English did or did not do, and that the sooner they hied themselves off, the better.

When Drake heard this insulting reply, he sailed as close in as he could and ordered his guns to pepper the town, but since he was still not close enough, the cannonballs fell harmlessly and rolled about the streets. Ledesma, chuckling at the impotence of the braggadocio Englishman, signaled his heavy guns to fire back, not in salute but in earnest, but he too missed.

Hawkins, distressed that things were going so badly, landed on the barren islands south of the city, where nothing was found but some large casks of wine, which Hawkins ordered his men to leave untouched, saying: “We’re not pirates or thieves.” Thereupon Ledesma sent word that they should feel free to take the wine, since it was of such poor quality that only Englishmen would drink it.

Ledesma and Drake had now had two confrontations without ever seeing each other, and although the rugged little Englishman was bold, the austere Spaniard was resolute and not easily frightened. His fortitude, and that of his agent in Río Hacha, had enabled the Spaniards to rebuff Drake, but the two adversaries knew that the next meeting could be bloody and decisive, though neither could guess where it might occur. Ledesma warned his men: “Drake will be back, of that we can be sure,” and Drake told his sailors: “One day I shall humiliate that arrogant Spaniard.”

Now that English ships roamed the Caribbean with impunity, trading where and how they willed, this body of water could no longer be considered a Spanish lake. It had become a public thoroughfare, but Don Diego, who had been commissioned to keep it Spanish, believed that if Drake and Hawkins could be lured into some major sea battle, English power might be broken, and he directed his waking hours to that strategy. He was therefore pleased when a dispatch frigate sped in from Sevilla and Española with these orders:

On the voyage north to Mexico the newly empowered admiral assembled his captains and invited an officer acquainted with Ulúa to instruct the men as to what they would find when they reached that vital harbor.

The island of Ulúa, situated about a half-mile from the land-based Vera Cruz, served as protection for the mainland, where the riches of Mexico’s silver mines were brought together to wait for the king’s galleons from Sevilla to pick them up. Composed of solid rock and defended from the open sea by big reefs, Ulúa was also famous for its dungeon caverns where mutinous sailors and workers were imprisoned.

It was an exciting moment when Admiral Ledesma realized that he had beaten Hawkins north and brought his vessels into the spacious harbor of Ulúa: “There’s the great fort, absolutely impregnable. Out there, the protecting reef. Over there, the warehouses of Vera Cruz, crammed with silver bars, and gold ones too. And dead ahead the six ships from Spain always based here to fight off any pirates that might attack.” With Ledesma’s nine Cartagena vessels, the harbor now contained fifteen ships of war, but anchorages were so plentiful that the harbor seemed almost empty. Even so, innumerable cannon mounted on shore kept the various ships in their sights in case of unexpected trouble. Ulúa was invincible, and Admiral Ledesma, as the senior officer present, would be expected to assume command of its defenses until the empty treasure ships from Sevilla arrived.

Ledesma went to bed that first night satisfied that as commander in chief of the defenses of San Juan de Ulúa, he had done everything possible to protect the anchorage, so that when he received the surprising news that another Spanish fleet would soon be arriving from Nombre de Dios, a rich depot on the Caribbean side of the Isthmus of Panamá, bringing additional treasure from Peru, he was elated. “When it arrives, this will be the richest port in the world,” he boasted to his subordinates, “and the best defended.”

Next day a battered Spanish ship limped into port with news of a horrendous hurricane to the south. Its winds had been so violent that everyone assumed that if Hawkins and his English ships had tried to breast the same storm, they must have either sunk or fled home to England badly damaged.

Ledesma was therefore appalled when, two days later, a lookout shouted: “Ships approaching!” and the first vessel into the harbor turned out to be the famous Jesus of Lübeck, except that one of her identifying castles was missing. There she came, a misshapen thing though still a formidable warship, followed by the stout Minion and five smaller vessels. The invading English ships had so intermingled themselves with the Spanish that the shore batteries dared not fire for fear of sinking their own vessels, and Ledesma’s own Mariposa was overawed by the powerful guns of the Jesus of Lübeck, which pointed directly at it from a distance of yards. Hawkins and Drake, without having had to fire a shot, had occupied the harbor of San Juan de Ulúa, and there was nothing Ledesma could do to eject them.

When he looked out from his headquarters in the fort, Don Diego saw that infuriating Jesus riding arrogantly in his anchorage with Drake’s insolent Judith alongside, and his choler rose to a point that nearly disrupted his reason and certainly obliterated many of the normal compunctions dictated by the sense of honor which is supposed to govern gentlemen in battle. His consuming motivation became “Death to the English invaders,” but which tactics would produce the destruction, he did not know, so he played for time until possibilities became clearer.

“We face each other at last,” Hawkins said graciously, indicating where his guest might find comfort in a padded chair.

Ledesma wanted to know why the Englishmen had dared to enter into a harbor of such importance to Spain, and Hawkins replied frankly: “Storms drove us here.”

“A greater storm will drive you away,” Ledesma said, and then, with either exquisite guile or aimless stupidity, he added: “Because very shortly the powerful plate fleet of twenty armed vessels will arrive from Spain to carry Mexico’s silver back to Sevilla. They will destroy you in minutes … if you are still here.”

“English ships can carry silver as easily as Spanish,” Hawkins said, to which Ledesma replied sneeringly: “If they can get their hands on it.”

The verbal sparring was interrupted by the unannounced appearance of Hawkins’ first assistant, a short, stocky mariner with a bullet head and a close-cropped beard. As soon as Don Diego saw him he rose from his chair, pointed a finger, and cried, almost with delight at meeting a man so famous: “You’re Drake!” and for the first time the two duelists stood face to face, nodding like gentlemen, each waiting for the other to speak.

Drake broke the silence: “Your people stole forty slaves from me at Río Hacha,” at which Ledesma smiled: “But we gave you the free wine at Cartagena … when you couldn’t get into our city.”

Without revealing his anger at this insult, Drake said: “That time we didn’t try to force our way in. But next time, beware.”

Hawkins broke the tension by saying gently: “That was good wine you let us have at Cartagena, Don Diego, but you must remember that we did pay for it,” and at last the three broke into the comradely laughter which often characterized seafaring men. Encouraged by this, Ledesma asked, sailor to sailor: “How did you lose your aft castle?” and Hawkins replied honestly: “These damned top-heavy ships do toss about in a hurricane. We had to chop down the superstructure to keep from capsizing.” He added: “When I’m in charge of building ships, no more castles, fore or aft. Low and swift.” He paused: “Your Mariposa out there is more to my taste,” and Ledesma said: “It was Dutch. They know how to build. Your Jesus is German. All heavy show.”

Gently, almost in a whisper, Ledesma said sardonically: “And the scores of my gunners along the shore where you can’t see them. I suppose I must instruct them, too.” Then he said more firmly: “As my men surely told you at Río Hacha and as I did at Cartagena, my king has forbidden trade with Englishmen. What food we have we require for the incoming plate fleet. And you must realize, Captain Hawkins, no matter how brave you are, our gunners are never going to allow your Jesus to leave this harbor. You say she’s the property of your queen. Well, Elizabeth will never see her again.”

In the silence that followed these words the three seamen bowed, and Ledesma left the ship.

When Ledesma returned to his fort he began to lay his traps. Secretly he moved a hundred shore-based soldiers into positions overlooking the anchored ships, and when they were in place, he imported another hundred to the island to strengthen the fort. He selected one of the big Spanish ships already in the harbor, and instructed her captain: “Convert her secretly into a fire ship,” and when the man asked in amazement: “You mean we set her ablaze?” Ledesma said coldly: “We shall, and she must be so filled with inflammables that she will burn herself to the waterline within the hour.” He then held long sessions with his two nephews and the vice-regent, during which they laid the most careful plans for assaulting the English vessels when the time came, so that at the end of the plotting each young captain knew the role he must play in destroying the English.

But just as the opening moves of this well-devised plan were to begin, a fleet of thirteen huge Spanish ships arrived from the south, bringing not only a vast cargo of gold and silver from the depot at Nombre de Dios, but also the incoming viceroy of Mexico, Don Martín Enriquez, a devious man always ready to take charge of any complex predicament, which was why the king had appointed him to Mexico where bold talents were needed.

Hawkins initiated maneuvers by sending his longboat to Viceroy Enriquez’s ship with a formal invitation to dinner, and when the Spaniard entered the Englishman’s cabin, he was astounded to find Hawkins dressed in his customary well-tailored costume. The Englishman’s words were blunt: “Honorable Viceroy, instruct Admiral Ledesma’s men ashore to meet the demands I made, and I’ll depart in peace … no guns fired.”

“Now, isn’t that ridiculous!” the viceroy replied, almost contemptuously. “You’re not in a position to demand anything.” Hawkins did not flinch. Instead, he pointed out: “Excellency, your thirteen ships carry treasure and many lives, none so precious as your own but still of some value to King Philip. Your ships lie out there unprotected. If a storm like the one which tore away my aft castle blows up, your ships will be smashed to pieces on those rocks we can see even from here. You know you’re in mortal peril and must do something.”

Calmly the viceroy began to count aloud: “One, two, three …” When he reached sixty, he shifted his chair and continued: “Sixty-one, sixty-two …” on to a hundred. Then he turned again till he faced the spit of land, and the count came to more than a hundred and thirty. “That’s how many Spanish guns are pointed at you right now, Admiral Hawkins.”

“It’s Captain Hawkins. I shall resist the guns, most of which are too far away to reach me, block this harbor entrance, and watch your ships break to pieces in the coming storm.”

Since it was clear that no agreement of any kind could be reached that day, the viceroy returned in anger to his fleet, but in the late afternoon he had his boatmen quietly slip him ashore to the fort for a meeting with Admiral Ledesma, and the plan he proposed so shocked Don Diego that he listened aghast and for some moments did not respond: “I have waiting outside a young officer of extraordinary bravery and skill. You will insert him in the negotiating party you are sending to parley with Hawkins, and as the meeting progresses …”

“The other members of the team will protect our man,” Enriquez explained, “and our little boats will dart in to rescue all when they leap into the bay.”

For a long breathless moment Don Diego reflected on the plot, and he recalled that only a few days past in this very room he had said in anger: “I will adopt any stratagem to destroy that pirate.” But now he was being presented with one that his sense of family honor would not allow him to consider, and he felt he must, as a gentleman, reject it: “Assassination? Under a flag of truce? A Ledesma flag of truce? Oh no!”

The viceroy, without raising his voice, pointed out in silky tones: “The king has sent me to protect his empire, his gold and his ships. Can you imagine what he might do if I had to tell him that you prevented me from ending the life of that pirate Hawkins?” Then, with the harsh cry “Seize him!” he directed his men to pinion Ledesma: “Shoot him if he tries to hinder us in any way.”

Immobilized in a corner, Ledesma heard the young assassin ask: “If I have but one try, which of the two pirates?” and after some hesitation the viceroy said: “Drake’s our perpetual enemy. Hawkins we know how to deal with,” and the killer said with confidence: “Drake it shall be.”

Ledesma, straining against his captors, cried: “No! Let us deal with him decently … in battle,” but he was silenced.

The young officer, posing as a member of the admiral’s negotiating team, was rowed to the Jesus of Lübeck under a white flag, and participated in the discussions with Hawkins. The latter, always alert, had noticed that when the young stranger was introduced to him, the arrogant fellow paid no attention, but when Drake joined the company, the Spaniard became all attention and continued to hover near him. Thus it was that when the young man with a cry of “Muerte!” whipped out his poisoned stiletto and leaped at Drake, Hawkins was prepared to grab his arm before he could strike.

Ashen-faced, Hawkins now spoke: “They came to us under a flag of truce. Return them so, to the perpetual shame of those who sent them.”

Soon the great vessel, proud flagship of the queen’s navy and her personal possession, was ablaze in all quarters and burning uncontrollably toward the waterline. Still she might have fought her way out of the harbor had not Admiral Ledesma, once more in command of the Mariposa, dogged the burning Jesus and poured in a shattering broadside which penetrated the waterline. With no chance of saving his flagship, Hawkins shouted to his loyal sailors: “Sauve-que-peut!” the time-honored French cry “Save yourself if you can.” Over the side of the historic ship piled the sailors, dropping onto the deck of an English ship maneuvering alongside. The last sailor leaping down shouted: “Captain Hawkins! Jump!” and as the rescue ship drew away, Hawkins made a wild leap from the Jesus, barely reaching the deck of the other ship, from which he would have slipped into the water had not alert seamen seen his plight and grabbed him just as he started to fall backward.

In the lurid light provided by the flames, the few surviving Englishmen who had made it to their two ships still afloat, the big Minion now commanded by Hawkins, and the little Judith with Drake as captain, watched in anger and futility as the Mariposa stood off and continued to pound their Jesus, noblest ship ever to have ventured into the Caribbean. It burned until all its timber vanished in smoke. Then, almost as if issuing a final sigh of despair, the flames hissed as they met the sea and the remains of the hulk slipped beneath the waves.

Under Drake’s able guidance, the Judith completed an uneventful passage home to Plymouth, arriving unscathed on 20 January 1569 with mournful news of the defeat at San Juan de Ulúa and the loss of Captain Hawkins and all his other ships. There was deep mourning, for England could not easily absorb such a total defeat and the death of a captain like Hawkins and so many of his men. Queen Elizabeth, still suffering relentless pressure from Spain, had neither ships nor mariners to waste.

And then, five days later, on 25 January, an outlook on a headland near Plymouth sighted an English ship, battered and barely moving, striving to approach land, with no success. Hastening to Plymouth, the watchman alerted the town, and rescue ships were sent out to intercept the Minion, whose crew was in such pitiful condition that they could no longer man the yards. When the rugged ship, veteran of a score of battles, finally limped into harbor, John Hawkins, without ever naming his kinsman, gave his report on the defeat at Ulúa, concluding with the bitter condemnation which still rankles in the English navy when men speak of Drake: “So with the Minion only and the Judith (a small barke of fifty tunne) we escaped, which barke that same night forsooke us in our great miserie.”

Of the hundred who had left Ulúa that flaming night in the Minion, only fifteen survived the terrible, starving passage back to Plymouth, but in Drake’s Judith, with its adequate supplies, all made it. Of the fifty slaves that Hawkins took with him to Ulúa, half drowned, for they were in chains in the hold of the Jesus and went down with her as the sailors were leaping to safety. The remaining twenty-five reached England in the surviving ships and were sold at considerable profit to householders in Devon.

When Admiral Ledesma brought his seven ships home to Cartagena he announced erroneously that both Hawkins and Drake had perished in the tremendous Spanish victory at Vera Cruz, and that the Caribbean was once again a Spanish lake. He even sent a boastful dispatch to the king:

He was crestfallen when the king replied acidly that “apparently the ghosts of men as daring as Hawkins and Drake must be feared, for they have been spotted by our spies in Plymouth, Medway and London,” and later information reached Cartagena that Drake had been seen prowling the Caribbean, but since he landed nowhere, attacked no land settlements, and bothered no Spanish shipping, the rumors were discounted.

In 1571 these rumors were repeated, but if Drake actually did visit his favorite sea, he did not behave characteristically, for again he attacked nothing Spanish. This shadowy behavior did have one curious effect upon the Ledesma household, whose three daughters had provided the family with several grandchildren, and when their play became rowdy their nurses disciplined them by warning: “If you don’t behave, El Draque will snatch you and take you away on his big black ship.” And Ledesma noted that even adults mentioned El Draque in their ordinary conversation: “That is, if El Draque doesn’t come” or “I think the season’s past for El Draque.”

This nebulous period of “He’s still alive, he’s definitely dead” confused even Don Diego, who found himself telling the vice-regent: “I almost hope he is alive! To grapple with him once more. To drive him from our sea forever.” And then, in June 1572, the king sent Ledesma intelligence which provoked a surge of excitement:

Each item of the king’s intelligence was correct, for after a swift passage of only five weeks, the two little ships reached Dominica again and entered quickly into the Caribbean, where they sped swiftly to the far western shore at a spot not far from their target town of Nombre de Dios. Here they intended capturing King Philip’s gold and silver awaiting shipment to Sevilla.

But a skilled mariner other than Drake had also been laying careful plans, for when the king’s directive reached Admiral Ledesma, he sprang into action, and now the value of having members of one’s own family in positions of importance proved itself, for when he rasped out orders to his many relatives, he could trust they would be followed. To his son-in-law the vice-regent he said crisply: “Fly you to Nombre de Dios and put everything in readiness.” To his two Amadór nephews he said: “Plunge into the jungle and erect barricades to block the route between Panamá and Nombre.” To a trusted brother he said: “Hasten to Río Hacha and man its defenses. He might stop there for sheer revenge.” To another brother and three cousins he handed over the defenses of Cartagena itself, while he, in obedience to the king’s commands, hastened to the city of Panamá, where he assumed overall management of the defense system. When Drake reached the western Caribbean, his purported target, he would find not less than sixteen members of Ledesma’s immediate family defending the Spanish interest.

And with a stick he outlined in the white sand on which the three pinnaces rested a diagram of the treasure town he had spied upon during his two secret trips: “We row to here, ignore the big ships staring down at us … they’ll be asleep. We come ashore here, speed directly to the governor’s house here. We’ll capture silver bars for all … and take the governor prisoner. Then rush down here to the Treasure House, strongly built and guarded, which holds what we’re really after—great stores of gold and precious stones.”

“And then?” a small voice asked, and without pausing to discern who had spoken, Drake said: “Then we throw our treasure aboard our pinnaces, and row back here to the protection of our big guns on the Pasha and the Swan.” He paused, chuckled, then added: “We row very fast.”

It was, like any Drake enterprise, perfectly planned and resolutely carried out. In fact, during the first stages of the assault on Nombre de Dios it seemed as if the Spaniards were playing parts in which they had been rehearsed by Drake. The sailors in the big ships guarding the port were asleep. Citizens in the plaza did step aside to let the English raiders pass. And the first part of the strategy worked, for at the governor’s house, Drake’s men did find well over a million pesos’ worth of silver bars awaiting transshipment.

But they also found something they did not expect. In the bedroom above the fortune had been sleeping Admiral Ledesma’s valiant vice-regent. Awakened by the noise below, he leaped from bed, strapped on his sword, grabbed two pistols, and walked calmly down the stairs, asking in easy tones: “What goes on here?” Then he recognized Drake from events at Ulúa: “Ah, Captain Drake! You survived the great defeat at Vera Cruz?”

“I always survive,” Drake said, pointing his pistol directly at the young intruder. The vice-regent displayed no fear, keeping his two pistols aimed directly at the Englishman’s heart, so the confrontation was a stand-off. With each man comporting himself with extreme courtesy, Drake said: “I’ve come to collect payment for the slaves your people stole from me at Río Hacha,” and pointed to the stacked silver ingots.

Irritated, Drake shouted: “Forget this minor booty! Capture the Treasure House, now!” But as the Englishmen sought to rejoin their companions in the plaza, the vice-regent, running ahead at great speed, shouted: “Fire! Fire!” and a bullet cut into Drake’s left leg, bringing much blood, which he stanched by keeping his hand in his pocket and pressing its cloth against the wound.

In this way he reached the Treasure House, where another group of his men attempted to blow off the doors. Meanwhile, the vice-regent had rallied his troops and launched a counterattack, which might have annihilated the small English force had not a sailor seen that Drake was bleeding profusely from the leg, and urged him to abandon the scheme.

When Drake hesitated, infuriated by being so close to untold wealth but unable to touch it, four of his soldiers dragged him bodily away from the attacking Spaniards and took him to the safety of the pinnaces.

To the astonishment of the Spaniards in Nombre de Dios, the arrogant Englishmen retreated slowly to an island in the middle of the bay, where they established headquarters with the implied challenge: “Dislodge us if you dare.”

The Spaniards then dispatched one of their small boats to the island under a white flag. It bore the vice-regent, who came ashore and addressed Drake as if they were diplomats meeting in formal session at some court. “And when will you be departing, Captain?” the Spaniard asked, and Drake replied: “Not until we capture the gold and precious stones in your Treasure House,” and the Spaniard said without changing his tone: “I’m afraid that will be a long time coming, since our guns will destroy you if you move in that direction.”

“Only a lucky shot prevented me from ransacking your Treasure House yesterday,” said Drake. And the Spaniard replied: “Our men are given to lucky shots.”

The visit ended in such apparent amiability that one English sailor who had waited on them whispered: “You’d think they were cousins,” and when the vice-regent reached shore he told the people awaiting him: “A splendid meeting. I was never treated with more civility in my life.”

What Drake did as a first step in achieving his revenge was as amazing to his own men as to the Spaniards, for he left Nombre de Dios with its treasure intact, regained his two ships, and with the three little pinnaces trailing behind, crossed back to Cartagena, fired a few insolent shots over the city walls, and came brazenly in through Boca Chica, where he captured several trading ships carrying just the supplies he needed.

Then, in a daring gesture unequaled at the time, he himself sank his little English ship as too small to bother with, assuring his men: “We’ll find a better.” And he did, capturing a big, fine Spanish merchant ship which promptly became his vice-admiral for the incredible feat he was about to try.

Throwing a few final farewell shots into Cartagena, whose citizens sighed with relief to see him go, he escaped just in time to avoid meeting a very strong Spanish fleet coming in from Spain with hundreds of well-armed soldiers. Once free of that danger, he headed west toward the Isthmus of Panamá, where he revealed his hitherto secret plans to his astonished men: “We’re going to march across the isthmus to the city of Panamá, intercept the mule train laden with gold and silver, and earn each man his fortune.” There were sixty-nine young men and boys on whom he would depend to accomplish this bold attack against a city of thousands.

But in the months since he had received the latest intelligence on Panamá, a significant change had taken place: Governor Ledesma of Cartagena had arrived to take personal responsibility for the accumulation of treasure in Panamá and its safe transfer by mule train to Nombre de Dios, where his son-in-law was awaiting it.

He had taken all practical steps, having his nephew install forts along the jungle path and training both the muleteers and their protecting soldiers in procedures for frustrating English attacks. The mule train that Governor Ledesma would be leading might be assaulted but it would not be surprised.

On the dark night of 14 February 1573, Drake, having hacked his way through uncharted jungle to avoid the blockades guarding the normal path, secreted his pitifully small contingent at the western outskirts of a little jungle village only a few miles from Panamá, each man dressed in white to avoid confusion in the night fight ahead. His orders were strict: “No man to move until the mule train has passed well beyond us. So that when we attack, it cannot scamper back to Panamá but must stand and fight us. Remember—if we take it, thousands for all!”

His daring plan would have worked except for the wise foresight of Governor Ledesma, who himself was in the lead, tall and silent and resolute.

Just before his mules started into the jungle he had a brilliant idea: “Commander! Move six of our reserve mules bearing nothing to the front, with three peons who will look like soldiers.” A stop was made to accomplish this, but as the decoy mules were about to move out, he had a second good thought: “Place bells about their necks,” and when this was done the six mules sounded like sixty.

The name of the Englishman they fooled, Robert Pike, has come down in infamy through the annals of the English navy. He heard the spurious mules approaching with their bells tinkling and their attendant soldiers marching cautiously ahead. Eager to play the hero, Pike leaped up as the mules reached him and began assaulting the three peons with loud cries of: “For St. George and England!”

There was nothing he could do. By the time he regrouped his men, Ledesma and his mule train were galloping back to Panamá, with swift horsemen spurring ahead to mobilize a force so large and well trained that it would have annihilated the Englishmen had the latter tried to follow. In despair at having been defrauded yet again by Ledesma and his team, Drake could do nothing but retreat through that steaming jungle to find refuge in his waiting ships.

And then, in the depth of a self-inflicted misery over his failure, he proved himself to be one of the most remarkable men of his age. He had not yet performed those feats which would make him immortal—his circumnavigation of the globe, his raid on Cádiz, and his humbling of the Spanish Armada—and so, what he did now in this remote corner of the world with only a handful of men seems all the more incredible.

First, he returned to Nombre de Dios, not boldly as before but creeping like an animal through the jungle. Then, so close to town that his men could hear its citizens at work, he waylaid the next mule train from Panamá, gaining his men a small fortune. But now he had to get his men many miles back to their ships, through that pathless jungle beset by snakes and swamps and insects and hunger, and when he returned to his ships—the original Pasha and the one captured earlier from the Spaniards—he realized that they were not seaworthy enough to get him back to Plymouth with his treasure. So, with a defiance that was unbelievable, he sailed back to Cartagena, where a great Spanish fleet rested in the tight inner harbor. Trusting that none of the larger ships could maneuver in time, he sailed right into the large southern harbor, negotiating the narrows of Boca Chica in full sail, spotted the kind of huge ship he needed, boarded it, fought off its sailors, and sailed insolently out of Cartagena—in one fine new ship in place of his two leaky old craft. Firing a final salute at the city which had tormented his dreams, he repeated the oath he had taken long ago at Río Hacha: “I’ll be back, Cartagena.” And off he sailed for England and the great adventures that awaited.

Admiral Ledesma was not obligated to tell his king the whole truth—that Drake himself had sunk the Swan because her smallness was holding him back and, as a gesture of extreme decency, had given his Pasha to a group of Spanish prisoners he had been forced to detain. Nor did he explain that what he dismissed as “whatever mean ships he could muster” was really one of His Majesty’s finest galleons.

But Ledesma was careful in his letter to point out that the notable victories over Drake had been made possible only by the remarkable performances of several members of the Ledesma family. The king in his next instructions to Cartagena promoted seven of them.

Now came those watershed years when in the lives of great nations some begin to ascend, others to decline. At first none is aware that the shift in power is under way, for the signals are so slight that only a speculative genius could detect their significance. Six men in a small town in the Netherlands finally dare to oppose their Spanish governor and are executed. In the distant Celebes a sultan acquires unexpected power and decides to trade with whatever European ships struggle into his domain. In a small German town a man devises a better way to cut type, and at his press books are printed faster.

In the 1580s, Spain and England were involved in this shift of power, for in the dark, gloomy rooms of the Escorial, King Philip II slowly, patiently conceives and perfects a massive operation which he calls only “The Enterprise of England.” By it he intends to settle once and for all his decades-long competition with his sister-in-law, Queen Elizabeth.

Governor Ledesma, safe within his walled capital of Cartagena, received news of crucial events that were about to determine the fate of Europe via two ways: reports from Spain alerting him to this possible danger, or warning him about real ones, or simply conveying empire gossip; he also entertained travelers making their way from one Spanish possession to another, and often these men and women provided insights that not even the king in Madrid would have had, or would have listened to if he did have them.

In early January 1578, one of King Philip’s swift postal frigates arrived in Cartagena with a copy of the somewhat confused instructions which were being delivered to all Caribbean cities:

The timetable of reaction was identical in all the sites mentioned. First month: keen apprehension. Second month: some relief in knowing that if Drake was in the Caribbean, at least he wasn’t attacking our city. Third month: total perplexity, with everyone asking: “Where can that El Draque be?”

It was almost a year before intelligence from Spain finally dispelled the mystery:

But in early 1579 there came to Cartagena from Panamá via one of the treasure ships sailing from Nombre de Dios, a Señora Cristóbal, sister-in-law of the famous shipowner San Juan de Anton, merchant and government official of Lima in Peru, and she was talkative. As a friend of Don Diego’s wife, she naturally stayed at the residence of the Ledesmas, and while there, she spoke incessantly of great events along the west coast of South America, reporting on diverse incidents about which King Philip apparently did not know.

“Contradictions! Contradictions! You, Admiral Ledesma, know better than most what a cruel monster El Draque is supposed to be, how he burns and slays, so that Spanish children are warned to be obedient lest El Draque come for them. A thousand tales are told at night about his evil acts. But I can tell you as a principal authority, for I was there and I met scores who had dealings with him, that in neither Chile nor Peru did he burn or slay. Two hundred sailors and merchants will testify that when they and their ships were captured on the high seas or while dozing in some hidden port, he gave them back their ships after valuables had been transferred to his and saw to it that they had ample food to reach home. Of course, he sometimes chopped down their masts, and on one occasion he wrapped all their sails around their anchor chains and tossed the whole to the bottom of the sea lest they try to follow him or speed ahead to warn others of his coming. He is a terror, no question about that, but he is not a brutal savage like a Frenchman and he does obey the established laws of the sea.”

When she composed herself Señora Cristóbal continued: “Did you know, Don Diego, that when Drake captured the Cacafuego he first gave its owner, my brother-in-law, a fine cabin aboard the Golden Hind, with instructions to his crew that Don San Juan was to be given exactly the same amenities that they would give Drake? And that later he allowed him to return to his more spacious quarters on the Cacafuego, where the two men conversed, night after night? Did the reports say that? And when the time came for the two ships to part, Drake gave every sailor on the Cacafuego a present of some kind, and he was thoughtful enough to take the presents from the loot he had taken at Valparaíso and not from what he had stolen from their own ship. Some of the presents were quite valuable, tools and things like that which men prize. When he gave Don San Juan three lovely pieces of jewelry for his wife, my brother-in-law said: ‘I have a sister-in-law, part owner of this ship you could say, and she adores pretty things,’ and Drake sent me these two emerald brooches, also from Valparaíso.”

Señora Cristóbal’s prolonged monologue had contradictory effects upon Don Diego. On the one hand he was relieved that Drake was demonstrating his demonic power in other parts of the Spanish empire: “Now maybe those governors will appreciate what we had to put up with. Maybe they’ll recognize what we did in holding him within bounds.”

Don Diego was fascinated when he learned from Madrid that Drake had completed his journey around the world. “Proves he’s as obdurate a man as I said in my dispatches,” he told members of his government. And to himself he said: I must be the only man in the world who has defeated Drake four times.

He was further pleased in 1581 when broadsheets from Europe arrived in the Caribbean, showing Queen Elizabeth in great lace ruffs about her neck standing on the deck of the Golden Hind while Drake knelt before her to receive his knighthood. That flamboyant act, a thumbing of the English nose at the Spanish king, as if she were saying: “See, Philip, how I honor your principal enemy!” seemed to make Drake and Ledesma equal, the former now an English knight, the latter a Spanish admiral.

But Don Diego was not altogether happy when the lisping grandchildren in his family began chanting in the gardens of Cartagena the Spanish version of a new nursery rhyme honoring Drake’s promotion:

At this point one of the children would shout: “What man?” and the others would reply in screaming unison: “SIR FRANCIS DRAKE!”

And then, in late August 1585, King Philip’s postal frigates again darted through the Caribbean with ominous dispatches:

The guess was a shrewd one, for at the end of January 1586 a young Spanish officer arrived with an incredible tale, which he revealed in stammering syllables as he sat with Don Diego in the governor’s quarters: “On the first day of the New Year, Drake’s fleet sailed arrogantly into our harbor at Santo Domingo on Española, and this time everything was different, for he landed not adventurous sailors but a real army clad in armor. I’m ashamed to report that time and again our troops took one look at those fierce Englishmen, fired their muskets, mostly in the air, and fled, the leaders of our city having done so earlier. By nightfall, Santo Domingo lay completely open to Drake, who came ashore on 3 January to stake his claim to the town and everything in it.”

Ledesma was shaken by this appalling news concerning a city he had often visited and with whose governor he had cooperated: “It was no meager town of wooden buildings and grass shacks that Colón and Ocampo knew at the beginning of the century. This was a city of carved stone, broad avenues. If Drake could subdue it, what might he do here at Cartagena?” His lips dry, he asked the messenger: “You mean that after only one day of fighting …”

“More like one morning, Excellency.”

“And Drake was in control of everything—buildings, homes, churches?”

“Everything. He was especially hard on the churches. Carted away anything of value, and raged when he learned that the priests had sequestered the jewels and other treasures deep in the surrounding woods.”

“And what did Drake do?”

“On the spur of the moment he grabbed from a holding cell filled with Spanish prisoners two of our monks and had them hanged on the spot. He then sent a prisoner to inform the officers that unless they produced the man who had slain the black boy, he would hang two more monks every morning and afternoon.”

“Did you produce him?” Ledesma asked, and the young man said: “We did, and Drake refused to hang him. He threw the culprit back at us officers and said: ‘You hang him,’ and we did.”

“But why is he suddenly so bitter against our church?” Ledesma asked, and the officer said: “I heard Drake say: ‘Your Inquisition burns alive any English sailor they catch, if he admits he respects the new faith in England. Many of my men have perished that way.’ ”

“What did he do with Santo Domingo? If there was no treasure from the churches, no ransom money?”

“He said he would wait three days, and when no money came back from the people who had fled, he began to burn down the city … one area each day. The stone buildings that would not easily burn he destroyed by pulling down the walls.”

“How did you escape?”

“We have always kept our frigates hidden in estuaries, far from town.”

“So Santo Domingo is destroyed?”

“No. After three weeks, even Drake tired. The burning had stopped before I left. About half the city still stands.”

“Get some rest. Tomorrow I want you to go fast to Nombre de Dios. To warn them to prepare.”

Governor Ledesma asked those about him: “Will he be able to force his way into the city?” and they assured him that the only causeway into the town was much too narrow to permit the entry of soldiers, especially when guns upon the walls would be aimed directly at them. “We’re safe,” his men repeated, “and since we have adequate food inside the walls and deep wells, there’s nothing Drake can do.”

But there was. Placing his army troops under the direction of the forceful general who had subdued Santo Domingo so easily, he moved his ships first into the spacious Middle Bay and then into the close-in Northern Bay, from where a few foot soldiers could be put ashore for a flanking attack on the causeway. Then, with great daring, he moved some of his larger ships boldly into the small Inner Bay that gave directly on the approaches to the city.

Never before had Cartagena been attacked by so many troops so capably led, and before Ledesma’s generals had time to shift their troops to more favorable positions, Drake’s men were upon them. The fighting was unexpectedly fierce, because when Ledesma led the defense of a city the result was quite different from the pusillanimous surrender at Santo Domingo. English soldiers fell, scores of them, and with Ledesma and his three sons-in-law rallying their troops now here, now there, the battle’s outcome seemed to hang in the balance, favoring first the English, then the Spanish.

But in the end Drake’s superior firepower told, and gradually Ledesma’s men were driven back to the central plaza. There, under Don Diego’s personal leadership, they fought with extraordinary bravery. But the English smelled blood, principally from their own dead, and with unparalleled fury they literally shoved the Spaniards back, yard by yard, until the assault filled the marketplace, and there the Spaniards, including the fifteen men from the Ledesma clan who had borne arms, surrendered.

“Admiral Ledesma,” he said in the excellent Spanish he had been taught by Spanish captives on his voyage around the world, “your men fought with commendable bravery,” but before Ledesma could respond, General Carleill, leader of the English troops, added: “Not only his troops, Drake. He himself,” and Drake saluted.

The simple negotiations for a surrender required a frustrating five weeks, for if Ledesma was obdurate in battle, he was a brazen lion when it came to frustrating the English conquerors, regardless of what reasonable demands they made. Backed by no soldiers, fortified by no fleet, and not even supported by the dignitaries of his church, all of whom had fled with their valuables to the mainland hills, tall, composed Don Diego could rely only upon the shrewd counsel of a few of his family members and the solid support of his conquered people.

These were four of the strangest weeks in the history of Cartagena, because Drake and Ledesma shared the same house, the governor’s residence, and in the evenings they invited whatever leading citizens still remained in the city to lavish dinners at which Drake and the governor tried to outdo each other in courtesies extended to the guests. With Drake speaking in Spanish, Ledesma in English, they discussed subjects of grave importance to their two nations and to the Caribbean in general, each man and his supporters feeling free to express his convictions and defend them.

On one March evening, with spring peering over the mountains to the east, the talk turned to religion, and Don Diego said: “How simple things would be if your Catholic Queen Mary had lived longer in England, with our Philip as her husband, and one great religion binding our nations together. Then we could as allies terminate that damnable apostasy in the Netherlands and wipe out Lutheranism in Germany and live together with France and Italy as our Catholic cousins, one citizenship, one faith.”

“I’m afraid differences have grown too great in Europe,” Drake said, but then he told the guests: “On my trip around the world, and on all trips, I have prayers nightly and hold services on Sunday, with my own Protestant chaplain, whom I take with me. But never did I demand that any of my men attend my worship if their allegiance was to the faith of Queen Mary and King Philip, and whenever we captured a priest we invited him to conduct prayers for such of our sailors who wished to listen.”

This encouraged Ledesma to offer an interesting proposal, which he had often contemplated: “Would it not be best for all if the nations would agree to leave the lands of the Caribbean in Spain’s hands and Catholic, as Columbus intended them to be when he found them? But invite Englishmen and Frenchmen and Dutchmen to trade freely wherever they wished?”

Drake asked: “Are you not somewhat hesitant to make such a suggestion, knowing that I sit here with complete power over you, and your city?” and Ledesma said: “I’m not, because I know that whereas you may burn my city, you will not harm me.”

Drake laughed: “Even though you tried to have that one with the hidden dagger kill me at Ulúa?” and Don Diego replied: “We had to kill you to get your ships. You don’t have to kill me to get my city.”

“No,” Drake said. “You tried to kill me once, you’ll try again.” Ledesma, humbled by this reply of a cautious fighting man, started to apologize, when Drake stopped him: “But I will walk with you if ten soldiers, five Spanish to protect you from me, five English vice versa come along,” and the two adversaries, opponents in so many frays, walked out into the starry night—a rigid, imperial Spaniard with a clean-shaven hawklike face, and the short, nervously twitching Englishman with his carefully trimmed beard.

The first words spoken were by Drake as he looked down upon the four bays of Cartagena and their amazing collection of protective islands: “You have here, Don Diego, one of the best anchorages in the world.”

But Ledesma felt compelled to speak of more portentous matters, ones that had to be clarified: “You know, Drake, that I did not send the assassin at you,” and the Englishman replied: “I knew you did not, could not do it.”

“How did you know?”

“From the way you behaved in our past struggles … and because my men interrogated that infamous rogue before they let him go. He told us they silenced you in your protests by clapping you in arrest.”

The two men walked to diverse parts of Ledesma’s uncompleted battlements, always coming to rest at some spot overlooking the Caribbean, that noble body of now placid, now hurricane-driven water for which each of the admirals felt responsible.

“We conduct our battles on a splendid sea, Don Diego.”

“Sometimes it seems our fine North Sea was made for battle—a Spanish lake protected on all sides by either islands or great land masses.”

“We were made for this sea, Don Diego. We’ve contested it with honor and bravery. But let me warn you. It is no longer what you call your Spanish Lake. It’s now the English Lake, too.”

The soldiers who guarded them saw a curiously matched pair, each the best of his race, each touched with greatness. But if the soldiers had overheard the next exchange between these two giants of the North Sea, they would have been bewildered, for Ledesma was singing a nursery rhyme to the Englishman: “My granddaughters … goodness, the little ones are great-granddaughters … they sing it in your honor and to my disgust:

“I’ll have that engraved on my tomb,” said Drake, and the two men rejoined their guests.

At the beginning of the fifth week of this gentlemanly sparring, a plan evolved, not wholly satisfactory to either side. Don Diego, after consulting with his sons-in-law, conceded that he could accumulate not one million ducats in ransom but something like one hundred thousand, and Drake countered: “I want extra for not touching the monastery and an additional bounty for not sacking your churches,” and each of his ship captains and his general of troops also had minor demands, so that in the end Ledesma produced far more than he had intended while Drake had to accept far less than he wanted.

It was an honorable peace, grudgingly accepted by each side, but applauded by all Spaniards who had been hiding in the woods and by the English sailors who yearned to get home and claim their share of the diminished booty. During the last days of March, Drake loaded his ships and one bright morning raised anchor and sailed out through Boca Chica. Governor Ledesma, profoundly relieved to see him go, for only he and Drake appreciated how arduous their bargaining had been, ordered the fortress guns to fire a parting salute, which was done to the wild congratulatory cheering of the Cartagenians. Don Diego’s courage had saved their city.

And then, to the horror of everyone, Drake’s fleet wheeled in the morning sunlight and came sailing right back through Boca Chica and into the Northern Bay, from where it could, if it wished, resume bombarding the city. “Merciful God,” Don Diego prayed, “don’t do this to me,” and his son-in-law the vice-regent had to catch him lest he fall in a faint.

Drake’s demands were simple this time: “That big French ship we captured. Badly sprung. I’ll need some of your men to help me shift the cargo.”

At one such dinner Ledesma introduced his daughters, telling Drake: “It was these three who defeated you. They sent me notes each night from the hills: ‘Father, do not give in!’ ” and Drake, kissing the hand of each, told the group: “The sorrow of my life? I’ve been married … but no sons … not even any daughters.” Those were the last words he said in Cartagena, but as he returned to his ship to prepare the true departure in the morning, Ledesma, from the ramparts, watched him go, and swore an oath: “I know the kind of man you are, Francis Drake. You’ll come back, of that I’m sure, and when you do, I’m fated to dig your grave.”

During the various periods of peace, these two adversaries, so different in all aspects, were amazingly similar in the way they diverted their surging energies when not called upon to do battle at sea. Indeed, they seemed almost like twins, so nearly identical were their actions.

Drake served as mayor of Plymouth, Ledesma as governor of Cartagena; Drake on his own initiative provided Plymouth with a reliable water supply, Ledesma gave his city a great wall that enclosed it; Drake served terms in Parliament, Ledesma on the informal Council of the Indies; Drake spent much energy in finding himself an heiress as his second wife, Ledesma had to find wealthy husbands for his granddaughters; and Drake issued an unending stream of advice as to how England could gain control of the Caribbean, while Ledesma counseled King Philip as to how that sea could be made even more completely Spanish.

But since both remained essentially superb naval captains, each read with intense attention a report made by a French spy working in London and circulated to outlying Spanish posts like Cartagena, but also acquired by English spies, who sent a copy to Drake:

Don Diego found all parts of this remarkable account preposterous, for as he told the members of his family: “Spain doesn’t have enough ships for such a venture. They would never burn a queen like a common criminal. And Philip has enough trouble ruling Spain, the Netherlands and bits of Austria.” But within a week after he delivered this judgment, the courier from what remained of Santo Domingo brought an official report from Madrid which clarified much:

Before Don Diego had much time for reveling in anticipation of England’s humiliation, a correction of the timetable was dispatched from Madrid, and like many of King Philip’s communications, it said much while explaining little:

Ortega was so handsome and compelling in his quiet speech that Doña Leonora remained in the reception room, contrary to her usual deportment when her husband had political or military guests. “What brings you to our city?” she asked, and he gave a remarkable answer: “Despair and hope.” Then he added: “Despair because I captained one of the king’s ships in the disaster at Cádiz …”

“What disaster?” Don Diego asked, almost leaping forward, and Captain Ortega revealed the dimensions of that tragic affair: “In February of this year the king began to assemble in various ports his ships intended for The Enterprise of England.” Stopping in midflight, he asked: “You know of the Enterprise?” and both Ledesmas nodded.

“I was ordered to take my Infanta Luisa down to Cádiz, where I moored her between two large men-of-war. Throughout March other important ships drifted in, until by the first of April we had a congregation of at least sixty-six ships—Dutch, French, Turkish, four English—all of which we had captured in recent months, plus our own heavily armed warships, more than enough to invade England. We had the right to be called an armada.

“On the late afternoon of the nineteenth of April, a date I wish I could forget, an additional twenty-five major ships which I could not immediately identify sailed boldly into the harbor. But when a pilot boat went out to welcome them, it learned to its horror that they were English! Yes, Admiral Drake had sailed right into our strongest harbor.”

“What did you do?” Doña Leonora asked, moving closer to catch details, and Captain Ortega said with modesty: “Like other captains, I tried to break my Infanta from her moorings so I could fight effectively, but before my men loosened one rope, an English ship bore down upon me, rammed my stern and those of the big ships alongside me, and then poured cannon fire into our waterlines until we settled on the bottom without having fired a salvo. It was humiliating.”

Ortega stopped, looked at Governor Ledesma, and said, with his hands raised upward: “Not one of our anchored ships was able to break loose and give him battle, and those that tried he sank. Night fell, but not darkness, for the flames of our stricken ships made the carnage visible, and when dawn came, Drake finished off the cripples, sending more of our good men to their graves in the harbor.”

Recollection of the tremendous losses was so painful that for some moments he could not speak, but when he did he summarized the tragedy in a few words: “On the morning of the nineteenth we were the most powerful fleet in Europe. At midnight of the same day, practically destroyed.”

Don Diego, as a fellow seafaring man, felt no embarrassment in probing: “How many ships did we lose?” and Ortega said: “So many that the Enterprise cannot go forward.”

In the lull that followed, Doña Leonora asked: “That was obviously the disaster. What was the hope?” and Ortega said quietly: “When I reached home, far from Cádiz, my mother wept: ‘Like your father, you lost your ship; you were lucky you didn’t lose your life.’ Seeing that there were few prospects for me, she said: ‘You have an uncle of sorts who’s governor in Cartagena. Try your luck there,’ and here I am. You are my hope.”

At this honest disclosure, Doña Leonora looked at her husband and raised her eyebrows in a secret gesture which meant “Why not?” and he nodded slightly to indicate “Go ahead,” so she said brightly: “Captain Ortega, you must remain with us till you find quarters,” and he did not engage in mock humility: “That would be most generous. But a captain with no ship has little to offer in return.”

In the days that followed, Doña Leonora saw with approval that her husband and Ortega got along handsomely, for they were both active men who required few words to belabor attitudes on which they agreed. On many evenings they walked together along the battlements, staring down at the landlocked harbor: “Was Cádiz much like this?” and Ortega would place the Spanish ships among the islands, then show Drake sweeping in to create his havoc: “My ship? I never got her away from her mooring!”

Ortega added: “And more ammunition when the fighting begins,” and Don Diego concluded: “As a seaman who has fought Drake many times, winning and losing, I know how tenacious he can be.”

They studied the sea in silence, then Don Diego asked: “Will you be going back to fight him?” and Ortega said: “I’d swim back to have the chance.”

But other important matters in Cartagena intruded, and The Enterprise of England was temporarily forgotten, because if Don Diego was constantly striving to enhance his family’s fortunes, his wife was equally determined to improve hers. Her campaign began one evening at supper when she asked bluntly: “Captain Ortega, are you married?” and he replied: “Was once. She’s dead,” and no more was said.

Señora Ledesma had on the island of Española a cousin her age who had a daughter with a lovely name, Beatrix, but no face to match. With Santo Domingo, the capital of Española, having been recently sacked by El Draque, ordinary social life had been disrupted, so that poor Beatrix had slimmer chances than ever of catching a husband, and Doña Leonora decided to do something about it.

As swiftly as the dispatch frigate could get to Santo Domingo and back, it deposited on the docks of Cartagena a young woman twenty-two years old and extremely seasick from a rough crossing. Her whole intention was to climb into bed at her cousin’s house and feel sorry for herself, but Leonora would have none of that, for it was important that Captain Ortega see Beatrix soon and in the best possible light. So Leonora summoned two of her married daughters to the bedroom where Beatrix supposed she would be resting, and with the seasick girl listening, the three Ledesma women surveyed their problem.

“First thing, fetch her some salts,” Leonora said, and when these were waved under her nose the two younger women sorted out the newcomer’s clothes and expressed disgust with what they saw: “Have you nothing decent, nothing whatever?” and when Beatrix broke into tears, Leonora slapped her: “Your whole future is at stake, girl. You don’t find a man like Captain Ortega very often,” and together the three women worked a miracle on their distressed cousin.

When the transformation was complete, with her hair exquisitely done and cosmetics applied to her pallid face, she was what she had always been, had she but known it: a lovely young Spanish woman, not dazzling in beauty but adorable in her vulnerability, the beauty of her posture and the quivering about her mouth as she whispered to herself: “I will not get sick. I will not get sick.”

Indeed, when Doña Leonora and her daughters propelled her into the main hall where Captain Ortega waited, Beatrix was truly the finest-looking of the lot, her wan face, perfectly powdered, giving her the appearance of a princess in a fairy tale. Small wonder that Ortega was taken with her immediately, but he had to wait for a dance because others reached her first.

The courtship progressed at a reassuring pace, orchestrated by Doña Leonora, and she would surely have had her cousin married had not imperative news reached Cartagena in January of 1588:

To seafaring men like Ledesma and Ortega the message brought both joy and irritation—joy for having another chance to fight Hawkins and Drake, irritation that their ships would carry not the invading army but only cargo to Spanish soldiers already waiting in the Netherlands. “Of course,” Ledesma said reassuringly, “as soon as we deliver the goods, we’ll ferry them across the Channel and land them in England. We’ll still see a lot of the fighting.”

Despite his disappointment in not being part of the battle fleet, he told his wife: “It’s great for a man my age to be back on the deck of his ship. It takes a steady hand to manage the Mariposa and I can do it.”

She and Beatrix found solace in the fact that their men would be participating in this great adventure in a ship as sturdy as the Mariposa, for they had been assured: “That one will get us there and back.” There were tearful farewells as the odd assortment of ships weighed anchor and headed out into the Caribbean, firing salutes as they passed through Boca Chica and coasted under the battlements of Cartagena.

Now came the months of tension. Since all available ships had been requisitioned by King Philip for his vast Armada, the mightiest invasion fleet ever to have been assembled, none were available to carry news to Spanish possessions in the Caribbean. The citizens of Cartagena remained in darkness while their home country fought great battles in its quest for domination of the known world.

Doña Leonora and her daughters met regularly with their priest, who preached but one message to the citizens of his walled city: “Since our men are fighting to protect God’s true religion, He will never allow heretics to win,” and these words gave Doña Leonora comfort.

But when months passed with no news, she reasoned with her daughters: “If the news was good, surely the king would have spared at least one small ship to speed to us. No ship? No news? Disaster.” Gradually this conclusion was reached by so many that even the priest’s reassurances began to sound hollow, and many whispered: “Who cares about victory? Will our ships return? Have our sons and husbands been lost in wintry seas?” and gloom prevailed.

Then one morning a lookout cried the joyous news: “Sail on the horizon!” and all ran to the ramparts to see the sturdy old Mariposa come down from the north as if arriving from a routine trip to Cuba, and as it came parallel to the city and continued down to Boca Chica and the entrance home, watchers swore that they could identify this man or that, and word passed that Admiral Ledesma was among those returning, but others denied that anyone could be recognized from such a distance.

When the ship gave no triumphant signal, Doña Leonora whispered: “It did not go well,” and as she watched the close approach of the Mariposa she saw something which caused her heart to stumble. Don Diego, having brought his ship home from the wars with at least some of its crew, was so grateful to provident God who had guided him through terrible battles in the English Channel and fearsome struggles with his ancient adversary Drake that he fell upon the deck of his ship as it touched the wharf and kissed the planking. It was obvious to his wife that he was overcome with emotion, but she also saw that he was too weak to regain his feet without assistance from Captain Ortega, and she thought: The old man has suffered some terrible defeat, and her heart ached with love for him.

But as she watched him steady himself against Ortega’s arm, she saw him stiffen in the old way, throw back his shoulders as if facing one more enemy, and come ashore, where with a raised arm he silenced the cheers which would be deserved only by returning conquerors. Walking directly to where the assistant governors of the city stood, the ones who had protected Cartagena in his absence, he stood before them, nodded gravely, and announced in a clear voice: “Spain has suffered a terrible defeat. Let the bells be tolled,” and all that mournful day the bells of Cartagena struck the slow, heavy notes that signaled grief.

In the afternoon, while the bells were still mourning, Ledesma had the courage to assemble the leaders of the city, and in subdued tones he and Ortega reported on the encounter of the big, slow ships of the Armada with the smaller, swifter ships of the English.

“It started with a monstrous humiliation,” Ledesma said, and Ortega confirmed: “We were not allowed to be a fighting ship. Nor did we even carry fighting weapons. When we reported to Spain to take our place in the fleet, we were sent to the rear.” He was too ashamed to reveal what happened next, but Ledesma was not.

“But you did deliver them to the troops?” a counselor asked.

“We never found the troops,” Ortega said. “They were supposed to be with Parma, a great general, somewhere in the Netherlands. He never appeared.”

“You didn’t invade England?” several men asked at once, and Ledesma said with a bitterness which had been growing for months: “We never got close to England. We never even got close to her ships.”

“But the great battle? Our fleet against theirs?” men asked in amazement, and Ledesma allowed his captain to explain: “We sailed right up the Channel, in splendid formation. Every one of our captains knew just what to do.”

“And then? In the battle?”

“We never had a battle. The English refused to come at us from the front, where they were supposed to. We’d have destroyed them. Instead, they came pecking at us from the rear … sending fireboats among our ships to disrupt us.”

The officials, appalled at what they were hearing, looked to Ledesma for explanations, and he said: “He speaks the truth. We never had a battle. We sailed up the Channel, fighting off the gnats that buzzed around us, and never made contact with our land troops. Sailed right past, and before long we were so far beyond England that their ships stopped chasing us. We escaped.”

“But your duel with Drake, the one you told us about when you left … the one you were burning to fight?”

“We never saw Drake, nor Hawkins either. They darted in and out among us like falling stars at night.”

“They were there,” Ortega said. “We could tell by the way the English fought, but we never saw them.”

“But the horses?” asked a man who had a country estate outside the walls. “What did you do with the horses?” and Ledesma turned away and refused to say it, indicating with his left hand that Ortega should: “When we couldn’t find the cavalry that was supposed to get them, we thought we would carry them back to their farms in Spain, but the order came: ‘As we start on our long sail around Ireland, all ships must be lightened.’ ”

“And the horses?”

“We threw them overboard. In the middle of the Channel.”

“Were they able to swim to shore?” the countryman asked, and Ledesma had to say: “No one knows.”

At this point the listeners shifted in their chairs, obviously eager to hear more details about the fighting, and one asked: “But if you escaped up the Channel, and fled around Scotland and Ireland, most of your ships must have made it back to Spain. So the defeat couldn’t have been as bad as you made it sound at first,” and Doña Leonora, who had been listening intently to this broken narrative, saw her husband’s shoulders sag and his face pale.

“Too much for one day, my dear friends. We’re home and six of the other ships from Cartagena will be coming in too, I trust. We’ll talk later,” and without further amenities he left them with Ortega, who continued the dismal story, except that he also avoided any discussion of the passage of the ships back to Spain.

When Doña Leonora led her husband to bed she saw how exhausted he was, not from the sea voyage home, for he loved his old Mariposa as one of the sturdiest ships in the ocean, but from the anguish of being forced to report on the humiliations and disasters that had overtaken the little fleet he had taken from Cartagena. As soon as she observed his response to her first questions she knew she must stop and allow him to sleep. She asked: “Did your other ships carry horses too?” and he groaned. Then she asked: “If you saved twenty of your ships in the battle, how many did you get back home to Spain?” and he turned his face to the wall, indicating that he could accept no further conversation. He was one more valiant warrior, the same in all centuries, who had come home from battle unable to explain to his wife what had happened.

“Was he a coward?”

“Spaniards are never cowards … but they can be stupid.”

But the men kept asking: “You sailed that great fleet to England and never fought a battle?” and Ledesma said: “Not in the old style, no. Great ships lunging at each other? No. More like trained dogs worrying a bull till he staggers.”

“And you never saw Drake or his ship?”

Very slowly Ledesma said: “I never … saw … Drake,” but Ortega voiced what he had intimated the day before: “But we knew he was out there,” and when someone asked how, he said: “By the results.”

“Now tell us … what happened to the fleet as it passed Ireland?” and bracing his shoulders, Ledesma turned to his captain: “Ortega, what happened to our sanity at Ireland? Why did we Spaniards throw the whole thing away?”

The question was one that would haunt naval historians for the next half-millennium, and even then no sensible answers would be produced. However, Ortega, as one of the few captains who had brought his ship safely through the disaster, did know certain basic facts: “We had no proper charts. They failed to show how far Ireland jutted out into the Atlantic. When our ships turned south prematurely they ran into headlands that shouldn’t have been there, and driven by the gale blowing so strong from the west, they couldn’t tack to escape those terrible rocks.”

The tale having been properly launched, Ledesma, always willing as the commander of an operation to assume his share of the blame when things went wrong, said quietly: “We should have had a safe run home to our Spanish ports. No English ships were harassing us. But we lost twenty-six of our largest Armada vessels … an entire navy … not one ship down as a result of enemy action. In the wild storms of the North Atlantic, sheathing came apart. In mournful darkness they collided and sank. But most of them, running before the fierce winds of approaching winter, crashed head-on into those dreadful headlands of western Ireland, drowning half the crew, depositing the others near naked on the inhospitable shore …”

Later, when rumor could be hardened into demonstrable fact, it would be determined that six thousand of Spain’s finest sons landed on Irish beaches after their ships sank, and all but seven hundred were murdered.

Ledesma, looking at his fellow Cartagenians, said: “The brave young men who sailed with me from this city … so valiant … so indestructible. We brought them through a hell that few men ever know, and we held them together …” He clenched his hands and pounded at air: “We brought them through everything Drake could throw at us. And then to lose them to English murderers in Ireland. Oh my God … my God.”

The listeners could see his fists tighten and the muscles in his neck stand out: “Yes, the English murdered our men, shamelessly, but we’ll be avenged. I’m certain that before I die, El Draque will return to these waters. He must … And when he comes, if God allows me strength, I shall do battle with him once more, and I shall hound him to his grave.” And from that moment Ledesma manifested the kind of blood hatred of the Englishmen who had murdered his sailors that Francis Drake had always had for Spaniards who had burned his sailors. On neither side would the passionate enmity be allowed to wane.

Then a happy idea struck: “Look, you’re already entitled to the name Ortega y Ledesma. Change it to Roque Ledesma y Ledesma and let people guess if it represents some kind of incest.” He laughed at his joke, but still Ortega did not speak, so the admiral left his suggestion hanging.

He soon learned that his widowed captain was attending to a very serious matter pushed upon him by Doña Leonora, who had resumed her determined campaign to find a proper husband for Señorita Beatrix, her niece from Española. “I want you to give Captain Ortega a week of rest, Diego,” she said, and during those relaxing days she kept Beatrix constantly before Ortega, and whereas in the first two days he was still preoccupied with Spanish defeats, on the third he began to notice how charming Beatrix was, but the girl remained too shy to press her attention upon him. So Doña Leonora knew it was incumbent upon her to intervene. “Captain Ortega,” she said boldly, “surely you’ve noticed that Beatrix is quite taken with you … your manly ways and all.” He coughed modestly.

“She’s a dear girl, really she is. While you were away at war I had a chance to see what a splendid wife she’d make.” When Ortega hesitated, she added: “You’re not getting any younger, Roque …” and with her unprecedented use of his first name he recalled that the admiral had done the same when speaking to him about the name change, and all of a sudden he could see the shattered fragments of his life—his impoverished mother, the loss of his wife, the defeat in England, the uncertainty in the New World—mending themselves in a grand coalescence with the Ledesmas of Cartagena. He would marry their niece, adopt their name, and enter the grand alliance they were building for themselves in this rich and famous city.

But when the vice-regent, now a senior official, heard of the proposal to give Ortega a new name, he lodged serious objections: “Don Diego, where is your sanity? People are already whispering: ‘This town isn’t Cartagena, it’s Carta-Ledesma.’ If you make this name change, you’ll be throwing your nepotism in their faces.”

Don Diego promised that he would think about the danger, but that night as he strolled upon his battlements he thought: The most permanent goal a man can achieve is to use members of his family to weave a network of influence and stability. Look at Drake. In shadows, for fame is transient. Look at what happened to Cortés. The favor of a king is a fragile reed to lean upon. But to have your daughters’ husbands in positions of power, to see your sister’s sons with good salaries, that’s permanent. That you can depend on. What did Drake say that last night? He grieved that he had no sons? Well, I too have none, but I’m going to get one, Roque Ledesma y Ledesma, fine name, and those who don’t like it can go to hell! So the name change took place.

The seven years following the disaster of the Armada produced little excitement in the Caribbean, primarily because Drake left it alone, and without him to duel, the place seemed unimportant. Mule trains crossed the isthmus from Panamá to Nombre de Dios and off-loaded their treasure onto ships which Cartagena’s flotilla escorted to Havana, where bullion fleets were organized for the passage home to Sevilla, and in these years not a ship was lost.

And then, in late February 1596, came the revitalizing news that Don Diego had been awaiting for so many years. It came not from King Philip in the Escorial but from one of his ministers in Madrid:

The average Spanish governor experienced a moment of dizziness when he learned that both Drake and Hawkins were coming to assail him, but not Don Diego, who reveled in the realization that both his mortal enemies would be coming into his predilected waters at the same time. “God is being good to me,” he told the men of his family, and they reassembled their team to frustrate this final challenge of the English sea dogs.

With maps spread on tables, the Ledesmas concerted their strategies, guided always by Don Diego, who had a sixth sense as to what Queen Elizabeth would instruct her admirals to do and what precise steps they would take to do it. In their planning, the men referred invariably to Drake first and Hawkins second, it having been agreed in all European fleets that now the old uncle took orders from the younger and bolder nephew. Don Diego, in framing his strategies, thought only of Drake, and directed the vice-regent: “Since you beat him back at Nombre de Dios that other time, go back and do it again.” When the young man demurred: “I doubt Drake will bother with so small a town,” Don Diego snapped: “He’s Drake. He’ll be drawn to that spot the way a shark is drawn to the smell of a wounded body. He seeks revenge.”

“You never take Hawkins into your calculations,” one of his nephews pointed out, and Don Diego explained: “Hawkins is like me, predictable. We fight him as we find him. But with Drake, you have to be guessing all the time, for his brain is like a hummingbird. His wings never rest.”

In conclusion, he made an arbitrary assignment. To the Amadór brothers, his loyal supporters for decades, he said: “Go back to Río Hacha. He’s sure to strike there at some point in this rampage,” and when the brothers argued truthfully that Río was now a desolate place with very little to attract the avarice of a pirate, Don Diego replied: “His memories are there because it was there he suffered his first defeat. He’ll be back.”

But then Roque voiced the greatest objection of all to this dispersal of the Ledesma forces: “You’re leaving Cartagena unprotected,” and Don Diego said: “He’ll not come here again. Because he conquered this city once, no need to repeat. Puerto Rico’s a new target. All the others are defeats that have to be avenged.”

“Then why won’t he go back to San Juan de Ulúa? His greatest defeat of all?”

This was a penetrating question which the old warrior had to weigh carefully, but in the end he gave the answer of a very tired man: “If he goes to Ulúa, and with Hawkins present, there would be reason … well, then the job of fighting him is Mexico’s.” He pondered this and added: “Our job—protecting the Caribbean—is demanding enough.”

Spring dragged on, with no substantial news of Drake’s movements, but in mid-April news of an entirely different kind was rushed to Cartagena. It came from San Juan in Puerto Rico and was substantial indeed:

Now came anxious moments for Don Diego. He wanted to rush to Puerto Rico to help defend that great treasure and was inwardly gratified that he had some months ago deduced that Drake would be heading there, but he did not care to make any move until he was certain that Drake’s fleet had actually sailed. In the third week of September word flashed through the islands and the Main: “Drake has sailed!” but shortly thereafter came the perplexing news that Drake and Hawkins had stopped along the way to lay a nonproductive siege at the Grand Canary. “Ah ha!” Don Diego cried when he heard the news. “If he’s come by way of the Canaries, he’s heading for Puerto Rico,” and next day he dispatched the nineteen men of his family to their various posts.

When Don Diego approached San Juan in the Mariposa and saw the setting of roadstead and harbor in which he would be fighting what would surely be his last great duel with these two intrepid Englishmen, he was struck by a disarming thought: Good God! We’re all old men, fighting as if we were boys! Drake was fifty-two that summer, Hawkins sixty-three, and himself an ancient sixty-seven: But we’re still the best on the oceans.

As he entered the harbor Don Diego saw that reports about the loss of the Begoña had been accurate: demasted in a fierce Caribbean storm, she had no chance of proceeding to Spain, and sailors in the escort boat shouted: “We have her two million deep in the fortress over there. Drake’ll never touch it.” When he landed he found surprises awaiting, for the local commander informed him: “We’ve decided there’s no hope of fighting those two on the open seas. All ships inside the harbor.” Much as he disliked such restriction, he had to obey, so against his better judgment, he berthed his stalwart flagship inside. But when the last of his incoming fleet was safely tucked away, the commander startled him by announcing: “Tomorrow we bottle up the harbor by sinking what’s left of the Begoña right in the middle, and four smaller ships on either side,” and although both Ledesma and the captain of the big galleon protested, this was done.

While the Spaniards worked with belated speed to ready their defenses, they supposed they would be allowed three or four weeks for the task, but that was not to be. However, two items of extraordinary good luck now occurred to give them an advantage. As the English fleet sailed into the Caribbean, two of its ships lagged and alert Spanish frigates captured one of them, learning that Drake and Hawkins would arrive shortly at Puerto Rico. Armed with this precious knowledge, the scouting ships sped to San Juan, shouting the news as they arrived, so that when the English ships appeared every Spanish gun would be ready to fire directly in their teeth.

The other happening was one the Spaniards could not be aware of at the time, but no sooner had this English fleet left Plymouth back in August than its two admirals fell into violent dispute. Hawkins, as the older and more prudent, had wanted to cross the Atlantic at top speed and strike Puerto Rico before its defenses could be strengthened. Drake, however, insisted upon fighting a chain of fruitless battles on the way out, and thus wasted weeks.

Even now, on the eve of battle when every second was going to count, Drake demanded another useless layover in the Virgin Islands, hardly a day’s sail to Puerto Rico. Hawkins protested vehemently, failed once more to convince his impulsive associate, and realizing that their final adventure in the Caribbean was doomed because of Drake’s intransigence, he retired to his cabin, turned his weary body to the wall, and died.

After the burial of Hawkins in the sea on whose glorious surfaces he had gained renown, Drake arrived tardily at San Juan, where the stout land defenses organized by the Spanish generals easily repulsed him. Never did he get close to forcing his way into San Juan harbor, nor did he ever learn where the Begoña’s two million pesos were hidden, let alone capture the treasure.

Ledesma, learning upon his own return to Cartagena of Drake’s irrational behavior, paused only long enough to gather about the Mariposa a small, tight fleet with which he was determined to harry Drake to his death, and on the night before he sailed for the showdown at Nombre de Dios, he walked the battlements with his still-beautiful white-haired Leonora, and told her: “In a way, I pity him. Raging about like a wounded bull, attacking anything that moves, whether it’s part of his design or not.”

“Take care,” his wife warned. “A wounded bull is the most dangerous,” but he told her as they went up to bed: “Drake’s always dangerous, wounded or not, and now we have him.”

In the morning Ledesma weighed anchor and led his family forces on their final chase. As he had predicted, Drake did not bother with Cartagena this time, so with a sense of relief Don Diego and Roque trailed him at a respectful distance as he headed yet again for that little town which held such a stranglehold on his imagination, Nombre de Dios, where he found literally nothing but a collection of rotting houses, most of them long since abandoned: the terminus of the treasure trains from Panamá had been moved a short eighteen miles westward to a more favorable anchorage at a site called Porto Bello. Enraged at finding no treasure in Nombre de Dios, he burned the ruins. The vice-regent said as his soldiers watched from a safe lookout, “It’s not our town he’s burning. It’s his.”

Enmeshed in an increasing fury, Drake sailed the few miles to unfamiliar Porto Bello, found no treasure there, and burned that town too, as if personally insulted that it should have presumed to supplant his Nombre de Dios. Then, in an act of shocking irresponsibility, he dispatched a small body of heavily armed foot soldiers onto that dreadful footpath through the jungle to loot Panamá and perhaps destroy it—sixty against six thousand—but after the English soldiers had struggled hopelessly against the swamps, the mosquitoes and the repeated roadblocks erected by Diego’s other sons-in-law, where Indians lurked with poisoned arrows, the men sensibly revolted, shouted at their officers: “We’ll tolerate no more of this,” and trailed back empty-handed to their ships.

He was ending his days as Don Diego had foreseen “thrashing around but accomplishing nothing,” and when the dreadful fevers of Nombre de Dios assailed his ship, causing the deaths of many of his stout English sailors without their having struck one meaningful blow against Philip, he railed against the unlucky fate which had overtaken him. And then one evening the fever which had always lurked in these fetid areas, killing with a grand impartiality both the Spaniards who lugged silver across the isthmus and the Englishmen who tried to wrest it from them, struck Drake with malignant fury. When he looked up helplessly at his companions they saw terror in his eyes. “Is it to end like this?” he asked feebly, and in the morning he was dead.

To protect his body from the stalking Spaniards who might, his men feared, defile it in their hatred, they wrapped his corpse in canvas, weighted his shoulders and legs with lead, and pitched him into the waters of the Caribbean, which would forever carry echoes of his greatness.

They were a three-man audiencia sent by King Philip to assess the numerous accusations that had been accumulating against him, thirty-one charges in number, ranging from gross theft of the king’s funds to suspected heresy in that someone had heard him say after a battle: “Let Drake worship in his way, I’ll worship in mine.” One of the most telling charges against him was that “he placed some nineteen of his family in positions from which they could steal vast sums belonging to the king, his most arrogant act being that of persuading a fine Cádiz ship captain, one Roque Ortega, to be rebaptized as Roque Ledesma y Ledesma in order to gain additional distinction for the family name.”

In the four months following Drake’s death, when the Ledesmas should have been celebrating with all other Spaniards in the Caribbean, the leader of their family sat at his desk trying to respond to these accusations, some so grave as to warrant the death sentence if proved, most so trivial that a magistrate would have dismissed them before lunch. But in the end the severe unblinking master of the commission persuaded his two associates to join him in finding Don Diego indictable on all counts, whereupon the savior of Cartagena was clapped into irons, hand and foot, and ordered back to Spain for trial in one of King Philip’s courts not famous for finding accused colonial officials innocent.

On his last night ashore, he begged his captors to allow him to walk once more on the battlements overlooking the Spanish Lake he had defended with such valor, but they would not permit this, afraid lest citizens rally to the defense of their hero and steal him from them. Instead, he sat bound in the noble hall in which he had met with the rulers of New Spain, with admirals returning from victories, with that wonderfully garrulous woman who had told of El Draque’s “heroic exploits in Chile and Peru”—yes, and with Drake himself when they wrestled for the salvation of the city.

When his wife, so loyal through the decades, came to sit with him and slipped cool rags between the fetters and his skin to ease the pain, he said: “Perhaps it is God reminding me: ‘You and Hawkins and Drake were brothers-in-arms. It’s time you rejoined them.’ I’m ready.”

But he did not reach Spain, for as the Mariposa approached the famous Windward Passage between Cuba and Española, a vast storm blew up, and when disaster seemed imminent he called up from the hold: “Run to the captain. Tell him I know how to handle this ship in a storm,” but after some tempestuous tossing about, a voice shouted down: “He says you’re to stay in chains, king’s orders.” And so Don Diego lay in the hold, feeling his beloved ship being driven into one fatal mistake after another, until at last she plunged in agony to the bottom of the Caribbean.

Traveler, you who sail into the Caribbean in silvered yacht or gilded cruise ship, pause as you enter these waters to remember that deep below rest three men of honor who helped determine the history of this onetime Spanish Lake: Sir John Hawkins, builder of the English navy; Sir Francis Drake, conqueror of all known seas; and Admiral Ledesma, stubborn enhancer of his king’s prerogatives and the interests of his own strong family.

BECAUSE THE ISLAND OF BARBADOS, A PLACE OF HEAVENLY beauty, lay so far to the east of that chain of islands which mark the boundary of the Caribbean, and so far south of the ocean currents that ships naturally followed when setting out from Europe and Africa, Columbus did not discover the island on any of his voyages in 1492–1502, and it remained unknown for decades. A few Arawak Indians reached there, finding refuge when the terrible Caribs ravaged the other islands, but long before the white man arrived, they appear to have died out.

It was not till very late, 1625, that the waiting island, unpopulated but extremely rich in soil, was seriously taken note of by a chance English trader, and two more years passed before an orderly settlement began. Because this paradise waited so long for the white man to arrive, many believed that the best of the Caribbean had been saved till last. Although lying some hundred miles to the east and not actually a part of that magical sea, it was, nevertheless, widely regarded as one of the loveliest of the Caribbean sisterhood.

In the early 1630s a small group of hardy emigrants from England toiled in the fields back of town to raise enough crops to feed themselves yet be able to ship an excess back to England in exchange for the goods they needed: cloth, medicines, books, and such. The cultivation of the three crops that were wanted by traders in England—cotton, tobacco and indigo for the dyeing of cloth—involved such brutal work that the early colonists quickly devised a plan whereby they could supervise their plantations with some ease while others did the work. They imported penniless young men, often from southwest England or Scotland, to serve as bondsmen for five years, after which the young fellows would be given a small amount of cash plus title to whichever five acres of unoccupied land caught their fancy.

In the first group of indentured laborers, as they were legally termed, appeared a surly young chap from the north of England, John Tatum by name, whose passage from Bristol had been paid, as was the custom, by the wealthiest of the Barbados tobacco planters, Thomas Oldmixon. The relationship between the two was never a happy one. Oldmixon was a rotund, hearty man, with a booming voice, red face and the habit of clapping his equals on the back and regaling them with stories that he considered rib-tickling but whose point his listeners usually failed to catch; with his inferiors, and he had so categorized his indentured servant Tatum, he could be brusque and even insulting.

But the next year, when Tatum’s servitude ended and he had selected a choice five acres east of Bridgetown, one of those trivial accidents occurred which alter the history of islands. An English ship on the way to Barbados with a fresh supply of white indentured laborers came upon a Portuguese vessel whose crew was engaged in selling Negro slaves from island to island, in the same way that farmers’ wives in Europe peddled their husbands’ vegetables in town from one dwelling to the next.

The Englishmen, always looking for a chance to earn an honest shilling, attacked the Portuguese slaver, won the sea battle, and found themselves with a cargo of slaves that had to be disposed of. The first available port was Bridgetown in Barbados, and there they off-loaded not only the indentured workers intended for the island, but also eight black Africans. An auction was held on the steps of the church in the town square, with Thomas Oldmixon purchasing three of the slaves, and his recently freed bondsman, John Tatum, spending the first money he ever had in Barbados to acquire one for himself. Each of these canny men realized at the first sight of these powerful black men that money could be made from their services. Thus did slavery begin on this exquisite island.

The solution was simple. Dutch trading ships, captained by men of extreme daring and commercial competence, ignored the English laws, sailed where they pleased, became remarkably skilled in evading English patrol ships, and conducted their smuggling operations on a vast scale. Barbados survived for two reasons: sensible English government abetted by capable Dutch semipirates. Whenever the settlers in Bridgetown saw the Dutch ship Stadhouder edge surreptitiously into port under the expert guidance of Captain Piet Brongersma, smuggler extraordinary, they knew that goods they needed would now become available, and they applauded his coming, even going so far as to post sentries on the headlands to alert him in case a British warship approached unexpectedly. Then all the Dutchmen on Brongersma’s ship would leap into action, weighing anchor and hoisting sail, and sometimes within minutes the speedy Stadhouder would be safely out to sea before the English warship arrived.

In this easy manner, without any shots being fired, honest men thrown into jail, or bitterness engendered, life proceeded: Thomas Oldmixon gathered new fields year after year; to his five acres John Tatum brought a sturdy English lass, who gave him a daughter, Nell, and two fine sons, a very sober-sided Isaac and a rambunctious Will; governors came from England, some sagacious, some pathetic, as in all colonies; and the slave population increased because numerous babies were born to those already on the island, and Dutch smugglers kept slipping in more slaves from Africa.

All agreed that Barbados would find a new crop to prolong its prosperity. This general optimism was well voiced by Oldmixon one day when he went to the harbor to greet a new settler who had come from Sir Francis Drake’s old bowling ground, Devon. As he walked the newcomer through the clean streets of Bridgetown, pointing out the red-roofed Dutch houses, he recited a litany: “Have you seen a better island than ours? A finer town? Here you can feel the peace and ease. You’ll see the little churches that mark our crossroads. My friend, this is Little England, and some of us believe it’s better than the big one.”

This phrase was remembered, and in time it became the accepted description of Barbados: “Little England, forever loyal to the homeland.”

There had been one ugly moment in 1636 when the authorities clarified a matter which had been causing some concern. At that time the nature of slavery had not been clearly defined: neither the slave nor the master knew for sure how long the term of servitude was intended to last, and a few generous-hearted Englishmen argued that it was for a limited period only and some went so far as to claim that any child born to slaves on the island should be free from birth.

Authorities put a quick halt to that heresy: they passed an ordinance stating that slaves, whether local Indian or African, served for life, as did their offspring. Only a few slaves were aware that the new law had been passed, household servants mostly, so it did not occasion any island-wide protest, but those who did understand chafed under the realization that their servitude would never end.

Gradually, these few dissidents began to infect many of the island blacks, and by 1649, a vague subterranean sense of unease had spread through the entire community without the white masters being aware of the change. The racial composition of the island had altered radically in recent years, for when the law of 1636 was passed, Barbados had few slaves and mostly white indentured workers in a total population of only six thousand. But by 1649, there were thirty thousand slaves on the island as against almost the same number of whites, so that the slaves judged they had a chance for victory.

He was a tall, robust man with sparkling eyes and commanding voice, and so persuasive that he quickly enlisted a dozen supporters, each of whom enrolled four or five others who could be trusted, and the night came when he revealed his gruesome plan.

Obviously, the fifty-odd blacks never convened as a group, for from the earliest days of slavery, island rules had forbidden meetings of slaves from different plantations; there was to be no midnight plotting in Barbados. The message was spread in the English of the slave fields, since his followers had come from widely varied parts of Africa with different languages: “Three nights from now, sun goes down, wait two hours, then each man kills all the white men in three different houses close by. Then we spread out, all the island.” It was not a tidy plan, but if the slaves could immobilize the principal white families of Bridgetown, they would stand a good chance of taking over the island. And because of the subtle skill with which Hamilcar had maneuvered the exchange of information and strategies, three nights from the terrible rebellion no white men were aware of the danger.

On the first night after having set the timetable, Hamilcar could not sleep, for he could visualize a wide scatter of things that might go wrong, but on the second night, tired from hurried meetings with his major lieutenants, he slept easily, assured that his plan would work, and next morning he rose prepared to execute the massacre.

Their plantation was small, big enough to provide work for only three slaves, but Isaac was so furiously ambitious that he did not propose to remain a minor planter long. “Soon,” Isaac told his wife, Clarissa, and his brother, “the Tatum name will be of some importance on this island,” and he confided that the only route to the eminence for which he thirsted was “more land each year, more slaves each half-year, and this family will scrimp and save until those goals are reached.”

Will was an undisciplined lad of fourteen, whose nature was already unpredictable and whose ready, beguiling smile betrayed the fact that he could well develop into a scoundrel. The two Tatums differed greatly in appearance. Isaac was almost unnaturally short, a disability he tried to overcome with manly posturing, wedges in his shoes and a cultivated rumble to make his voice deeper. He had pale, sandy hair and shifty eyes, as if always calculating the main chance, and to spur himself into manhood as quickly as possible he had married early, locating a young woman two years older than himself and twice as ambitious. As a pair, he and Clarissa were formidable.

The two brothers, so different in appearance and character, worked well together, with Will aiding his brother’s ambitions in an original way: he treated the three Tatum slaves so generously that they did the work of six. When there was a muddy task to be completed in a hurry, he leaped in beside them and helped, something his more austere brother would never do. “Gentlemen have their place,” Isaac pontificated, “slaves theirs, and the distances must be preserved.”

From the first days of slavery, the rulers of the island had foreseen that if they educated their slaves, sooner or later there would have to be insubordination or worse, so they forbade the learning of the alphabet and absolutely outlawed any instruction in Christianity; blacks were never allowed in churches. Naomi knew this, and she delighted in the forbidden lessons Will gave her. Early on she recognized that he was like her; Will, too, was a rebel. She felt responsible for him, and as he grew older she took pride in his manly developments and his willingness to oppose anyone who trespassed on his right. “That Will,” she told the two men slaves, “he worth six of his brother.”

On the night before the slaughter of whites was to begin, Naomi felt pangs of regret, for she could not bear to think of her fine young man with his throat cut, so she sought Will out and whispered: “Tomorrow doan’ go to de field,” and when he asked why, she said: “And doan’ stay in de house.” Then, in some confusion as to what she was saying, she added: “Blood promise me, doan’ tell no one.”

Will Tatum was a bright lad, and when he went to bed he tried to sort out what Naomi’s cryptic messages had really signified, and when the ugly possibilities became clear, he wakened his brother and they rapidly deduced what Naomi had known but had been afraid to spell out, and in a rush they alerted the neighboring white families, then galloped off to surrounding plantations.

When the two Tatums rushed to the outskirts of Bridgetown to spread the alarm, Isaac first headed east for the plantation of Henry Saltonstall, a respected planter but not one of the richest, while Will started north to alert Thomas Oldmixon, the most powerful planter on one of the largest plantations. But the two young riders were hardly out of the gate when Isaac shouted: “Halloo, Will! I’ll ride to Oldmixon’s,” and without stopping, they switched directions, for Isaac, as always calculating the advantage, believed he might gain some if he were the one to save the big man’s life.

When he reached the impressive Oldmixon estate in the northern part of the island, a pillared mansion at the end of a lane edged by tall trees, he started shouting: “Sir! Sir!” and was gratified to see how quickly a light appeared.

“Worse,” and seeking to make the most of this opportunity to assist the great man, he whispered: “Better inside,” and when he had Oldmixon’s attention, Isaac gave the dreadful news: “Slave uprising, sir.” Now Oldmixon, though in his early sixties but still capable of quick action when required, first grabbed for his two pistols, then shouted in stumbling words: “By gad, Tatum, we must be off and movin’, off and movin’ I say,” and he actually started for the door in his nightclothes, when he stopped suddenly to utter a loud cry: “Rebecca! Don’t let me make a fool of meself!” and to Tatum he said apologetically: “Man mustn’t ride to hounds in his nightcap.” While Isaac waited, the big man, with his wife’s help, drew on his cotton britches, his leather boots with their wide turned-down tops, his undershirt and brocaded weskit, and then donned his badge of position and honor, a big, broad-brimmed bonnet with the left side tucked up and displaying a bright turkey feather. His uniform in place, he ran to his horse, leaped easily astride and dashed down the lane, shouting back over his shoulder: “Off to the wars, Tatum, off to the wars!”

Will Tatum rode the much shorter distance due east of Bridgetown to the substantial plantation of Henry Saltonstall, a slim, straight, beardless man of forty-two, who was still in his working clothes, for he had been reading by candlelight: “What is it, young man?”

“I’m Will Tatum, from the edge of town.”

“Ah yes, and what could bring you here so late?”

“We’d better step inside, sir,” and when the two had done so, Will said quietly: “Slave uprising, sir.”

As happened so often before in history, when masters were alerted by some loving slave, black rebels were frustrated. In this case, eighteen of the leaders, including Hamilcar and the other Tatum male slave, were hanged. The accounts penned at the time and later endlessly reprinted said only: “The Tatum slave Hamilcar and seventeen of his criminal accomplices were hanged.” These brave men, some of whom had held positions of power in Africa, died without even their names being recorded, but their dark bodies were left swaying in the wind as warning.

When it became known through the loose-lipped talk of the white leaders who ordered and supervised the hangings that it had been the Tatum slave girl Naomi who had betrayed the plot, no surviving slaves would tolerate her, and one night when the Tatum brothers came home from work, they saw suspicious signs in the little slave hut, and when they looked inside they found Naomi with her throat cut. The authorities preferred to ask no questions, and in this quick, harsh way the first major slave insurrection on Barbados was extinguished, and the principle was established that slaves were chattels with no rights other than those a benevolent master elected to give them. As a result of the hangings and murder, the Tatums were left with no field hands, and Isaac’s dream of acquiring more fields until he became a big planter evaporated. The fact that it was he who had alerted the island to the tragedy that was about to overwhelm it did not impress his wealthy neighbors, for on Barbados there were only three classes of people: white men who owned big plantations, white men who owned small or none, and black slaves, and the first group did not encourage any members of the second to climb upward.

With no slaves, the Tatum brothers had to do the work on their plantation themselves, and it was remarkable to watch Clarissa pitch in as if she were a third man. Never complaining, she kept the Tatum house cleaned and her two men fed and neatly clothed, and if occasion demanded, she volunteered to help in the tobacco and cotton fields, but she did not allow her husband to think that she intended continuing that pattern. “When is a new ship coming in?” she demanded day after day. “We’ve saved enough to buy us three or four good slaves, and we must do so.”

Many now prayed for the good old days when everything the islanders needed, from needles to medicines, reached Barbados in these ships, which in exchange carried back to England bales of cotton, tobacco, indigo and in recent years casks of a new experimental crop, sugar. But loyal as the islanders were to their mother country, they were also attentive to their own commercial interests, and when no English ships came, even vocal patriots like Thomas Oldmixon evaded the laws which forbade trade with ships of any nation other than Britain. They were especially bold in welcoming the well-known Captain Brongersma and his Stadhouder.

“Hmmm,” Oldmixon had grumbled when told that he ought to wait for legal English ships. “We wait for those tardies, we’d starve,” and then he added the more pertinent comment: “And we’d get none of the slaves we need. I say, ‘God bless the Dutchmen.’ ”

On a crisp morning in early March 1649, Will Tatum, up at five and staring out to sea, saw the dim outline of a sailing ship whose silhouette he thought he knew, and as day brightened and the ship moved close to shore, he leaped in the air, let out a yell, and sped through the streets, shouting “Stadhouder coming!” And every merchant who hoped to have his stock replenished hurried to the shore.

When Will carried the exciting news home, Clarissa stopped preparing breakfast, wiped her hands on her apron, and raised her face in prayer: “God, let there be on that ship the things we need!” but her husband, always eager to curry favor with Thomas Oldmixon, called for his horse and galloped north to inform the important planter that the Dutch ship was in, almost surely with a fresh supply of slaves.

He found Oldmixon already out of bed, supervising his slaves in the care of the sugar crop he had experimented with that year. Tatum hurried toward him, bursting to tell him the good news, but Oldmixon spoke first: “Glad to see you, Isaac. Been wantin’ to talk with you,” and although Tatum tried to interrupt him, the big fellow barged ahead: “If you’re the smart feller I take you for, and I believe you are, you’ll quit your present crops and switch to sugar. Sure to be a bright future for it. A bright future, I say.”

As soon as he heard this, Oldmixon became a different man, for slaves had played a major role in his life. He had been one of the first planters to use them in goodly number, and his reputation as one of the leaders on the island stemmed from an ingenious solution he had crafted for an irritating problem. A clergyman reported the affair in a letter to his brother in England:

Now, at Tatum’s fine news that a new slave ship had arrived, Oldmixon cried: “Capital! But we’ve got to get there before the sale starts,” and with his turkey feather flowing in the breeze he kicked his horse in the ribs and the two men galloped off for Bridgetown.

“Such as?” Oldmixon asked, turning in his saddle.

“I’m torn by two desires. Spend it on more slaves? Or more land?”

Oldmixon took so long to reply that Tatum wondered if the big man had heard, but then the planter surprised him with an answer of remarkable probity: “Young feller, I think you’re preparin’ to broach me for a loan, and I don’t make loans. Too many complications. So you’ll have to make up your own mind about how you want to apply your funds, and I’m pleased to learn that you have some. You must be thrifty.”

To hide his disappointment, Isaac said: “It’s my wife who tends the money, and she is thrifty, I can assure you.”

“Excellent. More I hear about you, Tatum, more I like you. Your father wasn’t really a bad sort. Just lazy. So here’s my proposal. I’m convertin’ to sugar in a big way, three-fourths of my fields. Now, it would help me mightily if some of you other men would plant cane and make sugar too, ’cause then we could combine our yield and send it to England as a full cargo.”

“But doesn’t sugar require slaves … absolute necessity?”

“It does. So what I want you to do, buy up as much land as your funds allow, and borrow on it to buy more and plant it all in sugar.”

“How can I raise sugar with no slaves?”

“You can’t, and that’s why I’m going to buy you seven. Keep the title in my name until you can pay me with your first crop. You board and feed them and use them in your fields like they were your own.”

Isaac dropped his head, almost in prayer, for an offer like this exceeded even his most extravagant hopes, and when he looked sideways at Oldmixon and saw the big man nod and then wink as if to say: “That’s what I promised,” he cried out: “It’s help I never expected,” and Oldmixon corrected him: “No, you’ll be the one helpin’ me if we can get sugar started on Barbados.”

But Oldmixon and Tatum were concerned not with camels but with what for them was a much more important matter: the auction of the forty-seven slaves Captain Piet Brongersma had brought in cages belowdecks from Africa. The captain had not come ashore to conduct the sale, but his first mate, an able Dutchman who spoke English, was ready to start the auction, when he saw Oldmixon approaching. Bowing low, he asked, from former experience: “Do you wish to buy the entire lot, Mr. Oldmixon?” and smaller planters who had hoped to acquire a few slaves groaned, but Oldmixon said: “No, my friend here wants seven, and I want fifteen. More than enough left for you men,” and he indicated the others, who cheered.

Oldmixon, impressed with the crafty manner in which young Tatum chose his seven, said: “You know slaves, young feller,” but Isaac said: “I know which men and women will be able to work,” at which Oldmixon said: “Pick my fifteen,” and with equal skill Isaac passed among the frightened slaves, trying to select for Oldmixon fifteen as good as the seven he had chosen for himself.

Then came the shocking moment of this bright March day. Captain Brongersma was rowed ashore, and when he landed he came forward gravely, his big bulletlike head and square face creating an ominous impression. He moved directly and silently to Thomas Oldmixon, whom he had known favorably as a planter to be trusted. Not greeting Oldmixon in his accustomed way, he came close and whispered in a heavy Dutch accent: “Assemble the other leaders,” and when this was done, he announced, as if informing each man of the death of a brother: “On the thirtieth day of January past, Cromwell’s men beheaded your King Charles.”

“No, by heavens! It can’t be,” shouted Oldmixon, grabbing Brongersma by the jacket, and the other leading planters whom Oldmixon had brought into the shed joined him in averring that no loyal Englishmen, not even cravens like Oliver Cromwell, would dare to strike their king, let alone behead him.

“What proof have you?” one planter cried, and Brongersma had to admit: “None. I was already in the Channel … no chance to buy a newssheet.”

And then Henry Saltonstall joined the crowd to which he had not been invited. “You were busy unloading your camels,” Oldmixon said as if apologizing, and Saltonstall, a man of sharp wisdom, perceived from the faces of his friends that something devastating had happened, and he asked bluntly: “What is it? War again with the Dutch?” and Brongersma replied: “Those days are past. Your King Charles has been beheaded,” and Saltonstall said instantly: “It was bound to happen.” The other planters in the shed looked at him with abhorrence, their manner foretelling the angry days that were about to engulf Barbados.

The next few days were the finest in Will Tatum’s life so far, for now that his brother had seven slaves, he, Will, often sneaked away from the fields, and he spent the time aboard the Stadhouder, mostly in Captain Brongersma’s cabin, for the Dutchman not only enjoyed talking with the boy but also found him useful as a source of information about doings on Barbados.

In turn, Brongersma threw out fascinating bits of information: “Our hold is filled with salt we collected after a running fight at the great flats of Cumaná on the Spanish Main.”

“Where’s the Spanish Main?”

“The coastline of Central and South America, where the Caribbean touches the mainland.”

“Why did you have to fight for the salt?”

“The Spaniards never want us to take it away. It’s theirs, they say.”

“Then why do you take it?”

“To salt our herring. And you know what herring is to a Dutchman? The same as a shilling is to an Englishman.”

“Do you fight the Spanish often?”

Brongersma reflected for some moments before answering this ticklish question, then said: “I suppose it’s time you knew, Will. We make our living three ways. Capturing salt at Cumaná, running contraband into Barbados and the other English islands, and best of all, tracking down some rich Spanish ship, boarding her and winning ourselves a fortune.”

“Are you pirates, then?”

“Don’t the Spaniards ever fight back?” Will asked, and Brongersma burst into laughter: “Do they ever fight back! Look at that scar on my wrist—from a handsome Spanish ship laden with Potosí silver out of Havana on her way to Sevilla. Part of a great armada she was, protected by four warships of the line, but we cut her out, boarded her, and would have won ourselves a fortune except …”

“What happened?” Will was on the edge of his chair as the Dutchman said glumly in recollection of that sad day: “One of their warships spotted us, what we were doing, came roaring back, and we were lucky to escape with our skins.”

“Are the Spaniards good fighters?”

“Never believe the English fairy tale that one Englishman is better than three Spaniards. The well-armed Don from Sevilla with a sharp Toledo blade is a match for any fighting man on any ship. Halloo, Franz! Show us your face,” he shouted as into the cabin came a big Dutchman with a long scar, scarcely healed, across his right chin. “He’s our best swordsman, none better,” the captain said, “but a Spaniard with a Toledo would have killed him for sure, except one of our men shot the Spaniard dead as he was about to do so.”

The next time Will returned to the ship, Brongersma said: “I wish I’d had a son like you,” and Will asked: “Would you have taken me to sea with you? To fight the Spaniards?”

“Now, that’s a difficult question, lad. As a father I’d agree with your mother, that you ought to stay in Amsterdam and learn your letters. But as captain of the Stadhouder, I’d want you at my side when we took on the Spaniards, for there’s nothing nobler in this world that a Dutchman can do than wage sea war against those swine.”

“Why do you call them that?” and the captain became quite grave, there in the hot cabin, and spoke with an intensity Will had not heard before: “My grandfather, his grandfather before him were hanged by Spaniards ruling the Low Countries, and no man like me can ever forget that.”

“Why were they hanged?”

On their last day together Brongersma was in a more relaxed mood: “This was a profitable stop, lad. We bought our slaves from the Portuguese at nine pounds and sold them at thirty. We bought six new camels for Mr. Saltonstall at eleven each and sold them at thirty-three. We sail home with a ballast of pure salt and casks topside with brown sugar, which will bring a fortune.” He tapped his pipe against his left hand, and said: “On a day like this, with a calm sea out there, and a fast run home, and always the chance of catching a Spaniard laden with gold or silver …” He paused, not knowing how to end his sentence, then concluded quietly: “A man could sail on forever … forever till the final darkness comes.”

“You love sailing your ship, don’t you?” and Brongersma said: “I’ll sail the Stadhouder till her bottom is eaten through by the worms and my bottom is ready for its return to dust.”

Will asked: “Why do you get angry when someone calls you a pirate? Are you not one?” and Brongersma replied: “There’s a difference, I’m an honorable Dutch captain who fights the Spaniard. I shall be unhappy if you call me pirate.” And next morning at dawn, when Will scouted the sea, the Stadhouder was gone.

For the next eleven days the men and women of Barbados had no solid information about their king, only those rumors brought by Captain Brongersma, but then a trading ship arrived from Bristol with printed confirmation. King Charles I, beloved of the island’s Royalists, had actually been beheaded at Whitehall by a common axeman who executed ordinary criminals.

The shock was profound, and in the days of tension that followed, the islanders divided into the two camps that would contest for the right to govern. On Barbados, as in England, each side adopted a name for itself: the conservatives elected to be called Cavaliers, which implied men of breeding, substance and unquestioned loyalty to the king, while liberals elected to be called Roundheads, which described sturdy men of middle position socially possessed with business acumen, common sense and a preference for rule by Parliament.

A contemporary, who knew members of both sides well, described them in this way: “Cavaliers comprise the gentry, the Church of England clergy and the loyal peasants. Your Roundheads are apt to be men from the middle class, the rich merchants and a surprising number of great nobles; you might say, all who can read and write.”

The archetypal Cavalier was dashing Prince Rupert, nephew of the king and probably the greatest cavalry officer who ever fought one major battle after another, winning most; the quintessential Roundhead was the blind poet John Milton, austere in person but with a pen that scattered fiery diamonds, especially in his prose essays dealing with politics.

On Barbados the Cavaliers were led by robust Thomas Oldmixon, who announced: “I’ve always been loyal only to the king and shall remain so, and if Charles I is truly dead, his son Charles II is my king and I’ll fight to protect his claim,” and men of similar loyalties began to cluster about Oldmixon and look to him for leadership.

Control of the Roundheads, fewer in number but equally dedicated to their cause, devolved naturally upon Henry Saltonstall, who approved of the deposition of the king though not his murder, and who believed that Parliament could rule England more effectively than royalty had done.

The effect of all this on the Tatum brothers was especially divisive. Isaac was a young man who intuitively liked royalty and its attendant nobility; secretly he hoped that one day he would, through increase in the size of his plantation, his slave holdings and the consequent amount of sugar produced, amass a fortune. Then he planned to donate large sums to enterprises in which the king was interested and thus win attention in London, and who knows, perhaps even a title.

As the political debate intensified, Clarissa warned Isaac: “Your brother isn’t a person to be trusted. Next thing you know, he’ll be announcing that he’s siding with Saltonstall.” She proved a good prophet, because a few nights later at supper Will made bold to say, even though he knew the loyalties of the older Tatums: “I think Saltonstall and his Roundheads make a lot of sense. Does England really need a king?” The question was so bluntly asked that Isaac and Clarissa were too stunned to respond.

As the turmoil on the island spread, Isaac became increasingly concerned that his favorable start with Oldmixon might grind to a halt. As he explained to his wife: “With the execution of the king, anything can happen,” but she advised steadiness: “Don’t falter now. All’s at chance.” When she learned that Oldmixon had declared for the king, she told Isaac, leading him to his horse and spurring him on: “Now’s the time to strike. Ride up there and tell him you’re with him.”

Bursting into Oldmixon’s hall, Isaac cried in the deep voice he cultivated: “I’m for the new king,” and the wealthy owner clasped him warmly: “You’re a welcome volunteer to the Cavaliers, Tatum.” Then he drew back, studied the man he had only recently come to know, and cried: “Egad, Tatum! You have done me three favors. Forestalling the slave rebellion, planting sugar, and now joining me for the king. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.” Even in his enthusiasm, Oldmixon took care to say egad, because blasphemy was severely punished on this island, which led men to use old, safe forms like egad as a substitute for ah God, “sblood for by God’s blood and zounds for God’s wounds.

When Isaac Tatum returned home he told Clarissa: “I did what you said. We’re in this together now.” They did not say anything to Will, but that evening the Tatums had a serious conversation, started by the wife: “If Will persists in his sentiments, I can’t be happy having him share quarters with us.”

“Half the house is his, my love. Half the fields.”

“Can we buy him out?”

“With what?”

After a long silence Clarissa said: “Will’s a hothead, we’ve seen that. He’s a rebel, and if this island remains loyal to the new king, as I’m sure it will, he’ll do something that will drive him from Barbados. His land will be forfeit …”

Petulantly she said: “Isaac! I’m not happy with him around. Answer me this. Why did that Naomi tell him about the plot? Why didn’t she tell us? What was there between them?”

Isaac had to lay down the law: “We need him. We need his share of the land. And we must have his share of the work.” When she began to cry, he promised: “As soon as things are steady, we’ll ask him to leave. He can always stay with the Pennyfeathers,” referring to the Tatum sister, Nell, who had married a fairly worthless shopkeeper, Timothy Pennyfeather. The thought set Isaac’s mind to working: “On one thing you’re right, Clarissa. Will’s share of the land must come to us, because the secret of wealth on this island is control of land, and I aim to accumulate a great deal of it.”

And then, as the year closed with the island divided into two almost warring factions and with the split in families like the Tatums, an event transpired which demonstrated the unique quality of Barbados, for when it was announced in the various churches that a hunting party would be setting forth for the island of All Saints, one hundred and fifty miles to the west, men of every persuasion flocked to the little ship that would convey them there. Thomas Oldmixon, head of the Cavaliers and a master shot, had nineteen of his supporters at his side, while Henry Saltonstall, armed with two fine guns, led the Roundheads. Isaac Tatum stood with Oldmixon, brother Will with Saltonstall.

When the ship hove to on the western side of the glorious bay of All Saints, its small boat ferried the hunters ashore, with leaders Oldmixon and Saltonstall sharing the same small craft and the Tatum brothers riding side by side on a later trip. When the party was assembled, Oldmixon issued instructions in his hearty voice: “Men, Saltonstall, a fine shot, will lead his half in that direction, rest come with me—and we’ll see if we can finish with these buggers.”

Thus, in only a few centuries, the fierce Caribs who had uttered wild war cries as they swept down to annihilate the Arawaks, now heard those same cries shouted against themselves.

In the first half-hour Thomas Oldmixon, with Isaac Tatum at his side as kind of gun-bearer, killed two Caribs and dodged Indian bullets as they rattled back at him. Saltonstall’s team, containing many Roundheads who tended to be fine shots, also killed its share of Caribs, and for about two hours the hunt continued, with Barbadians shouting in triumph whenever they brought down an Indian and keeping score as they might have done at a pigeon shoot, for it was wildly exciting to see a brown form scuttling through the low brush and to hit him dead-on and see him turn and twist as he fell. Of course, sometimes the running figure was a woman or a child, but the shooting continued, and during the entire hunt not one Barbadian expressed concern about gunning down the savages, male or female, and certainly no remorse.

At the end of the third hour, when light was beginning to fade, both teams put on an extra drive, and because they were attacking from different directions, they forced the Indians into a defensive position at the far end of the beautiful bay that gave this island its distinctive character, and there they hammered at the Caribs with a deadly crossfire until some nineteen men and women, plus a handful of children, were exterminated. That night the Barbadians returned temporarily to their ship, and there was considerable celebration in which Cavaliers and Roundheads toasted each other with good English ale.

When the hunting party returned to Barbados, the almost-forgotten factionalism revived: at times debate between the two parties grew heated, and men with any sense of history anticipated the day when angry words would be replaced by ugly deeds. But it was to be a characteristic of Barbados in those troubled years that both sides, Cavalier and Roundhead, carefully, almost passionately, avoided overt actions of a hostile kind or the bloodshed that might have been expected to accompany such basic and emotional differences. Credit for this common-sense approach was due to the two leaders, Oldmixon and Saltonstall, for neither man was the kind who might encourage his followers to drastic action; each believed in legal procedures and the avoidance of either riot or rebellion. Oldmixon might talk louder than Saltonstall but never to the point of incitation, and although Saltonstall seemed to have beliefs more profoundly grounded than Oldmixon’s, he never saw civil disturbance or attack upon his adversary’s property or person as a proper means for advancing them.

In short, and this was the highest praise that could be bestowed on Barbados at this crossroads in Caribbean history, the islanders were behaving like properly disciplined English gentlemen and proving that they merited the enviable title “Little England.”

The same courteousness prevailed in the Tatum household, though Clarissa clearly wanted to rid the place of her disreputable brother-in-law and Isaac considered him an embarrassment, especially when Thomas Oldmixon asked one day: “What’s this I hear about your brother Will? Is he with us or not?”

“He’s been contaminated by Saltonstall.”

“Cut him off, Isaac. No good ever comes from brothers in contention.”

“He owns half my land.”

Oldmixon, who delighted in making immediate decisions, growled: “Time may be at hand, Isaac, when men like your brother will be gone from this island … forever. Prepare for that day.”

It was a tense holiday season, despite the fact that Barbados never seemed lovelier. Palm trees bowed in that heaven-sent wind, blowing always hard from the east, and on Christmas Day the three Tatums carried their dinner to a hill on the edge of Bridgetown, where Isaac, in a burst of brotherly affection which he knew would soon be terminated, said: “That divine easterly wind, it never fails us. It protects our independence, Will, and our freedom.” When Clarissa asked how that could be, he said in a dreamlike voice: “Why was Barbados, of all the Caribee islands, unpopulated when Columbus passed through to the north? Why did the Spanish never conquer this island? Why have the French and the Dutch and the others captured one island after another, but never Barbados? Why are we so special, as if God looks over us?”

“You mean the wind?” Will asked, and his brother clapped him on the shoulder: “That I do. The wind from the east that bends those trees, as it has unfailingly for a thousand years. All the nations I’ve mentioned have wanted to conquer Barbados. They’ve known it was the choicest island in the Caribees, with the best land, the best crops. But to conquer us, they would have to sail their ships from the west where the other islands are, to the east where we are, and they cannot breast that furious wind.”

Clarissa asked: “Then how did the English land?”

“Because they came as friends. They could take their time and ease their way in. No one on shore shooting at them.” And he directed his wife and brother to study an incoming Dutch merchant ship that had been trying for two exasperating days to beat against the wind and make the harbor.

“Imagine it a warship,” Isaac almost chortled, “coming to do us damage. It would stand out there almost motionless, caught in the wind, and our guns would pound it to pieces,” and the others could see that what he said was true. “But if we want to capture All Saints, which we may have to do before long, we load up our ships, move them into the stream, and ride right down that furious wind, landing on All Saints forty minutes after they first see us.”

“Do you think we could capture it?” Will asked, almost innocently, and his brother snapped: “We’re more powerful than you might think. These islands may prove to be the salvation of England.” He rose, moved about nervously, then came to stand over his brother: “You might be interested to know that secret messengers from Virginia and Carolina, two of the strongest American colonies, have crept into Barbados recently to assure us that they’ll join us if we make a stroke for the king. The Bahamas, too.”

Will, who had been talking geography and maritime affairs with Captain Brongersma and his Dutch pirates, laughed at his brother’s pretensions: “Do you know how big the Bahamas are? How many people there are in Virginia? Parliament would muster a fleet in three weeks …”

“Don’t talk treason,” Clarissa snapped, and Will shot back: “Don’t you talk sheer nonsense,” and before they could retreat to the calming influence of their house, half owned by Isaac, half by Will, Clarissa had shouted in a loud voice: “You better leave us, Will. Today. You’re headed for the gallows.”

Will, not one to point out that she was dismissing him from a house that was half his, stalked back to their dwelling in silence, grabbed together such belongings as he had, and departed for his sister’s home above the drapery shop run by her husband, Timothy Pennyfeather.

But Oldmixon and his optimistic Cavalier planters never wavered. As soon as news spread through the island that the decision had been made, noisy support came from every corner, and thoughtful Royalists began to collect guns and ammunition against the day when an enemy fleet might appear off Bridgetown and attempt a landing and an occupation. Oldmixon, supported by his eager aide Isaac Tatum, started drilling troops; small fortresses were erected; watches were maintained.

Open warfare was avoided principally because sensible Roundheads like Saltonstall kept their tempers under control, convincing themselves that Cromwell’s men in London would not let them down, but four days after Oldmixon’s decision to deliver Barbados to the king’s defense, his Cavaliers received exhilarating support, for a ship arrived with news that excited Oldmixon and his supporters: “Cromwell’s government is sending out a new governor. Named Willoughby and said to be a secret Royalist.”

But an ordinary seaman, a surly fellow with his hair cut Roundhead style, quietly warned such islanders as he met: “Careful of Lord Willoughby. He changes sides so fast that watchin’ him makes you dizzy. Cavalier? Roundhead? Who can say which he is today or will be tomorrow?”

As soon as he had established headquarters he summoned Oldmixon, and let it be known that he, Lord Willoughby, intended pursuing exactly the course that Oldmixon had initiated. Then, on the latter’s advice, he selected Isaac Tatum as his principal aide, and thus began Isaac’s rise to power. Soon, he and Clarissa acquired from a sugar planter who was in disfavor because of his troublesome defense of Parliament a batch of eleven more slaves … at a thieving price which Isaac was able to enforce because he had arranged for the man to be sent into exile.

With that lucky boost, Isaac appropriated in rapid succession three small plantations adjacent to his by the simple expedient of continuing to initiate moves which ended in the owners’ deportation. With these forced departures he gained more slaves, until Oldmixon told him one evening as he and the Tatums were dining in the former’s big house: “Isaac, you’re well started. But I must warn you—take steps to consolidate your holdings, for otherwise you might lose ’em all if Lord Willoughby is ever forced to leave the island and conditions revert. They have a way of doing that, you know.”

When Isaac asked: “How do you protect yourself?” Oldmixon said from experience: “Get papers which prove the lands are legally yours.” And taking that advice, the Tatums spent the summer of 1650 maneuvering so that Lord Willoughby was practically forced to issue papers which confirmed the Tatums in their ownership of the lands they had acquired in various questionable ways. In October of that year everyone among the leadership on Barbados and especially the Tatums thanked their good fortune that Lord Willoughby had organized the island according to Royalist principles and issued land titles which clarified who owned what.

When word of these draconian orders reached Barbados they did not, strangely enough, cause panic, for the islanders were secure in their belief that even though small and alone, they could stand against the entire British force of arms and send Admiral Ayscue scuttling back to England. At a dinner the host, Lord Willoughby, the week after the news arrived, told Oldmixon and Tatum: “Sir George is an able seaman, and he’ll get his fleet into the harbor down there, proper enough. But how will he land his troops? And if we deny him landing, what will his men eat? Where will they get their water? Mark my words, he’ll wait here four or five months, then hurry on to Virginia and try to discipline them. Hold on! That’s all we have to do, hold on, till England recovers her senses.”

After this strategy had been refined, and heartily approved, a toast was drunk to “King Charles II, absent for the moment in France but soon to rule,” and then Milord said: “I do despise that name they’re trying to foist on us. Great Britain. Started in my father’s time when James Stuart ascended to the joint throne. ‘First and Sixt’ we always called him—King James First of England, Sixth of Scotland. But out of deference to Scotland, Wales and Ireland, the new name had to be Great Britain. What an ugly, formless pair of words, meaning nothing. We’re English, and our land is England, and I make bold to propose another toast: ‘To England. May she soon return to her senses.’ In the meantime, thank God for Little England.” And to that fine toast all raised their glasses.

When conversation resumed, Willoughby asked Isaac: “How’s your brother doing? Oldmixon here warns me he’s become a bit of a problem,” and Tatum replied: “He has, Milord. Fallen under the spell of Saltonstall. I see little of him, and would like to see less.”

“We must sort such relationships out, Tatum. Now then, this man Ayscue they’re sending is no fool. We’ll need all our wits to fend him off. But we shall do it,” and with this stern resolve he finished the report he had been working on before dinner. An exact transcription of his words illustrates the curious orthography of those times:

Some days later, a small ship put into Bridgetown with tremendous news, and desiring to inspirit his forces, Willoughby directed Oldmixon and Tatum to gather as many of the Cavalier planters as possible, and when the leading men of the island were assembled, he informed them: “Prince Rupert, the king’s nephew and the strategist behind all the battles the Royalists won, has been made Admiral of the Fleet, loyal to our new king in France, and he’s heading here to save us from Ayscue and his Roundheads.”

Rousing cheers greeted this information, for no military man then alive, regardless of his nation, had the exalted reputation enjoyed by this handsome, dashing prince upon whom destiny obviously smiled. His presence in the Caribbean could mean an enormous difference, and as the meeting continued the Cavaliers became more certain with each glass of ale consumed that Rupert would punish Ayscue and end the forthcoming war before it began. “It’ll be all over by Christmas,” Oldmixon predicted loudly, and with others making even more extravagant interpretations of what Rupert’s coming might mean, the heartened Cavaliers dispersed.

When Willoughby was alone, he mused: I may well die on this island, but I will never surrender it. Ayscue will have to fight his way ashore inch by inch. Oh! How shameful it would be if I were the man to lose this heavenly isle! Not me, not me!

His mind now turned to Prince Rupert and he desperately wished he had some local Cavalier he could trust, because he wanted to disclose the suspicions that haunted him. He certainly could not discuss sensitive issues with Thomas Oldmixon: Too blatant, too conceited, too lacking in judicious knowledge. And he had no taste whatever for any talk of serious matters with Isaac Tatum: Too sycophantic, too grasping … He considered these two adjectives, and shook his head: How damning. Could one speak worse of a friend?

His predictions concerning Rupert’s naval abilities proved accurate, for after an unconscionable waste of time, when the cavalry genius did finally head to the rescue of Barbados, he ran into minor troubles, as his navigator reported later:

What was worse, Rupert, while searching for Barbados, sailed his squadron headlong into the tail of a Caribbean hurricane off Martinique, and in the violent tossing about of his ships lost much of his force, including his gallant brother Maurice, also a land fighter. Ignominiously, he crept back to Europe, leaving Barbados in worse condition than when he started out to save it.

Admiral Ayscue was considerably more efficient than Prince Rupert, but even so, he required exactly one full year—October 1650 to October 1651—to organize, assemble, and train his fleet of seven vessels plus its two thousand troops and get them across the ocean to Barbados. In the meantime, the islanders appeared to be going about their business ignorant of the fact that beneath them rested a keg of black powder to which was attached a very long fuse slowly but resolutely burning toward the explosion point. Lord Willoughby continued to give entertainments at his rude mansion, where wealthy planters, who sold their new crops of sugar surreptitiously to ships sneaking in from Holland, assured one another that “this idiot Ayscue will never get his ships into the bay down there,” and increasing pressure was placed on Roundheads like Saltonstall.

The tension did not affect young Will Tatum, sixteen years old and enjoying his small room above the Pennyfeather shop on the main street of Bridgetown. Many reasons accounted for this: his sister was a gentle soul who tolerated his peculiarities in a way that his more proper sister-in-law never could; he found excitement and freedom in life along the waterfront; he appreciated for the first time the orderly Dutch quality of Bridgetown’s buildings, some of them squat stone affairs of great dignity, topped by red roofs, others, like the one the Pennyfeather shop occupied, built of dark wood properly joined; but mostly because of the delightful fact that in James Bigsby’s neat butcher-baker-kitchenware shop across the street there was a fourteen-year-old daughter Betsy, whose quiet smile and carefully attended braids set the hearts of several young men beating at a faster pace. She was a sober girl, reserved in public, soft-spoken with friends. She was never a blatant flirt like some of the other Barbados girls of the middle class, and she created a sense of well-being wherever she moved. Not so tall as Will, she complemented him perfectly, he thought, on the few occasions when he was able to stand beside her or speak with her by chance in the street; and frequently that year he had the warm fantasy of having her with him in four rooms above a little shop, like Nell and Timothy in theirs.

There is little in nature more lovely to watch, more reassuring to the human spirit, than the behavior of a pretty fourteen-year-old girl, newly aware of her powers, who wants to attract the approval of a sixteen-year-old boy. Softly she dances along the village street, in a dozen subtle ways she makes herself more attractive, her voice drops to a lower level, and her eyes run riot, sending new messages and startling promises never even dreamt of before. This year the knowing citizens of Bridgetown watched with amused approval as the proper daughter of their storekeeper took notice of the Tatum boy and practiced on him her yet-tentative arts of coquetry.

“Lad, we had a sorry chase after we left you last. Saw this rich Spanish prize, overtook her easily, boarded as usual, and I was leading our men when suddenly a company of well-armed soldiers that had been kept in hiding leaped at us from nowhere—and I want you to see what happened.” Taking Will out onto the deck, he showed him the sun-bleached stains where Dutch blood was spilled after the Spanish soldiers reversed tables and boarded the Stadhouder, with deadly effect.

“We might have lost our ship,” Brongersma said sadly when he returned to his cabin, “but when that threatened, our men proved valiant. Cut … slash … fire the gun down his throat … back we drove them to their own ship. And off it sailed to Sevilla, off we limped back to Amsterdam.”

This conversation had a profound effect on Will Tatum, and during the next days people in Bridgetown saw the boy suddenly stop in the middle of a path to engage in imaginary warfare against the Spanish: “Cut, slash, fire the gun down his throat, back we drove them.” He never visualized the Dutch defeat, nor the dead men on the Stadhouder’s deck; he could think only of the glory. But so obsessed did he become with this story that one day he quietly arranged for Betsy Bigsby to accompany him out to the ship, and Captain Brongersma fell in love with her: “What a tidy little mistress … those golden braids! Ah, that I had a daughter like you!”

He spent the better part of an hour showing her the mementos he had acquired in sailing the various seas, and when she asked about running blockades, he told her: “See that man aloft? He watches for the arrival of English warships, and when he sees one he shouts out ‘Danger west!’—and off we hurry, because we can sail faster than your English ships can.”

Will had questions of his own about fighting against Spaniards, and in sharp, brief responses the Dutch freebooter summarized what life aboard the Stadhouder was like: “Fifteen days’ run in the sun, nothing but work. Ten days in calm, row like hell. Three days in a storm, bail and pray. Then you spot a Spanish ship, but you can’t catch her. Then you do catch one, but she’s guarded by troops. Then you flee an English patrol boat. Finally, if God smiles, you come upon an unprotected Spaniard loaded with silver, and the long trip’s been worth the effort.” He dropped his voice: “But only if you’re brave when boarding time comes.”

Betsy Bigsby, listening intently, shivered at the thought of bloodshed, but from the corner of her eye she saw that Will was leaning forward eagerly, his eyes ablaze, and as they left the ship she said: “Captain, I think you may have found a new hand,” and Brongersma threw his arm about Will.

In mid-1651 the tempo on Barbados accelerated, and apprehension about when Ayscue’s fleet might arrive goaded the Cavaliers surrounding Lord Willoughby to pass harsh measures which he would never have proposed if left to his own decisions. All known Roundheads were removed from positions of influence; Cavaliers were organized into regiments and trained in tactics for repelling landing forces; and in a move which shocked the island, the principal Roundhead leaders were stuffed onto a boat and shipped back to England. Will Tatum halted his quiet courtship of Betsy Bigsby long enough to ride out to Henry Saltonstall’s plantation on the hill east of town to say farewell to that honorable man as he vacated the stone house his father had built, and both men were close to showing tears when they parted.

“Look after the plantation,” Saltonstall said before he mounted his horse and rode down to the waterfront and exile.

But when Roundhead friends alerted Will Tatum, asleep in his little room above the drapery store, to the ominous news that his brother had appropriated the Saltonstall house and lands, he borrowed a horse, rode out to the estate, and banged on the door till his brother appeared: “What have you done, Isaac?”

“Only what the law provides. Henry Saltonstall is a proved enemy of the king and has been banished forever. His lands have been attainted and passed on to me, as a loyal servant.”

Will was so outraged by his brother’s arrogant behavior that he sprang at him, and there would have been a serious altercation had not Clarissa appeared in her nightgown, with a peremptory shout: “Will, what are you doing?” and when tempers cooled she gave her young brother-in-law sober advice: “I’ve been watching you, Will. You’re headed for trouble, the most serious trouble. Barbados is to be Cavalier, now and forever, and there’ll be no place for you. Why don’t you leave the way Saltonstall and those others did?”

Will’s jaw tightened: “You stole my land from me, and the other little pieces from men who couldn’t protect themselves. But by God, you’ll not steal Mr. Saltonstall’s land. I’ll not allow it.” But as he stomped off to his borrowed horse he heard Clarissa’s sharp threat: “Will, you used the Lord’s name in vain. You’ll hear from the church authorities.”

In the days that followed, while Will sought in vain for some way to reverse the usurpation of his friend’s property, he forgot his sister-in-law’s threat, for Nell was about to give birth. It was he who ran for the midwife and tended the shop until the baby was born, and it was he who stood by the bed when the baby was nestled in his sister’s loving arms. “He’s to be called Ned, and if anything happens to Timothy, you’re to look after him.” Hands were shaken across the bed, and Will even stooped down to shake the infant’s tiny hand as if to confirm that now his nephew was his responsibility.

The suspense ended on 10 October 1651, when Admiral Ayscue’s fleet of seven ships and two thousand fighting men hove to, some in the bay off Bridgetown, others well down the coast where the troops had a chance of landing unopposed. The great battle between land-based Cavaliers and shipbound Roundheads was about to begin.

While the rulers of Parliament were extremely desirous of humiliating Barbados to prevent the lingering sore of Royalist sympathy from spreading, they did not send to do this job some harebrained fire-eater who would storm ashore and shoot up everything in sight. With commendable English caution they nominated a remarkably stable man, veteran of peaceable negotiation rather than military bombast, and from the first moment Sir George Ayscue drew within sight of Barbados, he acted with exemplary restraint. Indeed, he stood offshore during most of October, all of November and much of December, hoping to gain a peaceful settlement of differences. His patience worn by Willoughby’s sturdy defiance, he finally came ashore with his two thousand men, and desultory engagements ensued without much loss of life—poor bumbling Timothy Pennyfeather being among the few casualties.

Article 20 contained an unusual provision: That since most of the island’s troubles had been caused by “loose, base and uncivil language,” a law be passed “with a heavy penalty” forbidding “any reviling speeches remembering or raveling into former differences and reproaching any man with the cause that he formerly defended.”

In other words, let peace return to Little England and let past animosities be buried deep in memory. The strategy of these two just leaders worked; citizens of Barbados were still Cavalier or Roundhead but they did not flaunt their differences, and certainly no man abused the other for his past preferences. But it must not be thought that all deviousness of human nature was either purified or suppressed, for when Will Tatum, clutching in his left hand a copy of Article 17, hurried out to Henry Saltonstall’s forfeited estate, demanding that it be returned to his custodianship, Isaac and Clarissa primly informed him that the Saltonstall case was different and that a secret agreement between Willoughby and Ayscue had exempted from the general amnesty that estate and two others that Isaac had seized. When Will, now a husky young fellow, threatened his brother, Clarissa warned him that Article 20, which forbade rough speech against former enemies, would be a cause for jailing, and he could do nothing but retreat, leaving his brother in possession of the plantations he had stolen.

During the next few years Will, taking the place of his brother-in-law, assumed responsibility for Tim’s family and business, and though he still hoped one day to marry Betsy, could make no plans toward that end.

In fact, the resurgence of the Cavaliers gave Isaac Tatum such confidence that when he and Clarissa returned to the former Saltonstall big house, he asked her to sit with him in the spacious garden overlooking the distant sea: “Cromwell’s dead. The king is surely on his way back to London. We have the land we needed and sixty-nine slaves to tend the cane. The price of sugar was never higher. All’s in order, except one thing.”

“What worries you?”

“Will. Nell told me the other day when I took a present to her son that Will was finally to marry that pretty little girl from across the street, father runs that strange shop where you can buy anything the last ship smuggled in. I forget her name.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“I’m afraid of Will. He becomes stronger in the community. People respect him. He could become a danger to us if he’s listened to.”

“But what can he do?”

“He’ll never surrender on this house, these lands. I’m sure he’s been in contact with Saltonstall, wherever he is.”

“That’s been settled, Isaac. We have more than enough papers.”

“Never enough if Saltonstall should gain the ear of the new king.”

“Not likely. He was too strong a Roundhead.”

“Look at the Roundheads here in Barbados. You’d think they won the war.”

“I believe I know a way to get rid of Will,” and some days later she rode into Bridgetown to accost her brother-in-law at the drapery shop. After paying respects to Nell and her well-behaved seven-year old, Clarissa took Will aside and told him bluntly: “Will, there’s no future for you on this island. You really should move on to London. There’s more of your kind there.” When he scorned this suggestion, she said ominously: “All right, Will, you’ve had your chance,” and off she flounced.

She did not return to the plantation, storming instead to the parish church, where she sought the clergyman already subservient to her because of her wealth: “I have grievous news, Father, which I’m most loath to report, but my husband’s brother, Will …”

“I know him, a most uncertain fellow.”

“That’s a grave charge, ma’am. Do you wish to lodge it formally?”

“I do,” she said sternly, and after reflection the clergyman replied hesitantly: “You appreciate that this will mean the pillory for your brother?” She shocked him by adding with an obvious lust for vengeance: “I think he should be stigmatized, too, to make him mind his manners.”

At the utterance of the terrible word the churchman actually shuddered, for he could not support it: “No, ma’am, that would be too harsh.” But when she insisted, the clergyman had to bethink her position in the community as well as his own, and supinely he consented: “I will propose it to the authorities.”

When she reached home that evening she assured her husband: “I’m sure we’ve scotched that snake. Never again will your brother be able to show his face in Barbados.”

The established church in the English islands enjoyed a special and important role. It was the guardian of both orthodoxy and propriety; it supported the government, especially when it involved royalty; since none of the islands had a press, it served as the disseminator of official news decisions, which is why the phrase “Ordered to be read for three Sundays in all Parish Churches” appeared at the foot of documents; and in an age when blasphemy was a major sin, it was the protector of public morals.

Will remained unconscious for half an hour, but then the flies tormenting his wound and eyes revived him, and the throbbing pain resumed. Forced to listen to the scorn of the public and see his own brother Isaac and sister-in-law Clarissa riding past at a distance to mock him, he remained in the sun, head exposed, and suffered a public agony that had not been intended for minor dissidents like him. His wretchedness was alleviated by Nell and Betsy, two brave women who dared public censure by attending to him, bringing cloths to wipe his face and unguents to soothe the scar. They also brought drafts of cold water to ease his parched lips. Nell was at his side first, and after she was gone, with protests sounding in her ears, Betsy came by with salves and a look of tenderness to let him know she loved him.

At two in the afternoon he was released by a verger of the parish church, and some watchers wondered what he might do. On certain memorable occasions men punished like this had gone straight to the church officials who had consigned them to the pillory and thumped them roundly, and in one case a man had struck the person responsible for denouncing him so viciously that death resulted. Then there had to be a hanging, and as that doomed man approached the gallows he shouted for all to hear: “May this whole island rot in hell,” and he would have cursed more had not the black hood been drawn tight about his head.

Will Tatum did nothing like that. With a tight, fixed smile on his scarred and aching face he stalked through the silent crowd to his sister’s shop, climbed the stairs, kissed Nell and thanked her, then shook hands with young Ned, and said: “I’ll be back to watch over you,” and disappeared down the stairs, walking straight down the street to the waterfront without having the courage to say farewell to Betsy Bigsby. With his cheek marked forever with the hideous B, he called for rowers from the Stadhouder still in the harbor, climbed aboard, and reported to Captain Brongersma: “I want to fight Spaniards,” and he was seen no more on Barbados.

In 1660 the news that Barbados longed for arrived. Charles II was anointed King of England while perched upon the Stone of Scone, symbolizing the fact that he was also King of Scotland. Great celebrations were held which even reluctant Roundheads joined and there was general relief that things in Little England were back to normal.

As proof of everyone’s desire to forget old animosities, a document arrived in Bridgetown in the latter part of 1661 that gave great joy to the island: “His Majesty King Charles II has been pleased to award his faithful servants in Barbados seven baronetcies and six knighthoods,” and people clustered about Government House to learn who would henceforth be called “Sir,” with older citizens explaining to younger: “A baronetcy can be passed in the family from generation to generation forever; but a knighthood expires at the death of the recipient.”

The seven baronetcies caused quite a stir, because four of them honored Cavaliers who had from the first moment been loyal to the king, while the last three went to Roundheads who had served their parliamentary cause honorably, bowing at last to the popular will. If any gesture in this troubled period gave evidence of England’s desire to bind up old wounds, it was this bestowing of honors equally between victors and losers.

First on the list of baronets was, of course, Sir Thomas Oldmixon, who had never wavered in his loyalty, never drawn back from defense of his king’s name, whether in debate or war. His selection was loudly applauded, as was that of Sir Geoffrey Wrentham, another valiant defender of the king, but there was almost equal praise for the first of the Roundheads, Sir Henry Saltonstall, present whereabouts unknown.

The first two names were those of well-known Cavaliers: “Sir John Witham, Sir Robert Le Gard.” No surprises there, but the next two were of former Roundheads, and the Tatums’ brows began to show perspiration. But then came the clear voice of the clerk: “Sir Isaac Tatum,” and he might have swooned had not his wife held him upright with a firm grip on his arm.

Some weeks later another bit of news arrived from London to gladden the hearts of Cavalier Barbadians: “The mob’s fury could not be contained. Shouting ‘The Abbey is contaminated!’ the people rushed into Westminster Abbey, uprooted the grave of Oliver Cromwell, dug out his corpse, and dragged it through the streets until they came to a gibbet, where they hanged it for the crimes its former owner had committed.” When the news was confirmed and it was learned that the tale of vengeance was accurate, church bells rang and in certain parishes prayers of deliverance were offered.

It is difficult to explain how this little island, so fraught with differing loyalties, had been able to escape civil war, but a local official did suggest some interesting hints: “From the start we wanted Barbados to be a refuge for people offering new ideas, whether in religion or business, so we welcomed the Dutch traders, and the Quakers, a contentious lot, and invited Huguenots, an industrious people when France expelled them. Saltonstall before he left us was responsible for the law which admitted even Catholics and Jews, although he did add the warning, ‘providing they did not commit public scandal on our days of worship.’ ” Proof of this compatibility occurred at a gala dinner held shortly after the hanging of Cromwell’s corpse.

For years the island had faced war and invasion, and its citizens were at each other’s throats, with all suffering real privation, yet it was possible, only a short time after hostilities, to hold this dazzling feast. It was best described by a French visitor, who, being neither Cavalier nor Roundhead, submitted a report which can be accepted as accurate:

That night, after the guests were gone and the Tatum slaves, including the cook, had more or less put the remainders of the food away, Sir Isaac and Lady Clarissa sat in their handsome front garden and looked down upon the roofs of Bridgetown as they glistened in the moonlight. Several ships rode easily in the bay, two showing lights which made silvery paths across the water, and a sense of ease came over the master and mistress of this fine plantation. At one point Clarissa did say reflectively: “I sometimes wonder what Will’s doing on a night like this,” and had she been told that he was at that moment in a Spanish prison waiting to be burned alive, she would have had no comprehension of how he could have reached such a conclusion to his life or what it signified.

Sir Isaac did not care to speculate on the whereabouts of his feckless brother: “Forget him. He was worthless when we knew him, and he’s sure to be worthless now. Besides, just before the dinner I received excellent news.” His wife leaned forward, for she enjoyed her husband’s triumphs and often felt that she had been of some help in achieving them: “The clerks who tracked down Henry Saltonstall to alert him to his knighthood and the fact that the agreement ending our war entitled him to reclaim his old plantation were told by him: ‘To hell with Barbados. Boston’s better, even with snow.’ ”

The two sat in silence for some time, reflecting on the turbulent storms their island had experienced in recent years, and finally, as Sir Isaac led his wife to bed, he said with justifiable pride: “With the price of sugar so high, and our slaves multiplying as they do, these lands for which we paid not over ninety pounds are now worth more than ninety thousand, thanks to our husbandry,” and when his wife clasped his arm to show her approval, he added: “No matter what the turmoil, we kept our balance, preserving the old virtues and proving to all witnesses that we truly are Little England.”

BY THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY THE MOUNTAIN-GIRT INLAND city of Potosí in eastern Peru was one of the most opulent settlements in the Americas, North or South. Its fabled wealth derived from the lucky chance that one of the nearby mountains was practically solid silver; there was nothing comparable in the world, and the city’s coat of arms justly boasted: “The king of all mountains, and the envy of all kings.”

On the morning of 6 October 1661 overseer Alonso Esquivel, in charge at the largest of the silver refining mills, directed his Inca slaves to break away the sides of the mold in which he had formed his final silver ingot. When the ironwood sides were removed, the precious ingot, a cone some nine inches high, stood in the sun.

It did not glisten, for the silver was not totally pure, and the wooden mold in which it had been formed did not have smooth sides, but in the bright sunlight its handsome roughened surface bore the unquestioned appearance of wealth. When purified in the smelters of Spain or the Netherlands, the ingots would be highly polished to form objects of great value or silver coinage to pay for the king’s adventures on the battlefields of Europe.

When the fifty mules were loaded, muleteers stood ready at the heads of their beasts and thirty armed soldiers, helmets shining, awaited the commands of the captain-in-charge. Esquivel saluted, a bugle sounded, and the precious cargo started on its long mountainous journey down the slopes to the important Pacific Ocean seaport of Arica more than 340 miles distant.

At first, the ancient roadway, wide enough for two such caravans, passed through fairly open fields where the danger of assault by robbers was minimal and the military guards could relax and carry their heavy guns in any fashion, but for the last thirty miles the terrain roughened and a heavy growth of trees impeded progress. Now the caravan passed through tunnels of matted branches of trees, and the file became so strung out that one mule could scarcely see the tail of another. Here the danger of attack by robbers was great, so each soldier diligently guarded two mules, the one beside him and the one ahead.

On 10 November 1661 the captain-in-charge sighed with relief as his fifty mules brought their treasure safely to the dockside at the port of Arica, where it was quickly loaded onto the exquisite little Spanish galleon La Giralda de Sevilla, which set sail immediately for Callao, the seaport serving Peru’s nearby capital of Lima. This 750-mile stage of the journey was an uneventful run to the north, but at Callao many important things happened: the viceroy came down to inspect the galleon, the number and quality of the silver ingots were certified, officials headed home to Spain embarked, gold bars from the mines of northern Peru were added to the cargo, and a contingent of soldiers marched aboard to guard the increasingly precious cargo and the equally important official passengers.

Again, the passage was uneventful, and after fifty-six days at sea, Ingot P-663 rested safely off the crucial port of Panamá, where the vast wealth of Spanish America became concentrated. Panamá was a city to enflame the imagination, where entire warehouses were crammed with gold and silver bars, where every household could accumulate its share of coins, and where rich goods imported from Spain, France and the Netherlands were stored before onward passage to the towns and cities of Peru. It should not, in those rich days, have been called an entrepôt—a port city into which goods came and out of which they quickly went—because Panamá was more a kingdom of its own, center of an incredibly wealthy empire, feeding goods east and west, north and south, as deemed best. It was also one of the largest cities in the New World, and one of the best defended, for as the governor boasted: “If Drake was unable to capture it in 1572 when it had only meager fortifications, what chance could an invader have today?”

A week was required for the Giralda to disgorge its holds, and it should have taken two, but the governor himself came to the dock to urge speed: the mule caravan which would carry the treasure across the isthmus had to depart early in February in order to meet the alleons from Spain that would be arriving at Porto Bello on the Caribbean side. So on 8 February 1661, after a stop far too short to appreciate the wonders of Panamá, the officials from Peru supervised the loading of the large caravan and sent it on its way across the isthmus. The trail from the Pacific to the Caribbean was only sixty miles long, but it was still as formidable as when Drake struggled to negotiate it. Rotting trunks of fallen trees still barred the way, wild animals and snakes proliferated, and if a soldier broke the skin on his leg, the wound might never heal, so infected with putrid material would it become.

But the captain of the mule train, who had made this journey three times before, uttered more sensible words: “Dear God in whom we find our salvation, let me be among those who will survive,” for he knew that of the ninety men in his mule train, not less than forty could be expected to die from the fevers lurking in the charnel house below. Crossing himself, he muttered to his lieutenant: “Sometimes the Spanish cannot be understood except by fellow idiots. They left famous old Nombre de Dios because it was unhealthy, moved a few miles west to this hellhole, which is five times worse.” When his aide, who had never crossed the isthmus before, asked: “What’s wrong with Porto Bello?” he snapped: “I’ll show you!”

As he led the mules down into the seaport, he pointed out the tragic weaknesses of the place: “This stream should be covered. Left open, it becomes a sewer, spreading disease everywhere. That rotting shed should have been burned years ago, only rats infest it now. That house seems fine, but look at its well. Stands right beside the latrine. The people who live there will drink themselves to death, and not on Spanish wine. Look at those carcasses rotting in the sun. They’ll account for a dozen deaths. And the shacks, crowded so close that what causes a death in one immediately migrates to all the others. And the air is heavy, the jungle so close.”

He concluded his indoctrination with sage advice: “I’ll tell you how to be one of the lucky few who stay alive in Porto Bello. Don’t eat the meat, it’s putrefying. Don’t eat the fish, they’re poisoned. Don’t breathe the air, it’s filled with jungle fever. And don’t fool with the Porto Bello girls, for their lovers will cut your throat.”

“You said you’ve been here three times before. How did you survive?”

“By following my rules.”

But even this observant visitor to Porto Bello failed to identify the mystery of the place. The chameleon town took its lethal coloring from whoever was the last to visit it. If an armada of ships lay in the harbor to collect silver, whatever diseases the sailors brought with them flourished. If no ships were in, the town caught such diseases as the latest mule train carried from the Pacific side of the isthmus. And when the streets lay empty, local diseases festered in the nearby swamps and gathered strength so as to strike whoever ventured within their reach.

It was the custom for the townfolk to cluster about the dock when the mule trains arrived to unload their burden of silver, and although the precious metal could not actually be seen, the crates in which the heavy ingots were packed intensified the mystery of wealth. They looked like gifts intended for a distant king, and not until the silver was safely aboard and under the protection of the armed guards did the celebrations begin.

It was like a village play in some remote German hamlet in the year 900 when death stalked the celebrations, picking off this one and that while scrannel pipes played and dances continued on the green. This year the captain’s prayer was not answered; despite three earlier successful journeys and his studious care not to drink contaminated water, the fever caught him and a thousand others, and when the galleons hoisted anchor for the return trip to Cartagena, the ranks of their sailors and soldiers were also depleted by about half. For six frantic weeks Porto Bello had been the richest little town in the world, but also the most dangerous.

In these years, Our Noble and Powerful City of Cartagena, as it was often called in official documents, was still a majestically located settlement on the southwestern coast of the Spanish Main. The famous hook protecting the inner bay still functioned, but the scores of little islands were now fortified with castles and gun emplacements and batteries of cannon. Drake had once subdued it and some daring French pirates had held it for ransom, but no more. It was unassailable, and in its broad outer and inner harbors the great ships of Spain collected to wait for the gold and silver of Peru.

On 7 May, Ledesma anchored his treasure ships in Havana’s ample harbor, where the local governor rushed out in a small boat to deliver exciting news: “Don Alfonso! The king, in honor of your past braveries and your undoubted courage this time, has invested you with the position of Admiral of the Combined Fleets on their Atlantic voyage to Spain. Admiral Ledesma, I salute you.”

The other half of this great armada—hundreds of ships of all sizes—would arrive from the port of Vera Cruz bringing vast stores of silver from the mines at the Mexican city of San Luis Potosí, named after the more famous site in Peru, and when these huge galleons started coming into the harbor, Ledesma appreciated what a responsibility had been given him: “The wealth of Spain for the next ten years rides out there.”

When all ships were accounted for, the governor of Cuba gave a dinner for the departing captain, at which he asked: “Don Alfonso, you may be absent from Cartagena for several years, perhaps five … six. What arrangements have you made for your government, your family?” and Ledesma raised his glass: “To Don Victorio Orvantes, son of my cousin, who will guard Cartagena for me. And to my wife, Doña Ana, who is at this moment on her way with our child Inés to stay with her sister in Panamá till I return … with glory, I pray.”

They drank to his health, asked that prayers be said for him and his fleet, and in the morning fired many salutes as the magnificent assembly of great galleons and little fighting ships sailed forth. It took all day for the tail-end members of the armada to catch enough wind and get under way, but when they were properly formed up outside the Havana harbor, the governor cried to those standing with him on the turrets of the fort: “No English pirates will dare attack that mighty flotilla!”

Flushed with the victory caused by his quick thinking, Admiral Ledesma led his fleet to the mouth of the Guadalquivir River and to the customs port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, where officials properly registered the fact that on this day, 20 December 1662, the galleons from Cartagena and Vera Cruz arrived without the loss of even one of the small protecting ships, thanks to the courage and skill of the admiral, Don Alfonso Ledesma Amadór y Espiñal.”

The treasure which he had delivered so expeditiously despite all dangers did not remain in Spain; it was forwarded swiftly to foreign battlefronts where Spanish troops were fighting insurgency in their empire.

Potosí silver bar P-663 and many like it were rushed a thousand miles farther north to the Netherlands, where a last-minute, futile attempt was being made to regain control of that rebellious colony. There the silver was minted, and the new coins were distributed as wages to soldiers, as profit to the agents of foreign countries, and as interest to the powerful Fugger banking firm which seemed at times to hold half of Spain in fee because of past royal borrowings. So this tremendous fortune which required such effort to move—more than 11,000 miles in 526 days—accomplished nothing. But even as this was being conceded by the Spanish captains still struggling to hold on to the Netherlands, new ingots of silver were being cast in Potosí, and new galleons were gathering at Cartagena like a flock of hungry sea birds to collect the bullion at Porto Bello after it had crossed the deadly isthmus.

Erroneously the king and his advisers believed that the prosperity of a nation rested in its control of bullion; the more gold and silver the galleons brought to Sevilla, the richer the nation would be. This philosophy overlooked one timeless truth: the wealth of a nation derives from the hard work of its citizens at home, the farmers, the leather workers, the carpenters, the shipbuilders and the weavers at their looms; they create the usable goods which measure whether a nation is prospering or not.

On a bright January day in 1665 in the Spanish city of Cádiz, a grisly event occurred which, some years later, would have violent repercussions in the Caribbean.

During Admiral Ledesma’s resolute defense of his armada in the battle off the coast of Spain, nineteen English sailors from the Pride of Devon were captured. It had been the intention of the captain of the galleon under attack to hang the lot, but Admiral Ledesma was a political opportunist as well as a brave seaman, and he saw in these prisoners an opportunity to ingratiate himself with the religious authorities who played such an important role in Spanish life. Accordingly, he delivered these orders: “These men are heretics. Take them to Cádiz and turn them over to the Inquisition. But be sure to tell the authorities that it was I who sent them.” And this was done.

For more than two long years, from November 1662 to January 1665, the Englishmen wasted away in the dungeons of Cádiz without light or exercise or adequate food, for if the creaking wheels of the Inquisition ground with inexorable force, they did so with aggravating slowness. During spells of activity the Englishmen might be interrogated five days in a row by their austere black-robed judges and then ignored in silence for five months.

During their questioning the sailors were reminded that many years ago the headquarters of the Inquisition in Toledo had handed down an extraordinary three-part edict: in the early days of King Henry VIII all Englishmen had been loyal Catholics; but following his lead in 1536, in a final act of dissolution, they were forced to become Protestants; which meant that they turned their backs on Catholicism and the one and only true church of Christ. Thus, any sailors from England who were shipwrecked on Spanish shores or captured from English ships at sea were ipso facto guilty of heresy, for which the inevitable sentence was to be burned alive at the stake.

As they marched to their doom, the three unfortunates cried out to their brethren: “Resist! Cromwell and a free religion!”

They could have chosen no other words so guaranteed to infuriate the Spanish officials, who looked upon Oliver Cromwell, long dead, as an archfiend and the murderer of England’s King Charles I, a splendid ruler then on his way to leading England back to the pope. Cromwell had installed what they saw as a fierce atheistical Protestantism, and anyone who invoked his name in Spain deserved to die. So the fires were lit, and through the smoke and the screams came the defiant voice of one victim who would not be stifled: “England and freedom!”

When the fires died down and the ashes were scattered along the open road, the officials in charge passed among the surviving sailors, marking the men to be burned at the next auto-da-fé: “You and you and you,” the last designation falling upon a stocky sailor with a deep scar showing the letter B on his left cheek. Thirty years old, he came from the remote island of Barbados in the Caribbean. He had reached Europe on a Dutch trading ship, the Stadhouder, and after it had discharged its cargo of brown sugar called muscovado and casks of rich golden rum, he had transferred to an English ship, the Pride of Devon, which had joined a group of other English vessels attacking a Spanish bullion fleet, and been sunk off the Spanish coast.

His name was Will Tatum, and the news that he was soon to be burned at the stake aroused in him such a fury that when he was returned to his cell he beat upon the walls in blind rage at prolonged intervals for two whole days. But on the third his frenzy subsided, and he looked at his bloodied hands in disgust: Fool! Fool! You have a few days to live. Think of something! Spurred thus by a fierce desire to remain alive, he considered even the most improbable opportunities for escape. The walls were too thick to be breached. The ceiling was too high. The door to his cell was never opened. But his feverish mind continued to leap from one impossibility to another, leading him always closer to the fiery stake.

The austere official would not listen. Working so far from the capital, his knowledge was decades old, and all he knew was that Englishmen had expelled Catholic priests and denied the true religion. Heretics they were and as heretics they must die. Making one last appeal, he begged: “Sailor, will you admit error and rejoin the Mother Church so that you may die the easy way?”

With a look of hatred that could never be extinguished, Tatum cried: “No!” The two guards, their guns still pointed at his head, withdrew and the door to his cell clanged shut, to be opened again only when he would go to his death.

Then, the next day, when he could hear carpenters adding seats to the platform from which the officials would watch him die, the miracle for which he had hoped occurred. One of the other condemned men caught a guard by the throat as the man appeared with the evening meal of bread and gruel, strangled him, and grabbed from his dead body the keys to the cells. Realizing that with others to help he would have a better chance, he rushed to the nearest cells, opened them, and whispered: “No turning back. It’s sure torture if they take us.” Thus, the five men, Will Tatum among them, moved stealthily down the stone corridor, surprised the two Spaniards guarding it, and broke their way to freedom.

Outside the jail, they kept close to the walls so that night shadows protected them, and in this manner covered some distance before a wild alarm was sounded and guards began fanning out in pursuit. In the first melee three of the men were caught and clubbed to death, but Tatum and the man who had made the flight possible, a fiery Welshman named Burton, managed to find their way to an impoverished part of town and spent the night hiding between two shacks.

They now set themselves a hazardous task, for their only chance of escape lay in reaching Portugal, which was well to the west, and many obstacles impeded that path. They would have to cross first the Guadalquivir River, where the treasure ships entered on their way from Mexico to Sevilla. Then the great empty Marismas plain blocked their way to Huelva, from where Columbus had left to find the New World. At Huelva, there would be another river, and then a short, dangerous run into Portugal. It was dangerous because in these troubled years Spain and Portugal were engaged in what amounted to an undeclared war, so the border was well guarded. But in another sense that would be helpful, for certainly no Portuguese would send them back to Spain.

They survived through days of terror and nights of starvation, and at Sanlúcar they crossed the Guadalquivir in a stolen rowboat that passed almost under the creaking prow of a caravel coming home from Havana laden with silver and gold, and when light from the ship’s lantern fell across Tatum’s face, Burton whispered: “Where’d you get that scar?” and Will replied: “Protestant clergyman burned me in Barbados. Catholic priests going to burn me here in Spain. Who wins in this game?”

Transit of the Marismas, that vast semidesert fronting on the Golfo de Cádiz, proved more difficult, for during the first half of their journey they had no food; then, after Burton, a most resourceful man, stopped two exit holes from a burrow and dug out a pair of rabbits which the fugitives chewed raw, they spent the second half with no water. Near Huelva they came upon a small stream, of which they drank to near-explosion, and again feeling no compunction, they robbed two houses in succession, murdered the occupants of one, crossed the river north of the town, and made their way into Portugal.

In this fearful lusting for revenge, the two iron-hard sailors spent most of 1665 on Portuguese ships prowling the Spanish coast, intercepting Spanish vessels, and spreading terror. Once when they put into Lisbon they learned that their homeland was again on the way to becoming Catholic and they wondered if it would be safe for them to head back to London.

One spring morning in 1666 they sailed out of Lisbon on one of the many English ships that slipped in to trade at that port, and during the run north, as they neared the English coast, the sailors informed Will and Burton of the tragedy that had afflicted London during the past year: “It’s over now, mostly. But while it lasted, it was terrifying. The Black Plague they called it, and death was so common they couldn’t even bury the victims proper. Threw them in ditches at the edge of town and had horses drag earth over them.”

“What is this plague, as you call it?” Tatum asked, and one of the men explained: “Nothin’ you can see. Nothin’ that causes it. You get up in the mornin’, feel dizzy, feel tight in your lungs, so you lie down and never get back up. End of three days, always three, they cart you off.”

Another sailor added: “When we was last in port, fierce, ragin’ sweep. Thousands died. We fled without a full cargo. Captain shouted one afternoon: ‘We leave this hell port!’ and off we went, untouched.”

“But we’re going back,” Tatum protested, and the sailors assured him: “Safe now. The plague ran its course, a ship told us in Lisbon.”

It had, but not quite, for when Tatum and Burton went ashore, deeply moved to be in England again, they used some of their pirate gains for lodgings in the mean quarter close to the wharfs, and there the brave Welshman Burton woke one morning with a racking fever. Unable to leave his bed, he told Tatum: “It’s the plague. See I have a proper grave,” and in the foreordained three days, he was dead.

At some danger to himself, Tatum buried the man who had saved him from burning, and at the lonely graveside, attended only by himself, the clergyman and the gravedigger, Burton, whose first name Will had never known, was laid to rest. The gravedigger, a man whose occupation kept him apart from people, wanted to talk as he started to shovel in the echoing earth: “We couldn’t dig enough graves last week; same, two weeks before. This may be the last of the lot. Plague’s over, they keep tellin’ us, but it wasn’t over for him, was it?”

Tatum worked without rest for two days and two nights, sometimes rescuing people from houses soon to explode in flames, at other times trying to chop down old structures to form a break in the incessant spread. On the evening of the fourth day of the fire, when the flames had subsided, leaving the once-proud city of London a smoking ruin, Tatum fell asleep at the edge of the roadway, exhausted, but well before dawn he was awakened by a military officer, who said sharply: “On your feet! Carry these papers,” and he spent that day trudging along behind the officer as the latter compiled his dismal census: “Every church we’ve seen, completely destroyed. Put it down as seventy churches.”

The burned-out private residences, the officer calculated, must number in the tens of thousands, for when subalterns ran up to him with their reports, they were identical: “All houses in my area gone.” The only good news Tatum heard that long day was that the fires were out, because on the day before, scores had still been raging unchecked. Toward three in the afternoon a group of women got together some food within the walls of a warehouse that had been built of stone, and Tatum ate like a glutton. The officer, smiling at his voracious appetite, commended him: “You’ve earned the right to be a pig.”

In the fall of 1666, when Will came ashore at Bridgetown and realized that within minutes he would be back in familiar haunts, he experienced a pressing desire to see four people: the adorable Betsy Bigsby with her golden braids, Nell and Ned and, perversely, his pompous brother, Isaac: I can’t wait to see what that one’s up to.

Landing at the familiar waterfront with one small bag containing the rewards from five years of adventuring, he almost ran to the Bigsbys’ store, only to find that it was now operated by new owners, and when he asked what had become of Betsy, for he was most eager to see her again in hopes that she might still marry him, he received a curt ending to that dream: “Met a soldier, went to England.”

His luck was a bit better when he crossed the street to his sister’s shop. Nell looked painfully worn, but as always she put up a bold front: “Ned and I live upstairs, as always, and he’s a boy a mother can be proud of. Isaac? He’s let his knighthood and his plantations go to his head.”

“He got knighted, eh?” Will whistled softly. “And he’s a great plantation owner now?”

“Yes. And judged by some to be an even bigger man than Oldmixon. I can say this. Between the two, they run the island.”

Will took to young Ned the moment he met him, for he was a fine-looking lad of fifteen, with curly red hair, freckles, and the kind of frank, open face that instills confidence in other boys who would want him on their side in games and in girls who would speculate: “Could he swing me in a dance!”

Uncle Will saw at once that the boy was much as he had been at that age, and to Nell’s surprise, told him one night at supper: “Always remember this scar on my face, Ned. I needn’t have put it there. Don’t pick up scars by accident. Earn them in doing something big!”

Easily, almost without making a conscious decision, Will settled in with his sister, helped with the store, and did odd jobs about the waterfront, where he kept close watch on various ships coming from England or moving westward through the Caribbean to other islands. He told no one what he was looking for, but when the townspeople learned that he had for some years after his earlier departure been a pirate on ships of various nations, they supposed that he might be tending in that direction again: “We won’t be seein’ Will for long. Not a solid man like his brother.”

Will speculated on when he might run into Sir Isaac, and when Nell suggested that in decency he ought to walk out to the old Saltonstall plantation and make himself known, Will said: “He knows I’m back. His move.” Thus, more than a month passed without his having seen Isaac or his wife, Lady Clarissa, but he did not care.

If he experienced any disappointment equal to his loss of Betsy Bigsby, it was learning that his Dutch friend, Captain Brongersma, no longer brought the Stadhouder to Barbados. “And well he shouldn’t,” a sailor told him, “seein’ he lost her and his life in a battle with Spaniards at Cumaná salt flats.”

“What happened?”

“Killed when the Spaniards boarded. Tried to fight them off, but their blades were longer and sharper.”

At close of service he led Nell from the church, and they both hoped to avoid their brother and his unpleasant wife, but unfortunately, they all met at the church door, where Sir Isaac said with proper aloofness: “Good to see you, Will. Hope things go better this time,” and as he spoke, Lady Clarissa offered the thinnest smile seen in many months. Then they were gone.

At supper that night, after Ned had left the table, Will asked the question which had been bothering him: “Nell, doesn’t Isaac share any of his wealth with you? To help with you and the boy?”

“Never. He’s ashamed of us, and he must be mortified to have you back.”

Will, who had given his sister whatever funds he had got hold of for work along the waterfront, was so outraged by his brother’s selfishness that he walked out to Saltonstall Manor, as he still called it in hopes that the sturdy Roundhead would one day return to claim it, entered the now-palatial residence without knocking, and confronted his brother in his office. Isaac, afraid that Will had come to chastise him for the stigmatization, reached for an andiron, but Will laughed: “Put it down, Isaac. I’m not here to talk about me. It’s about Nell.”

“What about her?”

“It’s indecent, you living here like this while she struggles in town to keep the store open and her son clothed.”

“He’s a big boy now. He can soon find work as an overseer on one of the plantations.” Isaac, who in his prosperity seemed taller than Will remembered, added rather haughtily: “As a matter of fact, Will, you could too. We need overseers. Have to send to Scotland to get a good one.” Then he smiled coldly and added: “But of course, I suppose you’d rather go pirating,” and when he showed Will the door it was clear that no money for the Pennyfeathers would be forthcoming from him.

“What has that to do with Isaac’s plantation?”

“With the white men who would normally serve as overseers gone, Oldmixon and Isaac and their like have to import them—just like it was done in our father’s time. Indentured servants they still call them, fine lads who work their hearts out for seven years, for board and keep but no wages, with hopes that at the end of their seven years they’ll be able to buy themselves a plot of land and become plantation owners themselves.”

“But you say that Isaac and others have grabbed all the available lands. So what do the young Scotsmen do?” Will asked, and his sister said: “Look up young Mr. McFee, who sailed here to work for your brother. He has the story.”

When Will found Angus McFee, he heard a doleful tale: “I lived in a Highland hamlet west of Inverness and sailed here under a misunderstanding. In Scotland the agent promised: ‘Sir Isaac Tatum will pay your passage out to Barbados, and in gratitude you’re legally bound to give him seven years of honest help. At the end he hands you the wages he’s been saving for you plus fifty pounds thank-you money. Then you’ll be free to buy your own plantation, and you’re on your way …’ ”

“I’ve heard that’s how many come.”

“Yes, but when we get here we find it’s all work, horrible hut and worse food, no pay accumulating, no thank-you payment at the end, and no land to buy if you had the money.”

“What do you do?”

“What can we do? As free men, we go back to work for your brother or men like him for whatever wages they choose to pay.” He leaned against a fence post, and said bitterly: “Any chance I had of bringing my lassie out from Inverness to build a plantation and a family is lost.”

“Haven’t you protested?” Will asked, and McFee spat: “I did. Appealed to the courts, but who are the justices? Oldmixon and your brother, and they invariably side with the other plantation owners. An ordinary overseer has almost no rights, a laborer none whatsoever.”

“The slaves I’ve known,” Will said, “aren’t stupid. Get enough of them in one place, they’ll begin to fight for their rights.” Anticipating what that would mean, he told McFee one afternoon: “I’d not want to live on a Barbados like that,” and McFee, looking about before he spoke, said: “I’m not so happy living on this one.”

That exchange of two short sentences set in motion a chain of events which would carry the two conspirators far beyond what they contemplated when the more-or-less careless words were spoken, for McFee began to study carefully the operation of the Tatum estates and Will began hanging around the Bridgetown waterfront, noticing with a practiced mariner’s eye all sorts of developments and particularly which ships were coming from where, and it was as a result of this process that he renewed his knowledge of the Tortuga that Captain Brongersma had spoken about with such enthusiasm. It was a unique island, sailors said, lying close to the northwest shore of the great Spanish island Hispaniola, which Columbus had settled and ruled.

“It’s practically French,” said one grizzled veteran who knew it well. “Not half as large as Barbados. Supposed to belong to Spain, which tried to recapture it from time to time. But the French, they’re pirates, really … call themselves buccaneers. Buccaneer is how we English pronounce it. The French word is boucanier. Four years I served with them in Tortuga. Very excitin’ I can tell you. But as I was sayin’, these wild men, and they’re wilder than anything you see on Barbados … believe me, they live on two things. Huntin’ down small Spanish ships, killin’ the crew and stealin’ the vessel and whatever’s inside. And goin’ over to the forests on Hispaniola and killin’ wild hogs. They bring the meat back, cut it in strips, rub in salt and spices and roast it very slowly over a low fire … maybe four days. Boucan they call it, so that makes ’em boucaniers. They sell the meat for a tidy profit to Dutch and English privateers workin’ those waters against the Spaniards.”

“How do you join the buccaneers?” Will asked, and the old fellow said: “You just go there. Steal yourself a ship of some kind, sail to Hispaniola, avoid the Spanish on the south side of the island, and coast around to the northwest. You don’t need no papers to join. Frenchmen come, Indians from Honduras, Dutchmen who’ve fought with their captains and maybe murdered them and taken their ships, Englishmen, half a dozen from the American colonies …” The man would have said a great deal more, but Will had heard enough, and that night he began talking seriously with Angus McFee.

In daytime he did his best to look after the interests of his sister, noting with anxiety that her health was failing rapidly, and he discussed the matter with Ned, who said: “Mum knows. Told me she wasn’t long for this world.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” and the boy said: “She swore me to secrecy. Said you had your own problems.”

“We must do something for her,” and in a series of swift, loving moves he sold the store to a young couple just out from England, placed the money in the care of a trustworthy local businessman, added to it all his own savings, moved Nell into the home of a neighbor who could care for her, and even went to see Isaac to beg him to contribute to his sister’s upkeep. But with Lady Clarissa sitting primly beside him, Sir Isaac said: “She went her way, I went mine,” implying by his smug look that Will, too, seemed to have gone his own way, a dreadfully wrong way.

“But, Isaac, she’s dying. I can see it in her eyes. She’s worked herself to death,” and Isaac said: “That rambunctious boy of hers should get a job and not fool around that silly store.”

Sir Isaac, like many of the wealthier plantation owners, had a ship called Loyal Forever, in boastful memory of the defense of King Charles during the Barbadian troubles of 1649–1652. It was not large, for it was intended merely for the interisland trade with places like Antigua and for Carib hunting on All Saints, but it was sturdy, having been built by the best shipwrights in Amsterdam and brought by Dutch sailors to Barbados with a hold full of slaves. Sir Isaac had bought the ship, its charts and slaves in one big deal on which he had already made a huge profit, and this would double when he sold the Loyal Forever to some other planter about to enlarge his plantation.

In a series of secret meetings, McFee, Tatum, two other abused indentured servants, three trusted slaves of great ability and the boy Ned discussed plans for capturing the Loyal Forever, persuading as many of the crew as possible to remain on the ship, and sailing it to Tortuga to join the buccaneers. With a sharp needle Will punctured the left forefingers of his seven co-conspirators and made them dab a sheet of paper on which nothing had been written: “Your oath. If you betray us with even one word …” and he drew his own bloody forefinger across his throat.

When Will and Ned saw from their room ashore a signal that the ship had been taken with no gunfire, they walked down to the wharf to board her, moving slowly lest they attract attention. But at the last moment Ned broke away and ran back to the neighbor’s house in which Nell was staying. Rushing into the small room, he embraced his rapidly failing mother and whispered: “Mum, I’m off for a buccaneer! Me and Uncle Will.” Looking up at her son, so bright and promising, she said softly: “Maybe it’s better. Not much here for you two.” And she kissed him for the last time. “Be careful.” Leaving the house with never a backward glance, the young fellow strolled nonchalantly down to the stolen ship, trying to look like an indifferent old seaman.

During the first days of the trip, which took about three weeks, it was obvious that whereas McFee was a brave man and intelligent, he was no sea captain, but no one else wanted the job. Fortunately, Tatum and others aboard were seasoned sailors, and in Ned Pennyfeather, Will had an aide who had learned from a Dutchman how to use a remarkable but still primitive instrument, the astrolabe, for checking latitude whenever the sun was visible at noon or the North Star at night. They had left Barbados at near thirteen degrees and climbed the ladder of the latitudes to past twenty, and Ned delighted in telling Captain McFee the ship’s position twice each day: “Sixteen degrees latitude North and on course,” and so on. But since no ship at that time had a reliable way of determining longitude, he never really knew exactly where the Loyal Forever was. When they had made their way far enough north to be reasonably sure they had passed Hispaniola, they headed due west toward Tortuga.

As they entered the channel and Will saw how small Tortuga was, how low and unimpressive its hills, he had a moment of disbelief: How could this place be the wonderful center Brongersma told me about? And as McFee brought the Loyal Forever to its anchorage among nine or ten other ships, Ned said: “None of these ships are as big as even the small Dutch traders that sneak into Barbados.”

But when they went ashore, they saw a strange sight. This vital center of the Caribbean was not a town but a haphazard collection of houses, each duplicating the owner’s memories of his homeland: a famous Dutch pirate had used his enormous wealth to create a replica of his childhood home in Holland, complete with dormer windows and a windmill; an Englishman who would later hang at Tyburn had built himself a Devon cottage with a fenced-in garden and a flower bed; a Spaniard had a house of tile; but it was the French, who predominated, who contributed the wildest assortment of miniature chalets and country cottages.

But every dwelling did have two features: an open hearth topped by an iron spit for the slow smoking of boucan, and at least one dog, more often two or three. Those were the hallmarks of Tortuga.

When Captain McFee’s mutineers from Barbados anchored their Loyal Forever close to the shore of this small, wild island, none realized that this had once been part of the area governed by Christopher Columbus, for Tortuga had always been an appendage to Hispaniola and still was. Santo Domingo, the ancient capital and still a major city, lay far away, two hundred and thirty miles, but it faced the Caribbean while Tortuga had to battle Atlantic storms. That was fitting, for it was a tempestuous, unruly place, its chaotic appearance explained by the fact that at irregular intervals some Spanish governor in Cartagena would bellow: “Enough of those damned pirates in Tortuga preying on our ships. Destroy the place.” Then Spanish soldiers in helmets, brought north by a small fleet, would storm ashore, burn all the houses to the ground, kill everyone including the children and dogs, and leave only ashes. Tortuga would then lie desolated for a while, but soon a new gang of pirates would come ashore, sort through the still-warm ashes, and start to build their own preposterous dwellings.

When the Barbados men got there they found the island jammed with outlaws who had grudgingly conceded that they lived most easily if they submitted themselves to a rough form of government. They had even agreed upon a governor, of sorts, a Frenchman elected by his fellow buccaneers.

Tortuga, the island shaped like a turtle, hence its name, was a place of excitement and promise, and Ned was proud to be one of the youngest buccaneers. And because his uncle Will had insisted that Ned learn French and Spanish, he was enlisted in important negotiations regarding the Loyal Forever.

Two big and terrifying French pirates had services to offer which McFee and his Englishmen could not ignore, for as the two Frenchmen explained: “If you stole your ship standing out there, English patrols will be looking for you. If they catch you, the noose. Because you are now technically pirates.”

McFee broke in: “Don’t you do the work?” and the Frenchmen laughed: “We arrange. Last Spanish ship we captured, we got ourselves eight experienced carpenters. We keep them as our slaves, you might say, but we do feed them well.” He summoned the carpenters, who exploded in a flurry of Spanish as they described how they would tear the Loyal Forever apart and rebuild it so it could never be identified.

“And,” said the Frenchmen, like thoughtful bankers concluding a loan, “we take your boat and give you ours, the one you see anchored over there. Not quite as big as yours, but not so vulnerable, either.”

The deal was arranged, and by midafternoon the Spanish carpenters were destroying practically everything on the Loyal Forever that might betray its origin, and building in its place a superstructure which created a new silhouette. After a week of intense labor the new ship looked longer, narrower, and had two masts instead of one. The ship they were receiving in exchange had also been sharply modified, and Ned wondered who had owned it before. As to its name, McFee asked the Spanish workmen to carve him a board to attach to the stern, and when it was in place, Ned asked: “What’s Glen Affric?” McFee told him: “A glen in Scotland where the angels sing.” Ned noted with satisfaction that their new ship had portholes for eight small cannon. “This Glen Affric will do some singing, too,” he predicted.

But the dream of a quick dash north to intercept a lone Spanish bullion ship on its way to Sevilla was rudely ended when McFee brought disappointing news: “No action till the Spanish ships go past in May. They want us to go ashore on Hispaniola to hunt wild boar,” and Ned was given a very long gun with a spadelike butt to jam against his shoulder, a high pointed cap to protect him from the blazing sun, a ration of tobacco and a big, rangy black female hunting dog that had belonged to a French buccaneer killed during a boarding fight. With this gear, plus a bowl made from half a coconut and a blanket rolled into a tube whose ends he tied about his waist, he was ready for the forests of Hispaniola, and when a small boat placed him and ten others on the shore opposite Tortuga, he was prepared for his initiation into the arcane rites of the buccaneer.

When the various hunting parties were ready to return to Tortuga, they gathered on the shore and waited two days with their huge bundles of dried meat for ships to come for them, and in that time Will observed with some apprehension the interest Mompox was taking in Ned. When they ate, Mompox slipped the boy better pieces of meat, and when they camped beside the channel, Mompox gathered twigs for Ned’s sleeping place. Tatum also noticed that even when the two were separated, Mompox’s sharp eyes frequently came to rest on Ned, regardless of where the boy was sitting.

During the waiting time Will said nothing to his nephew, but when the ships came to collect the cured meat and the hunting teams, Will interposed himself onto a bench so that Mompox could not sit beside Ned, but the big chief hunter forestalled him by saying boldly: “Sit over here, Ned.” Will ignored the move as if it were of no concern; however, when they returned to Tortuga and were off by themselves, he took his nephew aside for some fatherly talk.

“Have you noticed, Ned, how each buccaneer seems to pick out some one person to work with? Sort of look out for each other?”

“Yes. If Mompox hadn’t come back for me that time, I’d be dead.”

“You didn’t tell me. What happened?” and when Ned explained the incident with the Spanish sharpshooter, Will said approvingly: “You were lucky Mompox was there,” but then he changed his approach: “Were you there the night before we went to Hispaniola? The night one of the men suddenly leaped up and stabbed that other fellow?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you suppose he did that?”

“Maybe money?” Ned really did not know and had not the experience to make a sensible guess, so very quietly Will said: “I doubt it was money. When a lot of men gather together, with no women around … haven’t seen one for months and even years … Well, men behave in strange ways … fight each other for strange reasons.”

“But he saved my life.”

“That he did, and you owe him a great deal. But not too much.”

Both Will and Ned, and Mompox too, were disappointed when, on their return to Tortuga, they found no plans under way for either an attack on a Spanish treasure galleon or a land assault on a city in Cuba or Campeachy, and they were appalled at what was proposed. McFee explained as best he could: “We’ve sold all the barbacoa we can, and there’s no money coming in from any raids. But those two big ships out there, one English, one Dutch, have promised they’ll buy all the logwood we can cut …”

At even the mention of logwood the older buccaneers groaned, for there was no job in the Seven Seas worse than cutting logwood. As one old sailor who had once been forced to work the salt pans at Cumaná said: “Logwood is worse. At Cumaná you at least worked on land. Logwood? Up to your bum in water eighteen hours a day.” But with Spanish treasure nonexistent, McFee’s men had no choice but to sail due westward to the distant shores of Honduras, with the two big ships trailing behind to purchase such logwood as the buccaneers felled. When Ned saw the forlorn tangle of sea and swamp in which the many-branched trees grew, and imagined the insects and snakes and panthers infesting that jungle, he lost heart, but his uncle, who had been two days from death in that Cádiz cell, encouraged him: “Six months of hell, Ned, but they do pass. And for years after, we’ll tell others how bad it was.”

It was exactly what Will had predicted, six months of the most torturous work men could do, up to their thighs in slimy water, beset by cruel insects, attacked now and then by deadly watersnakes, and arms tense from chopping at the tangled logwood trees. It was difficult to believe that these ugly trees were valuable, but one old fellow told Ned: “Pound for pound, about as valuable as silver,” and a fight broke out when someone else shouted: “Horse manure!”

“I still don’t see what you do with it.”

“A dye, son. One of the strongest and most beautiful in the world.”

“I thought dyes were yellow and blue and red. Bright handsome colors that women like.”

“Those are showy, yes, but this … this is imperial.”

When Ned was able to go back to work he chopped at his trees with more respect, but as for the occupation of logwood cutter, he had to agree with the men who had described it before he came to Honduras: “It’s hellish.”

On the voyage back to Tortuga he asked in some irritation: “When do we strike the Spanish?” and a longtime member of the force on the island reminded him: “We wait for the right year with the right wind and the right advantages for our side. Remember that in 1628, Piet Heyn, the great Dutch pirate, waited two years for the moment—but he caught the whole silver armada on its way home to Sevilla. In a daring move never to be repeated, he captured not three treasure galleons, not four, but the whole fleet. Yes, fifteen million guilders in one shot, and a guilder was worth more than a pound. That year his company paid a fifty-percent dividend. I sailed with Heyn, and we got so much prize money I could have bought a farm. But I didn’t.”

In the tedious months of 1667 and early 1668, Captain McFee’s buccaneers in their perky little Glen Affric participated in no such lucky assaults, but they did manage to engage in two rather sharp fights in which, in tandem with three other small ships, they attacked two isolated Spanish galleons, losing one and taking the other after a difficult boarding fight. The galleon yielded gratifying prize money for the four crews, and Ned had a chance to watch how his uncle and Mompox treated Spanish prisoners—they shot all of them and pitched their bodies overboard.

“Brave speech!” McFee said as if applauding their courage, but then he became scornful: “And what will you eat for the next ten months? Choose. Hunting or chopping.”

It was Mompox who solved the dilemma, for he was an adroit man who listened to whatever rumors circulated: “They say there’s a captain who’s very lucky over in Jamaica. And I like to sail with lucky captains, because we share in whatever he captures.”

And for the first time Will Tatum and his nephew heard more than the general rumors that had been filtering through the Caribbean. The captain was Henry Morgan, a thirty-three-year-old Welshman who had come out to Barbados some years before as an indentured servant and who had graduated, like McFee, to a life of buccaneering, a trade in which he had known spectacular successes. He was widely regarded as a lucky captain, one to whom rich target ships were drawn as if by magnets. He had not yet enjoyed feats like the great Piet Heyn, or sacked Spanish cities the way the cruel Frenchman L’Ollonais did so effectively, but he had proved his mettle by driving his little ships against huge adversaries and coming away victorious. As Mompox told the men on the Glen Affric: “They say: ‘When you sail with Morgan, you come home with money.’ ” And off they sailed to Port Royal.

Ned would never forget the day of their arrival. Standing in the prow of the Glen Affric, he watched as they approached from the south the big island of Jamaica, and as if he might have to bring his own ship into port at some future time, he excitedly rattled on, though Will was barely paying attention to him: “From this distance it’s impossible to see there’s a port anywhere on that coast. Just Jamaica, big and looming. But look! There seems to be a chain of pinpoint islets sweeping westward, parallel to the land. They can’t be far offshore, but I can see they must shelter a bay behind them. But to enter it, I’d have to sail far to the west, turn, and then sail back east. That’s just what we’re doing.”

“That must be Port Royal!” Will whispered, and the sense of awe with which he clothed the words forced Ned to study more closely the famous buccaneers’ capital: “It has a fort, so they mean to protect it. Hundreds of houses, so people live here. That’s a church. A place for hauling out ships to scrape the bottoms. And those must be shops. But look at that sign! It’s a wine shop … and that one … and that.”

Only then did he look eastward to inspect the great bay itself: “More than two dozen huge ships! They can’t all belong to buccaneers! There wouldn’t be enough Spanish ships for that many to attack.”

As Captain McFee edged the Glen Affric toward its anchorage, his crew caught the full impact of this fabled seaport, the most savage and uncontrolled anywhere in the western world that ships dropped anchor. From where the Glen Affric came to rest, its sailors were close to a most inviting town, with white houses in a row, big shore establishments for the holding of goods, four or five churches and a small cathedral of sorts. What they could not see, but which they took for granted from the stories Mompox had told, were the forty taverns and fifty entertainment houses that accounted for the town’s evil reputation.

It was not exaggerated, for when they went ashore they quickly saw that Port Royal was special. It had no police, no restraints of any kind, and the soldiers stationed in the fort seemed as undisciplined as the pirates who roared ashore to take over the place, night after night. They were of all breeds and certainly all colors, and all with nefarious occupations. In some hectic months Port Royal averaged a dozen killings a night, and prominent on the waterfront was a rude gallows from whose yardarm, “dancing in Port Royal sunshine,” was the corpse of some pirate who had attacked the wrong ship at the wrong time.

Curiously, on Sundays the churches on the spit were just as crowded as the taverns had been during the week, and clergymen did not hesitate to remind their bleary-eyed congregations that if they continued piracy and debauchery as their way of life, retribution was sure to follow. Church of England rectors, who appreciated a nip now and then, did not inveigh against drinking, but ministers from the more rigorous sects did, and there was usually some traveling missionary from either England or the American colonies who preached fire and brimstone as the likely termination of Port Royal’s dissolute ways.

Ned, who had promised his mother that he would attend church, was faithful to his vow, and it was after a particularly thunderous sermon, which he had listened to with Mompox at his side, that the minister, seeing him among the known buccaneers and marking his youth, stopped him as he was leaving the church and invited him to the rectory for Sunday dinner. Ned said that Mompox would have to come too, and the minister laughed: “Enough for three, it’ll stretch to four.”

The dinner combined tasty food, a fine wine and a fascinating history of Jamaica by a man who had participated in it: “In 1655, Oliver Cromwell sent into the Caribbean two gloriously incompetent men, buffoons, really, Admiral Penn in charge of only God knows how many ships, and General Venables leading an army of men. Their chaplain? Me. We had simple orders: ‘Capture Hispaniola from the Spaniards.’ But when we tried, Penn landed thirty miles from our target and Venables forgot to take along food or water. When we finally reached the walls of Santo Domingo, we were so exhausted that three hundred Spanish soldiers defeated three thousand of ours, and we ran like the devil back to our ships, dropping our arms as we ran.”

Ned, aghast at this tale of incompetence, said: “A terrible defeat,” but with a wide smile the clergyman corrected: “Not at all! A glorious victory!”

“How could that be?” Ned asked. “Did you go back and take the city?”

“Well, I expected another disaster, because I could see that Penn knew nothing about ships and Venables less about armies, but Pembroke guided our fleet into this harbor, and this time our thousands of soldiers went ashore within walking distance of the Spanish, who had only a handful of men to oppose us. We won, and took possession of this magnificent island. When Penn and Venables returned to England, they said little to the newspapers or Parliament about their defeat at Hispaniola but a good deal about their capture of Jamaica. They talked themselves into heroes.

“Both Penn and Venables wanted me to return to England with them. Promised me a good church in Cromwell’s new religion. But having seen Jamaica, I didn’t want to leave.” He smiled at his guests, and added: “So you see, young men, you can sometimes lose a big battle but go on to win a bigger one. Jamaica is the jewel of the Caribbean.”

On the following Monday, Ned was lounging in a tavern when several old-timers gathered round in hopes that he was buying, and after he treated, they instructed him in the niceties of maritime warfare as conducted by Englishmen: “You mustn’t never call us pirates. A pirate is a sailor who storms about the seas, obeyin’ no laws, no rules of decency. He’ll attack anything that floats, even a sea gull if he can’t spy no Spanish galleon. Frenchmen can be pirates, and Dutchmen too, but never a proper Englishman.” They warned Ned that if he wished to get his skull cracked, all he had to do was call a Port Royal man a pirate.

The mere mention of such labor sickened Ned. “What do you want to be called?” he asked.

“What are we? We’re privateers. We sail under Letters of Marque and Reprisal issued by the king and we act obedient to his law. You might say we’re part of his navy, informal like.”

At this point the gathering was electrified by a shout from Mompox, who appeared in the doorway: “Henry Morgan’s sailing for the Main!” and he had hardly begun to explain that this meant the mainland of South America when others ran in, crying out and adding to the general confusion: “Henry Morgan for Cartagena!” and “Captain Morgan for Havana!”

In seconds the tavern was emptied as men of all character rushed to a small government building in whose main room the great privateer waited to instruct the captains whose ships would comprise his fleet, and both Ned and his uncle were delighted when one of Morgan’s aides announced that among those chosen to participate was Angus McFee and his Glen Affric. Then Morgan rose, a husky man of medium height with strange mustaches that started thin under his nose and bloomed into little round bulbs on his sun-darkened cheeks. Beneath his lower lip sprouted a small goatee, and about his shoulders hung a heavy brocaded coat. His most impressive feature was the sternness of his eyes, for when he glared at a man and issued an order, it was clear that it would be impossible to disobey.

Asking the eleven captains who would join him to step forward, he told them in a low voice: “It’s to be Porto Bello,” and before they could respond to the striking news, for that well-fortified harbor was supposed to be impregnable, he spoke as if its capture would be nothing more than an ordinary land operation. But later, when Captain McFee assembled his crew aboard the Glen Affric, Ned heard with surprise how strict the rules would be: “Upon pain of instant death, never attack an English ship. Nor any ships of a nation enjoying a treaty of peace with us, and for the time being that includes the Dutch.”

Concerning injuries, the usual rules would apply: “Lose a right arm, you get six hundred pieces of eight, or six slaves; loss of a left, five hundred, or five slaves. Same if you lose a right leg or a left. If you lose an eye, one hundred pieces, or one slave; and for the loss of a finger, the same.”

And then came two curious rules which determined certain odd behaviors of the privateers: “If we capture a foreign ship at sea, we must sail it back to Port Royal so the crown can catalogue its contents and skim off its share of our prize. But if we sack a Spanish town on land, the entire spoil belongs to us. That’s why Captain Morgan is going to ignore the big Spanish ships and head right for Porto Bello, where the land treasure is.”

Morgan himself came before the captains to recite ominously the final rule, handed down by the king, which governed English pirates, corsairs, buccaneers and privateers alike; its harsh terms would explain much of the barbaric behavior Ned would engage in during the years ahead: “If you capture Spanish prisoners, treat them exactly as our subjects are treated when the Spaniards capture them.”

Then the twelve captains signed receipts indicating that they had received from the Jamaican government Letters of Marque which bestowed legality on their enterprise, but such niceties did not influence Tatum or his nephew. “We’re not privateers,” Will said. “We’re plain buccaneers, and that’s what I want to be called.” Ned agreed; he had not run away from home, experienced the wild life on Tortuga and the slavery of the logwood jungles to find refuge in the legal refinements of privateering. He would sail with Morgan and proudly obey his orders, but at heart he would still be a buccaneer.

As Henry Morgan’s armada of twelve nondescript vessels crept secretly along the coast of Nicaragua on their approach to the rich target of Porto Bello, they were blessed with two strokes of good luck: they captured the Spanish lookout vessel which was supposed to speed back to Porto Bello with news of any approaching pirates; and spotted in dark waters a small boat being paddled by six Indians who signaled to the big ships as if calling for help. When brought aboard, the Indians turned out to be Englishmen, with a gruesome story:

Captain Morgan asked: “How did you escape?” and they said: “We killed two guards, so if they ever catch us, it’s torture and death.” Then Morgan asked: “Will you guide us in our attack on Porto Bello?” and the chief spokesman said: “If necessary, on our hands and knees,” and when Morgan promised: “You will have your revenge,” the man revealed news which caused gasps:

Morgan, realizing that if his buccaneers could rescue the prince and restore him to the royal family in England, great honor would come to him and his men, saw to it that the sun-blackened Englishmen were passed from ship to ship so that all could hear their report of what was sure to happen if they were captured during the attack. When the men reached McFee’s Glen Affric, Will Tatum asked to serve as their custodian, and at the conclusion of their report, he asked for a few minutes to relate his experiences in the jail at Cádiz where English sailors were burned alive, and the crowded quarters in which he spoke became silent as the sailors grimly listened.

Since Porto Bello contained three powerful forts—two at strategic points along the bay, one commanding the city—the Spaniards were sure that no seaborne force could successfully attack their fortress city, but they had never been assaulted on land by men like Morgan’s privateers. Stealth and the accurate spy work by the leather-skinned former prisoners enabled the attackers to reach the western outskirts of the city undetected. There in the hours before dawn they assembled, and suddenly, with wild yells and the firing of guns at anything that moved, they created havoc, in the midst of which they were able to capture the heart of the city without the loss of a single man. But Morgan knew that this was a hollow victory so long as the Spaniards held the three forts, so without stopping for meaningless celebration, he cried: “To the big castle!” and he personally led the attack.

This fortress-castle had been so strategically placed and solidly constructed, its massive guns commanding both the streets of the city and the anchorages in the harbor, that it looked impregnable, but it was afflicted with that indolent rot which doomed so many Spanish ventures in the steamy climates of the New World. The officer in charge, the castellan, was a man of such flawed character that his ineptness was comical. For example, his constable of artillery, who should have been able to man his considerable cannons with lethal effect against a storming party, did not even have his cannon loaded, so with almost shameful haste the great fortress was surrendered. In the final assault the castellan was mercifully slain, releasing him from the painful obligation of explaining his deficiencies to the king.

The ineffective constable suffered a more bizarre fate. Surrounded by Englishmen to whom he wanted to surrender his guns, his fort and his honor, he looked about for some officer among the invaders and saw Captain McFee. Falling before him on one knee, he threw his arms wide, exposed his chest, and cried in broken English: “Dishonored … failure to my king … no life ahead … shoot me!” McFee was staggered by such a plea, but not Tatum, who stood beside him. With a sudden grab for his pistol, Will thrust it against the man’s chest and pressed the trigger.

“Smell this,” Will cried bitterly to an imprisoned Spanish captain. “What is it?”

“Gunpowder.”

“Run for your lives,” Will shouted to Ned and the other sailors, and when they were gone, he ignited the powder trail in the room, watched it start down the stairs, and dashed to safety. Before the prisoners could break free, a tremendous explosion destroyed their corner of the castle and all were blown to bits.

Morgan had eliminated one of the castles, but another of significant strength remained, and it was commanded by a most valiant man, the governor himself, supported by soldiers of merit who repulsed one English attack after another, until even Morgan had to admit: “If we don’t do something powerful, they’ll prevail.”

What he did was teach even the Spaniards a lesson in the brutalities of pirating, for he halted his attack on the castle, turning instead to raid a monastery, from which he collected a group of monks, and a convent, from which he took many nuns. While this was being done, his carpenters were assembling extremely wide ladders, “so broad that four men could climb side by side to scale a wall.”

When all was ready he gave simple orders to the monks and nuns: “You and you, lift those ladders and carry them to the wall of that castle.” And behind the religious he marched the mayor of the city, the businessmen and the elders to help bear the weight of the ladders: “If anyone falters, man or woman, you’ll be shot in the back.” To ensure that the ladders went forward, he intermixed sailors with the group, and Ned was assigned the job of goading forward the nuns.

As this tragic procession started toward the walls, the men around Morgan said: “But the Spaniards will never dare fire at their own people, and religious ones at that,” and he said: “You don’t know Spaniards.”

Now from the ladder-bearers rose pitiful cries directed at the governor: “Do not fire on us! Save us, we are your people!” Some called him by name. Others reminded him of past relationships, and all looked upward into the barrels of his guns.

It was not a Spanish survivor who reported the bestiality of these two days, but a Dutchman who had served as one of Morgan’s captains. Many years after, when an old man in retirement at The Hague, he wrote:

When the tortures were concluded, emissaries were sent across the isthmus to the capital city of Panamá to demand a ransom of 350,000 pesos in silver, failing which, the entire city of Porto Bello would be burned to the ground. Officials in Panamá replied that they could not raise such a sum, but they did offer to give Morgan a promissory note on a bank in Genoa; he replied, sensibly: “Privateers feel safer with hard bullion.” In the end, 100,000 pesos were paid, and twenty-four days after the initial assault the privateering fleet weighed anchor and started the swift run back to Port Royal, where Will Tatum, Ned Pennyfeather and each of the other participants received at least a hundred and fifty English pounds, in those days a tremendous sum. Ned sent his share back to his mother.

If Ned Pennyfeather at the sack of Porto Bello in 1668 saw Henry Morgan at his brutal worst, in 1669 at the attack on Maracaibo he saw him at his strategic best. The story of how Morgan came to attack the nearly impregnable site is one of the dramatic tales of the Caribbean.

To a convocation held aboard his new ship anchored at Isla Vaca, a small Jamaican island halfway between the pirate strongholds of Tortuga and Port Royal, Morgan invited any captains who might be interested in a major privateering foray, and a cutthroat gang of desperadoes met to decide what rich city along the Main to attack next. As always, they would be guided by the rule: “If we capture a ship, the king gets his share, but if we sack a city, we get it all.” Before the discussion began, Morgan, in a show of schoolboy pride, wanted to display his new ship: “Look at the stoutness of this cabin, the heaviness of the holds. This is a fighting ship.” And then he added: “Gentlemen, in a few minutes we shall select our next target, and remember that for the first time we will have at the core of our fleet this powerful ship, stronger than anything the Spanish can muster against us.” And then, in his enchanting Welsh way, he could not refrain from adding a comic touch: “The Oxford was sent out here for one purpose only, to suppress piracy. So if you sight any pirates, let me be the first to know.”

Because of the Oxford, discussion of possible targets was animated, and lesser towns like those serving the logwood trade were not even considered. “Any profit in heading back to Porto Bello?”

“None,” Morgan said. “We picked that chicken clean.”

“What chances at Vera Cruz?”

“If Drake and Hawkins failed, how could we succeed? We’ve proved we’re good, and with this new one, we’ll be very good. But not invincible.”

“Campeche?”

“Not rich enough.”

“Havana?”

“Those new forts? No!”

And then Captain McFee named the target that all had been thinking of but none had been brave enough to mention: “Cartagena?”

“Drake took it,” someone said, and another captain replied: “A century ago, before the new forts were built.” Before anyone could comment, he reminded them: “Spanish engineers can build a lot of forts in a hundred years.”

Then Morgan spoke: “The thirty-four big guns of our Oxford can silence whatever guns the Spanish have. It’s Cartagena!”

The more timorous captains would surely have advised against such boldness had not, at this precise moment, a careless spark from some source never identified fallen into the powder magazines, igniting an explosion of such enormous magnitude that it blew the Oxford completely apart, causing it to founder immediately and sink with more than two hundred men. Miraculously, Morgan and his senior captains were saved by the stout construction of the room in which they met, and as he said nonchalantly when fished from the water: “The Morgan luck held again.”

When the sea-drenched survivors huddled ashore, Morgan did not allow them even a minute to lament their great loss, for while the few members of the crew who had escaped built fires to dry off, he told the captains: “As we were saying a few minutes ago, we’re not strong enough to attack Vera Cruz, and now without the Oxford we can’t assault Cartagena. Well, men, what city is available?”

A French captain who had probed all corners of the Caribbean, and fiercely, said: “Admiral Morgan, there’s one no man has mentioned. Maracaibo,” and the English captains looked hesitantly, one at the other, and for good reason.

On the northern coast of Venezuela, nearly five hundred miles west of the great salt flats at Cumaná but only four hundred miles east of Cartagena, lay the huge gulf of Venezuela, at whose southern end a very narrow channel led to an inland fresh-water lake nearly as big as the gulf itself. It was called La Laguna de Maracaibo, to be famous in later centuries for its large deposits of oil, and it measured eighty-six miles north to south, sixty east to west, more than five thousand square miles. It was a world to itself, practically cut off from the sea and rimmed by fruitful fields, prosperous villages and, at the end of the channel, by the substantial town bearing the same name as the laguna.

Morgan, reflecting on the dangers involved in attempting this ticklish target, said: “Let’s get some sleep, if we can,” and in the morning he gathered his captains: “It’s got to be Maracaibo.” And that was how, on the morning of 9 March 1669, Ned Pennyfeather stood in the prow of the Glen Affric with a sounding line checking the depths of the tortuous entrance into the laguna. At times the passageway was so narrow, he felt he could reach out and touch the shore, but he was so busy attending to his job that he almost failed to see looming ahead on a prominent point a Spanish fort whose guns might destroy the ship. It was prodigious, a huge mass of stone wall and iron battlement with heavy guns pointed directly at the ten approaching ships.

“Guns!” he shouted belatedly, just as a shot, poorly aimed and elevated, screamed overhead, far wide of the invading ships. It was the Spanish tragedy repeated: a fine castle-fortress, perfectly placed and properly armed, but undermanned by troops lacking in either determination or skill. Ned was almost ashamed at how easily Morgan’s men took this excellent fort without the loss of a single sailor.

But his uncle Will voiced the apprehension of all old-timers: “It was easy getting in, but will we get out?” and in subsequent days, while the fleet stormed through the great lagoon, achieving victory after victory, the older sailors kept wondering: “How do we get our booty out of this trap?”

The booty was enormous, for the smaller towns perched on the banks of the lagoon were rich indeed, but the citizens had cleverly hidden their gold and jewels, so that Ned was confronted with a grave moral crisis, realizing that if the buccaneers hoped to collect the great wealth, someone must capture rich citizens who had fled into the hills, bring them back in shackles, and somehow force them into revealing their secret hiding places. Doing the latter was horrible, involving as it did the rack, the fire and the terrible woolding. But he never participated in the tortures. He did track down and deliver the people to the quarters in which the questioning took place, and when the hiding places were revealed, he did hurry there and dig up the jewels.

“How many ships?” One big and six or seven smaller, about the size of Captain McFee’s.

“Any attempt to reactivate the fort we partially destroyed?” Oh yes! Heavy rebuilding, new cannons, first-class troops moving in.

“Any attempt to move the Spanish ships into the laguna?” None. They’re bunched in the channel, waiting for you to try to break through.

At this point Morgan took an apparently unrelated tack: “The big ship? Has it high sides?”…“Is there an area near the fort where a canoa could land and discharge men?”…“Any forest in the vicinity?” When he had heard enough, he calmly told his captains: “Problem is simple, gentlemen. We break through their blockade, sail back to Port Royal, and distribute our prize money,” and none of the captains dared ask him “How?”

When all was ready, with three smaller ships pared to the gunwales so they could fly over the water, Morgan gave the signal, and his fearfully overmatched fleet set sail as if trying to break through the cordon, but when the fire ship, controlled only by Tatum, Pennyfeather and eight daring men, plus the wooden sailors who stood ferocious along the deck, drew abreast of the big Spanish ship that formed the heart of their defense, the pirate craft did not try to steal past, but turned suddenly to head straight for the midquarter of the enemy ship, while two of the smaller English vessels attacked fore and aft. The three English ships smashed simultaneously the great Spanish warship, grappled themselves to her, and caused the Spanish defenders to break into three groups. They would have done better by opposing only the big ship in the middle, for once the hooks were set and separating made impossible, Tatum and Pennyfeather shouted to the other Englishmen: “Flee! We fire the powder!” and the men leaped overboard to be rescued by a trailing ship while Will did what gave him pleasure: setting fire to the chain of powder which, even before he and Ned leaped into the sea, exploded in a vast fireball that ignited all the inflammables on deck, leaving the huge Spanish warship prey to the roaring flames.

In one gigantic blaze the two ships intermingled their fates, iron grapples binding them together as they burned to the water line and sank as one. The major Spanish plug in the escape route had been removed.

Meanwhile, the second largest Spanish ship had fled toward the fort in an attempt to beach itself so that its crew could get ashore and help man the fort, but one of the swift English vessels trailed it and with fireballs set it ablaze, leaving it a smoking hulk. The third big Spanish ship was chased right out of the laguna and into the narrows, where it was captured and where Morgan adopted it as his flagship to replace the one he had sacrificed to the burning. The lagoon was cleared of Spanish ships and the first of the impediments to freedom had been removed.

In the morning Captain Morgan addressed himself to the problem of how to get past that menacing fort whose restored guns could destroy any enemy trying to sneak by. The task looked impossible.

In this clever manner, Morgan appeared to have landed at the foot of the fort an immense assault party, whereas in reality all his men were back aboard their ships, but hidden belowdecks. The occupants of the fort, determined not to be taken by surprise, switched their heavy guns away from the seafront and pointed them directly at the spot where the sailors had landed and from where they could be expected to launch their attack.

It never came. Instead, a lone lookout attending the sea passage shouted: “They’re escaping!” And when the defenders rushed to that side of their fort, armed only with pistols and swords, their guns having been pointed the wrong way, they saw Henry Morgan and his fleet of ten heading serenely into the narrow channel that would lead them to freedom. One Spanish officer who had a navigator’s glass studied the lead ship, and cried to his fellows: “That swine! He’s using our Soledad as his flagship and he’s sitting there drinking what has to be rum.” Morgan was free and on his way back to Port Royal.

The deadly trio, Captain McFee with his Glen Affric, Will Tatum as his first mate and Ned Pennyfeather as a hanger-on, wasted the year 1670 in diverse and unproductive ways: loafing around the inns of Port Royal, drinking and carousing. A Quaker missionary, come down from Philadelphia to serve on Barbados, was laid over in Port Royal when his ship lost a spar, but after one horrendous day ashore he retreated to his cabin, from which he would not budge so long as his ship remained in that hellhole: I often read about Sodom and Gomorrah, and I thought: They could not have been real, just symbols of evil. But Port Royal is very real, and if this were the old days, God would sweep this place off the face of the earth.

In their random wandering, they never called the sea upon which they were traveling the Caribbean. That word had in those years not yet come into common usage. Because of the curious way in which the Isthmus of Panamá ran—west to east and not, as one might have expected, north to south—the Caribbean was always referred to as the North Sea, which it was, and the Pacific as the South. So Drake fought the Spanish in the North Sea, then crept through the Strait of Magellan to come home by way of the South Sea, not the Pacific. And Sir Harry Morgan ravaged the North Sea, not the Caribbean.

One sailor kept telling McFee: “Mexico is where the silver is,” so for want of anything better, the Affric sailed northwest to the first Mexican land they could find. It turned out to be the historic island of Cozumel, but when they stormed ashore, guns ready, they found nothing but a collection of decaying temple ruins from some ancient period. Will, studying the fallen rocks, announced them to be Egyptian and the others accepted his opinion, but there was much discussion as to how the Egyptians had reached this forlorn spot.

At Cozumel they found not one peso, but Ned did come across a small carved head which must have been broken from a larger statue, and this he carried back to the ship with him, but when his uncle saw it on the boy’s hammock he threw it overboard: “We don’t want no heathen idols on this Christian ship. Bad luck.”

What happened next is best described in a memorial which Ned Pennyfeather composed to Admiral Morgan when the latter was long since dead:

There were two routes across the isthmus, leading from the Caribbean on the east to the Pacific on the west. The first was by land, the infamous one traversed by Drake and the mule trains from Peru. The second, a route utilizing the Chagres River some miles to the north and fearsomely protected by a stupendous fort at its mouth, so ingeniously located and fortified that one of Morgan’s men would later require two closely packed pages to describe its frightening armaments: “Built upon a high mountain … surrounding ditch thirty feet deep … supported by a smaller fort with eight great guns commanding the river.” And finally: “Besides all this, there lies in the entrance to the river a great rock, scarce to be perceived unless at low tide.” The attack on the fort by four hundred of Morgan’s men against the same number of resolute Spanish defenders was long and terrible. Dusk fell with no resolution, and it looked to Ned, fighting with the grenadiers whose perilous job it was to run close to the walls and throw in grenades and lighted brands, as if the defenders might repulse the raiders and throw them back to their waiting ships. But, as light faded, one of those unforeseen events occurred which determine the outcome of battles: a skilled Indian marksman fighting with the Spaniards sent an arrow that passed completely through the shoulder of a grenadier standing beside Ned. Cursing, the Englishman ripped it out of the wound, tipped it with a mixture of cotton and powder, set it ablaze, and shot it back into the fort, where it landed on a dry roof. Within minutes that portion of the fort was aflame, and through the long night daring forays of other grenadiers including Ned lobbed additional fireballs into the fort, so that by morning most of the wooden portions blazed.

On 19 January 1671, when Admiral Morgan and his near two thousand men started their trip up the Chagres River in their fleet of canoas, none were aware, Admiral Morgan least of all, that they were engaged in what would turn out to be one of the most ill-prepared expeditions in military history. For when one of his sailors, seeing that he had left behind all their food supplies in order to carry weapons needed for the assault on Panamá, asked: “What are we going to eat on our march?” he said lightly, as had many other generals in history: “We’ll live off the land.”

Unfortunately, there was no land. The Chagres River did not drain into fine farmlands populated by Indians in little grass huts tending cattle, harvesting fruit trees, and growing vegetables. It drained only into swamps that contained no huts, no cattle, and to the amazement of the sailors, not even any fruit trees. So this huge army of men went three days without one bite to eat. On the fourth day there was a perverse kind of joy among the troops, for scouts cried: “Ambush ahead!” To the starving marchers it did not mean danger, but a chance to fight a devil-may-care battle and capture some food. However, when they reached the site of the supposed ambush, they found to their horror that the Spaniards had fled, leaving behind not a morsel of food. All they left was a half-score of leather field bags such as soldiers in all countries prefer for the safekeeping of their valuables, and these the famished sailors ate. One of them wrote later:

Ned almost missed this feast, such as it was, because he was scouting up the river when the leather was distributed, but when he returned and saw the men chewing on what he assumed was food, he cried in panic: “Where’s mine?” and Mompox took him by the arm, sat him down, hushed the protest, and explained what the sailors were trying to eat. Then he separated his apportionment of roasted leather and gave his friend half. Ned later told Will Tatum: “It saved my life. I couldn’t have gone another day.”

The ninth day was one never to be forgotten, for after an excruciating climb to the top of a sizable hill, the starving men looked south and saw a sight which stunned them with its beauty and significance, as Ned Pennyfeather wrote when he recalled it:

On the tenth day since their capture of the fort at the Chagres, Admiral Morgan and his replenished men were ready to launch their attack on Panamá, whose numerous defenders awaited them in battle order on a flat plain before their city. In addition to trained troops, able cavalry and strong leadership, the Spaniards had a secret weapon in which they placed much reliance: two immense herds of wild bulls to be released simultaneously against the pirates at a propitious moment. With a cry of “Viva el Rey!” the cavalry started the charge, reinforced by valiant foot soldiers, and for two hours the battle raged, with the Spaniards unable to break the dogged ranks of the invaders, who knew that if they lost this fight, their days in Spanish prisons would be hellish and short.

At the start of the third hour the Spaniards released their wild bulls, twelve hundred in each herd, left flank and right. They rushed straight at the pirates, heard the noise of battle, stampeded, and doubled back right into the Spaniards, who, in total confusion, retreated pell-mell toward the city, with Morgan’s men roaring after them.

Morgan’s entry into Panamá was bitterly contested, and so many of his men lost their lives that a rage began to consume him. When he found that fleeing soldiers and civilians had taken refuge in ditches, hoping to surrender after the fury had passed, he ordered his men to shoot them all, men and women alike, and not a prisoner was taken. Inside the gates he came upon a large group of nuns and monks, and in his blind fury, he shouted: “They’re about to attack!” and he led his men in a charge which slaughtered them indiscriminately.

His rage intensified even more when he gained the city and found that from the huge warehouses along the seafront all silver had been evacuated, and from the fabulously rich monasteries and churches all embellishments had vanished. Morgan had won a tremendous victory against huge odds, but he gained only the shell of a city. Its treasures had escaped him.

In the meantime, Morgan’s men, enraged by the absence of the wealth they had suffered so much to get, went about capturing as many citizens as they could find and putting them to the torture to make them reveal their hiding places. Both Will Tatum and Mompox participated in seeking out the fugitives and then subjecting them to the refined tortures the pirates had perfected in earlier raids. They used the rack, fire, the horrible woolding, dismemberment, rape, and when their patience ran out, murder. The sack of Panamá accounted for some four hundred soldiers dead on the battlefields, many times that number of civilians slain in the interrogations.

This time Ned did not participate in chasing down those in hiding; instead, he was given charge of the interrogations. It became his duty to attempt to ferret out where the riches of Panamá were hidden, and because he shared in the disappointment of his mates, and knowing that if they did not uncover the hidden treasures they would return to Port Royal with little reward for their days of battle and starvation, he became a ruthless interrogator. When women refused to reveal family secrets, he had no compunction in shouting to his assistants: “Ask her again,” and the torture would be escalated until the prisoner sometimes died there in the improvised room in which Ned worked.

Among those captured was a man of obvious importance and considerable wealth, found by Tatum and Mompox during a raid far from the city. When he delivered him for questioning, Will said: “He had three menservants who gave their lives protecting him. Mompox and me, we had to kill them. This one knows something.”

No one ever learned who he was, and Ned began to think that he might be a member of some religious order. Finally, after torments that few could have withstood, the man broke into demonic laughter: “You damned fools! You idiots! Bring Morgan here and I’ll reveal everything,” and when Morgan hurried to the questioning room, the prisoner, lashed to the rack, looked at him with the infinite contempt of a dying man: “You great ass! You posturing general without a grain of sense!”

“Tighten the ropes!” Morgan shouted, and slowly the man was torn apart.

Morgan, of course, knew nothing of these European matters: “A man does what he can, Ned, and there’ll be spoils enough. Not lavish, but enough.” As to his carelessness in allowing the treasure ship to escape when he had it almost within his fingers: “At Porto Bello and Maracaibo, we had good luck we didn’t deserve; at Panamá, bad luck we did deserve. Did you say you took part in all three raids? If you saved your shares, the average won’t be trivial.”

As their boat passed the place where they had found the leather bags which they ate, Morgan laughed: “A couple of days without meat never hurt any man. Tightens up his belly.” But Ned had to speak: “It was ten days, sir,” and the famous admiral grew sober: “Yes, and at seven or eight I wondered if I could go on, but at nine and ten when I began to smell the sea …” He stared at the banks of the river that had been so inhospitable: “I’d not like to make that trip again … well, not that way. But you and I’ll be making other good trips in our day, that we will.”

Ned treasured these conversations with Morgan, for in them the great admiral displayed a warmth and understanding of his people that was otherwise not visible. In action he seemed a remorseless man willing to sacrifice anything, any human life, to achieve his brutal aims, and the Spaniards he had caused to die on his three culminating trips were uncountable, many as a result of fair and open military action, about the same number during interrogations regarding their hidden wealth, real or supposed. But in the closing days of this extraordinary expedition he proved himself to be a most extraordinary man whose fame, Ned thought, would reverberate throughout the Caribbean as long as men loved the sea and the heroic actions possible thereon.

As San Lorenzo became visible, that remnant whose reduction had cost so many lives, Ned felt driven to let Morgan know how much he admired him: “Admiral, my father died when I was too young to know him. After these adventures with you, I’ll always think of you as the kind of father I wish I’d known,” and Morgan, only thirty-six years old at the time, said gruffly: “I’ve watched you, Ned. You’re a real man. I’d be proud to have a son like you.”

LOG OF A BUCCANEER

TUE 14 MARCH 1671: One of the darkest days of my life. For all these months my uncle Will Tatum and I have been following Captain Morgan like puppy dogs, listening to him boast how he would bring us home “not hundreds but thousands.” Well, this morning he gathered his crew under three big trees and cried: “Search all!” and we stripped to nothing, and each man searched the clothing of someone else, every pocket and seam, so that coins and jewels, even the tiniest pieces of value were thrown into the common pot. The trunks of what little treasure we had carried from Panamá were unloaded so that all could see, and when every item stood before us, Captain Morgan started the division: “This to you and you, and two shares to the ship captains and four shares to me.” On he went till the last Spanish peso had been distributed, and then he did a bold thing. Throwing off all his garments but his small clothes, he cried: “Search me too!” and nothing was found secreted. “Is this all we get?” Will cried, and the disappointment in his voice encouraged Mompox and the others to cry: “Where is the wealth you promised?” until there was a general commotion which might have turned into a riot, except that Captain Morgan bellowed: “Be quiet, you sheep! We missed the big treasure at Panamá but each of you has his fair share of what we did get.” It was a pitiful eleven pounds, seven shillings each. “You’ve robbed us!” men began to shout, and if Captain Morgan had not signaled the captains to gather about him, he might have been injured.

WED 15 MARCH: All last night Captain Morgan slept in his tent with men guarding him, and he was wise to do so, because I for one wanted to kill him. Sailors who had sailed and fought with him for more than three years had little for their pains, and in their bitterness started rumors that he had stolen much gold and great boxes of coins, but where he had hidden them no man could say. As for me, I think he smuggled them aboard his ship that stands offshore. I told Will about this, and he said: “Let’s search it now,” but Captain Morgan’s men, well armed, kept us away from the small boats we would need to sail out to the ship.

FRI 17 MARCH: When our furies cooled, Uncle Will collected some forty men he trusted, and reasoned: “Let’s forget this morning. We’ve been tricked by a master. I say let’s be real buccaneers. Let’s march back across the isthmus, capture a treasure ship, sack what’s left of Panamá, and return home as God allows.” Every man he approached was in a mood to try this venture, for we all knew that we had the force and courage to do as Will proposed: “Buccaneers like to have a captain they can trust, and I think we should all vote for McFee.” When we cheered the suggestion, Will and Mompox fired a salute and announced “election unanimous,” and forty-six fighting men shouted “Halloo.” Fifteen Indians, including a Meskito named David who had proved his skill at both fishing and carpentering, begged us to let them come along, as did nineteen black slaves who did not want to sail back to harsh masters in the sugar fields of Jamaica. And of course I insisted that Mompox join us. So we have a party of eighty-one, every man a killer if required.

TUE 28 MARCH: We rose early, sought the Lord’s blessing on His day, and marched only a few miles, with me and Mompox in the lead, when I saw once more the immense expanse of the South Sea. How different it looked this time! When I saw it last from this hilltop we were going to sack Panamá, turn around, and go home rich men. This time we intend capturing us a ship and setting forth upon that vast ocean to seek the opposite shore, if there is one. And when I turned to look at the ruins of where Panamá City used to be, I saw two things, one promising, the other not. The Spaniards had reclustered about their cathedral, so they were conveniently gathered for plucking, and this time we plan to catch their wealth before they hide it. But anchored in the bay were some of the biggest warships I had ever seen. I began to tremble.

WED 5 APRIL: One of the most exciting days of my life, because I proved that I am a true buccaneer. We rose early and set forth in our eight strongest canoas to do or die in our attempt to break through the cordon of Spanish ships and capture one of the big galleons riding in the harbor. As we approached the fleet, the Spaniards thought to oppose us by throwing many of their sailors and fighting men into three small, fast vessels they call barcas, and these made for us as if they would devour us, which I thought they might. But as they bore down on us, Captain McFee, a true fighting man, shouted: “Let them draw nigh!” and for what I considered a most dangerous waiting period, we withheld our fire. Then, when we could see their faces plainly, we let loose a fusillade of such magnitude and careful aim that we stunned them. They did try to fire back but by now we were upon them, and with great dexterity we leaped from our canoas, boarded their barcas, and began fighting hand-to-hand. In the excitement of battle I forgot my fears and gave a rather good account of myself, but when only two of us tried to force five of them backward into the stern of their barca, they proved too much, and they might have slain me with their brutal pikes had not Mompox leaped to my defense with sword and dagger, killing one of the Spaniards and badly wounding his partner. Before the sun reached the meridian we had become masters of two of the barcas and had sent the third scudding back to safety in the harbor.

By capturing the two barcas we gained an immense replenishment of cutlasses, guns, powder and balls, so that we had suddenly become not a group of Indian canoas but two small, swift men-of-war, capable, because of our superior English fighting ability, of menacing even the biggest galleons could we get close to them. And I too was changed, because I now knew that I was capable of leaping out of my boat onto the deck of a larger ship and sweeping the deck of Spaniards. I think my companions gained the same assurance, for in this battle we forty-six defeated four times that number, with only two killed and three seriously wounded. Our dead Indians and blacks who had helped us we did not count.

Captain McFee replenished our losses in a curious manner, for as we were preparing to send our prisoners ashore, he stood by the railing of the barca into which I had leaped for the battle and there he peered into the faces of all the Spaniards, and by this device alone, selected five that seemed most intelligent and strong and held them back. Since he does not speak Spanish, it fell to me to serve as translator, and I learned several valuable facts. The richly laden galleon which comes across the Pacific from Manila never puts in to Panamá. It goes only to Acapulco. The galleon that fled Panamá during Morgan’s raid on the city stayed at sea until we were gone and then came back, so that a huge treasure is now ashore, awaiting us if we can get there. And the galleon that brings the silver from Peru has not yet arrived, but when it does, it will be attended by numerous fighting ships. With that intelligence I go to sleep tonight in a new ship, a new hammock, and inspired by new dreams.

MON 10 APRIL: Day of glory, day of mystery! Yesterday when we stood at 6° 40′ North of the equator by my reckoning on the crude forestaff we have with us, our lookout shouted: “Lima galleon two points east of south!” and when all in my barca crowded forward, we saw the most gallant sight our eyes have ever beheld, a small, trim Spanish galleon, aft tower riding high in the air, gilded ornaments glistening in the morning sunlight. It rolled majestically, like some enormously wealthy grandee out for a morning stroll, now to port, then gently to starboard, and at each roll proclaiming: “Gaze upon me, heavy with treasure.”

The sight of this galleon so inflamed our hunger that as we closed upon her, there was no man amongst us who was not prepared to capture her or die in the attempt. Captain McFee, drawing our two barcas together, addressed us: “This is the target we dreamed of. We shall go at her from their port side, midships. Our best men will scale her with pistol and cutlass, no quarter. Our slaves we leave tied up in our barcas under guard. All men on the boarding party follow me, for I shall lead.”

These were stern orders, and all of us who heard knew that on this day we proved our worth or went to perpetual sleep at the bottom of the sea. I was not frightened at the prospect, but my breath came uneasy and my mouth was very dry. My uncle, who rode with me, said only: “Well, lad, this is what you came seeking. There she rides.” And when I looked at that huge Spanish ship towering above us, I must confess that I wondered to myself: Can she be taken by forty men? But as immediately as the thought came, I corrected it: By forty Englishmen? And I answered myself in words shouted aloud to sustain my bravery: “Yes, by St. George and England, we can do it!” and men about me took up the cry: “George and England!” and even though our captain was a Scot, he joined us in the shouting.

“Leave them drown!” my uncle shouted as the Spanish barcas foundered, throwing their sailors into the water, and then occurred one of those vast mysteries of fate, for as we regrouped and sped toward the galleon, whose officers must have been terrified to see how quickly we disposed of their first line of defense, a stupendous fire swept the deck above us. Some careless act aboard the galleon must have thrown a fire of some kind into a barrel of powder, killing far more Spaniards than we did when we climbed up to take command.

Once in control, my uncle and I rampaged through the lower decks, finally locating the huge stores of silver, each bar marked with its Potosí number, and we realized that we had taken a prize of immeasurable value. Will cried in joy: “No division this time of eleven pounds each!” And we knew, there in the dark hold, that we would be wealthy men if we could but sail this great ship back to Port Royal in Jamaica.

While we were in the bowels of the galleon we heard a confused shouting on deck, and fearing that a sortie of armed Spaniards might have hidden against the moment they could spring out upon us and retake their ship, we rushed aloft, our faces grimed from the hold, our guns and swords at the ready. Instead, I found myself standing face-to-face with the most beautiful young woman I had ever seen. She was, I judged, about seventeen, fair of skin as if the sun had never touched her pretty face, dressed in fine fabrics more suited to a ball than to a galleon, with perfect figure, dark hair and eyes of an exquisite quality that danced with excitement, even in these uncertain surroundings.

She was accompanied by a woman I took to be her mother, a stately creature of some forty years perhaps, or more, for I am no judge past the age of twenty, and of an austere character which disapproved of all that had happened this morning and especially of the black-faced English rogues who were now taking control of her and her daughter.

He was a tall man with dark visage, and he looked as if the burden of leading a flock of Catholic Spaniards in the New World was a dismal business, which I have no doubt it was, but he obviously intended defending his two present charges with his life. When my uncle saw him, he whispered in my ear: “That one looks just like the Inquisition man who sentenced me to death in Cádiz,” and I think he would have thrust a poniard into the gloomy priest right then had I not restrained him.

I have not gone to sleep as yet, because Captain McFee assigned me to the duty of guarding the hundred-odd prisoners we took during the battle, and I can hear them now as I write, battened down below hatches and wondering what fate awaits them. My uncle is for killing them, but others say: “Put them in the boats and head them for shore. Let them find their own way.” I would be most unhappy if Señorita Inez were treated thus.

TUE 11 APRIL : When we learned that the name of our fine little galleon was La Giralda de Sevilla we wanted to know what the words meant, and the gloomy priest told us: “In Sevilla, loveliest city in Spain, there is a majestic cathedral so big you would not believe me if I told you. Attached to it is the most beautiful tower, the Giralda, in itself a thing of grace, built by the Moors.”

SUN 16 APRIL : First prayers, at which we gave thanks that God had delivered into our hands this rich prize, then big decisions, I can tell you. Captain McFee and the group of five who counsel him have agreed to crowd all the prisoners into barcas with allowances of food and water and let them get home as best they can, but only after the masts have been sawed off to prevent them taking action against us. They further decided to keep aboard the Giralda the Spanish chirurgeon, who certainly knows his pills and ointments better than we, but my uncle cautioned: “Search his bottles and remove all poisons, or he will mix one for us.” They decided to keep also a Master Rodrigo, a learned man who had served the Spanish captain as navigator and who told me in excellent English: “I know these waters, Acapulco to Cape Horn, so inform your captain that I might be of some service.” When I asked why he might want to serve with us, he said: “A sailor’s life is to sail, and as for those in the little barcas, who knows what will happen?” We also kept seven black men who had served as slaves on the Giralda and who would continue in the same duties with us. Our new navigator asked us to allow him his assistant, but Uncle Will growled: “My nephew knows navigating. He can be your assistant,” and it was done.

I was given the task of finding quarters for the two women and their priest, and I arranged for them to keep the cabins they had occupied atop the stern castle, what they call the poopdeck, but when Captain McFee heard of my decision, he growled: “They can’t stay there,” and when I asked why not, he astonished me: “Because four days from now that castle won’t be there,” and so I had to find smaller and less-polished cabins below. When Fray Baltazar objected, I told him, making my voice sound official: “Because four days from now that castle won’t be there,” and I let him explain that to his women.

MON 17 APRIL: Giralda may not have been a major Manila galleon, but it is sumptuously equipped with the most modern instruments required in navigation, and when Master Rodrigo satisfied himself that I had a certain skill in using the forestaff to take shots of the sun in order to determine latitude, he accepted me fully as his assistant: “You must put aside your forestaff, for it is little better than a guessing game,” and he showed me for the first time a beautiful new instrument called a backstaff fashioned of bleached pearwood and ivory and of such an ingenious purpose that I could not believe it. “When taking a sight, do not point it at the sun,” he explained, “for then the eye grows weary. This one you point away from the sun, catch the shadow it throws here, and bring it together with the horizon you see through this peephole.” When I followed his instructions I caught a perfect sighting on my first effort.

TUE 18 APRIL: Today when I handed Master Rodrigo the latitude from my noon shot made with his backstaff, I asked: “How did you learn to speak English?” and he told me: “A Dutch navigator told me, and they’re the best, to get myself a copy of Eduardo Wright’s Errors in Navigation, which, he said, would make all things clear. When I found a copy I had to learn English to read it, and well worth the effort it was.” He handed me his precious book to study, and when I did so to the level that I could understand, I told him: “Now I’m ready to be a navigator,” and he said: “Maybe in ten years.”

THU 30 APRIL: So when we anchored off the island which we face tonight, I took my sighting and found that we were 3° 01′ North latitude and the mariner told us: “This is Gorgona Island, not a bad spot for your purpose,” so we warped the Giralda inland as far as possible into a small stream, and when we had nearly grounded at high tide, we threw lines from the ship to trees ashore, and after we were well secured, Captain McFee informed us: “Here we shall remain about a month to accomplish the things that must be done if we hope to get our ship safely back to Port Royal.” And before the sun went down he started the tremendous job of converting this fancy little galleon into a good fighting ship worthy of a buccaneer. I was astonished at all he proposed: “Off comes that castle aft.” When some protested that this would deprive us of all the good cabins, he growled: “Ships are for fighting, not for siestas.” The two masts would be lowered by half, ridding us of all those high and fashionable sails which look so pretty when they’re pushing some heavy galleon ahead in fair weather and good wind, but which are so useless when we are trying to fight another ship and have to maneuver quickly to gain advantage. One mast far aft is to be discarded entirely, so at least half our sails will be of no further use. The very thick and heavy ropes will be stowed below, never to be used again aboard our ship, but to be sold at some future port to great ships that may still need them. The clutter on deck is to be what he called “cleansed entirely” for as Captain McFee pointed out: “If the Spanish captain had had his powder barrels below, he’d never have lost this ship to a boarding party.” In almost every other detail of this fine galleon, he sees something that can be chopped away or otherwise disposed of and he urges Mompox with his ax to get at it.

TUE 5 MAY: This morning when Fray Baltazar and Señora Ledesma saw that we really intended chopping off the two top decks aft, he made an angry protest, and she a tearful one, claiming that Captain McFee was destroying a beautiful ship, but he was firm, jutting out his Scottish jaw: “We’re building a fast fighting ship to carry you and our hoard of silver safely to Jamaica. All else is nothing,” and we continued the destruction.

THU 28 MAY: I have never lived as satisfying a day at sea. This morning Señorita Inez, who has been kept away from me by her mother and Fray Baltazar, escaped from their watch and walked with me far forward where they could not spy on us. She allowed me to take her hand, and I do believe she wanted to let me know that she thought me a decent fellow, even though an Englishman. I know enough Spanish to understand when she told me: “My name is not Inez like you say. It’s Inés,” and she pronounced this in such a soft, lovely manner, that I much preferred her version: “Eee-ness.”

She then shared with me the history of what she called “Our Famous Family,” and I was not too pleased to learn that her great-grandfather had hounded our Sir Francis Drake to a watery death. Seeing me frown, she assured me that her grandfather, who had the curious name of Roque Ledesma y Ledesma, had been the governor of Cartagena who allowed trading relations with England, so he must have been a good man. Our pleasant visit was interrupted by my uncle, who shooed us out from our hiding place so that Fray Baltazar could spy us and come running. When I asked Will why he had done this, he said: “There’s a proper English girl waiting for you in Barbados,” and when I asked who, he snapped: “You know damn well who, somebody …” and off he stomped cursing at Spaniards in general.

FRI 29 MAY: Went walking on the deck with Señorita Inés, but when Uncle Will saw us he scurried like a tattletale to Fray Baltazar, who rushed out to whisk her away. Later my uncle apologized: “I suppose she’s better than that Mompox. But you’ve got to remember she’s papist and will cheer when her priest burns you as a heretic … if he gets the chance.”

He told us that on the Spanish Main the Inquisition did not burn people, for which he was grateful, but that the fight against heretics had to continue lest the one True Church be what he called “contaminated.” And he added: “We protect it for your interest as well as ours.” This I could not understand, so he explained: “Less than a hundred and twenty years ago you Englishmen were all Catholics, and one of these days, when a proper king occupies your throne, you’ll be so again.” Before I could protest, he asked: “You’ve seen most of the North Sea, Ned. Wouldn’t it be simpler and better if we were all one group of islands, all Catholic and subject to one king in Spain and one pope in Rome?”

I was so astounded by such an idea that when he took Inés away I sought my uncle, and said: “Fray Baltazar says that a hundred years ago all Englishmen were Catholics,” and he growled: “Not my people. Back to the time of Jesus Christ himself, we was always Church of England,” and I did not know who to believe.

I am confused about this Rodrigo. He’s a loyal Spaniard and must hope to see us taken by some warship of his country, but he is first of all a responsible seaman and as such he wants to preserve his vessel and put her into safe waters. I saw how he was hurt, terribly, when we chopped his proud galleon to pieces, but now he is equally proud of her performance as a sleek ship that performs wondrously in our battle actions. We in turn trust him, for as Captain McFee says: “What else can we do? He knows these waters and we don’t.”

WED 22 JULY: Of Arica, I can say only this. Richest port in Peru, for all the silver of Potosí ships from here. Defended by the best Spanish troops. Crafty swine, allowed us to storm ashore like we were going to capture Madrid. Waited till we were far from our ship, then sent cavalry at us, knocked us galley-west. When we regained our ship, Uncle Will told me: “See! You can never trust a Spaniard.”

FRI 28 AUGUST: My magical backstaff tells me we’re now well below the equator at 26° 21′ South, and I’ve been having a fine time on land hunting wild pigs along the shores of the bay and catching sea turtles. We’ve eaten well on this buccaneering trip. We’re now careening the Giralda, which means that stout ropes have been attached to our mast so that the ship can be pulled over on its beam ends one side at a time, which allows us to work with bars and axes, chopping away the barnacles that cover the bottom, some as big as a man’s hand, and then scrape off the seaweed that clings like wavy hair. These things slow a ship tremendously, as if big hands held us back in the water, and old sailors tell me that if the barnacles are allowed to grow undisturbed, the day will come when the ship won’t be able to move forward at all.

But the most important part of careening is not merely clearing the bottom, but scraping off the worms that multiply in warm waters and dig into wood so fast they can eat away a bottom in one year. We dug out a small mountain of worms and chopped in half as many again, providing food for a hundred gulls who swarmed about us without saying thanks.

During the two weeks we spent at this necessary job, with our cabins tilted this way and that, we slept ashore, and several times I was able to take long walks with Señorita Inés. We spent such happy moments at the edge of the bay, watching the fish and the turtles, that I became convinced she had developed an interest in me. After all, every time I had seen her aboard ship, she had also seen me, and if I grew mightily attached to her, is it not reasonable I asked myself, that she might feel the same about me?

There had to be a meeting of the crew, for one of their members had been slain, and I was quickly absolved, but my uncle took the occasion to reprove me: “You should not waste a bullet killing an Englishman who is assaulting a Spaniard. Save it to kill a Spaniard who affronts an Englishman.”

Now that our crew was already gathered at one place, someone remembered the tradition: “Buccaneers have always elected their captains,” and soon many were complaining of the way McFee had behaved at various points, and so many others voiced their displeasure that the first man made a motion, like we were in Parliament: “I move to elect a new captain,” and before I knew what was happening, we had deposed Captain McFee and elected a sailor who spoke loud but did little.

THU 3 SEPTEMBER: Today my uncle, in a show of temper, bawled me out: “You give me nothing but headaches, Ned. Stay away from that Inés. She’ll bring you only trouble.” And when I started to protest, he actually roared: “And stay away from that Mompox, too. He’ll bring you even greater trouble.” When I asked why this sudden outburst, he said almost plaintively: “You were intended for some fine English girl in Barbados, and by the horns of hell, I’m going to see you delivered safely home.”

When he was gone a much different night wanderer took his place and I felt my hand gently held in hers. It was Señorita Inés, come to see the Clouds of Magellan, and as she joined me she whispered: “Ned, I’m glad to be with you,” and before I really knew what was happening we kissed, and it was more pleasant than any kiss I had known in Port Royal. We remained thus for the better part of an hour, looking at Magellan and kissing, and then we heard a vast commotion on the deck below, and here comes Señora Ledesma and Fray Baltazar, running here and there, now together, now with her in one direction, him in another, and each shouting: “She’s not here. Is she over there?” As they ran, Inés stood always closer to me, holding my arms about her waist, until we seemed one person, and then she would kiss me again and laugh at the noises her mother and the priest were making. Finally Fray Baltazar spotted us on the high deck. “Just as we suspected! She’s with him!” And together the two wild searchers rushed up the ladders to rescue Inés, who remained in my arms until they arrived.

“You naughty child!” her mother cried as she tore Inés from me. “You ugly boy!” Fray Baltazar added, elbowing me away from the two women. But after Inés had been safely stowed below, Baltazar returned to stand with me and watch the stars. We talked most of the night away as he told me of his boyhood in Arévalo and of how he had been permitted in his life to watch a dozen marriages between couples who were not suited and of how each had ended in misery at least and sometimes tragedy. There was always a lot of human tragedy when Fray Baltazar talked.

WED 30 SEPTEMBER: Amazing events. During our long stay on Juan Fernández our crew tired of the silly ways in which our new captain gave orders exhibiting his power over us, and there was also serious criticism of his decision to take us home by way of China, so last night a meeting was held and we told him he was no longer our captain, and when he asked: “Well, who is?” we had an election, and our old captain, Mister McFee, was restored to office. I don’t like this. Ordinary sailors should not go around discharging and rehiring captains. The English way is a lot better. Appoint a man captain and keep him there until he sinks his ship. Of course, if he goes down with her, as he is supposed to, that ends that.

TUE 13 OCTOBER: Day after day of dull nothing heading south for Cape Horn. No fish to catch, no birds to follow, no Spanish ships to chase, nothing. These must be the loneliest seas in the world. But today things livened when Master Rodrigo challenged me to a test: “Well, muchacho, to be a navigator, let’s see if you can take a proper sight,” and he gave me a slip of paper, himself another, and he said: “It’s about noon. We’ll both shoot the sun, tell no one our reading, and figure our latitude on these papers, then compare them.” He allowed me to go first, and with feet steady and arms firm, my back to the sun and the magical staff held tight, I calculated a latitude of 39° 40′ South and wrote this on my slip. Then he took his sighting, much more rapidly than me, and wrote it down. “Now we’ll compare,” he said, and when my slip was laid beside his they both read 39 degrees and were only twelve minutes apart: “Muchacho, you’re a budding navigator. Nine more years.”

SAT 21 NOVEMBER: 56° 10′ South. Yes, that’s right. I’ve checked it with my backstaff every time the sun has peeked through the frozen clouds and my numbers confirm a miserable story of lost channels, frustration, despair and freezing fingers. Since Master Rodrigo has never sailed through the Strait of Magellan connecting the South Sea of the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, and since heavy cloud has enveloped us almost from the time we captured our last Spanish ship, no one aboard really knew what we were doing, and several sailors told me: “Lucky you know how to work that astrolabe, else we’d be totally lost.” If my sightings are right and if our charts do not lie, which they may, we have missed Magellan completely and are well down toward the South Pole. But at least we’ve found open water, so tomorrow the navigator and I will advise Captain McFee to head north, for I’m convinced we have rounded Cape Horn and are now in the Atlantic Ocean, but I’m not much impressed with my company of buccaneers who do not even know what ocean we’re in.

This noon, after I had shot the sun, with the results penned above, I asked at the table: “Where’s Señorita Inés?” and her mother said smugly: “Locked in her cabin,” and when I gasped, the priest asked with a slight sneer: “And who do you think’s guarding the door?” and when I said I couldn’t guess, he said: “Your uncle.”

Yes, the sternest enemy of my love for Inés is my own uncle, who said, when I stormed out to challenge him: “Boy, your life could be …” I tried to brush him aside: “I’m not a boy. I’m the captain of this ship,” but I could not budge him. He was siding with the priest and Señora Ledesma for the good of my soul, he said, and because no Englishman with Tatum blood in his veins should marry a Spaniard.

So three determined people, two Spanish, one English, have banded together to prevent headstrong Señorita Inés and determined me from a pledge of our love. Last night, I can tell you, they failed, not because of anything bold that I did but because Inés escaped while Fray Baltazar was guarding her, ran swiftly into the cabin where I was sleeping, and barred the door from the inside. With sweet abandon she threw herself into my arms, crying: “Ned, I cannot live without you … so brave … captain of your own ship … so much desired.” Well, I can tell you I was overwhelmed by her bold action, and especially what she kept saying as she poured kisses on my trembling lips: “We shall be married.” This was exactly what I had dreamed about on the long passages south to the Cape, and I began to think that marriage with this delectable girl was possible, regardless of how vigorously her mother and my uncle might object.

The problem faded into insignificance in view of what happened next, for I heard my uncle shouting in the early dawn: “Spanish ship! Attack!” and such a clatter arose that I had to know that our Giralda was rushing full speed ahead and girding her decks for an assault. It was, I saw, pretty ridiculous for me to be locked in my cabin, prisoner of a Spanish lass, when the ship I was supposed to be commanding was bearing down on an enemy who might prove to be well armed.

“I must go!” I cried to Inés, striving to break free, but she stood by the barred door and refused to let me open it, and I spent the next minutes in a frenzy of indecision, with Señora Ledesma banging on my door, Fray Baltazar thundering anathemas, and my uncle speeding my ship into battle against an enemy I could not see and whose strength I could not estimate. I realized it was a sad position for a captain to be in, but I saw no escape, and with Inés in my arms I awaited the clash of arms that would come when the sailors of the Giralda tried to board the fleeing Spanish ship.

It was a frightening two hours, locked in that cabin with the girl I loved. We could hear the ships collide, the swift movement of feet on the deck, the play of swords so far distant that it must come from the deck of the other ship, the echoes of salute guns being fired, and eventually the cries of victory. Only then did Inés let me go.

When I came onto the deck I found Will about to make eleven Spanish prisoners, weighted with chains, walk the plank to instant death. “No!” I shouted. “Let them have a small boat. Better yet, let them have their own ship with the masts cut away.”

When my uncle and the usual hotheads who could be depended upon to support his piratical deeds refused to obey my commands, I shouted: “Stop it! I’m your captain,” and two of the men shouted back in the same breath: “Not anymore, hiding in your cabin while we fight,” and a meeting was held then and there which deposed me and once again restored Mister McFee to his original command.

I had been captain for fifteen days, during which time I moved our ship homeward from 56° South to 34°. It could be said that during my captaincy we captured this Spanish vessel without the loss of an English life and that I received a proposal of marriage from a most wonderful Spanish girl. A lot of buccaneer captains take a longer time to achieve less.

But with the new order of things I was no longer allowed to take my meals with the Ledesma women and the priest, so I must devise some trick to see once more the girl who loves me.

FRI 25 DECEMBER: Well off the coast at 22° 53′ South, opposite Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. This afternoon all the bitterness I have harbored against Fray Baltazar vanished, for when the entire ship’s company had gathered on the afterdeck during a fine spring afternoon for holy services honoring the birthday of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the tall, dark priest said, following his prayers: “Let there be harmony on this blessed day. I have prayed in Catholic Spanish for my countrymen, will you pray in Protestant English for yours,” and to my amazement he placed his Spanish Bible in my hands, and I was so moved that for some moments I could not speak, but then I heard my uncle’s voice growling: “Get on with it, lad,” and a torrent of words sprang from my lips:

It was simply impossible for me to close a Christmas prayer without mention of the girl I had come to love, so to the astonishment of the crew I added:

As I said these words she broke away from her mother and came to stand by me, and no one sought to take her away. And as she stood there I thought of the remarkable adventures my band of buccaneers has known: the hasty decision to go our own way after Captain Morgan stole our just rewards; the long march and sail across the isthmus; the battles; the soaring victories against vast odds; the defeats at Panamá and Arica; the little ships we captured and the big ones from which we ran; the Clouds of Magellan at night; the Strait of Magellan that we never found … And then a hand of ice seemed to grip my heart, and in a low voice I ended my prayer:

FRI 8 JANUARY IN THE NEW YEAR 1672: On this day when nothing of significance happened, not even a good meal or a fight among the men, we crossed the equator and all began to breathe with more excitement, for we are nearing Port Royal.

FRI 29 JANUARY: Day of victory, day of despair! For some days Captain McFee, Uncle Will, Fray Baltazar and I have held urgent meetings to devise a plan for delivering the Ledesma women and our prisoners into proper Spanish hands, and to collect a ransom if it could be arranged. No one, not even my uncle, wants to kill or otherwise harm them, but to sail boldly into Cartagena with them would be too risky. They do not want us to land them in Port Royal, where they would have no assurance of ever making their way back to Cartagena, where their families await them.

When we were assembled, the priest said gravely: “We’re talking about life and death. A mistake, and we could all die. So let us seek the right conclusions.”

Mompox said with admirable clarity: “Considering my color, I must not go wherever men of ill will can throw me into slavery. Not Cartagena. Not Barbados. Not Jamaica. And not the southern American colonies.”

“What’s left?” Baltazar asked and Mompox said: “Put me on some trading ship to Boston,” and we agreed that if possible we would do so.

“Now, how do we get the Ledesmas back to Cartagena?” Baltazar asked, and I broke in: “Inés stays with me,” and he said in that grave voice I had come to respect: “My son, it cannot be. She is of one world, you of another.” Very firmly he added: “It will not work. It will never happen.” When he saw my dismay he added: “My son, you’ve had great triumphs on this voyage. Captain of your own ship. Successful in battle. Courage that no man can challenge. Leave it at that.” Seeing that I was still distraught, close to tears, really, he said: “My son, the voyage ends. The ship sails into its harbor and new lives begin, lives of honor and dignity, and proper loves. Believe me, believe me, she to her haven, you to yours. That’s the better way.”

I was unwilling to accept such a decision, but then I heard a sailor ask apprehensively: “How do you make such an exchange?” and Master Rodrigo said: “When we pass the isle of Trinidad we sail west along the Spanish Main until we meet a Spanish ship. We signal our peaceful intentions, we meet, and we Spaniards transfer over to the other ship.”

“How can we send such a signal?” I asked, and Fray Baltazar replied: “I don’t know, but we must.”

When we gathered all hands to explain what our tactics were going to be, both the Spanish side and the English immediately saw the danger, as Captain McFee said: “They’ll think we’re pirates and run. And if we chase after them, they’ll fire upon us, and then by God, we’ll sink them.”

For the rest of that day we coasted along the northern line of Trinidad, and five days later we passed the great salt pans at Cumaná where the battles with the Dutch fleets had occurred. Then, this morning, when we had almost given up any chance of encountering a Spanish vessel, we came upon one, and a ridiculous affair developed.

They, seeing us and our rakish form with cannon, decided that we were buccaneers about to board them, and fled, while we, with our two white flags aloft, chased after them. But the harder we tried to overtake them, the faster they scampered away, and it looked as if our plan would end in disruption, when Captain McFee made a clever maneuver which put the Giralda directly ahead of the Spanish ship, whereupon it had to slow down. Then he ordered a small boat to be lowered, and into it climbed Master Rodrigo, Fray Baltazar, my uncle and me, and with our own small white flag showing, we rowed over to the startled Spaniard. With my uncle pointing his gun directly at the heart of the Spanish captain and Spaniards pointing their guns at us, Master Rodrigo called in a loud voice: “We have Spanish prisoners for Cartagena!” and Fray Baltazar called out the more significant message: “We have aboard the wife and daughter of Governor Ledesma. I am their priest, Fray Baltazar.”

The two messages, especially the latter, had a volcanic effect. Two boats were lowered, white flags were hastily improvised and the captain himself, after concluding that we were telling the truth, leaped down, followed by three other officers, and rowed almost frantically to our ship. When we four climbed aboard with them, we witnessed a most unusual scene. The captain, spotting Señora Ledesma and her daughter, ran forward, bent down on one knee, and kissed the mother’s hand, saying in a loud voice: “I greet you, Condesa de Cartagena!” and when Inés’ mother showed surprise, the other officers crowded about to tell the good news: “Yes! The king has made your husband Conde de Cartagena!”

But the departure was not to be peaceful, for to the surprise of the Spaniards, young Lady Inés flatly refused to leave the Giralda. Clasping her arms across her chest, she said in sharp, clear tones: “We love each other. We have been ordained by God to be man and wife and you cannot tear us apart.” Well, they landed on her as if they were an army attacking a fort. The captain of the Spanish ship said solemnly: “Senorita Inés, you are the daughter of a conde. You represent the honor of Spain. You simply must …”

The condesa broke in: “You are a silly headstrong child. How can you possibly know …?”

But it was Fray Baltazar who uttered the sensible words: “Sweet child, it is marvelous in spring when flowers bloom for the first time. But the real meaning of the tree comes later, when it is laden with fruit, as God intended. You’ve had a wonderful introduction to love, none finer, but the great years lie ahead. Kiss this fine young man farewell, and let us head for those other, better years.”

He stopped and looked at us: “I cannot say what drove these men to save our lives, mine and Master Rodrigo included. I would like to think it was Christian charity. But if it was only the lure of money, I can assure you that they earned it. Here we are, all of us, unscarred. Captain, if you have any funds aboard your ship, you owe it to these men,” and when there were murmurs against this decision, he said: “Captain McFee and I will row over to your ship to collect whatever you have.” Some of us went along, of course, well armed, and a surprising number of coins was collected. When we brought them back to the Giralda, the priest delivered them with only four words: “A debt of honor,” and the exchange was concluded, women for silver.

I wanted to ride in the boat with Inés to her ship, but that was not possible, for she rode in one of the Spanish boats, and it would be hoisted aboard as soon as its four passengers were discharged. So I stood by our rail, where my uncle and his gunners kept their aim on the Spanish ship in case treacherous moves developed, and as her boat moved farther and farther away I saw with aching heart that one of the young Spanish officers was tending Inés and wrapping a robe about her feet. Once aboard her deck, so many things happened that she had no chance to wave back at me, and slowly our two ships drew apart. We had sailed together for two hundred and ninety-five days, during which she captured my heart forever.

Then suddenly into one of the Spanish boats that had been left in the water leaped an officer, and the boat came speeding back to ours and voices cried in both Spanish and English: “Señor Ned! Mr. Ned!” and when I rushed to the railing where the boat would touch ours, the young officer who had tended Inés with the robe shouted: “She says this is her present to you,” and he handed up Master Rodrigo’s precious pearwood-and-ivory backstaff, to which a message had been tied: “Para Eduardo, mi querido navegante que nos traja a casa.”

So it took no prolonged debate for us to decide that we would not head northwest for Port Royal but due east for Barbados, and when this was announced, Captain McFee told us: “I do not know those waters.” What happened next made me think that buccaneers weren’t too bad as sailors, after all, for as soon as we decided to head not for Port Royal but back to Barbados, the men cried: “That’s where Pennyfeather lives!” and they elected me captain again, and for the past nine days I’ve been in sole command of the Giralda, and because Master Rodrigo was no longer on hand to harry me about his damned calendar, the first thing I did was move dates back, as this entry proves, to the real calendar as intended by God. However, I did use Rodrigo’s pearwood backstaff for navigating past St. Vincent and the Grenadines, coming at dawn this morning to Barbados itself, with the red sun rising behind its beautiful hills.

How excellent it was to reach home and find waiting in our harbor a ship from our Massachusetts colony which will carry my trusted friend Mompox—Spaniard-Indian-Negro—to Boston and freedom. As we parted for the last time he reminded me: “You must tell any ship headed that way to look out for David the Miskito,” and then he asked quietly: “Ned, may I kiss you farewell?” and out of regard for all that he had done for me, I said yes, to my uncle’s disgust.

We were now free to dock our ship and present our Letter of Marque and Reprisal proving that we had authority from the king to protect his interests at sea. The question then arose: “But have you conducted yourself in a worthy way and not as pirates?” and now I handed over the letter from the Spanish captain which certified that “the officers and crew of the captured Spanish galleon Giralda did pay gentlemen’s respect to the Conde de Cartagena’s women during a long sea voyage,” and we were thus doubly saved from hanging. This being Sunday, we thought it irreverent to distribute our prize money.

So we returned to Bridgetown, me having lost Inés but, as Uncle Will reminded me, with Spanish gold aplenty to heal my wounds, and on that confusing note, here ends this Log of a Buccaneer.

NED PENNYFEATHER

When Will saw the lassitude into which his nephew had fallen over the loss of Inés, he challenged him: “You commanded a ship, surely you can command your own life,” but Ned insisted: “Inés, I can’t forget her,” and Will said: “You better. She’s in another part of the world,” but Ned continued to mope, keeping to the small room that his uncle had rented in Bridgetown.

To distract his attention, Will suggested a daring excursion—they would visit Sir Isaac. And one morning, having no horses, they walked out to Saltonstall Manor, now even more resplendent with its lane bordered by young trees and hedges of croton. Banging on the door, they attracted several of the slaves working inside and could hear a woman calling: “Tell Pompey men he come,” and promptly a black man in golden-yellow livery with big white cuffs opened the door and asked in a polite voice: “Gem’mum, what your pleasure?”

When Will snapped: “We want to see Sir Isaac,” the slave said: “Well, now …” but Will pushed him aside, strode into the reception area, and bellowed: “Isaac, come out!” and when both Sir Isaac and his lady appeared, Will said, with a bow: “We’ve come back.”

Icily, Clarissa said: “We heard. You’ve been pirating they tell us,” and since neither she nor her husband made any gesture toward welcoming their relatives, Will asked: “Aren’t you going to ask us to stay?” and after a grudging invitation was extended, Pompey was sent to fetch some refreshments.

The visit was extremely unpleasant, and even before the first cup of tea was passed, it was painfully obvious that Sir Isaac was already wondering how he could get rid of these unwelcome relatives. Leaning back and speaking as if from a distance, he asked: “And what do you two propose doing on Barbados this time?” and Will replied, as he reached for his tea: “We’ll be looking around. By the way, pass me one of those little cakes?” and Ned thought: He actually wants Uncle Isaac to lose his temper. But the plantation owner refused to rise to the bait. Turning to Ned, he asked, still from a great distance: “Where will you be looking? Several plantations seek overseers, but I suppose you’ll be off adventuring again?”

“With mother gone …”

“She died shortly after you left the last time. Lady Clarissa and I attended to her funeral.”

“Thank you.”

“She left a small fund for you. Mr. Clapton the banker has it in his care, and it’s growing, he tells me. Honorable man, Clapton.”

“I’m glad to hear about the money. I’ve been thinking I ought to make my home in Bridgetown. I’ve seen the oceans.”

This statement, which implied so much, awakened no interest in the older Tatums, for whom the sea was no more than a highway from Barbados to London. The rest of the world’s oceans were superfluous, and Will, sensing that this was the case, said solemnly: “The boy was navigator of a great ship at nineteen, captain at twenty, fighting off the Spaniards.”

“We’ve been warned,” Clarissa said, “that those who fight Spaniards these days are to be hanged. New rules for new times.”

And so the frigid meeting ended, with no invitation to return, no inquiry as to what assistance the master and his lady might extend, and when Sir Isaac told Pompey in haughty syllables: “Direct the groom to saddle three horses and lead these men back to town,” Will said crisply: “No thanks. We’ll walk,” and down the long avenue of trees they trudged.

It was a journey Ned would never forget, as exciting in its way as trying to negotiate the Magellan, for it carried him through parts of Barbados he had not seen before: lovely hills from whose crests he saw endless fields sweeping eastward; lanes through the heart of great plantations with green sugarcane stalks crowded like trees in a forest; little vales filled with multitudes of flowers; and clusters of brown shacks in which lived the slaves who made the prosperity possible. The ride, under a warm sun that peeped from behind white clouds sweeping from the unseen ocean, was an adventure into the heart of the splendid island, and as each new vista revealed itself he felt increasingly attached to this land. He knew then that he did not wish ever to leave Barbados. The buccaneer had become the settler.

Even at this late hour in their day’s journey, Ned still had no intimation of what the attraction of this old seaman Frakes could be. Now they reached the western edge of the central plateau which comprised most of Barbados and found themselves at the edge of a considerable cliff down whose face a narrow path led to the seashore below, and there surged the great Atlantic, a wild ocean whose waves beat upon a desolate shore completely different from that provided by the gentler Caribbean.

Reining in to savor the grand panorama, Ned cried: “It’s been hiding all these years,” and his uncle replied: “Only the strong ones dared to come over here,” and with his long right arm extended, he pointed to the remarkable feature which differentiated this shore from all others, and Ned saw for the first time that haunting collection of gigantic reddish boulders which at certain spots clustered along the edge of the sea, their feet deep in the water, their jagged faces tilted to catch the sun. At some locations they stood four or five together, like huge judges trying to reach a verdict, at others a lone giant defied the ocean, but at a spot that caught Will’s eye, a parade of nearly a dozen left the shore and marched out to sea, forming a peril to navigation attested to by the wrecked timbers of a cargo vessel that had strayed too close.

“Where did they come from?” Ned asked, and Will explained: “Either God dropped them accidentally when He was building the earth, or giants used them to play marbles.”

Recognizing Will as a former shipmate, he left the doorway to clasp him about the shoulders: “Dear Will, come in, come in!” But then he stopped, stared at Ned, and asked: “Who’s the lad?” and when Will replied: “My nephew,” the old man shouted: “Twice welcome!” and into the cottage they went.

Ned expected the interior to resemble its owner, an unholy mess. Instead, it was a revelation—neat, with furniture, some of it elegant, properly disposed against walls that were decorated with fine paintings expensively framed. The floor was covered by two rugs, probably from Persia or some similar country, and the three chests which stood in corners were finished with heavy brass trimmings.

“This is a treasure trove!” Ned cried admiringly, and Will explained: “Frakes salvages wrecks that pile up on his rocks out there,” and the ships that went astray must have been preciously laden, for the old sailor owned some items of great value.

And then from the small inner room came his greatest possession, his daughter Nancy, a lovely girl of sixteen, dark, lithe and unusually beautiful. In that first moment, within seconds, really, it was clear to everyone that Will Tatum had brought his nephew Ned on this long trip in hopes that he would find this child of the storms attractive and perhaps want to marry her. Old Frakes, his time running out, was delighted, and Nancy was breathing deeply, for she had begun to wonder if she was ever going to meet a young man. Ned was spellbound.

“A young couple could do wonders with these things,” Frakes said, and when Will asked “What?” the old sailor said: “Depends on the couple.”

Next day Will suggested that the young people have a picnic by themselves, and when Nancy led the way to a height from which they could watch the surging Atlantic thunder upon the boulders, Ned asked: “How did your father get here?” and she explained that he had gone buccaneering with Will Tatum, had heard from him about Barbados, and had come here at the end of their cruise to inspect: “When he returned to England he asked Mother and me one foggy November day: ‘Who’s for Barbados and the sun?’ and he didn’t have to ask twice.”

“Was it your mother who taught you to be a lady?” and she replied, eyes lowered: “Yes, that was always Mother’s dream,” and Ned, bursting with sentiment, blurted out: “She taught you well.”

On their last day Will said abruptly: “Time we got down to business,” and as the four sat on grassy mounds among the boulders he broached the subject that had preoccupied everyone: “Frakes, you’re an old man. You have a splendid daughter who ought to be getting married. I’m not so young anymore, and I have a nephew here who also ought to be finding himself a mate. What do you young people say?”

For some moments everyone looked out to sea where the Atlantic was delivering great waves, and then Nancy quietly slipped her hand into Ned’s, felt the warm pressure of his response, and exclaimed: “What a wonderful day!” Then she further surprised Ned by giving him an ardent kiss.

Once the marriage was agreed upon, Nancy took charge, and in doing so, displayed that wild joyousness that many would comment upon in the years ahead: “We have a wealth of stuff here, if we can only figure out what to do with it,” and sometimes she would suddenly stop her planning, run to her father, and kiss him: “Oh, I do love you so much, Father, and you mustn’t leave us, ever.” And then she would pout: “But I do so want to live in Bridgetown with its shops and ships,” and she asked Uncle Will, as she had been asked to call him: “But what could we do in Bridgetown to earn a living?”

Will and Ned decided to remain an extra day to explore the possibilities, and they sat among the boulders as one idea after another was proposed and rejected, until finally Will said: “Wherever I’ve gone—Port Royal, Tortuga, Lisbon—I’ve noticed that men need inns and taverns. Places to talk, to learn what ships are sailing where, to drink with old friends and remember battles. Bridgetown’s growing. It could use another inn. A proper one.”

When this was agreed upon, with Nancy lilting about as if she were already mistress of the place and teasing the customers, Frakes said: “Capital idea for you youngsters. You can have everything in the cottage, and the storeroom. Make it a handsome inn, a lively one, but I, I’ll stay here by the sea.”

This decision dampened the discussion, but then Will said: “He’s right. Might as well spend it where he’s happy,” but Nancy argued: “You know, there’s a sea at Bridgetown, too,” and he replied: “I mean the real sea.”

Talk then turned to what name the proposed inn should have, and Will warned: “The right name means everything. Men grow to cherish it,” and he suggested copies of the type so popular in England: “Cavalier & Roundhead, or maybe Pig & Thistle.” Nancy offered The Carib or perhaps Rest & Riot, but Ned volunteered nothing until the others had exhausted their wits. Then he said quietly: “It’ll be The Giralda Inn,” and when each of the others protested, he explained: “That’s why I’m here today. It’s the ship I helped capture, the one I captained, the one that brought us safely home,” and Will thought: And the one in which you discovered love with Inés, and it’s proper that a man should honor such a ship.

The inn quickly became noted for three features: the red-haired keeper who had served as a buccaneer with Henry Morgan, the beautiful and vivacious black-haired girl who tended bar, and the older fellow, now forty-one, with a deep scar on his left cheek, who occupied a chair at a corner table, telling dubious but interesting stories of his supposed adventures at the sack of Panamá, the wild days at Tortuga and his escape from a Spanish prison. He had a host of tales and became one of the reasons why sailors hurried to the Giralda as soon as their ships anchored. Rarely did they mention a port at which he had not touched: Maracaibo, Havana, Porto Bello, Cádiz, Lisbon, he’d seen them all, and then he’d add, with a touch of true disappointment: “Cartagena, I never reached. We tried, but the Dons were too strong for us. Maybe if I ever go out again …”

However, it was Nancy who established the spirit of the place, with her constant smile and bright laughter and the little tricks she had developed to keep the customers happy. When one sailor made bold with her after a long trip at sea, she did not take offense. Shouting to all in the bar, she would cry: “Did you hear what he just said?” and she would repeat word for word the man’s improper proposal, but then, when everyone was jeering, she would chuck the sailor under the chin, plant a kiss on his forehead, and say, equally loudly: “But he didn’t mean a word of it.”

But by this time things had changed, for many of the planters—certainly the smaller ones—were fed up with the domination of outworn Cavaliers like Oldmixon and Tatum, so that when the time came for a showdown, the islanders discovered that they loved honest Will Tatum, scar and all, and disdained his pompous brother, Sir Isaac.

This showdown came in a public meeting which Isaac and Clarissa had goaded their toadies into convening. “We shall kill two birds if we manage it properly,” Isaac predicted. “We’ll outlaw the Giralda as a public menace, and without that anchor to cling to, Will can be run out of town.”

The plot was faulty, for unexpected speakers preempted the platform, launching such a barrage against the petty tyrannies of the older Tatums that unruly listeners began to cheer each accusation. Sir Isaac stood revealed as a would-be dictator, and an insufferable prude as well. When it was clear that his plans, whatever they might have been, had been frustrated, a farmer with a modest number of acres took the floor. “I think we’ve uncovered this man’s plot,” he said, and pointed contemptuously toward Sir Isaac. “He wants to run his brother out of Barbados, as he and his wife once did long ago. I’d like to hear what the man involved thinks about this, and so would we all. Tell us, Will.”

Two nights later, Will decided that the victory of honest men over tyrants should be celebrated, so he organized an affair at which he paid for drinks and refreshments for all who came from the waterfront. “A late feast for my nephew and his bride,” he called it, and Ned wondered why his uncle was creating such a fuss, singing old songs and telling wild stories, but as midnight approached, Will banged a glass for attention and asked quietly: “How many of you saw that Dutch ship dropping anchor out there this morning?” and when two men indicated they had, he addressed them: “They’ve spent all day unloading cargo, and in the morning they sail westward to Port Royal.”

Nancy looked at her husband as if to ask: “What is this?” and Will said: “When she sails, I’ll be aboard. I still have old scores to settle with Spain,” and all in the room gathered about to see if he meant what he said. He did, and when some asked why he should leave his good life, he replied with solemn emphasis: “Time comes when a man wants to go back to what he does best,” and because Ned and Nancy realized that their uncle’s violent life meant they might never see him again, they stayed close as he sat in his corner, regaling younger sailors with his tales of far places. When the night was late Nancy heard him tell a sailor: “I should never have picked up this scar. Carelessness. If you get one, young feller, and you will, get it for trying something big.” And in the morning he was gone.

The Dutch ship put into Port Royal, where Will saw once more the wild activity of that Caribbean hellhole: the small boats scurrying among British ships of the line to bring sailors ashore for the grog shops and the girls, pickpockets plying their silent trade, interrupted now and then by cries of “Stop that thief!” but most of all, the movement of people of every color, every tongue, in and out of the hundreds of shops and greasy eating places. Port Royal on a bright January morning was a striking relief from the English aloofness of Barbados, and he looked forward to being back in the business of hauling captured Spanish vessels and crews and silver into its turmoil.

“You mean …” Tatum could not believe that this old Welsh pirate had allowed himself to be seduced by a big title and a little salary, but the Frenchman corrected him: “Not one title, many,” and he ticked off Morgan’s new glories: “Acting governor, lieutenant general, vice-admiral, colonel commandant of the Port Royal regiment, judge of the Admiralty Court, justice of the peace and Custos Rotulorum.” Seeing Will gaping, he added with a leering wink: “The old rule. Set a thief to catch a thief.”

“I’ve got to see him,” Will interrupted. “If I can just talk to him man to man …” But when he tried to visit his shipmate at his office inland in Spanish Town, he was bluntly told by the young officer guarding access: “Sir Henry refuses to see old privateers. He has one message for them: ‘Go home and leave Spain alone.’ ”

Tatum would not accept this, and when he persisted in wanting an explanation, the young man said: “Our king has promised the King of Spain: ‘No more pirates will be allowed in Port Royal. No more attacks on your Spanish ships.’ Sir Henry obeys the king.”

Appalled by this shameless twisting in the wind, Tatum went back to Port Royal without seeing Morgan, and after much thrashing about, found a berth on a Dutch pirate ship whose captain did not feel bound by any agreements made in Europe: “In the Caribbean, we decide,” and he decided, to Tatum’s delight, to prowl the Main once more for Spanish prizes.

Whenever in the years that followed he succeeded in taking a ship from the King of Spain, Tatum was first aboard the stricken vessel, and while Dutch sailors fought among themselves for the booty, he raged with cutlass and pistol, slaying any Spaniards who gave even a hint they might oppose him, until his Dutch captain had to cry: “Tatum! Stop!”

As the Dutch buccaneer prowled the Caribbean, word of Tatum’s wild behavior trickled back to Port Royal, and British officers warned Lieutenant Governor Morgan: “You’ve got to discipline this damned fool. If the Spanish king complains to our king, hell’s to pay.”

Will was appalled at the appearance of his former captain, immense in girth, red of face, his foot in bandages, his voice a beer-heavy rasp. And then he heard the brutal decision: “Tatum, to prove we’re trying to maintain the peace, I’ve got to deliver you as prisoner to the Spanish governor at Cartagena.”

“No!” Will shouted.

“King’s orders.”

“Spaniards hate me. They’ll kill me.” When Morgan smiled, Will pleaded: “But I was your right-hand man at Porto Bello … Panamá.”

This particular plea amused Morgan, for he remembered Tatum well: a hero once when he blew up the Spanish soldiery at Porto Bello, again when he led the storming of the defenses at Panamá, but an arrant knave when he organized the loud protests at the division of spoils on the beach. And the last offense obliterated the two contributions. He owed this old buccaneer nothing.

“Different times, different problems,” he said curtly as he limped from the office.

As the English ship bearing the prisoner Tatum approached Cartagena, that fatal port where so many English lives had been lost, Will could not believe the fatal twists of history. Years ago in Cádiz he had been within two days of being burned at the stake, but he had escaped to serve Portugal, England, and Henry Morgan, always against the immortal enemy Spain. Now he was being delivered, wrists bound, back into the Spanish captivity he had escaped thirty years before, and to a punishment equally barbaric.

But now a sharp-eyed junior priest noticed the faded B on Will’s left cheek, a most unusual mark, and recalled that an English prisoner marked like that had not only escaped from the Inquisition in Cádiz but had murdered guards in doing so, and Will was brought back to the black-robed judges to hear his new sentence: “Judgment passed in Spain on the heretical criminal Tatum will be executed here. By hanging.”

Back in his cell, Will reflected on his tumultuous life as a buccaneer: nights of wild celebration in Port Royal, cutting logwood in Honduras, sacking Panamá, getting lost in rounding Cape Horn, capturing a Spanish galleon off Cuba, losing the Pride of Devon off Cádiz, in jail and out, and four days from now … a gibbet in Cartagena. He shrugged his shoulders and went to sleep.

On the third morning he was visited by two distinguished citizens of Cartagena who knew him well, the condesa and her spiritual adviser, Fray Baltazar, who spoke first: “Will Tatum, the sentence against you is just and you deserve to die for your crimes in the Old World as well as the New. However, the condesa wishes to speak.” And she said in those crisp tones that Will remembered so well: “Tatum, despite our long ordeal, you helped bring my daughter Inés home a virgin. I do not forget, and have prevailed upon the conde to spare your life.”

He was released that day, and as soon as he was free he hurried unrepentant to the seafront to sign on with any ship that might carry him back to Port Royal, but when he appeared near the water he was apprehended by three policemen under the control of Fray Baltazar: “You have been such an implacable enemy of Spain that you must remain here in Cartagena for the rest of your life. We dare not risk having you play pirate against our shipping.”

The problem was perplexing, for a Dutch trading ship had limped into port, where it had no right to be, with its spars and decks a shambles. Its crew had a tale so preposterous that the captain was forced to repeat it at least six times in his broken Spanish, and still the Cartagena officials could not believe him. When Tatum arrived he was shoved forward: “You speak English and you know Port Royal. What can sensible men make of what he is saying?” And it was Will’s careful rendition that was entered into the chronicles of Cartagena:

In this manner, Port Royal, capital of the buccaneers and the wildest haven in the Seven Seas, vanished from the earth in less than twenty-five minutes.

Every Spanish man, whether priest or scoundrel, trusted old adviser or conniving clerk in a government office, was subservient to the ironclad rule that had always dictated behavior in Cartagena: “Look after your family,” and not even Baltazar was exempt from that stern edict. His sister was a presentable widow with forty-four acres of productive land who had for a dozen years been trying to find a new husband. On this day when her brother brought yet another unmarried man for one of her fine stews, she served such a splendid meal that Will was encouraged to return frequently, without Fray Baltazar’s urging. Then one day the priest rode his mule to Will’s workplace, bringing an unexpected proposition for this Englishman he had grown to trust: “Will, you must have observed that my sister needs someone to help work her land. I will explain to the conde. I know he will release you … and you could live there …”

“Oh, you want me to marry your sister? But I’m not Catholic and …”

“Who said marry?” the priest shouted. “For me to marry a Protestant like you to a good Catholic like her would be a mortal sin. I’d roast in hell. But I’ve had a small hut built … on a corner of her land … I’m not talking about marriage!”

Before Will could respond to this amazing suggestion, the priest said almost in a whisper: “She’s a good woman, Will, a dear woman whom I love. I’m past sixty and I must see to it that she has help on her little farm.”

In this manner, Will Tatum, mortal enemy of things Spanish, became caretaker for a Spanish widow with forty-four acres and marvelous skill in the kitchen, and as the years passed, and he took his meals increasingly at her table, he discovered that “When a man understands the Spanish, they aren’t all that bad.”

ENGLISH SETTLERS IN JAMAICA KNEW THEM AS MAROONS, black slaves of fierce character whose ancestors had escaped when their Spanish owners were driven from the island by the British in the 1650s. These slaves had fled to remote mountain glens in the center of the island, and there they had survived and prospered for more than eighty years, repelling all English efforts to dislodge them. Year by year their numbers had grown as new slaves, imported into Jamaica at great expense, worked a few years on the sugar plantations, then disappeared into the mountains to form the new stock of Maroons.

The large contingent of more than a hundred from Spanish Town and its attendant plantations marched north to Trevelyan, where the troop was joined by an extraordinary planter, Pentheny Croome, two hundred and forty pounds, a shape like a newly patted butterball, and a flaming red face. Like Sir Hugh, he was a member of the British Parliament, famed in that body as “the only man in either House who has never read a book.” Indeed, some members said behind his back: “We doubt he even knows his alphabet, but for sure he knows how to calculate fifteen percent per annum on his investments.” Pentheny’s investments, like those of all the senior leaders of this improvised expeditionary force, were in sugar, for he had, through natural cunning, avarice and theft, acquired not only a huge working plantation, twice as large as Sir Hugh’s, but also several thousand acres which he was about to bring into cultivation. He was a giant man with giant appetites, and when the troops were ready to start their chase through the hills, he told them: “We’re goin’ to rout out them Maroons and kill the lot! No quarter!”

Sir Hugh, with superior military experience, corrected him: “No, Pentheny, my good friend, the governor’s orders are quite different. We’ve tried to shoot the Maroons for the past three decades. One excursion after another. The tally? Six of us dead, for sure. Four of them dead, maybe.”

“Then why’re we goin’?”

“A truce. Men, we’re not going to fire at a single Maroon. We’re going to offer them a truce. No more war … ever … if they’ll pledge to bring back our slaves who try to run away.”

“Can we trust them?” Croome asked, and Sir Hugh retorted: “What other choice do we have?”

After four days of climbing up and down the backbreaking cockpit country, they had seen no sign of the Maroons they knew to be in the area, despite the fact that they had sent scouts ahead to call out the name of the Maroon leader: “Cuffee! Cuffee! Come out! We want to talk.” There was no response, but toward sunset on the fifth day, Maroon fire came from a tangle of banyan roots, and Croome shouted: “Over here!” and into the matted jungle he crashed, firing his gun and killing one of the Maroons.

“That’s how we’ll handle this,” he said as he sat on a log cleaning his gun, the dead black at his feet. But Sir Hugh would have none of it. Tying a big white kerchief to the tip of his rifle, he called to his son Roger to do the same, and together they walked toward the banyan thicket, crying: “Cuffee! Cuffee! It’s Sir Hugh here. Come talk with me.” And as darkness fell the famous leader of the Maroons, a man of forty whose forefathers had been hauled from the Gulf of Guinea in 1529, came cautiously out to parley with the enemy, as if he were a head of state.

When the expeditionary force returned to civilization, Sir Hugh did not stop off at Trevelyan, but accompanied by Pentheny Croome, rode on to Spanish Town, where he reported to the governor, General Hunter: “Brief skirmish. Croome here reacted with extreme bravery in one tight squeeze. Had to kill a Maroon.”

“Excellent man, Croome. And what did you accomplish?”

“Met with Cuffee. Saw his men. Saw their huge cache of stolen guns, bullets. Concluded the agreement you and I spoke of. No more killing on his part. No more fires in the night. On our part, we’ll give him additional ammunition against the chance of a Spanish invasion.”

The governor exploded: “Good God, man! You mean you shied away from the real topic?”

“I did not, with all respect, sir. Cuffee and his lieutenants, all of them, agreed to harbor no more runaway slaves. He’ll bring them back. Ten pounds alive, five dead.”

Next morning Sir Hugh was up well before dawn and rode off with Roger without even saying farewell to Pentheny, for he was homesick for the one secure refuge he knew in this world, superior even to his safe seat in Parliament, the glorious green fields of Trevelyan Plantation. When he saw the outer boundaries enclosing land that was neat and clean, he cried to his son: “Maintain it this way, Roger! A place like this is something to gladden a man’s heart.”

Since the sun was well up, he was not surprised to see his slaves marching to the slightly rolling fields where the myriad little rectangles had been lined out with severe exactitude, their four sides carefully delineated by hoeing up loose earth, inside which the ratoons of sugarcane would be planted, each with its own irrigation system ensured by the low earthen walls.

He did not expect the slaves to show any pleasure from the fact that he was once more among them, but had he inspected closely, he would have detected signs that they would rather have him here in Jamaica than in London: “When de boss foot touch de soil, things grow.”

Then Hugh’s heart beat faster, for he was approaching the slight rise at which he always stopped when returning home after any prolonged absence from his plantation, and when he reached the top he reined in his horse, leaned back in the saddle, and gazed once more upon one of the finest sights in Jamaica and perhaps the entire Caribbean.

Atop a hill in the distance rose a handsomely constructed stone cylindrical building, shining in the morning sunlight and displaying as its crown the four big canvas sails which proclaimed it to be a working windmill. Near its foot on a large flat area stood a somewhat similar stone building that boasted no windmill, but it resembled the first in that the interior of each contained a vertical crushing mechanism into which raw sugarcane was fed so that the rich juice could be extracted.

Near the foot of the windmill came a meandering stream, not big enough to be called a river or even a rivulet, but nevertheless a reliable flowing stream that sometimes sang as it tumbled down the hillside to pass under a handsome stone bridge consisting of two arches. This bridge, a structure of elegant proportions, was the center of the sugar-processing area.

From the two crushers on the hill flowed down the freshly extracted juice by way of an uncovered Roman stone aqueduct which ran right across the bridge, forming one of its parapets and delivering its precious liquid to the vats where the juice was collected, the copper kettles in which it was boiled, the pans in which it turned magically into brown crystals called muscovado, the pots in which the muscovado was treated with white clay imported from Barbados to produce the white crystals that merchants and housewives wanted, all contained within a cluster of trimly built small stone buildings which also housed the enclosure for the mules and the stills where the wastage of the process, the rich, dark molasses, was converted into rum.

Trevelyan Plantation enjoyed an enviable reputation in the sugar-molasses-rum trade because of the intelligent decision of one of the first owners. He told his family back in the 1670s: “Cotton and tobacco are fools’ crops in Jamaica. The American colonies outproduce us in both cost and quality. But I’m told there’s a canny fellow over on Barbados, Thomas Oldmixon, they say, who’s beginning to earn real money by growing sugarcane smuggled in from the Guyanas. I’m sailing over to see how he does it.” He did, and found Oldmixon making a huge profit from his canes, but the man was a suspicious lot despite his air of being a friend to all: “Why should I give you my secrets and watch Jamaican sugar outdistancing my own?” and he would tell his visitor nothing and show him less. When he caught Samuel Trevelyan creeping back at dusk to see how the canes grew, he ordered him off his plantation and let loose two dogs to ensure that he stayed off.

“I’ve come a far distance for this. What am I to do?”

Pennyfeather considered this for a moment, then gave an answer which would account for Jamaica’s future prosperity: “There’s a mean-spirited man atop that slight rise to the east. If you were dying of thirst, he wouldn’t give you a drink, but for a handful of coins he’d sell you anything. Name’s Sir Isaac Tatum.”

“Oldmixon said it was against the interest of Barbados.”

“Sir Isaac recognizes no interests but his own. You’ll get your canes if you have the money.” Isaac Tatum did drive a hard bargain, but Trevelyan did get his canes, and in Jamaica they prospered, as he said in his thank-you note to Pennyfeather, “wondrous well.”

Of course, when he knew more about sugarcane he discovered that Sir Isaac had cheated him outrageously. He had sold him not honest root cuttings which remained viable for years, but only ratoons, accidental suckers from the roots which looked like the real thing but which produced usable cane for little more than two seasons. However, the ratoons did get Samuel Trevelyan launched, and two years later he was able to buy real roots from an honest planter—and the great Jamaican plantation was on its way to the huge fortune he and his family eventually accumulated.

An accidental discovery accounted for much of the Trevelyan wealth. One of the plantation’s slaves, a careless fellow, threw into the still in which molasses was being converted into rum a mess of old molasses whose sugar content had been caramelized in the sun. When he saw how much darker than usual the resulting rum was, he hid it in a special cask which happened to have been made of charred oak, and when Trevelyan finally discovered this mistake, he found not the light-golden liquid produced on the ordinary plantation, but a heavy dark rum, magnificent in flavor, now called by some “a golden black.” Trevelyan became the recognized name for this rum, sought by connoisseurs who relished the best, and the money flowed in from its sale in Europe and New England, because no other plantation had yet mastered the trick of producing its equal.

On the hill, not far from the windmill, rose the great house, a three-storied manor with mansard roof and projecting wings, called Golden Hall because of the row of trees whose bright yellow blossoms made the place joyous. Lady Beth Pembroke had loved these trees, and their brilliant blooming reminded both Sir Hugh and his three sons of her onetime presence.

Safe at last on the veranda of Golden Hall, Sir Hugh, home from the wars, could look down upon a scene whose elements were so perfectly disposed—arched bridge, stone buildings, slave quarters, rum still, tilled fields, woods—that it might have been created for the brush of some medieval artist. It was a little kingdom of which any prince of that bygone age would have been proud.

By no means the largest of the Jamaican plantations—Pentheny Croome’s was more than twice as big even without the lands recently acquired—it did have seven hundred acres, of which seventy-seven were in mature canes, one hundred and fifty-four in ratoons and another seventy-seven in young plants. It was worked by two hundred and twenty slaves, forty mules and sixty-four oxen, and their joint efforts produced just under three hundred tons of sugar, about half of it clayed, the other half brown muscovado which would be shipped to England for refining. And, pride of the plantation, each year it barreled more than a hundred puncheons of Trevelyan rum, or about ten thousand gallons, at a masterful price when delivered abroad.

As Sir Hugh studied the excellence of his plantation he reflected on what a superior island his Jamaica was. The last rough census had shown some 2,200 whites of the master-mistress category, about 4,000 whites of lower category, and 79,000 slaves. As he had told a recent visitor from England: “We never forget that we whites, counting every one, are outnumbered six to seventy-nine. It makes us careful how we act, very careful how we manage our slaves, who could rise up and slay us all if so minded.” But he also confessed that he himself earned substantial profits from the slave trade: “Last year in Jamaica we were able to import some seven thousand slaves from Africa, and we could have sold twice that many: we immediately forwarded more than five thousand of the newcomers on to Cuba and South Carolina, and on their sale we made a tremendous profit.”

He told every stranger who asked, either in Jamaica or England, that his island was a haven of refuge for all kinds of people: “We accept Spaniards who flee harsh governments in South America, slaves who escape cruel masters in Georgia, artisans from New England who want to start a new life, and last year the governor issued a proclamation that henceforth he would admit even Catholics and Jews if they promised not to create public scandals.”

But the life of the Pembrokes was not limited to Golden Hall by any means, because each of the three boys had been educated in England at Rugby School in Warwickshire and had spent much of his youth at either the Pembroke townhouse on Cavendish Square near London’s Hyde Park, or in the small and lovely Cotswold cottage in Upper Swathling, Gloucestershire, some fifty miles west of London, where Lady Pembroke—known to all as Lady Beth—had supervised the creation of one of the finer small flower gardens in the south of England.

But how did an almost illiterate planter like Pentheny Croome in remote Jamaica gain a seat in Parliament? Simple. He, like the others, bought it. There were in those years in England a handful of what were called “rotten boroughs,” the remnants of towns which had been of some importance when seats in Parliament were originally distributed but which had declined or in some cases actually disappeared. Still, each of those shadowy areas retained the right to send a man to Parliament and it became the custom for a landowner who held title to a rotten borough to sell his seat to the highest bidder. Pentheny had paid £1,100 for his borough; Sir Hugh, £1,500 each for his two, one for himself and one for his oldest son, Roger. The other West Indians had made their own deals, and all agreed with Pentheny: “Some of the best money I’ve ever spent. Helps protect us against the rascals,” a rascal being anyone who wanted a fair price on sugar.

And that was the significant difference between Great Britain’s West Indian colonies and her North American ones. Maturing colonies like Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia controlled not a single seat in Parliament; they were unprotected against the taxes and rules so arbitrarily imposed; they kept their politicians at home, where they mastered those intricacies of rural American politics that would carry them to freedom. The West Indies islands, infinitely more favored in those decades, would never master the local lessons, for their best men were always absent in London.

Of equal importance, when bright young lads from Jamaica and Barbados were away at school in England, their contemporaries from Boston and New York were attending Harvard and King’s College in their hometowns and forming the intercolonial friendships that would be so important when their colonies decided to strike for freedom. In retrospect, it would become clear that the West Indies paid a frightful penalty for the ephemeral advantages they enjoyed in the period from 1710 through the 1770s.

But in many ways it was the second son who made the exalted position of the Pembrokes secure, because Greville stayed in Jamaica and ran the plantation. At twenty-four he had proved himself a genius in scheduling work for the slaves in such a way as to keep them reasonably happy and more than reasonably productive. He was also good at figures and had a sharp judgment as to whether it was more profitable to ship his surplus molasses to England or to Boston. As the Jamaica planters said: “Massachusetts citizens must drink more rum per person than people anywhere else in the world. They have seven distilleries up there and their appetite for our molasses is insatiable.” He had engineered a profitable deal with Pentheny Croome’s brother Marcus, who operated two small ships carrying cargo out of Jamaica, and it seemed that whatever Greville turned his hand to earned money for the Pembrokes.

To have a son occupy the position of plantation manager was a boon that most families missed. Because many of the owners preferred to spend most of their time in England, they had to leave the running of their plantations to untested young Scotsmen or Irishmen who came to Jamaica for that purpose. Or, if lucky, they found a trusted local lawyer who would serve as manager; if unlucky, they fell into the clutches of some dishonest man who stole half their profits while they were not looking. Of the two dozen West Indian planters who formed the Sugar Interest in Parliament in the year 1731, only two had been fortunate enough to find honest members of their own families to run their plantations, whereas an appalling thirteen had gone to England as young men and had never once returned to their home island to supervise the on-site production of sugar. They were concerned only when they had to defend the islands against competing interests in England, in France, and especially in North America.

In the meantime, he was engaged in a battle which his two brothers had waged successfully. Pentheny Croome’s daughter Hester was a big, brassy young woman with prospects of inheriting an income of not less than twenty thousand pounds a year, a prodigious sum in the England of those days and certainly enough to ensure her a choice of husbands. But early in life she had set her cap for a Pembroke and had jammed it down so securely on her red head that only one of the famous island hurricanes would have been able to dislodge it. At sixteen she had made strong overtures to the future Sir Roger, but he had eluded her by marrying a planter’s daughter from Barbados. At eighteen, bereft at her loss of Roger, she had settled on Greville, and would have brought him to the altar had not a lively lass from a plantation near Spanish Town ensnared him.

She was now, at age twenty, much attracted to John Pembroke, whom she described to her father as “probably the best of the Golden Hall lot.” Brazen in her attempts to allure him, she rode her gray mare to his home to invite him to dances, and insisted that he attend the play the local young people were putting on for the officers of the British warship stationed at Kingston: “It’s a French farce, John. Very naughty. And I’m the leading lady, you might say, in the role of the maid.”

Reluctantly, he agreed, and found that he enjoyed himself immensely. The young officers were such fun to talk with that he wondered briefly whether he might not try to join the navy; and during the play his attention was fixed on Hester, who was more than satisfactory as the rowdy maid. She displayed a robust sense of humor, a capacity for laughing at herself, and a surprising tenderness in the love scenes.

The meeting was attended by Sir Hugh Pembroke and his two sons, Roger and John, Pentheny Croome and a big planter from Spanish Town who was almost as gross as Hester’s father. The topic for debate was crucial to the welfare of the Sugar Interest, as Sir Hugh explained: “Already they’re calling it the Molasses Act, as if it were already passed. It’s bound to determine our profits for the next twenty years, so firm action is obligatory. If we let them have their way, our income plummets. If we force them to write it our way, unlimited profits.”

He explained that the West Indies planters faced three determined enemies: “Those pitiful rascals in Boston and New York who will want to buy our molasses at bottom price so they can earn fortunes with the sorry rum they make.” Here the meeting diverted for a frosty assault on the British colonies on the North American mainland, with special opprobrium for Boston and Philadelphia, two trading centers whose rapacious Puritans and Quakers sought to steal their trading partners blind. All present agreed that in the long run, the natural enemy of the West Indian planters was that collection of ill-mannered American colonies, but the Jamaican members of Parliament knew tricks with which to frustrate them.

“Our second enemy is closer at hand,” Sir Hugh warned. “I mean the French Islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. The problem’s this. Our sugar plantations of Jamaica are blessed with reliable winds. The French islands have none. And since they’re denied windmills, they must use horses and mules. And where do they get them? From Massachusetts and New York. Hundreds of little ships a year load up with animals in Boston and run down to Martinique and sell at a fantastic profit.”

“How does that hurt us?” the planter from Spanish Town asked, and Croome growled: “Because when they unload at Martinique, they fill their ship with French molasses and run it as contraband back to Boston. Totally illegal both ways, but very profitable.”

“Croome should know,” Sir Hugh said caustically, “because there’s rumor that his brother Marcus is engaged in the trade,” and the big man replied harshly: “He better not be.”

His son Roger introduced the ugly fact they had to face: “Word circulates. In France the best grade of clayed white sugar is eight pence a pound. In England the housewife has to pay ten a pound. The outcry is becoming stentorian.”

“What’s that mean?” Pentheny asked, and Roger explained: “Very loud. Named after the loud-voiced herald in the Iliad.”

“And what’s that?”

“The poem by Homer. Greece at war with Troy.”

“I’ve heard of them. But Greece and Troy have nothing to do with the price of sugar in England.” It was his opinion that the controlled monopoly price should be raised, not lowered, and as for the complaints of English homemakers who knew nothing of the problems of a plantation—“the niggers and the Maroons up the hills and French competition”—the women could go to hell.

Sir Hugh advised his friend not to make that speech in public, at least not in England, and the conspirators planned to meet six weeks hence in London with a rigid plan, to which all planters would be bound, to attain three ends as Sir Hugh summarized them: “Make Boston buy her molasses from us at our price. Halt the shipment of mules and horses into Martinique. And raise the sale price of West Indian sugar in England while rigorously keeping out foreign supplies which would sell at half our price if allowed entry.” The men felt hopeful that if they could get the island members of Parliament to stick together, they could attain those desirable ends.

As the meeting broke up, Pentheny asked where John Pembroke, who had left the room, went, and his brother, who could guess what was coming, said: “I don’t really know,” but Sir Hugh, wanting always to have Pentheny on his side, said: “I think he’s in the library,” and when Pentheny found John, he said: “Hester wondered if you’d be free for dinner tonight,” and John was about to say “No,” when his father broke in: “He’d be delighted.”

In London, Sir Hugh and his son Roger had houses on opposite sides of Cavendish Square, the father’s being somewhat larger but not more ostentatious than the son’s. It was four stories high, with a handsome entryway and sets of three carefully matched windows on each floor. Protected by a modest iron railing low enough to be stepped over by a gentleman, it showed no outward display of wealth except for the heavily carved door. Inside, the rooms were spacious and handsomely furnished with an abundance of paintings in heavy gilt frames. If one looked at them casually, one had the impression that the owner displayed good taste and a nice sense of which painting went well on what wall, but upon closer inspection, one was startled by the artists represented, each name being displayed on a small, neatly engraved brass plate.

The landscape that one saw first was a Rembrandt, selected by Sir Hugh himself in Dresden. The mother and child in beautiful red and gold and green was a Raphael, the personal purchase of Lady Beth just before she died. The man on horseback was a Van Dyck and the scene with wood nymphs a Rubens. But the canvas that Sir Hugh loved above all others was a landscape, not overly large, by the Dutch painter Meindert Hobbema. It showed a country scene in Holland, with a bridge much like the one at Trevelyan, and whenever Sir Hugh chanced to come upon it by accident, as it were, he felt the presence of his plantation in Jamaica.

The upper floors were decorated in a restrained style reflecting the taste of Lady Beth Pembroke, née Trevelyan. One knowledgeable visitor, seeking to flatter Sir Hugh, said: “I can see that whereas your wife had good judgment in art, it must have been you who encouraged her to make the purchases.”

“Not so,” snapped Sir Hugh. “It was her money. Her good taste.” And if pressed, he would confess that on his own he had bought only the two landscapes, the Rembrandt and the Hobbema.

Many strategy meetings, formal and informal, of the Sugar Interest had been held in this house, but leaders like the elder Pitt and Robert Walpole also came here to beg the West Indies contingent to support bills that were to the benefit of the nation at large. They usually got the votes they sought, provided they promised to allow passage of other bills of interest to the sugar men.

But Pembroke House in Cavendish Square was not the London headquarters of the Sugar Interest. That function was filled by Pentheny Croome’s grand mansion in Grosvenor Square. It was really two fine Palladian houses erected originally side by side, but Mrs. Croome, brash daughter of a Jamaican sugar man, had knocked out the dividing walls, so that the interior became a vast exhibition hall for the curios she had acquired on her three rambles with her daughter Hester through Germany, France and Italy. The two women were bedazzled by German carvings in translucent limestone, paintings whipped up by Italian artists depicting Lake Como or the French ship which had brought them to Italy. And although they were stout Church of England members, they had been captivated by a painting of one of the popes, whose stern portrait, the dealer vowed, was among the world’s most remarkable works of art.

His parties were lavish, with six or seven kinds of meat, three kinds of fowl and desserts of intricate imagination. Much drink was supplied, but out of deference to his colleagues, he always served a light rum made on his plantation and the heavy, dark rum of his neighboring plantation, Trevelyan.

In 1732, Pentheny Croome spent upward of £20,000 to ensure the passage of the proper Molasses Act, but he was clever enough to allow his friend Sir Hugh to deal with the real leaders of Parliament, for as he told his wife after one of his own grandiose parties which the leadership had ignored: “Sometimes mere money ain’t enough. But you and I can get votes that Sir Hugh could never muster. We’re a strong pair.”

He had touched upon a salient factor in the way the Sugar Interest controlled so many critical votes in Parliament. Pembroke and Croome had once been humorously described in the volatile English press as “the Two Peas in a Pod,” and the name was picked up by the furious pamphleteers who conducted the wars that raged regarding the sugar question. But the two men were not at all that, though they were two clever manipulators. Sir Hugh used his inherent taste, with his Raphael Madonna and his Rembrandt, to lure one kind of voter, while Pentheny Croome wooed the others, his burlesque display of wealth proving that hard currency backed his claims.

When the vote came on the Molasses Act of 1733, the “Two Peas in a Pod” won a smashing victory. The pusillanimous American colonies, with no voice in Parliament, got nothing but a slap in the face. The rum distillers in Boston would be forced to buy their molasses from Jamaica and her sister islands at ridiculously high prices; the lucrative trade in horses and mules to Martinique was halted, and no more cheap French molasses would be carried on the return trips. In fact, the American colonies were treated with such blatant inconsideration that hitherto loyal citizens in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia began to mutter: “Each decision made in London favors the West Indies and damages us.” And of greatest importance to the Sugar Interest, every household in Great Britain would pay a yearly tribute to planters like Pembroke and Croome, who would grow constantly richer.

Sir Hugh was amused as he affectionately studied the paintings: Good God! To think I paid him to do them! Even suggested the subjects … that is, the Jamaica part.

The set of paintings, which was already receiving attention from the engraver, was entitled: The Sugar Planter, at Home and Abroad. The central figure, a planter whom everyone in Parliament would have to recognize as Pentheny Croome, was shown in Jamaica in the first three scenes: a brute whipping a slave, a miser hoarding his gains, a father surrounded by his black concubines and their four mulattoes. In the three London scenes Croome was dressed in lavish city finery: entertaining in a huge mansion, manipulating a vote in Parliament, nodding approvingly as lines of impoverished housewives paid exorbitant prices for his sugar. It was Hogarth at his most savage, and Sir Hugh trembled to think of how his friend Pentheny might react.

No need to worry. When the engravings appeared in the shops in late 1733, Pentheny Croome proudly buttonholed his fellow members of Parliament: “I say, old chap! D’ja happen to see them engravings by this fellow Hogarth? That’s me in the pictures.” He became the rage of London, with everyone wanting to meet him: “Tell us, Croome? You really have four pickaninny bastards in the islands?” And many, awakened by the engravings to the fact that Pentheny Croome was very rich, clustered about in hopes of catching a share of that wealth. At the height of his notoriety he gave a thousand pounds to a school for poor boys and a subscription of five hundred to a hospital in a poor section of London. He appeared in full and majestic dress at a concert by two Italian singers, man and woman, and helped open three country fairs.

When Pentheny heard of this deception, he laid a trap for Marcus, and satisfied on all points, rode over to Golden Hall to show Pembroke proof of this criminal behavior. Sir Hugh made only one response: “He’s stealing from us. It’s money out of your pocket and mine, Croome, and he’s got to be stopped.”

Pentheny, outraged by his brother’s behavior, swore to put an end to it. Along the waterfront where the sunken Port Royal had once flourished with its hordes of pirates, he chartered a small, swift vessel crewed by an unruly lot of characters who assured him they were ready for anything, and after he was certain that his brother in the Carthaginian had set sail for Boston, he swept in, overtook her and joined his sailors as they forcibly boarded the smuggler.

The confrontation was terse. “What’s this?” Marcus cried, and Pentheny roared: “You’re defrauding honest men!”

“I’m not,” his brother shouted—and there would be much debate as to what happened next, but those who stood close to the two men agreed that having said this in an ugly mood, Marcus Croome reached for a pistol. Pentheny, who had come aboard anticipating such an act, had his pistol out seconds before Marcus, and he fired point-blank at his brother, blowing a hole in his chest.

When word reached London that Pentheny Croome had frustrated an act of piracy in this dramatic fashion, with the dead pirate being his own brother, his fame increased, and several patrons of Hogarth suggested that the artist add a seventh panel to his famous series on the sugar planters, and when he protested—“A set’s a set”—a hack artist, copying the frame of Hogarth’s series, rushed to the streets with Panel Seven, “The Pirate Trapped by His Own Brother,” which sold famously.

It required no less than considerable turbulence in Europe for John Pembroke to escape the entangling toils of Hester Croome. In these years, that continent seemed to be in constant turmoil, and, fortunately for John, an appropriate event presented itself when needed.

Lorenz Poggenberg, a minor nobleman of the Danish court, left Copenhagen on a secret mission to London, hoping to enroll Great Britain in some naval schemes that Denmark fancied in this time of trouble, and in London he was advised to present his appeal to Sir Hugh Pembroke, leader of a major faction in Parliament.

The Danish tactic accomplished nothing, but during the protracted discussions, Poggenberg learned that Sir Hugh controlled large sugar estates in Jamaica, and this awakened such considerable interest that joint British-Danish naval adventures in the Caribbean were forgotten: “Did you say sugar, Sir Hugh?”

“I did, and a tricky business it is.”

“I know. Slaves, muscovado, rum, finding the right markets.”

Sir Hugh’s interest was piqued: “Now how would you know about such things, Baron?”

“My family has a large plantation on St. John. We simply cannot find a manager to run it properly. I can’t go out, business at court, and I have no sons to handle the messy task.”

Later Sir Hugh told his wife: “When Poggenberg said that, I did not reply for at least five minutes, for my mind was whirling like a top. But then everything cleared, like sunlight after a storm. And I thought: John is just the man they’re seeking.”

He made the proposal cautiously: “Baron, I may have the answer to your problem.” When Poggenberg leaned forward, Pembroke said: “My son John. Twenty-four years old. Wonderfully skilled in sugar. Looking for a plantation he can whip into shape.” He paused, then added a clause that any European head of family would appreciate: “Third son, you know. Prospects in Jamaica not too bright.” And before that day ended in London, it was agreed that John Pembroke of Trevelyan, Jamaica, would sail to St. John in the Danish islands to bring some order to the sugar plantation of the Poggenbergs.

When word of his new assignment reached Jamaica in the summer of 1732, it brought both relief and joy to John Pembroke, for he saw in his removal to St. John a heaven-sent device for avoiding the entrapment of Hester Croome, and he was able to assume a mask of near-sadness when he informed her that reluctant though he might be, he must leave Jamaica to take up the duties his family had arranged for him in the Danish isles.

When he arrived at the Poggenberg plantation on the Danish Virgin Islands in late December, John found it much more beautiful than any he had known in Jamaica, for it shared a fine rise at the north end of St. John with two other plantations. From the big house in which he would live he could see far vistas of the Atlantic to the north and the Caribbean to the west, and each body of water was festooned with crowds of little tree-lined islets. Lunaberg Plantation it was called, and when the first full moon rose over the peaceful scene, with the waves drifting silently below, he had to agree that it had been aptly named.

It was much smaller, of course, than Trevelyan—only four hundred acres—but the land looked promising, and John was thoroughly pleased when he found that in addition to its beauties, Lunaberg had fine neighbors on its western boundary, a Danish chap, Magnus Lemvig, and his most beautiful wife, Elzabet. “We’ll help you get started,” Lemvig said in good English, and his wife, her blond hair neatly plaited in two strands bound about her head, volunteered to send her personal slaves to bring some order to the plantation house. She warned: “Since you’ve brought no wife, you must be attentive to which slaves serve in your house. You can be kind to them, but don’t let them dominate you.”

The plantation owner to the east was a much different sort, Jorgen Rostgaard, a disillusioned Dane in his forties with a grumpy wife: “Watch the niggers! They’ll steal your socks while you sleep!” He had a dozen suggestions for keeping slaves obedient, all of them brutal: “You have two choices, Pembroke. You can baby your slaves the way Lemvig does or keep them in line the way I do. You’ll learn my way’s best.” Then he said, almost insultingly: “We don’t spoil our niggers the way you English do in Jamaica. The important thing, get started right. Let your niggers know who’s boss.”

The land was first class and its situation atop a rise assured drainage so that the canefields did not sour because of swampiness. And since the slaves seemed as strong and healthy as those he had known on his family estates in Jamaica, he assumed he would be able to weld them into a responsible team. By the end of the month he had shown that he meant for them to work hard, but that when they did they would receive such valued concessions as larger rations of food and extra supplies of cane juice for their midday meals. As February began he judged that he had got things off to a solid start. But on the fourth, a tall sergeant in the Danish armed forces rode into Lunaberg accompanied by a drummer, and when all the whites from the hilltop establishments were assembled, the sergeant nodded to the drummer, who beat a long tattoo, whereupon a scroll was unrolled displaying an official seal, and the eighteen new rules for treatment of slaves were proclaimed:

John, eager to keep abreast of developments during his first months on the island, sought advice from both Lemvig on his west and Rostgaard on his east. The former frankly admitted: “Trouble threatens, but I do believe the new laws can be enforced in a Christian way.” Elzabet, daughter of a clergyman in rural Denmark and a devout Lutheran, fortified her husband’s hopes: “I see no possibility that we, or you, would ever enforce the cruelest provisions of the new code. Breaking one of our men on the wheel? I would almost give my own life to prevent that.”

But John heard quite a different story from Rostgaard. “Pembroke,” he said in his heavy accent, “we have two niggers on this hill that bear watchin’, one on your place, one on mine. Before long each of them will be hanged … or worse.”

“On my plantation?”

“Yes. Mine’s the worst of the pair. Cudjoe, a bad one from the Guinea coast. Very bold. Yours is more sly. That big fellow, Vavak.”

John knew the man, a leader among the blacks but restrained in the presence of whites: “Where’d he find such a name?”

“Jungle drums. They’re all heathens, you know. His former owner told me a crazy story.”

“I’d like to hear it … since he’s one of my men.”

“On the Dutch slaver that brought him here he was chained belowdecks where something clacked incessantly against the ship’s side—right at his head: ‘Vavak! Vavak!’ To keep from going mad, he took the sound into himself. Day and night, he repeated Vavak, Vavak, as if he was in charge, not the ship. So when he staggered off the ship muttering ‘Vavak, Vavak,’ they thought that was his name.”

“He must have a real name.”

Twice Rostgaard had used that ominous phrase “or worse,” and John was content not to know what particular barbarity was implied, but that Rostgaard intended enforcing it if either his Cudjoe or John’s Vavak misbehaved, he had no doubt.

The two slaves identified by Rostgaard as troublemakers were of contrasting backgrounds. Both had been born in Africa, captured by Portuguese slavers, and deposited in barracoons of the big Danish fort, Fredericksborg, located near where the famed Gold Coast (to the east) met the Ivory Coast (to the west). But Cudjoe, Rostgaard’s slave, was an Ashanti, from a nearby tribe famed for its warriors who gave infinite trouble when forced into slavery, while Vavak had been captured by black slavers from a far distant tribe, the peaceful and superior Mandingos, and sold to the Portuguese. Each in his own way rotted in slavery and lusted for freedom. Cudjoe collected arms and prepared to lead a violent rebellion against the outnumbered whites—208 Danes, Frenchmen, Englishmen and Spaniards versus 1,087 Ashanti, Fante, Denkyira and one Mandingo—while Vavak moved quietly to inspirit his fellow slaves and prepare them for peaceful and in time irresistible pressure against the owners.

Since their plantations were side by side, the two slaves conspired to meet, but the rules against what the owners called “wandering” were so severe that whenever Rostgaard heard that Cudjoe had strayed even a short distance, he tied him to a tree and gave him twenty lashes. And once in June when he caught Vavak talking among the slaves on his plantation, he took it upon himself to give Pembroke’s slave a thorough beating.

When John heard of this he rode over to Rostgaard’s big house, a sorry affair kept in permanent disarray, to protest, but the older man was not about to tolerate a lecture from an English intruder: “If you refuse to discipline your slaves, I’ll have to do it for you,” and he vowed to repeat the lashings if Vavak ever again set foot across the borderline between the two plantations.

“What can I do?”

“I’ll tell you one thing not to do. Don’t intercede on behalf of your slaves. If you do, Rostgaard will turn all the whites on the island against you. After all, he does have the law on his side. The new rules make that clear.” And Elzabet reinforced this counsel: “Leave him alone. He’s a monster.”

The truth of what the Lemvigs had advised was demonstrated in July when Rostgaard captured one of his own slaves who had run away and remained hidden for twelve weeks and one day. Since this rendered the slave guilty under new Rule 5, Rostgaard decided to teach the other slaves in his region a lesson, so a sergeant accompanied by a soldier with a drum went to the two other plantations on the hill, summoning the slaves and their owners to an assembly in front of Rostgaard’s house, and there the bearded owner prepared his punishment.

A small platform built of logs freshly cut was flanked on one side by the sergeant, on the other by the drummer, who kept up a lively tattoo. Up an improvised stairway climbed Rostgaard, accompanied by a slave who carried in his arms for all to see a huge knife, a coil of rope and a saw. When the owner was in position, the runaway was dragged from a hut, brought before the platform, and lashed to a pole, where a white assistant produced a huge bullwhip, well knotted, with which he applied a hundred and fifty lashes. With each fall of the whip, the drummer beat a flourish on his drum while Rostgaard, from above, counted. Well before the hundredth stroke, the runaway fainted, but the punishment continued.

Finally, the drum halted, and the inert slave was dragged onto the platform, where cold water was thrown over him so that he would be awake for the next and worst portion of his discipline. When he was revived and tied by ropes in a prostrate position, Rostgaard signaled the sergeant, who produced a copy of the new rules, which he read in entirety. “Listen to that,” Rostgaard bellowed from the platform. “That’s how things are going to be from now on.” And he saluted the soldier, who saluted back, signifying that the Crown of Denmark approved what he was about to do.

The dismembered slave was dragged away and the platform torn down. The sergeant saluted, and the soldier kept beating his drum as they left the field. In the heavy silence Lemvig whispered to Pembroke: “What in the name of God can the slaves think who were made to watch that hideousness?”

The two black leaders, each so different from the other, had asked the same question even before the cutting of the leg had begun. While the lashes were still falling, Cudjoe, the wild Ashanti, and Vavak, the patient Mandingo, moved slowly and almost imperceptibly not into contact with each other but close enough to flash eye signals. With extreme self-control, Vavak nodded his head ever so slightly; and Pembroke, who had turned away, unable to watch the grisly sawing, chanced to see the look of horror on his slave’s face and the fleeting nod of acquiescence to a signal from elsewhere. Looking quickly in the direction of Vavak’s eyes, he saw a dark visage of someone he assumed to be Rostgaard’s troublesome slave Cudjoe.

It was then that the Englishman Pembroke, surrounded by Danish planters, deduced that a slave insurrection of some kind must soon erupt. The scene he had just witnessed was so far from what might have happened at Trevelyan had a runaway been captured that he knew there would have to be some response, and given the hatred he saw on the faces of his own well-treated slaves who had been marched some distance to witness the punishment, he supposed that Rostgaard’s brutalized ones must be even more tormented and vengeful.

But in October 1733, Rostgaard caught another runaway and preparations were made for one more public dismemberment, with the sergeant and drummer passing from one plantation to another, assembling the slaves to watch the gruesome exhibition. But when the runaway was being hauled to the ugly platform from which he would soon leave a beaten cripple, he suddenly broke away from his captors, ran with fierce speed to the edge of the promontory on which the three plantations rested, and pitched himself in screaming defiance down the great height onto the rocks below, where his corpse, crushed and bleeding, was seen by those crowding the edge.

Rostgaard, deprived of both a mature slave and his revenge, grabbed the bullwhip from the man who was to have administered the hundred and fifty lashings and roared through the crowd of slaves, Lemvig’s and Pembroke’s as well as his own, flailing at them with the knotted lash and screaming: “Away, you beasts! Don’t look at him! He’s dead, and you’ll be too if you don’t mind!”

He had struck some dozen of Pembroke’s men when he saw Vavak, whom he despised, and although the black man stood perfectly still, simply watching this obscene display, Rostgaard lunged at him with special fury, preparing to lash him about the head. John quickly interceded, saying in his broken Danish: “Not that one, he’s mine.”

This obvious interruption by a white man of what Rostgaard considered his justified chastisement of a slave, an intrusion seen by all, so infuriated the Dane that he turned his fury on the Englishman, and would have thrashed him with his whip had not John anticipated the assault and grasped the bullwhip near the handle. For a moment the two men were immobilized, each by the other’s force, and then slowly Pembroke forced the whip down. Snarling and cursing, Rostgaard moved off to thrash indiscriminately at the other slaves, seeking Cudjoe in particular but not finding him.

But October waned and Vavak still labored in Lunaberg’s cane fields. Pembroke went out of his way to speak reassuringly to the obviously troubled man, but Vavak did not respond. Nevertheless, John felt certain that his gestures of conciliation were noticed and appreciated, for when a special law came down from the governor’s headquarters on St. Thomas, only a few miles distant across placid water, Vavak volunteered to help Pembroke in its enforcement. The new instructions were simple:

Pembroke faced a difficult situation. He had two rowboats and two padlocks, but he did not have enough chains long enough to go around trees, so he instructed Vavak to mind the locks while he rode off to see if Lemvig, who had no boats, might be able to lend him some chain. He found Magnus gone, but Elzabet was there, pretty as ever in her flaxen braids, and they discussed the new law.

“It’s prudent,” John said. “Boats are an invitation to the runaways.”

“Do you think there’ll be trouble? The way the others talk?”

“Cudjoe’s gone to the woods. One of my men is missing.”

At the end of the second week in November, Jorgen Rostgaard, accompanied by two planters like him, toured the island to satisfy themselves that the boat law had been complied with, and they were almost surprised to find that the Englishman had lashed his securely. “Good job,” Rostgaard said in Danish. “Keep an eye on things. That Cudjoe is still somewhere in the woods. And Schilderop here has lost two of his slaves.”

One of the other men vowed: “We’ll catch them,” and Rostgaard said: “When we do, that’s it for Cudjoe.” And with his forefinger extended, he made a twirling gesture upward, imitating rising smoke and indicating that this time the slave would be burned alive.

On the night of 23 November 1733, John Pembroke was awakened at a quarter past midnight by distraught horsemen shouting: “Slaves in rebellion! Plantations burning! Men and women slain!” And before he could question them, they had galloped eastward to alert Rostgaard and others in that direction, but as they left Lunaberg, one shouted back: “Better look in at Lemvig’s. We had no response there.”

After John had armed himself with all the firepower he had sequestered plus a long knife, he ran first to inspect the little shacks occupied by his slaves, and found that every one was empty and that all the knives used for slashing cane were missing too.

With increasing anxiety he ran to the Lemvig plantation, but its slave quarters were also vacant, and he was about to assume that the two Lemvigs had taken flight when he heard a moan coming from the house. Dashing in, he found only darkness, then a weak whisper from a corner: “Is that you, John?”

And down in the lowlands they could see aflame in the night the various plantations in which the white owners lay dead.

The history of the great slave rebellion on St. John in the winter of 1733–1734 was one of constantly increasing terror. On the first dreadful night, slaves killed all the plantation families they could reach. They made an assault on Rostgaard’s place but were driven off, and for some reason they neither tried to kill Pembroke nor burn his plantation.

Intensive questioning of those slaves who remained loyal to their masters, and there were more than a few, proved what Rostgaard had surmised: “Cudjoe’s in command. Vavak and that other from the east are his lieutenants. It will be hell routing them out of those forests.”

He was more than right, because the slaves, with an adroitness and skill their white masters had always predicted they did not have and could not have, mounted an offensive-defensive war of remarkable subtlety. At the end of five days of hit-and-run they had burned some two dozen plantations and ridiculed attempts by their white masters to subdue them or even locate them.

On 29 November, the sixth day of the fighting, an English man-of-war which happened to be in the islands to take on water landed a large contingent of trained soldiers to subdue the rebels, and after marching here and there in fine order, they finally stumbled into a contingent of blacks led by Cudjoe. There was a brief skirmish. The Englishmen were routed after twenty minutes of firing at an enemy they never saw, and they retreated, leaving their wounded to trail along after them.

Rostgaard and his planters were not so easily subdued, though in their rampage they found few of Cudjoe’s and Vavak’s men. Instead they slaughtered thirty-two noncombatants “to teach the others a lesson.”

In the weeks that followed, Pembroke lost any understanding of how the battle against the slaves was going, because his attention was focused on trying to comfort and protect the Widow Lemvig. With her slaves vanished and no white hands to help her maintain her home, she was left terribly alone, and John could not decide how best to assist her. He visited her daily, took her food which he had prepared himself, for his slaves were gone too, and after much negotiation, arranged for a black woman who had remained faithful to her master on a plantation to the west to stay on the hill with Elzabet, the two of them rattling around in the big house.

The sensible thing would have been for Elzabet to flee by small boat to St. Thomas, where the revolt had not spread, but she refused to quit the only property her husband had left her, their plantation. It would also have been reasonable for her and her black helper to move over to the relative safety of Lunaberg, but her sense of propriety would not permit this. Despite the great crisis, her upbringing as the daughter of a Lutheran clergyman asserted itself, and she asked Pembroke when he suggested the move: “What would the islanders say?”

He replied harshly: “What’ll they say when they find you one morning with your throat cut?” but this did not relax her attitude, and he had to content himself with aiding her from a distance.

Many of the last-ditch rebels were shot during the battle, but some eleven were set aside for what the local officials called “special attention.” The details of their prolonged deaths at public exhibitions were not recorded, but when Jorgen Rostgaard stormed French headquarters to demand the right to take care of his rebellious slave Cudjoe, the invaders, out of respect for the remorseless fury with which Rostgaard had helped them track the rebels, acceded to his request.

Cudjoe’s execution took place on the platform which Rostgaard had used before. The same sergeant stood at one side to read the death warrant, the same drummer marked the hundred and fifty lashes, but now there would be a difference, for the warrant had said “Racked and Burned,” and Rostgaard was eager to supervise both.

On the platform, enlarged to accommodate the machinery, wheels and levers had been installed, with lengths of thick rope attached, their free ends awaiting their victim. After the lashings, Cudjoe was revived, hauled onto the platform, and stretched out while ropes were attached to his ankles, his wrists and his shoulders and, at a signal from Rostgaard, these ropes were tightened by slow and painful degrees until the joints began to tear apart.

When John Pembroke walked with staggering steps back toward the big house he no longer cared to occupy, he realized that Elzabet Lemvig had not been made to attend the execution, so he walked right past his temporary home and kept going till he reached the Lemvig plantation. Eager for the solace of another human being like himself, and not some vengeful monster like Rostgaard who had brought this terror to his community, he shouted: “Elzabet, where are you?” and when she appeared, wan and thin, he rushed to her, took her in his arms, and cried out: “Elzabet, for God’s sake, let us quit this hideous place. Start a new life with hope, not despair.”

She tried to respond to what was in effect a marriage proposal, but it came so unexpectedly and on such a wretched day that sensible words were beyond her. Instead, she fell limp in his arms, which was itself a signal that she would now rely only on him.

When he revived her, he led her outside the lonely house and perched her beside him on the porch overlooking the cluster of islands to the west. When she was calm enough to ask in a whisper: “What did you say in there?” he repeated: “You and I must leave this blood-soaked place and start a better life elsewhere.”

“I think you are right,” she said, and for the first time since that day sixteen months ago when they became neighbors, he kissed her.

But because life on the islands always seemed urgent, he proceeded immediately to give her strange news: “Did you ever wonder why those French volunteers from Martinique were so eager to rush their troops over here to help us put down our slave rebellion?” When she said no, he continued: “They’ve been wanting for years to sell the island of St. Croix to the Danes. Thanks to their gesture of good will, helping us against our slaves … well, the sale’s gone through.”

“What would that mean to us?”

“The Danish government wants me to move down and establish a big sugar plantation on English principles.”

Very firmly but quietly she said: “I would not want to live on any plantation where our new rules were in effect. I’ll not go with you, John.”

This time she kissed him, and as the sun sank lower, he said gravely: “I’ve one thing more to do on this terrible day.”

With her holding on to his arm, he led the way to where his two boats were padlocked to trees, and when she asked what this was about, he said: “I’ve seen signs that Vavak is somewhere in our forest. They’ve never caught him, you know.”

“He saved my life that night.”

“And mine too, I think. No other reason why they didn’t kill me.”

When they reached the boats, John took from his trouser pocket the large key that worked the locks, and while Elzabet watched he carefully unlocked the boats, setting them free for the use of any slaves still hiding in the woods who might want to try the long sail to Spanish Puerto Rico or French St.-Domingue.

As he and Elzabet started back up the path to the house, they heard a rustling in the trees, and from the shadows emerged Vavak and a woman, and it was a fearful moment, because the slave was armed and the master was not. The path was narrow, so narrow that only one person could occupy it, and as the two men walking in front met, each stepped aside to let the other pass, and the Englishman thought ruefully of another of the new rules: A slave meeting a white person shall step aside and wait until he passes; if not, he may be flogged.

They passed, and no one spoke, but all knew why Pembroke had released his boats.

John and Elzabet remained hidden by trees as they watched Vavak and his woman test the two boats, choose the better, and set forth on the long and dangerous voyage to the land to be known as Haiti, where their descendants would continue their quiet fight for freedom.

John would give his wife no explanation for Hester’s amazing behavior, but Roger confided: “She’s a dear girl, Hester. Worth a triple fortune, and she set her lure for landing one of us Pembroke boys. Although heaven knows she didn’t need us.” Embarrassed by the unintended frankness of his revelation about a good neighbor, he added: “She’s a grand girl and she’ll have no trouble finding herself a husband.” Then, as if compelled to describe Hester accurately, he said: “When Greville and I married, she adopted our wives. Warmly and honestly. And she’ll do the same with you. Not a mean streak in her body.”

And that’s what happened. At the big dinners given on the various plantations, the three Pembroke boys, as they were called despite their years, sat with their pretty wives while Hester Croome, big and awkward and ebullient, cried: “Aren’t they the pride of Jamaica, that trio?” And she was especially kind to Elzabet the Dane: “John brought back a beauty, didn’t he?”

The family decided that John and Elzabet should remain at Trevelyan, at least for the first years of their marriage, helping Greville and getting to know the whole of Jamaica and the other British islands. It was a happy time, for it seemed that Jamaica and the Caribbean then stood at the apex of their joint history. Governments were stable. Sugar prices were never higher. And although war seemed always to be raging somewhere, it did not often manifest itself in the islands. John and Elzabet shared in the general euphoria when she became pregnant.

There was, however, one persistent problem across the Caribbean: the proper management of slaves. In later centuries scholars and writers would frequently ask: “Why were the slaves so passive? If they outnumbered the whites six and eight to one, why didn’t they rebel?” The truth is they did rebel, constantly, violently, on all the islands, as the chronicle of those years shows: Jamaica, 15 rebellions in all; Barbados, 5; Virgin Islands, 6; Hispaniola, 8; Cuba, 16; every island experienced at least one major rebellion.

When news of this appeal reached the governor, he called upon Greville Pembroke, known to be a sensible planter, to take the long trip to Glebe Quarter to investigate the charges, and if they were found to be accurate, to institute legal proceedings against Job. “But,” the governor warned, “I must remind you that not one bad word has been spoken against Job since I took office. This could be a canard.”

When John heard the verdict he was so infuriated that he wanted to organize a hanging party to dispose of Job on the spot, but the clergyman advised against this, and Job went free. Next morning, assuming himself to have not only been vindicated but also authorized to resume his old ways, Job spotted a slave doing some trivial thing that he, Job, did not approve of and beat him to death in the customary manner.

A young Scotsman working for Job had had enough, and when he reported the death to the reverend, the latter summoned Pembroke to hear the details, and by a curious chance the dead slave’s name happened to be one commonly used in the islands, Cudjoe. As soon as the name was uttered, John recalled the hideous time when he had been forced to watch when Rostgaard’s Cudjoe was “racked and burned,” and he knew what course he must take.

This trial, a new one dealing with an entirely new case, was going to be different, because now John would have a white man to testify to Job’s brutal behavior. The trial was a sensation, but when the young Scot rose to testify, a plantation man in the rear of the court shouted: “Shoot that bastard!” and there were many similar displays of support for Job, but the jury, unable to ignore the solid evidence, had to bring in a verdict of guilty.

That afternoon John Pembroke, on his own recognizance, caused a gallows to be erected, and before the sun sank, Thomas Job, master fiend of Jamaica, was hanged.

Late that night Pembroke’s small boat slipped out of Glebe Quarter’s harbor and made its way homeward with the young Scot as passenger; it could have been fatal to leave him among the sugar planters, who were seething to think that one of their kind had been hanged for merely disciplining his niggers.

But when Pembroke and the Scot reached Kingston to report on the happenings at Glebe Quarter, they found that a swift horseman had beat them to the capital with a monstrously distorted account of what had transpired. Tempers were high among members of the Sugar Interest, and Pentheny Croome was organizing a gang to thrash the Scot, or worse, but John intercepted him: “Pentheny, what in the world are you doing?”

“If we let one planter be disciplined for doin’ what we all do, revolution’s upon us. The slaves’ll cut our throats in the night.”

Pentheny was shaken, even more so when John bored in: “A copy of my report has gone to the king. When he asks ‘How did you handle this matter?’ are you going to say ‘We saw nothing wrong in what he did?’ Are you going to befoul your own nest?”

Pentheny swallowed hard, and said in a very small voice: “I’d like to hear from that Scot we were goin’ to hang,” and when the tales of horror were elaborated upon, Pentheny rose, moved toward the young man, and embraced him: “I need a feller like you to mind my plantation while I’m in London,” and a week later Hester Croome was back at Trevelyan, bubbling to the wives: “Wonderful young man started working for my father. I’m sort of sorry we sail for London on Friday.”

In 1738 young John Pembroke attracted his first favorable attention in London. There had been trouble with a nest of Maroons on the eastern end of Jamaica, and instead of sending an army against them, the governor dispatched Pembroke and a guard of sixteen from the Gibraltar regiment now stationed on the island. “What we hope for,” the governor said as the men marched off, “is a repetition of that lasting peace your father made with the Maroons in his district. Same assurances from us, same promises from them.”

It was a long trek across difficult terrain, and when Pembroke reached the Maroon area the former slaves did not wish to talk, but an adroit mixture of patience and pressure accomplished wonders and finally a truce was agreed upon. In 1739, John was dispatched to western Jamaica with the same commission, and again he achieved what none had been able to accomplish before, a lasting truce. The island was now pacified, and officials in London sent a dispatch to Kingston: “Advise John Pembroke, well done.”

Already many of the holdings had been lost, Jamaica to the British, the future Haiti to the French, and nowhere in the eastern chain of islands did Spain regain control. At the southern tip of that string, Trinidad was nominally still Spanish, but it was being settled mostly by the French and would soon pass into British hands. However, rich Mexico and richer Peru were still Spanish, as was the Main, but to protect its hold on even these vital areas, Spain simply had to retain the key port of Cartagena, so naturally the English decided to capture it, and thus imperil all the rest of Spain’s holdings in the New World. As so often before, again the fate of the European nations would be settled in the Caribbean.

Excitement rose when English officials revealed the target: “Vernon will be off to capture Cartagena! Erase the humiliations we’ve suffered there,” and when the admiral came ashore to complete the last-minute preparations, he boasted: “This time we blast that city off the map.”

He was a colorful sea dog, fifty-seven years old, who was invariably seen in a battered green overcoat made of grogram, a rough fabric woven of silk, mohair and wool. From this he took the name “Old Grog,” and when in an effort to instill sobriety among his sailors he diluted their traditional rum ration with two quarts of water to one pint of rum, his name entered the dictionary, but in a perverse way, since originally grog meant watered down and not rum.

He had gained a frenzied popularity in 1739 when he boasted that Porto Bello was not invulnerable: “Give me six good ships and I guarantee I’ll capture it.” The government gave him the ships, and he won such a smashing victory, not losing a ship or any men, that bonfires were lit across England and medals struck in his honor. But sailors who had participated in “the Great Victory” whispered to anyone who would listen: “The Spanish didn’t try to defend. A few troops, an empty fort.”

Nevertheless, he was the hero of the moment, and immediately he proposed to vanquish Cartagena.

The siege and battle, one of the most crucial in the Western Hemisphere, was an unfair struggle. Admiral Vernon had collected 170 ships in all, 28,000 men, including large forced levies from ten different American colonies, and innumerable cannon. The Spaniards had only a few small ships—quickly immobilized—and perhaps 3,000 men. But they also had on their side a man known as “two-thirds of an admiral.”

Don Blas de Lezo, one of the great fighting men of history, had spent a long life battling the British navy, and always losing more than just the battle. At Gibraltar in 1704 he had lost his left leg to an English cannonball; at Toulouse, his left eye to an English sharpshooter; and in a fight off Spain, his right arm. Now, when yet one more battle against the ancient enemy loomed, he jumped about the forts without the assistance of an aide, inspecting defenses, and he lay awake at night trying to guess what Admiral Vernon with his tremendous superiority might try next. And as he tossed sleepless he sometimes chuckled as if laughing at the extremity in which he found himself: At Gibraltar, years ago when we were both young, Admiral Vernon and I faced each other in battle, and that time he won. But this is another day, another battleground, and this time I have a powerful ally, General Yellow Fever.

Even before the battle started, the fever struck, killing the valiant British general who was to have led the ground forces as they left Vernon’s ships. In the dead man’s place the admiral received one of the most inept generals in history: Brigadier General Thomas Wentworth, a flunky and a totally inept vacillator propelled into a command he did not want and could not exercise. The consequence was reported by Pembroke:

If the combined British navy and army achieved nothing but disaster, John Pembroke did somewhat better, for he attained what the English fighting man always aspired to, “a mention in dispatches,” as Admiral Vernon reported to London:

It accomplished nothing, because when General Wentworth still refused to attack, his inescapable enemy General Yellow Fever, aided by Admiral Cholera, struck his huddled troops, and the almost instantaneous loss of life was fearful. Men would fall sick as if with a mere cold, catch at their throats, and strangle. A soldier would be cleaning his rifle; the weapon would fall from his hands; he would look up in horror and fall to the ground atop it. Fifty-percent deaths in a unit was common, with the levies from the American colonies suffering up to seventy.

On the mournful sail back to Port Royal, John Pembroke moved among officers and men, gathering the firsthand information which he would later include in his well-regarded pamphlet True Account of Admiral Vernon’s Conduct at Cartagena, whose most often quoted paragraphs were these:

The reward that John Pembroke received for his heroism at Cartagena was unexpected; it came in the form of a letter from his father in London:

“I’ve bought you a seat in Parliament!” Yes, at the age of thirty-four, with no previous experience in politics, John Pembroke would take up a seat purchased by his father from one of the rotten boroughs; after three years of holding the seat he rode far into the country west of London to see where it was, and found three cottages comprising the ruins of what had once been an important trading town. He met the two old men, the only voters left in his entire district, who would henceforth cast the votes that would elect him unanimously, year after year. “I hope I can continue to be a representative worthy of our district,” he said, and the men replied: “Aye.”

The Pembroke family now controlled three seats in Parliament, and John, as something of a military hero, added considerable force to his persuasiveness in cloakroom debate. His responsibilities were simple, as explained by his father: “Don’t allow the French an inch. Remember, they’re our perpetual enemy. And keep those fools in the American colonies in line. And lift the price of sugar.”

The Pembrokes were by no means the outstanding Jamaican family in Parliament. In fact, they ranked only third in public esteem, for the Dawkins family also had three of its members in Parliament, while the notable Beckford family of a plantation not far from Trevelyan had three outstanding brothers. William Beckford was twice Lord Mayor of London and won his election to Parliament from that city. Richard Beckford sat for Bristol, while Julius represented Salisbury. Thus three rural families in Jamaica controlled nine seats in Parliament, while eight other Jamaican planters each owned one. Counting those purchased by wealthy planters from the smaller islands like Antigua and St. Kitts, the power of the Sugar Interest was formidable, with one critic claiming: “Those damned islanders will have in this session twenty-four of their own seats plus twenty-six held by men indebted to them.”

At the moment John and Elzabet were concerned with what their father’s second surprise was going to be, but Sir Hugh remained silent with growing nervousness as they approached his house on Cavendish Square. But the carriage did not stop there, for the driver had been previously directed to deliver the young people to a fine, handsomely proportioned house on the far side of the square, close to Roger’s residence. When they stepped down, Sir Hugh said, almost as if embarrassed: “Your new home,” and he led them into rooms that had been tastefully decorated.

“Father Hugh!” Elzabet cried. “What a thoughtful gift,” and John echoed her approval: “What possibly could you have hiding as our third gift?”

At the word hiding Sir Hugh blushed furiously, coughed, and said in a voice hardly stronger than a whisper: “You can come out now,” and from an inner room where she had been waiting, a woman slammed open a door, rushed in like a Jamaican hurricane, and cried in a joyous voice: “John! Elzabet! I’m your new mother!”

It was Hester Croome Pembroke, tall, big, redheaded, and almost splitting her stays with merriment. Rushing across the entrance foyer, she clasped John in her powerful arms and cried: “John, dear boy! I’m a Pembroke at last!” Then, moving to Sir Hugh’s side, she stood with him and looked benignly at John and Elzabet. “My God!” she cried. “Are we not a handsome foursome?”

In these years Sir Hugh seemed to escalate to a new level of enjoyment in living, and the younger Pembrokes were pleased that he had remarried. They saw that his step was lighter, his smile more ready, as if he were quietly amused by his new wife’s bubbling vitality. As John told Elzabet: “Best thing he’s done in years is marry that Jamaican hurricane.”

Things were never allowed to remain sober when Lady Hester was in charge, and the once stately quality of Sir Hugh’s big reception room with its sedate Rembrandt and Raphael was somewhat altered by the insertion of a gigantic marble sculpture that Hester brought back from a trip on which she had met the artist in Florence. The lovely Raphael was now partly obscured by Venus Resisting the Advances of Mars, a white tangle of flailing arms and legs. When her husband first saw it he growled: “Hester, I’m goin’ to bring over four cans of paint. His arms red, hers blue. His legs purple, hers yellow. Then we’ll know who’s doin’ what to who.”

The Rembrandt was also overshadowed by a larger painting she had brought over from her father’s mansion, the one which had been sold to the Croomes by an enthusiastic dealer, who told them: “One of the most famous works of art in the world. Look at the pope’s eyes. No matter where you move in the room, he follows you. If you’ve done wrong, you can’t hide.”

Bit by bit Hester’s dinners became more rambunctious, until parliamentary members from all parties grew to prefer her entertainments to any other. She developed a kind of rough Jamaican acceptance of both defeat and victory, and if a group of members tried to force the Board of Trade to lower the price of sugar and failed, she jollied them along just as she did when her own three Pembrokes lost a battle. And this aptitude helped both her and the Sugar Interest in the turbulent years following 1756, when all the nations of Europe seemed at war with one another, first in this alignment then in that; Prussia, Germany, Austria, Russia, France, Spain, Portugal and England were involved at one time or another in various alliances, and Europe quaked.

At sea Admiral Rodney confused things in 1762 by conquering the French islands of Martinique, St. Vincent, Grenada and All Saints, adding them to the big island of Guadeloupe, which the British already possessed. Rodney’s victories were so important to the safety of the empire that when word reached London, bonfires were lit and people danced in the streets, but not the members of the Sugar Interest. They clustered in muted groups and whispered: “My God! What a disaster! How can we neutralize this dreadful mistake?”

The danger was real. If England retained as spoils of war the big French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, not to mention the little ones, so much new sugar-producing acreage would become available to compete for the British market that established islands like Jamaica and Barbados would be sorely damaged. “Hell,” Pentheny Croome said with keen foresight, “sugar in England could then be as cheap as it now is in France, and that would destroy us.”

He was correct, and in the latter part of 1762 and the beginning of 1763 the Sugar Interest, led by Sir Hugh Pembroke, the powerful Beckfords and the very wealthy Pentheny Croome, pulled every secret string it commanded to achieve one purpose: the English negotiators at the peace conference in Paris must be forced to accept Canada in place of the French islands in the Caribbean. If France didn’t want them, give them to Spain or set them adrift, but under no circumstances let them join the British union.

Obviously, powerful forces were arranged against the West Indians, who were lampooned in the press and in pamphlets for being concerned only with their selfish interests. Strong French leaders wanted to keep Canada and get rid of the islands, which had been a constant financial burden. British military geniuses, especially the admirals, agreed; they were willing to give Canada away if they could hold on to Martinique and All Saints, two islands which commanded the eastern entrances to the Caribbean: “In any future naval battles in this sea, the nation that commands those islands will have the advantage. Canada? What worth is it except to beavers and Indians?”

In recent years a new factor had entered this debate: the growing popularity of tea, both in the home and in the public tearooms. But to enjoy their tea properly, the English had to add sugar, and plenty of it, so as the demand for tea rose spectacularly, the need for cheaper sugar rose commensurately, and the West Indian sugar planters realized they were threatened by the new French islands.

Meetings in London were continuous, with political leaders dropping in on the Beckfords, members of Parliament who could use a few pounds of his wealth stopping by to consult with Pentheny Croome, while the molders of public opinion, the quiet manipulators of Parliament, convened in hushed tones with Sir Hugh Pembroke and his sons. The meetings were apt to be tense, with men of the Sugar Interest applying strong pressure to win their basic point: “Take Canada. It has a future. Give the islands back to France. For Britain to keep them would be a terrible mistake.”

When any member of Parliament countered with the popular refrain “But the public needs sugar at lower prices,” the canny sugar men refrained from saying “To hell with the public,” which was what men like Pentheny said when they were behind closed doors; instead, they argued with honeyed words: “But, Sir Benjamin, don’t you realize that Jamaica is enormous? We have untold fields on which we can grow more sugar … twice as much … three times as much. Leave this matter to us.” Of course, for the last quarter-century they had owned thousands of arable acres which they had stubbornly refused to develop. As Pentheny said, with that profound intuitive knowledge he commanded: “Why should my slaves labor to cultivate a thousand acres, when on five hundred with half the work we can make twice the money … if we keep the price of sugar high?”

The attack was frontal and complete. Men of the Sugar Interest were revealed as enemies of the state and ruthless exploiters not only of their black slaves in West Indian Jamaica, but also of white housewives in Great Britain. The grave injustice could be solved, politicians of Massie’s persuasion argued, by the simple device of retaining Martinique and Guadeloupe, for as another pamphleteer accurately pointed out: “The great planters of Jamaica have promised us for the last thirty years that one of these days they were going to open up more cane fields on their island, but as my figures shew, Pentheny Croome hath selfishly accumulated thousands of new acres but cultivated not one.”

These new attacks were so factual and so persuasive that one night in 1762 the leading planters met for dinner in Sir Hugh and Lady Hester’s grand dining room. The great William Pitt, staunch proponent of holding on to the French islands, had been invited to hear arguments against doing so, but he became engrossed in Lady Hester’s account of how her latest monstrous marble masterpiece had been got through the doors of her mansion.

“It’s entitled, as you can see, Victory Rewarding Heroism, and when it arrived, there was no way to force it through our doors. So Luigi was sent for and he came up from Florence and showed us how simple it really was. With a special saw he cut right through here, Victory left on one side, Heroism on the other, and each manageable half could be moved through the door over there.”

“But how did you put the halves back together?” Pitt asked. “I see no betraying mark.”

“Ah ha!” Hester cried, moving to the statue. “That’s exactly what I asked, Mr. Pitt, and Luigi told me: ‘Every artist has his secrets,’ and he refused to reveal his. But there it stands … and isn’t it magnificent?”

She asked this question directly of Pitt, who replied: “Well, it certainly is bigger than most.”

They made no headway with him, but when the port was passed and the cigars lighted he leaned back, looked at each planter in turn, and confided: “Gentlemen, I have good news for you and bad news for England.”

“How could any situation be so described?” Sir Hugh asked gently, but Pitt ignored him: “I am being removed from our negotiating team in Paris. The Earl of Bute is to supersede me, and as you well know, he is far more partial to your cause than I ever could be.”

As he departed he threw a parting thought, generous and potentially productive, even though it operated against his own interests: “If I were you, gentlemen, I would have someone on my side rush out a pamphlet to counteract that persuasive affair of Joseph Massie’s. It’s doing your side real damage, you know.” With that, he departed.

As soon as Pitt was gone, Lady Hester, who had read the Massie pamphlet with rising fury, took charge of the meeting: “Pitt’s right. Our side has got to answer those false charges. And we’d better do it right now.” After only a few minutes of discussion, it was agreed that a broadsheet should be printed and distributed widely, Pentheny Croome would pay for it, but then the problem became more complicated, for none of the planters felt competent to answer the sharp criticism of Massie. Each deferred to others, until Lady Hester cut the Gordian knot: “My husband will write it,” and when he blurted out a gasping refusal, she said simply: “I’ll help you over the difficult parts, my sweet.”

He and Hester spent the next three weeks hammering out a masterful riposte to the anti-planter pamphlets, pointing out their errors, gently ridiculing their pretensions as to international affairs, and bringing forth sharp new points of view and economic inevitables. In the writing, Sir Hugh was invariably conciliatory, Lady Hester always thrusting at the jugular. They formed an invaluable team, an elder statesman in his seventies, a forceful woman in her fifties, and in record time they had their essay scattered across London and in the major cities of Great Britain:

The pamphlet was a striking success, for it played on British doggedness, English heroism, hopes for the future and patriotism in general, while effectively masking the venality of the Sugar Interest and hiding the heavy tribute the average Briton was paying in order to maintain Jamaican families like the Beckfords, the Dawkinses, the Pembrokes and the Croomes in their lavish pattern of living.

An Unembellished Account provided powerful ammunition for the Earl of Bute as he labored on the peace treaty which would arrange affairs in Europe, India, North America and the Caribbean, for it anticipated all the ends he desired to accomplish and provided him with fresh and telling justifications. On a return trip to London he sent a signal to Sir Hugh and his planters: “Things look promising. You will have no Guadeloupe around your necks.”

He was surprised: “But, darling, that’s what we’ve been fighting for. To protect the markets for our sugar crop.”

“I know,” she said with mild impatience. “But there are other considerations.”

“What could possibly be more important to us right now?”

“Surely the destiny of the Caribbean is to have all the islands under one grand government. It’s folly the way it is now. Like a sour porridge with raisins. A few Danish islands over here. A couple of Swedish. Some Dutch. A few Spanish, ill-governed. Some French. They could be mostly English, with a chance to invite all the remnants to join.”

He said: “But our entire program … get rid of Guadeloupe …”

“John! Do the right thing now! Give our wonderful sea a united government. Do it when you have what may be your last chance … the last chance ever.”

She spoke with such vehemence that her husband said: “Elzabet, I never knew you were of such an opinion,” and she said: “I’ve been watching and listening and reading. Nations are given one chance, maybe two, to do the right thing at the right time, and if they refuse … I see only tragedy ahead if this wonderful sea we were given is not united … now, when we have our last opportunity.”

She began to weep, and John asked in trepidation: “Bett, what is it?” and she sobbed: “I’m homesick for the islands. Those beautiful islands …”

“Bett, as soon as this is over, back we go. I too want to see Trevelyan again.”

“I was so happy there …” and within minutes she was dead. When John, in quiet anguish, asked the doctors: “How could you allow such a thing to happen?” they said simply: “She lived intensely and it was her time to go.”

Thus, abetted by Lady Hester, who was proving a fierce defender of Jamaican interests, John arranged for an additional printing of eight hundred copies of An Unembellished Account, which she distributed personally in areas where they would do the most good. She also organized resplendent dinner parties at which arms were twisted and rural members of Parliament were instructed in the substantial advantages their district would reap if the Bute terms were accepted.

Ponderously the debate continued through December of 1762 and into January and much of February of the new year, with the Sugar Interest taking great abuse because the facts were so uniformly against them, but finally, on 20 February 1763, the vote could no longer be delayed, and the great planters who practically ran Parliament watched smugly as the tally showed 319 for the treaty, with the French islands going back to France, and only 65 against.

That night William Pitt, always bitter in debate but gracious in defeat, accompanied Lady Hester Pembroke to her home from the House of Commons, and as he sat on a velvet chair in front of Victory Rewarding Heroism he watched the jubilant planters celebrating their victory. At a break in the festivities he looked back over his shoulder and pointed to the gargantuan statue: “Gentlemen, I must remind you that Lady Victory, immense though she seems in this room tonight, is a fickle dame. In winning, I fear you have lost the American colonies from our empire. They’re men of great fortitude over there, a new breed, and they’ll not tolerate the cruel disadvantages you have thrown into their teeth this day.”

“What do you expect them to do about it?” Croome asked. “They have no power, and we do.”

“I expect them to rebel. To rebel against these injustices.” With that, he went to Lady Hester, kissed her two hands, and asked her to escort him to the door and his waiting carriage.

He did, however, find consolation in the remarkable vitality of his wife, and one evening when he knew his strength was failing, he told her: “Men like me, educated in England, often smiled at Jamaican planters like your father, who knew only what the land had taught them. But now I see that he, and you too, took nourishment from those fields, those forests.” Suddenly he broke into sobs: “Jamaica, Jamaica! I shall never see the bridge at Trevelyan again.”

Next day he was dead, and most of the members of Parliament who were in residence in London at that time attended his funeral, for he had been the one member of the Sugar Interest that all could respect.

In the seventh week after the funeral, that is, in April when rural England was at its loveliest, a carriage drew up to the country home in Upper Swathling where John Pembroke was mourning his double loss. A woman descended at the door, ignored knocking, and burst into the room where John sat. It was his stepmother, Lady Hester Pembroke, and her message was shocking: “John, listen to me! You cannot fritter away your life like this. My God, you’re only fifty-four.”

He rose to offer her a chair, but she refused it, preferring to stand until she had her say: “I’ve loved you for many years, John. My heart was broken when you brought Elzabet home from the Virgins, but I hid it. There’s no longer need to hide anything. I’m a Pembroke, always have been, and now that we’re both free people …”

She made no headway that first day, but since she had taken rooms at a nearby inn, she saw him constantly, and in proper time the numbness of his life relaxed and he gradually saw both the virtue of what Hester was saying and its inevitability. He proposed in a curious way, one day as they walked in the glades: “You know, you’ll lose your title Lady. I’m not Sir John,” and she said: “I’ll keep using what once was mine, and to hell with them.” She also had an effective answer when he pointed out that the Church of England must have rules against a man marrying his stepmother: “No matter. We’ll be married in France. Over there they permit anything.”

She also arranged for the honeymoon, dragging him to Florence, where her sculptor friend showed her a really massive piece he had just finished. Justice Defending the Weak he called it, and she bought it on sight. Her husband, who was appalled by the monstrosity—a near-naked woman protecting six cowering supplicants—was powerless to prevent its purchase, for as he explained to Sir Roger after it had been installed in London: “It was her money.”

WHEN THE INFAMOUS PIRATE DEN AT PORT ROYAL ON THE southern shore of Jamaica sank beneath the sea during the terrible earthquake of 1692, a long, thin sliver of land escaped oblivion. It formed only a small percent of the former area, but since it contained a stout fortress with thick stone walls properly disposed to withstand attack from the sea, Parliament in London had decreed that additional gun emplacements should be added, making it strong enough to withstand any French assault.

It was in such a climate of fear that the remnant of Port Royal left above water after the dreadful earthquake became of crucial importance to the British fleet, for whichever nation controlled Fort Charles, at the tip of Port Royal, controlled huge Jamaica Bay, and the heart of the Caribbean. To keep it secure, the British government in the turbulent year 1777, when the British were still trying to discipline the American colonies, placed in command an amazing young officer not yet twenty and soon to become the youngest captain in the fleet. When hardened veterans, some twice his age, saw this frail figure less than five feet five and weighing not much over eight stone, they muttered: “London’s sent us no more than a lad,” but even as they said this the young fellow was looking at the vast anchorage and saying to himself: We could anchor all the ships of the world in this safe harbor, and I shall defend it with my life if need be.

He was Horatio Nelson, an unlikely lad for service at a post so distant from England: unimpressive figure, washed-out blond hair, high-pitched voice, and the sometimes unintelligible country accent of easternmost England. In fact, as he stepped forward to assume command he looked much like a newly ordained clergyman applying to some rich relative for an appointment to one of the churches on the family estates, and this would have been logical, since his father, both grandfathers and numerous great-uncles had been ministers, in the Church of England, of course.

The force under his youthful command was as frail as he, for he had seven thousand fighting men at most, while it was well known that the French commander in the Caribbean was prowling the sea with at least twenty-five thousand tough veterans in a fleet of ships bristling with heavy guns. So on his first evening in the fort he ate a hasty meal, then walked back and forth upon the battlements of his new command, giving himself orders: You’re to install additional guns at this point. You’re to organize musters to see how rapidly the men can reach their posts when the bugle sounds. You’re to clean away the rubble on the foreshore—we want no French spies hiding there.

“And who are you, lad?”

“I served in the Dolphin with you.”

“I remember, but who are you?” and the boy gave a surprising answer: “Alistair Wrentham. My grandfather is the Earl of Gore and my father was an officer on the Indian Station, but he died in battle.”

Nelson, superior and aloof in manner, was excited by this information, for if the boy was in line to inherit the earldom, he might prove of enormous value to Nelson’s ambitions, but the boy disappointed him: “My father was the fourth son and I’m the fourth son, so I’m far removed.” Still, recalling that on the voyage the lad had demonstrated intelligence and valor, Nelson said: “I shall want you close to me. To mind the little things,” and they walked the battlements together.

Soon the soldiers and seamen stationed at Port Royal had acquired a solid understanding of their young leader. They found that he possessed a backbone of unyielding oak, an insatiable lust for fame and a devotion to heroic behavior and rectitude that was enviable. During the long night watches when no French invaders could be seen in the tropical moonlight, he revealed, never boastfully, incidents of his amazing career, for at twenty he’d had more experiences than most seagoing men had accumulated at forty.

“My older brother became the clergyman our family wanted, so I was free to become a sailor. I went to sea at thirteen and first sailed in this Caribbean at fourteen. I came back later, so I know these waters. When I was fifteen, or maybe still fourteen, I went to the Arctic. Great exploration, that one.”

“Is that when you fought the polar bear?” Alistair Wrentham asked, for drawings of Nelson in mortal combat with a huge white bear had circulated. Since he was often asked about this incident, Nelson was meticulous in his answer: “Thomas Flood and I, he was fourteen too, we’d left the Cargass to go exploring on our own. We were on an ice pack not too far from the ship when a huge polar bear roared up behind us, and he might have killed me had not Captain Lutwidge shouted a warning.”

“Is that when you turned to fight the bear?” Alistair asked.

“Fight? I wouldn’t say that. I’d been walking with an oar, a piece of wood maybe, and I did try to fend him off. But fight? No.”

“How were you saved?”

“What did the captain say when you came aboard?”

To this question, Nelson would always reply honestly: “Never again were we to go exploring on our own.”

At other times he told how, while still only a lad of seventeen, he had sailed to India: “The great ports, the strange people, we saw them all. We fought the pirates and protected the merchant ships.” Then he would grow silent, and after a while tell his listeners: “The fever trapped me and I would have died had not a wonderful man, Captain Pigot, James Pigot, and remember that name, taken me under his protective wing and saved my life.” Here, when talking with fellow sailors, he would invariably stop, look at each one, and say: “There is nothing on earth or sea that is finer than the tested friendship of comrades in arms. On the battlefield, in political fighting and especially at sea, we are propped up by the bravery of the man who shares our dangers. I’m here today only because of Captain James Pigot.”

At night, especially when a tropic moon flooded the old fort with a silvery light and mysterious shadows, the young captain liked to gather about him a group of established officers and young midshipmen, plus any ordinary sailors who showed an interest, and instruct them in military matters, especially the handling of ships in times of war. But he was insistent that they first appreciate the significance of their present work in the Caribbean:

But in these night meetings, which many men would remember in later years, Nelson also spoke of naval strategy, for his agile brain was perpetually speculating on new procedures which might give English ships even a slight advantage in the battle against the French:

Midshipman Wrentham did know, but before he could speak, Nelson placed a restraining hand on his knee, because he did not want the effect of his narration to be spoiled:

There was one revealing incident in Nelson’s career about which he never spoke himself, and he refrained, not through modesty, a virtue he did not have, but rather because when Midshipman Wrentham told the story in his boyish enthusiasm, Nelson came off the greater hero:

Other stories were told, there in the fort as the Englishmen awaited the attack that never came, and all attested to the bravery of Nelson but also to his stubbornness and his determination to do things his way, but always clearly within the rules of the British navy and obedient to the time-honored laws of the sea. Poor performance he would not tolerate in men serving under him, even though they might often be twenty years older than himself, nor would he silently suffer incompetence in his superiors. If the latter flagged in their duty, he was quick to reprimand them.

For the moment, in the old fort at Port Royal he bided his time, preoccupied with other concerns. As a young man entering his twenties he was of course interested in women. Avidly he sought a wife who would support him emotionally in his naval career, so with his fellow officers, all junior to himself and like him unmarried, he conducted long and amazingly frank discussions regarding the type of young woman who might be suitable. And often in these discussions he would lay out his two basic rules for a navy marriage: “First, an officer is only half a man if he lacks a wife and children, so get married. Second, he must pick that wife with extreme caution, for she must be his firm support and not the cause of his downfall.” He was sometimes reluctant, when speaking in public, about revealing his two final rules, for he applied them particularly to himself: “Third, the woman I pick must be rich, so that I can cut a responsible figure among my equals. Fourth, she must come from an important family whose members can help me gain promotions. And I’m sure that somewhere in this world there is a young woman who fulfills those requirements.” Then he quickly added: “And it would help if she hates the French, as we must do when engaging them in battle.”

Of his four requirements, it was the third which gave him the most difficulty—that his wife be rich. As the sixth of eleven children born to an impecunious Norfolk clergyman, he was inordinately afraid of poverty and obsessively concerned with money. This made him a shameful fortune hunter, willing to marry almost anyone if she brought him both a sufficient dowry and relatives who would give a forward push to his naval career, so he refrained from telling his young associates the real reason why he had avoided marriage with the various young charmers he had tentatively wooed.

In each case he tormented himself with ugly questions: How much will her parents give her? Will she inherit their wealth when they die? How soon could one expect them to die? Will she prove a careful custodian of the few funds we will have? And the most terrifying question of all: Suppose when this appointment ends I am not given a ship and am left ashore with only a hundred pounds a year? Could she possibly live with a naval officer on half-pay and with no prospects? And when the answers to this barrage of rhetorical questions proved adverse, as they always did, he fled the young woman, grieved over their separation, and stumbled like the amorous sailor he was into another infatuation doomed to a similar end.

This terrible preoccupation with money revealed itself only when he was thinking of his matrimonial problems. When free to think about himself in his role as a fighting man, he invariably ignored personal gain, as Admiral Digby reported on Nelson’s having been offered the New York Station: “I greeted him with ‘Good fortune, Lieutenant Nelson. You are come on a fine station for capturing prize money,’ and he astounded me by snapping: ‘Yes, sir, but the Caribbean is the station for gaining honor.’ ”

As Nelson grew older he also grew more bold, and occasionally statements came tumbling out revealing his positive lust for glory. One night at the fortress in Port Royal he thought, while staring at the marvelous bay where the old town had vanished beneath the waves: How awful it would be to die before one had had his chance at glory! And next day he began writing a torrent of letters to his superiors, begging them for promotions, assignments to better posts, commands of this fine ship or that. Shameless in his ambition, he was also honing himself mercilessly in those attributes of leadership which would entitle him to command, if opportunity ever came.

Since he could find no white heiress to fit his requirements on Jamaica, he was forced to seek temporary companionship from among the lively beauties of no means who clustered about Fort Charles, and Jamaican legend would always insist that in his loneliness he found warm consolation in the arms of three different girls of high color. Their names are not recorded, for they were not deemed worthy of remembrance, being half-breeds, as the local gentry called them contemptuously, but the little houses near the fort in which they lived could be pointed out, especially in those later years when the name Nelson was engraved in golden letters in the hearts of Englishmen.

“That’s the wee house where Captain Nelson lived with his dark beauty,” the locals would say, and in time the three little houses lent a touch of humanity to the stories about the austere young captain who fretted in idleness awaiting a French attack on Port Royal.

It was a gala afternoon, with Wrentham proud to be showing Nelson a matter connected with the sea, but the young fellow was deflated when Nelson peered closely below the waves and said: “That ship, that style of ship I mean, can’t be more than a dozen years old,” and when they rowed ashore to ascertain when the sinking had taken place, old-timers who had been watching them chuckled: “We know what you was thinkin’, the earthquake and all. That’n sunk ten years ago, caught in one of our hurricanes with her caulkin’ already worked loose. Went down like that.” So instead of receiving praise for his acuity as a sailor, even Nelson laughed at Alistair, not insultingly but with the implied caution: Look more carefully next time.

Wrentham’s attention was diverted from such matters when two servants from Trevelyan, the famous sugar plantation in the center of the island, came with a carriage to the spot on the big island opposite Port Royal, launched a small skiff and sailed over to the fort: “We bring a message to Midshipman Wrentham,” the men said, one white, one black, and when he stepped forward they turned to address Captain Nelson: “The Pembrokes who own our plantation are close friends of the Wrenthams on All Saints, and our master seeks permission to entertain the young man for six or seven days.” When they looked inquiringly at Nelson, he nodded briskly and said: “Fine young man. Ready for promotion soon. On your way.” But as Alistair was about to leave the fort, Nelson overtook him and cautioned: “Not seven days, five, because I may soon be moved to another station and I’d like to see you again before I leave.”

The servants sailed their skiff westward the short distance to where their carriage waited and then drove at a steady gait northwestward to Spanish Town, the stately capital of the island which still retained reminders of when Spain owned Jamaica. Wrentham, charmed by his first view of the interior of the island he had speculated upon so often while serving guard duty at the fort, hoped that the men would halt there for the night, but they pressed on, taking a narrow but colorful road that led north along the banks of a tumbling stream, first with the stream on the left, then a ford and the stream on the right. Tall trees lined the way, with birds weaving in and out of the lower branches and calling to one another as if to proclaim the coming of Alistair Wrentham into the realm of the great sugar plantations.

Urging the horses on, the men brought Alistair down from the rise and onto the handsome stone bridge with its two arches and the stone aqueduct forming one of the parapets, then across it and up a slight rise toward the imposing great house: “Golden Hall we calls it. Thass where the Pembrokes lives.” As they approached, the driver held the reins between his knees, brought his hands to his mouth, and uttered a powerful “Halloo!” and to the front door came not one of the older Pembrokes but the most ravishingly beautiful young woman Alistair had ever seen, blond hair neatly braided, very white skin, flashing dark eyes, a hint of dimples at the chin and mysterious hollows in the cheeks. She wore, that day when he first saw her, a simple white dress, gathered high above her waist and held in place by a pink ribbon whose carefully tied bow streamed in front. He even noticed her shoes, delicate slippers with no heels, but then he noticed something disheartening: she seemed, in that first glance, strangely older than he, perhaps even nineteen or twenty, and he supposed, with a sense almost of terror, that she was either married or engaged to some young man of the district.

“My name’s Prudence,” she said lightly as she came forward to extend her hand as he dropped off the carriage, and when he took it he felt quivering shocks run up his arm.

On that first full day at Golden Hall his embarrassment began, because, as he had anticipated, Prudence did turn out to be nineteen, more than three years older than he, but eight or nine years older in sophistication and her interest in the opposite sex. She was a kind girl and not boastful about her reception by men, but she could not help dropping intimations that in both Jamaica and London young men had found her attractive, or that they had taken her to this ball and that, and the more she said, the more clear it became that he at a callow sixteen would have no chance at all to engage her attention.

But as a well-bred young lady she knew it was her responsibility to help entertain this friend of her family, so she took him on an exploration of the plantation, an inspection of the building from which the dark rum of Trevelyan issued, and even an excursion back to Croome Plantation, where he met one of the owner’s sons, a young man in his late twenties. Is he the one she’s engaged to? he wondered in a flush of jealousy, but he was relieved later when she whispered: “He’s such a bore. All he thinks of are horses and hunting.”

On the third day, when he was helping her over a stile that bridged a fence, she stumbled on one of the descending steps and fell inescapably into his arms, and he felt an enormous urge to hold her there and embrace her and even kiss her, but he could do none of these things. Instead, to his astonishment, she kissed him, crying: “You’re a perfect gentleman, Midshipman Wrentham, and the girl who gets you will be mighty lucky.” And off they went to watch the slaves tending the still-unharvested canes.

He could not return to sleep, so convinced was he that if Prudence Pembroke was assured of funds, she was the ideal wife for his captain, and when day broke he was down early, awaiting her. In her absence he tried, with awkwardly self-revealing silences, to question his hosts regarding their plans for their daughter: “What happens to a huge place like this when …?” He could not say the phrase you die?

Mr. Pembroke had obviously contemplated this problem, for he said easily: “That’s always been a problem with us sugar planters, all of us. How to pass the plantation along without allowing it to be broken up.”

“How do you do that?”

“We always hand it on to the oldest son. That’s the English way, the safe way.”

“But if you have no son?”

“Then the family can fall into difficulties. Avaricious sons-in-law and all that. But fortunately, we do have a fine son—in England now, working in the office of our factors to learn how the sugar trade is controlled.”

“You are fortunate,” and the conversation ended as Prudence came in, wearing bright red ribbons in her hair and about her waist. She announced that she was taking Alistair out to the far field to see cattle recently imported from England, and when they stood together, leaning on the rails that fenced the small holding pen in which the imported animals were being kept till they acclimatized, Alistair asked, audaciously: “Prudence, are you rich?”

“What a silly question, Alistair. That’s impudent!”

“I mean it. Would your parents allow you enough funds to pave the way for a naval officer … that is, if you married one?”

She turned to face him, and said gently, almost tenderly: “Alistair, you’re a dear boy. Really you are. Handsome and well-mannered. But you are just a boy and I couldn’t possibly …”

“I don’t mean me!” he blurted out, astonished rather than hurt.

“Who then?”

They spent all that morning talking of nothing but Nelson and of what life with him would be like. “He would,” said Alistair, “be faithful unto death.” He spoke so persuasively that she finally said, very quietly: “I have many young men, here and in London, but never one young man. Your Captain Nelson sounds like … I mean, you make him out to be a hero.”

“He is.” And then a clever idea exploded between them, each entertaining it at the same moment, but he voiced it first: “Ride back with me to Port Royal and let me introduce …”

“Yes. Yes, I should like to meet your Captain Nelson.”

“We mustn’t tarry, you know. He’s due to be shipped out and we could miss him.”

Of course, when they proposed such a trip to the older Pembrokes, the latter were amused: “Young women do not go traipsing off to meet young men to whom they’ve not been introduced.”

“But I would introduce them,” Alistair cried. “Nelson’s a fine man. You’d like him.”

“I’m sure we would,” Mr. Pembroke said. “England exists because of her navy, none better in the world.”

“It would be unthinkable for you to go to Port Royal, Prudence,” her mother said firmly, and Alistair replied: “But if I hurry back and tell Nelson what a marvelous daughter you have …”

“Alistair!” Mrs. Pembroke said. “We’re not trying to get rid of Prudence. We’re very happy with her, and in due course … She knows scores of eligible young men.”

“But not Horatio Nelson.” He said this with such force that the three Pembrokes had to pay attention, and each thought: This boy is no fool. And if he says that Nelson is such a catch, perhaps we should listen.

“Please deliver this to your captain,” she told Alistair as she handed it to him, and he said enthusiastically as he accepted: “We will all remember this day.”

But when Alistair Wrentham reached the end of the road and took the skiff over to Port Royal and hurried back to the fort, he was shattered by a fierce disappointment: “Captain Nelson received orders yesterday and sailed for his new assignment this morning.” Numbed, young Wrentham moved along the familiar corridors of the fort, bemoaning the fact that he had arranged the fateful meeting between Nelson and Prudence Pembroke one day too late, for he believed that such a marriage had been ordained by the gods of history. And when the final irony reached him he shuddered with regret, for the last task Nelson performed before sailing was to leave a note for Wrentham: “As of this date, I have officially recommended, in recognition of your exemplary record, that you be promoted to the rank of master’s mate in the Royal Navy. Horatio Nelson, Captain.”

Tears came to Wrentham’s eyes as he held the paper, of special value not only because the promotion was a stepping stone to full lieutenancy but because it contained Nelson’s signature. “Too late,” he muttered, fighting back dismay. “Too late. She was the wife he sought, I know it.”

At that moment, Nelson, aboard the ship that was taking him from Jamaica forever, had reached the point in the Caribbean at which the ramparts of the fort he had commanded so ably began to sink below the horizon. Saluting the rugged old building as it disappeared, he reflected on his continuing bad luck: Here I am at twenty-two years old heading home without a wife and without a command of my own. A mere passenger on this tedious boat, carrying bags of sugar and casks of rum instead of guns. His final judgment on Port Royal as it faded from view was a bitter one: That famous earthquake they keep talking about, better it had submerged the entire town.

It was during this spell of idleness that he crystallized his vision of himself. “I am a seaman,” he wrote in his diary. “I was born to command some great ship in battle. There is no man in England, or France either, who has a better knowledge of seamanship and naval tactics. I must find me a ship, or my life is cut in half, useless and to no purpose.”

At twenty-four, pledging that the rest of his life would be spent in conflict with the French, he decided to spend his idle hours learning that language, so on his meager allowance he hied himself to France to study both the language and French customs against the day when he would profit from both. But alas! When he reached the house in the small provincial town where he had decided to settle, he found it occupied by an extraordinary English gentleman, a preacher with a hospitable wife and many children, including two remarkable daughters in their early twenties. They dressed well, spoke French without an accent, played the piano like virtuosos, and talked intelligently on any subject thrown before them.

In addition, they were beautiful, flirtatious and amusing, but best of all, to Nelson’s thinking, it was rumored that they would have substantial dowries, so it was not long before he abandoned his French lessons—he would try four times later to master that difficult language, and fail—and started a serious courtship. To a friend he wrote: “I am at last in love with a young woman admirably suited to be a naval officer’s wife,” but curiously, he never in any of his letters identified which of the sisters he had settled upon. And then the love-stricken letters ceased; he had learned that whereas his Miss Andrews did have a dowry, it was a modest one, not nearly so large as he felt entitled to. He broke off his courtship and left France in a pout.

On 14 January 1784 he began a series of extraordinary letters to older acquaintances who might conceivably help him, and one summarizes the rest: “There arrives a time in a man’s life when his influential friends must either find him a situation in which he can rest secure for the rest of his life, or give him outright enough money to secure his position in society and the world. For me that critical moment has now arrived.”

Since his friend could not promise an annuity or find him a sinecure, the man who was destined to become the greatest naval genius in history considered his career ended at twenty-five, and in early 1784 he decided to abandon the sea and run for Parliament! For several hectic months he threw his considerable energies in that direction, but his slight figure and unruly hair, which he wore in a huge, unkempt pigtail, and his unimpressive voice charmed few, and his try at public office was a miserable failure.

At this low point, one of his friends, responding to his cries for help, prevailed upon the Lords of the Admiralty to give Nelson command of a small 24-gun frigate, the Boreas, headed for the West India Station.

Weak with joy at this unexpected reprieve, he informed his naval friends: “A ship again. Aprowl in a sea I know well! Defending islands I love against the French! Never before have I known such exaltation!”

His new assignment, an important one, was not without its temporary drawbacks, because when he reported to the Boreas, his first lieutenant, former Midshipman Alistair Wrentham, promoted from watch duty at Port Royal, informed him: “Admiralty has arranged for you to carry with you a dozen young midshipmen from good families, oldest fourteen …”

“Youngest?”

“Eleven, my nephew, destined to be the next Earl of Gore.” Nelson coughed, and Wrentham continued: “You’re also to deliver to Barbados a rather difficult woman, Lady Hughes and her unlovely daughter Rosy.”

“What do you mean, unlovely?”

“A big blob of a girl, high giggle, pitiful complexion, and desperate for a husband.”

Lieutenant Wrentham smiled, nodded as if he were about to order the women away, then said: “I think you should know, sir, Lady Hughes is the wife of Sir Edward Hughes, admiral in charge of the West Indies Station, and it was his suggestion that she come out with you.”

Nelson rocked back and forth, studied the sky, and said quietly: “Wrentham, bring Lady Hughes and her entourage aboard,” and Alistair hurried off to do so.

That night, after the women had retired to their quarters, Wrentham asked Nelson: “What did you think of the daughter, sir?”

“Repulsive.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but isn’t it obvious that she’s being taken out to the West Indies Station so she can find a husband? All those young officers and no English women.”

“What are you saying, Wrentham?”

“Mind your step, Captain, if I may be so bold as to suggest.”

“How?”

“Lady Hughes will want you for her son-in-law, of that I’m sure.”

It was as painful a cruise as Nelson would ever make, for Lady Hughes was obnoxious, sticking her nose into everything on her husband’s behalf, while daughter Rosy grew more impossible each time he saw her. Between the mother’s blatant attempts to match Rosy and Nelson, and the girl’s porcine behavior—she made noises when she ate, her fat lips slobbering over liquids—Nelson would gladly have surrendered the command he had sought for so long.

“They’re horrid,” he told Wrentham during one night watch, and that was before he heard the worst. The incredible news was delivered by Wrentham: “Sir, are you aware that according to naval rules, since Lady Hughes, her daughter and her three servants are technically your guests aboard the Boreas, you’re responsible for their passage?”

“What do you mean by responsible?”

“I mean, as the host, you must pay their fare—a hundred and ten pounds, I believe.”

“Good God, Wrentham! That’s more than half my pay.”

“As ever, ma’am, you are correct.”

“And is there, perhaps, some fortunate young lady waiting ashore? ‘A sailor’s life, hi-ho! A sailor’s wife, hi-ho!’ ”

“I’m afraid young ladies have scant time for the likes of me.”

Lady Hughes betrayed her desperation by her next move: “Rosy, darling, do fetch me that gray-silk kerchief.” When the ungainly girl had loped off, her mother told Nelson directly: “Rosy, a dear child, thinks the world of you, Captain. Proximity and all that …” She nudged him: “That’s what these romantic voyages are famous for, you know: ‘Under the stars the world seems vaster. Lulled by the waves, two hearts beat faster.’ ”

“They tell me that’s often the case.”

Quickly, before Rosy could return with the kerchief, Lady Hughes said boldly: “You know, Captain Nelson, when Rosy marries she’ll bring with her a considerable competence from her grandmother, considerable …”

While Nelson mused on this information, Lady Hughes added: “And the admiral and I would be very supportive. She’s such a dear girl … Very supportive, indeed.”

When dinner ended, Nelson took from the table a confusing problem. Lady Hughes had defined the situation so specifically that no listener could have been in doubt as to its possibilities: the fortunate young officer who married Admiral Hughes’s daughter Rosy would have a considerable inheritance from the girl’s grandmother, a sizable gift from the parents, and career support from the admiral, who had proved himself a canny political fighter where promotions and assignments to good ships were concerned.

Every anxiety that Nelson had voiced in his famous letters now had a favorable resolution—money, a fighting ship, promotions, and a wife already accustomed to naval matters—and as he strolled nervously beneath the stars he could visualize his ready-made career: Given the right ship and the right command and a faltering French opponent, I could soar to the highest realms of glory. Stomping about the deck, he made brave to voice his innermost dreams: “Once I have a fair start, Westminster Abbey for me. Buried among the great ones. My memory respected.”

But then the awful truth thrust its ugly head over the side of the ship, like some fearful dragon come to slay the sleeping defenders: The key to all this is Rosy, and no man should be expected to pay such a heavy price, not even for immortality. And he continued to stomp the ship, muttering under his breath with each step: “No, no, no, no, no!” By the time the midnight bells sounded, he had made up his mind: if his future was to be determined in the hideous bed of Rosy Hughes, he would have to forgo it. And in the final days of his voyage he provided Lady Hughes with enough negative hints to enable her to guess what his decision had been.

To his surprise, this battle-hardened veteran of the matrimonial wars showed no personal grievance against him for rejecting her daughter, and on their last night at table she said effusively: “Captain Nelson, I predict a great future for you in the navy.”

“What have I done to encourage that generous opinion?”

“I’ve watched you with the young boys who serve on deck.”

“Have I been harsh with them? They do require minding.”

“On the contrary. You’ve been kind and understanding.”

“Madam,” he said with forced gallantry, “you have the advantage of me.”

“I mean that twice when some little fellow was too frightened to scramble up the shrouds to the crow’s nest, I heard you tell him in a kindly voice: ‘Well, sir, I am going to race up the masthead, and believe that I may meet you there,’ and when the lad saw you climbing the rigging, out of respect he had to follow, and when you greeted him at the top, all fear was gone.”

Horatio Nelson was twenty-seven when he sailed the Boreas into the roadstead at Barbados and took temporary quarters ashore at The Giralda Inn, but his character was already formed, many parts of it not pleasant. Ambitious almost to the point of frenzy, he was intensely jealous of even the slightest prerogative that might accrue to him, and he was so bold in defending his rights that within a few days of his arrival at the station, it was so obvious that he was going to be difficult that one-eyed Admiral Hughes, who was nearing retirement and who had hoped to round off his duty without unpleasantness, warned his wife: “I think we may have trouble on our hands with that young man you seem to like.” But she defended Nelson: “He’s stern, but he’s just, and I doubt you’ve ever had a better.”

The admiral’s prediction was the right one, for the moment at least, because his young captain set something of a record by immediately precipitating a series of crises, each stemming from his vanity and obsessive demand for recognition. The first, as might be expected, arose from his mortal distrust of anything French. Upon putting into the island of Guadeloupe to pay a courtesy call at Point-à-Pitre he became so outraged when the proper respect was not paid to the British flag, he initiated protests of such vehemence that they might have led to war, except that the French backed down and fired the proper salutes. Storming ashore, he demanded that the officer who had been delinquent be punished, and only when this was done did his anger subside. “No Frenchman humiliates a ship commanded by Horatio Nelson,” he told Lieutenant Wrentham.

But he could also show his fury to English malefactors, for when on the same voyage he approached for the first time the splendid anchorage on the island of Antigua, known then as English Harbour, and later as Nelson’s, he studied not the beauty of the place nor the security it would offer a battle fleet, but a military sight which infuriated him.

“Lieutenant!” he shouted in his high-pitched voice. “What do I see hanging from the yardarm of that ship over there?”

In slow, carefully accented words Nelson demanded: “What ship could that possibly be, Lieutenant?”

“A supply ship, based here in Antigua.”

“And who would be the captain of such a workhorse ship?”

“Someone appointed by the land-based officer in charge of the base, I presume.”

“Send for that someone!” Nelson thundered, and when the unhappy young man stood nervously before him, Nelson asked in tones of ice: “Have you any order from Admiral Hughes to fly a broad pendant?”

“No, sir.”

“Then why do you dare to do it when I am the senior officer present?”

“The officer in charge of the base gave me permission.”

“Does he command any ship of war?”

“No, sir.”

“Then strike it, sir. Immediately. I am the senior officer in Antigua and I demand the respect due my rank.” And he watched while Lieutenant Wrentham rowed the frightened young man back to his ship, where the two officers quickly lowered the offending flag. Only then did Nelson raise his own pendant aloft. When Wrentham returned, Nelson told him: “I’m in command in these waters and I intend to let people know it.”

He soon had the opportunity to prove his determination, for one calm, sunny afternoon when the 24-gun Boreas was on patrol among the small islands north of Antigua, he came by chance upon a trading vessel flying the flag of the newly constituted United States of America. Since the provisions of the famed Navigation Act of 1764 forbade all commerce, no matter how trivial, between the British islands of the Caribbean and the merchants of Boston, New York and Philadelphia, Nelson, obedient to those harsh laws, saw it as his duty to arrest this illegal intruder.

Nelson’s jaw dropped: “You mean other of your ships are engaged in this unlawful trade?”

“Many. All your islands are hungry for what we have to sell.”

“Such traffic ends today,” and he ordered his men to board the American trader and toss overboard the entire cargo. But Wrentham was soon back, reporting: “Sir, he was telling the truth. He has sixteen fine horses aboard.”

“Overboard, like all the rest.”

“But, sir …” And upon reflection, Nelson conceded: “We’ll land the horses ashore. Confiscated property.” But when he did so he found that no one in Antigua had ordered them or had specific use for them, and this perplexed him, until the young officer who had flown the broad pendant improperly suggested in a whisper: “We could take them to the French islands, where the lack of a reliable breeze makes it necessary for them to import horses to work their sugar mills. In Guadeloupe those sixteen horses will be worth a fortune.”

Drawing himself to his full height, which was not great, Nelson stormed: “Me, Horatio Nelson? Trading with the French to their advantage? Never!” and he ordered that the captured horses be distributed free among the farmers of Antigua.

But this act of generosity did not make him a hero to the Antiguans, nor to the English planters in nearby St. Kitts and Nevis, either, for the well-to-do businessmen of all the islands, English and French alike, had grown accustomed to the secret arrival of ships from the United States and dependent upon the profits earned in such trade. They were therefore perturbed when the new commander of the fleet in their waters stated publicly that he intended not only putting a stop to this illegality but also arresting those merchants ashore who connived at it.

He loathed Americans, seamen or not, on grounds which he expressed forcefully to Wrentham: “Good heavens, man! They were part of the British Empire, weren’t they? What better could happen to a land than to be an honorable part of our system? Look at those pitiful French islands compared to the order and sanity of Barbados and Antigua. Those damned Americans, little better than savages, should get down on their knees and beg us to take them back … to decency … to civilization. And mark my words, Alistair, one of these days they’ll do just that!” He simply could not understand why the colonies should have battled to be what they called free when they could have remained a part of England.

Infuriated by their ingratitude, he found positive pleasure in sinking or capturing their impertinent ships, not caring about the effect on the islands’ sugar producers, and turning a deaf ear to the plea so well voiced by their spokesman, one Mr. Herbert of Nevis: “There are not enough British trading ships to supply our needs, nor do they arrive often enough to provision us. Without the Americans we’ll starve.”

Nelson, like most naval officers, especially those who traditionally came from circles of social prominence, held in awe those exalted families that had inherited fortunes but despised those hardworking merchants who were in the process of acquiring theirs. The latter were beneath contempt, necessary perhaps, but hardly people with whom one would care to associate, and to hear them complaining against the manner in which their betters ran the empire was intolerable: “Dammit, Wrentham. England sends out what ships she deems best and at what times she proposes. Let ’em accommodate themselves to us, not us to them.”

He was thus in a frame of mind to fall in love with the Widow Nisbet even before he saw her, and when she first came fluttering into the room of her uncle’s mansion in Nevis, she swept Nelson away, for she was delicately beautiful, charming, witty in conversation, and gifted as a musician. Her attributes, which were many, were enhanced by the fine deportment of her son, Josiah, who at age five already wanted to go to sea. But most reassuring of all was the intelligence which his trusted friend Alistair Wrentham quietly collected for Nelson when the latter returned starry-eyed to the Boreas: “It’s impossible to determine just how much money old Herbert has, but it must be tremendous, because he controls three different sugar plantations, his factors assure me that year after year he ships back to London at least six hundred hogsheads of sugar. I’ve made my own count of his slaves and they’re worth not less than sixty thousand pounds. Can you imagine what the total fortune has to be?”

Nelson could not. But Wrentham, enthusiastic and accustomed to large figures, cried: “With his wealth, Herbert could easily provide his niece with twenty thousand. Now, if you invested that in Consols at five percent, you’d have … how much? Wonderful! You’d have a thousand pounds a year!” But upon reflection, Wrentham thought that the old man might want to give as much as £40,000 outright, which would yield a handsome two thousand a year, and this figure became fixed in Nelson’s mind as securely as if Mr. Herbert had promised it in writing; he was going to be a rich man, a condition to which he felt he was entitled.

No place for regrets, now, he told himself one day as he watched Nelson launch his tempestuous courtship of Mrs. Nisbet. Frustrated so many times before, and needing money now more than ever, Nelson also felt that he must not allow this dazzling opportunity to escape, and since Fanny Nisbet apparently felt the same way, a love match was under way. But there was one small cloud threatening this dreamy landscape: Mr. Herbert pointed out that his niece had contracted to serve as his housekeeper, and he could not see his way clear to releasing her from those duties for another eighteen months. So the love-smitten couple had to waste all of 1785 and much of the next year in courtship rather than marriage, but since this occurred on the lovely little island of Nevis, the long months acquired a fairy-tale aspect, and that kept Nelson content.

Only one weakness in the marriage plan kept intruding, that Herbert’s natural daughter might move back into his affections and thus imperil Mrs. Nisbet’s fortune. But Wrentham made discreet inquiries and brought Nelson news that was both reassuring and scandalous: “Martha is stubbornly going ahead with the marriage her father refuses to approve—and who do you think the man is?”

“I’ve no interest.”

“You will. It’s a Mr. Hamilton, and he’s related to that other Hamilton from Nevis, the famous Alexander who played such a despicable role in America’s revolution against us and who now parades as one of the leaders of the new nation.”

“I refuse to associate with traitors or friends of traitors,” Nelson said angrily, but Alistair soothed him: “No need to see the American scoundrel or the Nevis one, either. Remember, father and daughter don’t speak. The fortune is secured to Fanny.”

Wrentham, suppressing his apprehensions about the marriage, joined the other junior officers that evening at a banquet, and they congratulated themselves on having, in a small way, helped their gifted friend achieve the financial security he had so long and heretofore so fruitlessly pursued. As Wrentham, thinking of his own improved chances for promotion if Nelson prospered in the service, reminded his fellows: “A rising tide lifts all ships in the harbor. When Nelson climbs the ladder of preferment, we climb with him.”

Then everything seemed to fall apart. With a shock that threatened to unnerve him, Nelson discovered that his wife was not five years younger than he, but five months older. He then learned that Mr. Herbert, owner of this immense sugar fortune, was by no means disposed to settle upon his niece any sum ensuring her £2,000 a year; he was willing to provide an annuity of £100, which, with the hundred that Nelson had in his own right, meant that the newlyweds could count upon a meager £200 a year until such time as Mr. Herbert died, when the whole fortune would presumably pass to Mrs. Nelson.

But now Lieutenant Wrentham brought appalling news: “Martha Hamilton, Herbert’s recently married daughter, has effected a reconciliation with her father, and it’s she who will inherit the entire fortune.” When Nelson, in a state of trembling agitation, asked Mr. Herbert about this, he was told that “blood is thicker than water,” and that furthermore, Nelson would be wise to tend to his own affairs, since the merchants of the Caribbean were about to bring legal charges against him for interfering with their trade with Boston and New York.

Nelson’s enemies laid a devious trap. Knowing him to be rigorously honest and an officer devoted to any printed instructions, they used decoys to let him know that two land-based officials of the English navy yards in the Caribbean were stealing governmental funds, and although Wrentham warned against precipitate action, Nelson came out raging like a bull, publicly charged the men with theft, and then recoiled in stunned amazement when they fought back, bringing their own charges against him and suing him for the frightening sum of £40,000.

But, as always, he felt that others owed him funds for his career and recommendations for promotion to better assignment. “Why,” he asked Wrentham plaintively, “doesn’t Admiral Hughes over in Barbados do anything to defend me against my enemies or promote me among my friends?” Alistair laughed: “You must know that Hughes is a ninny. Spent all his time doing nothing but trying to find a husband for Rosy.”

“What’s happened to the little pudding?”

“Didn’t you hear? He offered young Lieutenant Kelly who sailed with us five thousand pounds if he’d marry Rosy. But Kelly was no fool. Married that lively cousin of your wife’s.”

“And Rosy?”

Nelson was forgiving: “Hughes can’t be as bad as everyone says. After all, he did lose his eye in combat and I respect him for it.”

“Have you never heard how he really lost it?”

“In battle with Rodney against the French, I presumed.”

“No. He was in his kitchen in Barbados trying to kill a giant cockroach with a fork. Missed the dirty beast but stabbed himself in the eye.”

Now came the terrible years which would have destroyed a lesser man. Most men did not realize how terrible they were, because they were accompanied by no hurricanes, no exploding fires at night, no sudden deaths, no incarceration, no dismemberment, no imbecility. What the years did bring were fierce storms that did not ruffle the surface of a country lake but that tore at a human soul, and left it so ravaged that the visible outer shell might have disintegrated had not the owner firmed his courage and his will and cried: “No! It cannot be so! I will not let this happen!”

When Nelson brought H.M.S. Boreas home to the Thames in England he was handed the instructions he feared: “Your ship is to be decommissioned and your crew paid off.” The words paid off had a sinister ring, for they meant that the ordinary sailors who had served long and faithfully would be thrown ashore with a few pounds—in some cases, only four or five—and no promise of employment or money for medical bills in case they had lost an arm or a leg. Midshipmen received nothing, and even the officers left the ship they had tended so faithfully without enough pay to enable them to live decently in the empty years ahead.

Of course, if France kicked up her heels, and ominous rumors kept coming out of that unfortunate country, the Boreas would be expected to sail staffed by a group of Englishmen like the ones who were now being tossed aside. So Horatio Nelson left his first senior command with only half-pay and some assurance that he would be recalled to active service “if and when the need arises.”

Nelson’s neighbors, watching him occupied with rural tasks and seeing him in attendance at fairs where vegetables were judged and loaves of bread compared, accepted him as one of themselves, and when this happened a curious shift occurred: everyone began calling him familiarly by his boyhood name, Horace. Weeks would go by without his ever hearing his real name, and before long he started thinking of himself as Farmer Horace.

But he never lost that other side of his nature, for often after attending some rural festival, he would return to his father’s rectory and sit at a desk long into the night, writing innumerable long and pleading letters to his wealthy friends, imploring them to find him an assignment with the navy, and in a shocking number of cases, beseeching them not to lend him money but to “settle upon me that degree of money you can well afford and which I need so desperately if I am to maintain my position as one of the king’s naval captains.”

His pleas, and there were scores of them each year, went unanswered; he was given no ship; he was the recipient of a miserable amount of half-pay; and for five desperate years he continued to live by begging from his father’s meager largesse, all the while depriving his faithful but tedious wife of new dresses and the other small enjoyments to which she was entitled. The Horace Nelsons were living in genteel poverty, for their £200 a year allowed them no frivolities and not too many essentials.

However, the couple did scrimp so that Horace could, at intervals, make the journey to London, where he trudged from one government office to another, begging for a ship. He told the Lords of the Admiralty: “I’m trained to be a naval officer. I know how to command a ship, ensure the courage of my crew, and fight the enemy as he has never been fought before. Sirs, I must have a ship.” Never given a logical reason, he was consistently rebuffed.

“I’m so sorry, Nelson. It’s so dashed unfair.”

“What has caused this embargo against me? If you know, tell me.”

Wrentham drew back, studied his old captain, and asked: “Do you really want to know?”

“I do, I do!”

Before speaking, Wrentham leaned forward and placed his two hands on those of his friend, as if to prevent him from taking violent action when he learned the explanation: “Nelson, you must know that word has circulated through the Admiralty condemning you as a very difficult man.”

Withdrawing his hands with a fierce tug, Nelson cried in great pain: “Difficult? I run my ship in proper style. I bring dignity and efficiency to the navy.”

Having launched this unpleasant discussion, Wrentham did not propose halting in midflight, and in firm tones he ticked off the accumulated complaints: “On your first day in Antigua, remember, you made that other fellow lower his broad pendant, forcibly, as the situation demanded.”

“He had no right to it, Alistair. It was totally against the rules.”

“You also provoked the French at Guadeloupe … could have been an international incident.”

“No Frenchman fails to pay proper respect to a ship I command.”

“Then you continued your warfare against the American smugglers.”

“The Navigation Acts demanded that I chastise them.”

“And chastise you did. Their captains are bringing suit against you in the London courts.”

“Who circulated these charges against me at Admiralty?”

“Admiral Hughes of the Barbados Station. He tells everyone that you are headstrong and difficult.”

“You mean Ninny Hughes? Father of Rosy that he peddled through the fleet? The one who knocked out his own eye while trying to kill a cockroach?”

Nelson heard this cynical strategy in silence, then, to Wrentham’s surprise, he lifted his coffee cup and held it delicately in the fingers of his right hand, twisting it this way and that. Only then did he control his anger sufficiently to permit speech: “Alistair, it’s been the same in all the navies of the world. In peacetime, what the high command wants is the polished gentleman who can manage a teacup in a lady’s salon, one who can meet the Turkish ambassador, who can keep his decks trim and whitestoned. And never, never do they want a true sailor like me who can command a ship and fight her with the total loyalty of my men. To hell with teacups,” and he dashed the one he held to the floor with a great clatter that brought one of the serving maids running.

“I am so sorry, my girl,” he apologized. “It slipped.”

After the girl returned with another cup, he resumed: “But when the guns begin to roar and the coastline is endangered by some Spanish armada or French expeditionary force, then the navies of the world shout for men like me: ‘Come, save us … Drake, or Hawkins, or Rodney!’ And always we respond, for we have no other occupation but to save the homeland.”

Afraid that he had revealed far more of himself than he intended, he looked rather sheepishly at Wrentham, then placed his hands on those of the young captain: “Alistair, it’s obvious that I envy you your command. I wish it were mine … to have a ship again …” He hesitated, then pressed his hands more tightly: “But you must understand, dear friend, although I envy you, I do not resent you. You have your own career to make, and you’re off to a fine start.” He was quiet for a moment before he concluded: “When France strikes and they call me back to command … maybe the entire battle fleet, I shall want you in charge of my starboard line. I can trust you, because I know you are not concerned only with teacups.”

He was therefore in dismal condition when he reached home to find his wife distraught: “Oh, Horace! Two of the most dreadful men banged their way through our front door, demanded to know if I was the wife of the naval officer Nelson, and when I said yes, they thrust these papers at me.”

“What papers?”

“That lawsuit in Antigua. They’ve moved it to London and are demanding forty thousand pounds. Said that if you didn’t pay, you’d rot in prison for the rest of your life.”

In the rage that followed, Nelson did so many seemingly irrational things that his wife and father conspired to send a messenger to London to Captain Alistair Wrentham, whom Nelson had spoken of as the only friend he could trust, and when they learned that the young officer was a lineal member of the Earl of Gore’s family, they had hopes that he might help clear away the confusion that possessed Horace. With a promptness that surprised them, young Wrentham arrived in Norfolk to find that his old commander had packed his belongings and was preparing for a hasty flight to France.

“My God, Horatio! What are you doing?”

To his surprise, Nelson fell upon him with an ardent embrace: “It’s so good to hear that name again, Alistair. Up here they call me Horace. And I really began to think of myself as Horace. But dammit, I’m a sea captain named Horatio, and a good one!”

“But why the packing?”

“Flight.”

“To where?”

“I don’t know. Those scoundrels in Antigua have moved their lawsuit against me to London … forty thousand pounds … prison for life if I don’t pay up.” In a gesture of despair and futility, he cried in his high-pitched voice: “Where would I get forty thousand pounds?”

“Horatio! Be sensible. Government have already promised they’ll defend your suit. You acted in their behalf, even Admiral Hughes admits that.”

“Governments are never happy with an underling who points out mistakes, even if they run to two million. But you really have no cause to flee.”

“I’m heading for France. I’ll finally master that despicable language against the day I capture some great French ship of war and have to deliver terms to her captain.”

At this bizarre reasoning, Wrentham exploded: “Horatio, you’ll never be happy in France. Let me lay your case before the Admiralty. My grandfather, the earl, does command a hearing.”

Nelson did not seem to hear this assurance as he continued: “What I shall really do, Alistair, is pass through France to St. Petersburg, where I shall offer my services to Catherine of Russia and her fleet.”

This statement was so shocking that Wrentham was rendered speechless, and Nelson continued, with great excitement and much movement of his hands: “Remember that damned Scotsman John Paul, who turned his back on us in the American war, added the name Jones and became their naval hero? Well, when they wouldn’t make him an admiral, which I must say he deserved, for he knew how to fight his ship, he hied himself off to Russia and received a top assignment from the czarina, and so far as I know, is still there. I’d enjoy fighting alongside a man with spirit like that.”

Now Wrentham became angry: “Horatio, you’re no John Paul Jones. The man was as fickle as a spring breeze. Born a Scot, should have fought on our side, offered his services to France, then the American colonies, now Russia … and God knows where next. Maybe Turkey, maybe France again.” He came to stand over Nelson as he delivered his ultimatum: “You’re English, Nelson. Could never be anything else. The lawsuits? I’ll attend to them. For the present, I want you to unpack … and please accept this small gift to help you restore your sense of propriety.”

But then his mood changed completely, for he waved the notes in the air and cried: “Ever since they’ve remade me into Farmer Horace, I’ve wanted to buy myself a pony. Never had the money. But if I’m destined to be a farmer and not a naval officer, I want that pony!” Almost joyously he led Wrentham into the village where he had long ago spotted the fine little animal he craved. To the owner’s surprise he cried: “Jacko, me boy, I’ll take her. Here’s a hundred and you can bring me the change when convenient.” And with a satisfaction he had not known for years, he led the beast home, saying truthfully: “If I’m to be a farmer, Alistair, I shall be a good one.”

The prospect of this potentially great sea captain wasting his life as a farmer disgusted Wrentham, and when he further saw the miserable condition in which Nelson lived subservient to his father, and the whining character of Mrs. Nelson, suddenly so much older in appearance and manner, and the ever-present penury, he became so agitated that he was tempted to reveal something about which he should never have spoken and which he would later regret: “Nelson, when you allowed me to visit that great plantation in Jamaica, I met the lovely daughter of the place, nineteen she was and too old for me. But I kept talking about you so much that she said: ‘I’d like to meet your Captain Nelson,’ and it was arranged. I would hurry back to Port Royal with an invitation from her family. They were rich. They loved the navy. And you would visit Trevelyan. But when I reached the fort, you had sailed away … only hours before.”

He bowed his head over the kitchen table, then said: “It all could have been so different. That one would have followed you even into battle.”

Nelson coughed to catch Wrentham’s attention, then said: “Alistair, it is infamous that you should tell me such a story … at such a time,” and he was about to order the young officer from his father’s house when his eye fell upon a chance mix of vegetables left upon the kitchen table in preparation for tomorrow’s stew, and their juxtaposition captivated him.

“But, Alistair! Suppose in the next battle, and there will be one, of that we can be sure, for the French will never let us rest, nor we them … Suppose that this time just as we seem about to repeat Rodney’s strategy, for which the French will certainly be prepared, we suddenly break our attacking fleet into two lines, me here to port, you there to starboard, well separated, and in that formation we slam into the French fleet. What terrible confusion in two quarters. Pairs of ships fighting each other across the entire ocean.”

When Wrentham saw the vast mix of potatoes and onions, he asked: “But how will our two forces maintain contact—for signals, for battle orders?” and Nelson looked at him aghast: “Alistair! On that day of battle when I send you off to starboard, you get no further orders from me. Each ship in your line becomes its own command. You fight your battle, I fight mine.”

“It sounds like chaos.”

“Planned chaos, in which I would expect you and every captain under you to do his duty … his sensible duty.” He ended with a conviction that had grown upon him in recent months: “The French like to lay off and fire at our masts and sails. We like to move in close and rake their decks. In close, Alistair! Always in close!”

Through the long night they moved their fleets back and forth, and when dawn broke they were still at their imaginary battles, the seas red with blood and filled with sinking ships. And before breakfast Wrentham helped his old commander unpack the bags that might otherwise have carried him to Russia.

When the messengers departed, he stood alone in the rectory, not gloating over the triumph he had foreseen nor railing against the injustices he had suffered, but steeling himself for darkened storms he saw ahead: Now comes the test of greatness. I escape from the vale of despond and sail into the clash of battle, and may God strengthen me in my resolve.

It would be popular in later decades to claim that Admiral Horatio Nelson had forged his revolutionary strategies and imperturbable character during his varied experiences at sea, especially in the Caribbean, but that was not the case; they were painfully annealed in those four dismal years when he was “on the beach” in his father’s rectory in Norfolk. There, humiliated, impoverished and ignored, he had hammered out his principles and devised those stratagems which would make him perhaps the finest officer ever to command a battle fleet. Aware of the miracle that had been wrought within him, he said farewell to his self-enforced prison in Norfolk, turned his face toward London, and cried: “Horace no more! Horatio forever!”

On 7 February 1793, when France was ablaze with war, Nelson, once again an active captain in His Majesty’s Navy, stepped aboard the trim 64-gun Agamemnon, turned aft to salute the quarterdeck, and took immediate steps to whip his handpicked crew into fighting shape.

Some days later, with all the excitement of a midshipman eleven years old hastening forward to inspect his first ship, he shouted to his men: “Cast off!” and to his helmsman: “Steady as she goes!” Feeling the great ship laden with guns rolling beneath his feet, he headed down the Channel for the Mediterranean, where destiny waited to award him victory at sea, scandal in Naples with the bewitching Lady Hamilton, and immortality at Trafalgar.

IN 1784 VISITORS TO ONE OF THE LIVELIEST SPOTS OF THE CARIBBEAN, the public square of Point-à-Pitre on the French island of Guadeloupe, were likely to chance upon three young creoles—clearly the best of friends, even to a casual observer—who, unbeknownst to anyone at the time, would be plunged into a drama not of their own making and culminating in horrid excesses.

The square was a spacious, friendly area, lined with trees and made hospitable by numerous wooden benches and a central kiosk where the town band played and from which citizens could purchase hot coffee and croissants as they relaxed in the sun. At its broad southern end the square opened upon the sea, where boats clustered, white sails shining against blue waters. The other three sides were defined by private homes built in the style of Mediterranean France, except that where stone would have been used in Marseilles, here the preferred material was wood, most often a handsome mahogany impervious to insects. Each house had a second-floor veranda adorned with bright tropical flowers, making the square a garden in which happy citizens congregated throughout the day.

On the ground floor, Monsieur Mornaix, one of Point-à-Pitre’s leading citizens, kept the office from which he conducted his banking and money-lending business, but the upper levels, the ones with the lacework, were reserved for his family, and often young men idling their time in the square below would gaze longingly at the flower-bedecked house and sigh: “There she is!” and their eyes would follow Eugénie Mornaix, the banker’s lovely young daughter, as she strolled one of the verandas. “She’s one of the flowers,” the young men said.

Their adoration was fruitless, for her affection had been claimed. In the much simpler wooden house on the opposite corner—two stories, one modest veranda, a few flowers—where the town’s apothecary, Dr. Lanzerac, kept his small shop, lived his son Paul. He had known Eugénie since birth, and they had now reached the exciting age when they were beginning to realize that each had a special attachment to the other, for he was fourteen and she, much more clever at the moment, was twelve.

Their parents, hardworking shopkeepers of the upper middle class, approved of the special relationship which seemed to be developing between their children, for the two families shared many attributes and interests. Both were devoutly Catholic, finding the church a comforting guide to behavior on earth and later in heaven; both were frugal, believing that God meant for His children to work hard and save their money to ensure protection throughout a long life, and every member of both families loved France with a passion that had never been exhibited by the Spanish colonists for their homeland. Monsieur Lanzerac, the apothecary, liked to tell the young people: “A Spaniard respects his homeland, a Frenchman loves his.” In the entire reach of French influence, from the Rhine River to St.-Domingue, there were no Frenchmen more patriotic than those found on the sugar island of Guadeloupe.

There was a greater difference: Martinique was an ordinary kidney-shaped island, a clone of hundreds like it in the world, but Guadeloupe was completely unique, beautiful in fact, mysterious in origin. In shape and color it resembled a green-gold butterfly, drifting lazily to the northwest; the green came from the heavy cover of vegetation, the gold from the constant play of sunlight. It was really two islands with the two butterfly wings separated by a canal so preposterously narrow that a drunk once said: “Give me three beers and I’ll jump from one island to the other.” The eastern wing of the butterfly was low and flat and composed of tillable farmland; the western, of high and rugged mountains that permitted no cross-island roads. The explanation for this remarkable difference lay in the origins of the two halves: the eastern had risen from the rock base of the Caribbean forty million years ago, and this had provided ample time for its peaks to be eroded away, but the western had achieved its rise to the surface only five million years ago, and its mountains were still young. Born of different impulses at vastly different times, the two halves were now semijoined in one magnificent whole, and the people who lived on Guadeloupe said: “Ours is an island a man can love,” and they felt sorry for those who had to live on what they called “that other island,” Martinique.

In this green-gold paradise the two creole children developed a passionate attachment to both their native island and their French homeland, so that words like glory, patriotism and the French manner echoed in their hearts like the Angelus sounding for evening prayer. These were solemn commitments, profound allegiances, and Paul, who attended the school taught by the local priest, often told Eugénie, who stayed at home in her House of Lace learning the secrets of kitchen and laundry: “When I’m older I shall go to France and study in Paris and become a soldier of the king.” When he said the awesome word king he meant Louis XVI, whose woodcut portrait printed in great numbers graced the main rooms of both homes. To the children, King Louis, with his round face and wig reaching beyond his shoulders, was a person whom they expected to meet personally someday if they ever reached France.

“It took them about a year,” Lanzerac Père explained to the children, “to accumulate their strength before they felt powerful enough to attack our part of the island, because they knew we Grande-Terre people were fighters, but in due course they came at us, and that was when your great-grandmother earned her place in the pantheon of French heroes.” Whenever he reached this point in his narration he would pause dramatically and remind his listeners: “I said heroes, not heroines, for Grandmère Lanzerac was the equal of any man.”

What she did was to retreat into the Lanzerac storehouse out on the sugar plantation, bring all her slaves behind its walls, and arm them with guns collected from the other less formidable plantations, and there, as one British general recalled in his memoir of the campaign:

They were a handsome pair of children: Paul with blond hair, bright open face and freckles; Eugénie with dark hair, a beautiful face and a willowy figure that resembled a wisp of marsh grass when she was twelve, the bending of a young tree when she became fourteen. They went through the normal periods of intense association when Paul walked the flowering verandas with Eugénie, sharing secrets and impossible dreams. Then there were months when they drew apart, heading in separate directions, but always they moved back together, for they recognized an affiliation that would never dissolve. They could not know whether it might blossom into normal love experiences, and as for even considering marriage, that would have been ridiculous to think about at their ages.

Although Solange felt wonderfully at home among her flowers, she often visited her mother’s black relatives in Point-à-Pitre, taking them gifts of ginger flowers, and since she was the same age as Eugénie, it was inevitable that in this small town the two girls would become friends. Indeed, Solange became so intimate a confidante that she was more like a sister than a friend, sharing with Eugénie whispers and speculations about this boy or that or the goings-on of the young widow near the port.

But the presence of Paul Lanzerac in the house opposite soon made him the focus of their conversation, and it would have been difficult to determine which girl had the greater interest in him, for as Solange confided: “When I grow up, I hope I meet someone like Paul,” and in the hot tropic nights when they shared a bedroom she sometimes whispered strange confessions: “Eugénie, I do believe that Paul loves each of us … in different ways,” and when Eugénie wanted to pursue this striking analysis, dark-eyed Solange said only: “Oh, you know.” Had Paul been asked, he would have confessed that he liked Eugénie, because they had shared so many experiences while growing up, but that he loved Solange in a different and more compelling way.

Once, when Eugénie had gone into the country to stay for two days with Solange, the mulatto girl cried in a burst of sisterly confidence: “Oh, Eugénie, whichever of us marries Paul, let’s all be friends, forever and ever,” and Eugénie drew back, studied her friend, and asked: “Has he been kissing you?” and Solange said: “Yes, and I love him so desperately.”

Then all things changed, for the time had come for Paul to return to France for the serious education which he would require if he were to occupy his rightful place in the French system. Before he departed in 1788, at the age of seventeen, he spent a couple of long days with the two girls, then fifteen, sharing with them his hopes and the possibilities he foresaw when he would return three years later: “I don’t intend to be an apothecary, like my father.”

“A doctor?” Solange asked, flushed with excitement at such serious talk, and he said: “No. I respect my father’s life … his neat shop … and I’d be proud to be a doctor …”

“What then?” Solange pressed, and he looked away from her and spoke to Eugénie: “Like what we talked about. In government, a lawyer maybe, an officer who’s sent from island to island.”

Then Solange, her beautiful dark face aglow, said almost sorrowfully: “But you’ll have been in Paris …”

“Oh no!” he corrected. “I won’t even see Paris,” and she cried in astonishment: “Not see Paris!” Then he explained that his ship would land him in Bordeaux in southern France, and from that port he would travel by various rural conveniences straight across to the extreme eastern border: “I’ll be going to the little town where the Lanzeracs had started, Barcelonnette, near the Italian border. Mountains and rushing streams. Some of my uncles live there.” When Solange asked: “But why would anyone travel across an ocean to find a little mountain town?” he said: “Because my father says it’s the best part of France. It’s the border, where you have to fight to live.” He reminded them: “That fighting old woman who held off the British to save this island, she was from Barcelonnette,” and it was clear to the girls that he expected to conduct himself in her glorious tradition, a true-blue Frenchman fighting for France.

If a bright young man from any of the French colonies wished to revitalize his love for his homeland in the tense year of 1788, there could have been few places more appropriate for him to visit than the remote town of Barcelonnette. It was set among mountains and so close to the Italian border that a sense of defending the frontier affected all who lived or visited there; there was also a strong appreciation of the colonies because numerous sons of the town, unable to see much future in the limited opportunities it provided, had emigrated to the New World to find their fortunes there. Decades ago Paul’s branch of the prolific Lanzerac family had sent three brothers to the Caribbean—one to Mexico, one to Cuba and the youngest to Guadeloupe—and all had done so well that they could send their sons, or at least the firstborn, back to Barcelonnette for an education. And there, among the quiet mountains, these young fellows met with their uncles and grandfathers and cousins to learn from them the timeless glories of French culture.

Paul had been in the care of these two fine men only a few weeks when he realized that in coming to his ancestral homeland, he had escalated to a whole new level of learning and understanding. Coincidentally, in early January of 1789 the French government sent a notice to the six hundred and fifteen districts that comprised the nation, advising them that since a rare and powerful event was about to take place, a convocation of the Etats-Generals—nobles, clergy and third estate or commoners—each district was to send to Paris a traditional cahiers de doléances, or notebook of grievances. So just as Paul was settling down to his studies he found two members of his family engaged in composing the grievances of Barcelonnette: Père Emile was contributing to the clergy’s report, Uncle Méderic was in charge of the commoners’, and as Paul watched these two thoughtful men at work summarizing the views of France, he imbibed from them an appreciation of what made France most distinguished among nations.

Uncle Méderic was the more thoughtful, for he saw France as a radiant beacon whose destiny it was to enlighten the rest of Europe and the world. As he prepared to draft his final version he told members of his family: “The Etats-Generals last met forty years ago. This is a rare opportunity to express our opinions to the king,” and he made it clear that his list of grievances would be brief: “There’s nothing wrong with France. Radicals from cities like Lyons and Nantes will complain about everything. More voting privileges. More aid to the poor. A stronger police. But what are the facts? This is a noble country and with just a little attention it will remain that way,” and in that spirit his list was short: “We must have more troops along the border to protect ourselves from Italian smugglers; there should be better mail service with Paris; and the bridge on the way to Marseilles should be widened to accommodate our carts.” Then, to let Paris know what his district thought about government in general, he wrote a fervid passage which would be widely quoted then and in later generations when scholars wondered how, on the very eve of a revolution, this obviously literate little town could state:

Père Emile did not actually draft the clergy’s list of grievances, but since he did contribute heavily to it, Paul gleaned an insight into the priests’ thinking:

Paul found these solid assurances fortified by the instruction he was receiving from Père Emile and his three fellow teachers. Their école, as it was called, was an advanced school for fifteen-year-olds which offered instruction on the first-year level of a good university like Salamanca or Bologna: its students learned specific details as to how France achieved her greatness, and in one subject after another the supremacy of French thought and performance was extolled. While there was no specific class in literature, the teachers referred constantly to works by Racine, Corneille, Rabelais and especially Molière, whose work was judged to be the finest mix yet available of profound thought and comedy. One teacher did admit that Shakespeare of England had merit, especially in his sonnets, but that his plays were apt to be fustian. He also said grudgingly that the German author Goethe was worth studying, but that his Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers was far too sentimental for the taste of an educated gentleman. Dante was not dismissed, as Boccaccio was, but he was charged with being abstruse and unable to tell a tale properly.

In all fields it was the same: French kings were superb, French generals without parallel, French admirals the glory of the seas, and the French explorers of America among the bravest men of history, far superior to an Italian like Christopher Columbus who had merely sailed safe ships to islands which philosophers already knew existed.

But he was to spend only three years on his mountain because on the fourteenth of July, in what the authors of the local Cahiers de Doléances had reported as a land without any need of change, the rabble in Paris, by storming Bastille prison, launched a wave of change that would prove shattering. However, Paul remained largely unaware of the convulsions that were beginning to wrack his beloved France, for he was engaged in a rather difficult battle of his own.

When young men like him returned to Barcelonnette for their education, every effort was made to find them a local wife, on the understandable grounds that women of the region were a known product and most desirable. No one sponsored this belief more strongly than Uncle Méderic, who paraded before his nephew one local beauty after another, and some of them were breathtaking, with flawless complexions produced by mountain air and the firm, steady characters which resulted from protected rural life. One girl in particular, named Brigitte, a distant cousin of sorts, since everyone in the district seemed to be interrelated, was especially charming. The daughter of a wealthy farmer, she was not only a mistress of household arts like cooking, sewing and cleanliness, but was also the possessor of a rich singing voice and a lively pair of heels when a fiddle began to play. Also, Uncle Méderic reminded his nephew, her father could be expected to provide a handsome dowry.

But Paul could not give her serious attention, for a strange malady now attacked him: he was homesick for the tropical splendor of Guadeloupe and the demonstrated charms of Eugénie Mornaix and Solange Vauclain. The simple fact was that Brigitte, by the wealth of her virtues, had reminded him that he was already in love, but with which of the two creole girls, he had not yet decided. When he thought of women in the abstract, it was Solange with her dark beauty who filled his heart, but when he applied himself seriously to the question “Which one?” he found himself thinking always of Eugénie, and for three weeks he mooned about the hills of Barcelonnette so lost in dreams that his uncle saw that bold steps were required.

“What kind of girl?” and from the manner in which his nephew fumbled with this question, Méderic concluded that the boy was lying. The truth was, Paul didn’t know what to say. Finally he blurted out: “Eugénie Mornaix,” whereupon his uncle hit him with a barrage of penetrating questions which so confused Paul that in offering one answer he let slip, by accident, the name Solange.

“And who’s she?”

“Another girl, just as pretty as Eugénie.”

“Can’t make up your mind? You’re in trouble if you’re caught in that trap. Tell me, is either of them as pretty as Brigitte?”

“They’re different. Eugénie is smaller and very sharp of mind. Solange is taller and darker … very beautiful.”

“Darker? What do you mean?” and in his fumbling reply Paul revealed that Solange had had a slave mother.

There was silence in the farmhouse, then Uncle Méderic stroked his chin and pointed to a timber darkened by the smoke of centuries: “You mean her mother was as dark as that?” and when Paul nodded, his uncle began asking a long series of questions about slaves on the islands, and Paul told him that many of the Frenchmen married women imported from Africa, “very beautiful women whose children are as bright as you or me.” Indeed, he told illustrative stories with such skill that on subsequent evenings Uncle Méderic called in other members of his family to hear the young man’s report on life in Guadeloupe, and gradually the French attitude on the relations between races manifested itself.

Père Emile said: “We’re all God’s children,” and a cousin agreed: “We have never seen slaves in Barcelonnette, but I’m sure once they’ve been baptized …” and the priest agreed.

But Uncle Méderic, still championing the cause of Brigitte, made a judicial observation: “If a man was going to live his life in the islands, I suppose a black woman would be acceptable, but if he was under consideration for a job in France … well, a black wife …”

“See,” he said shyly, “she’s very pretty,” but an aunt, holding the paper close to her eyes, pointed out: “She is black,” and Père Emile explained that all silhouettes were cut from black paper and pasted onto white: “Gives the required clean outline.”

As that particular discussion dragged to a conclusion, no one offered the argument that would have been made in nearby England, that Paul was a white man and therefore the possessor of blood too precious to be melded with black. Not one Frenchman hammered at him: “But such a marriage would be unthinkable. You’d be ostracized from the best society, and your friends and their wives would cut you dead.” Even Uncle Méderic, who had pointed out the disadvantages a man might suffer if he brought his black wife to Paris, retreated: “Come to think of it, there was that fellow on the road to Marseilles. Brought back a wife he’d met in Turkey or Algeria. Remarkably dark, but no one seemed to care. If this Solange is as attractive as you say, and you’re to make your home in the islands …” And in the days that followed he stopped pressing the charms of Brigitte, but he did repeat the warning he had once issued: “Seriously, my son, any man who’s in love with two girls at the same time and in the same town …” He pressed his hands against his head: “Trouble, trouble.”

But then the revolution erupted and Cousin Paul’s problems were forgotten, for a local man who had gone to Paris to test his fortune had returned breathless with news: “They’ve forced a new form of government on the king. He tried to flee the country …”

“He what?” astonished townsmen cried, and their onetime neighbor said: “Yes, disguised as a woman, they say.”

“What happened?” a woman cried. “Was he caught?”

“Yes. Hauled him back to Paris, made him agree to a new form of government they call the Legislative Assembly. King has no power anymore. The rabble runs everything. When I left, the country roads were filled with men and women of quality fleeing Paris.”

Avid for news of changes that might affect life in Barcelonnette, the townsmen sent messengers scurrying about, but the news with which they returned was fragmentary: “Paris is in turmoil. No one knows what will happen to our beloved king.”

Clothed in this shadowy uncertainty, Paul Lanzerac left Barcelonnette in the fall of 1791, his heart filled with an understanding and a love for France, and for this benevolent group of Lanzeracs in their mountain town who had made his life there so pleasant and so rewarding: “I shall never forget you. And each of you will have a home in Guadeloupe if you ever choose to come.” As he was about to climb into the cart that would start him on his way to a ship at Bordeaux, Brigitte rushed up to him, embraced him, and whispered: “Please come back, Paul. And do take care.” It was Père Emile, priest and schoolmaster, who gave the benediction of the entire town, for he said as he ran beside the cart for a short distance: “Paul, you’re a young man with a strong education and a strong character. Make something of yourself as a tribute to this town and to France.” And the young man, boy no more, rode down the mountain road with a determination to do as the priest instructed.

For a young man of intelligence and promise to cross all of southern France from the Italian border to the Atlantic coast in the closing months of 1791 was to acquire an education in contemporary realities. Along country roads he saw the impoverishment of a once-rich land, and in small villages he was greeted with looks of resentment and even hatred. One stagecoach driver warned: “Young fellow, take off that jacket. It betrays you as one to be despised,” and Paul stuffed into his bag the lace-touched jacket his Uncle Méderic had given him as a parting present.

On the ferry which took him across the Rhone, a peasant with twitching hands told a terrible story of what had happened at Lyons just up the river: “It started quiet. People like me askin’ for bread. Police said: ‘You can’t go there,’ but we went. Arrests. Heads busted. Turmoil in the streets. Then prisoners led from the jails. Well dressed. They could read and write, you supposed. Sixteen at a time lined up against a wall by ordinary men, not in uniform, with muskets. Then a bang. And down go the sixteen, but one not dead. A pistol was shot right through his face as he was lookin’ up pleadin’ for mercy. Horrible.”

When they were free of this ugly place smelling of death, Paul asked the man seated next to him: “What’s happening to France?” and the man said: “Old scores being settled.”

At Bordeaux, just as Paul was about to board the ship heading for Guadeloupe to pick up a cargo of much-needed sugar, he heard astonishing rumors: “The king has been arrested and is in jail. Hundreds of his supporters arrested, so if you’re a king’s man, keep your mouth shut. Massacres everywhere, and the Prussian army is trying to invade to protect the king, but our brave men are fighting them off.” And it was with such inconclusive intelligence that Paul left his homeland, with Père Emile’s counsel ringing in his confused ears: “Make something of yourself as a tribute to this town and to France.” The achievement of such a goal had already become immensely difficult.

The long trip across the Atlantic was a time of reflection and peace, except for one ominous afternoon when a sail was sighted and the lookout called: “British ship to starboard,” causing all passengers to breathe deeply, but the French captain hoisted more sail until the distance between the ships lengthened. At supper that night it was generally agreed that the British were a poor lot, little better than the pirates who used to prey upon these waters, and such horrible tales were told of Captain Kidd and L’Ollonais and Henry Morgan that one lady passenger spoke for the others when she said: “I’ll be afraid to go to bed tonight.”

But while the ship stayed in port, several smaller craft whisked around to the eastern wing, carrying exciting news to Paul’s hometown: “Ship in from Bordeaux. Lanzerac’s aboard. All France in an uproar. King’s fate uncertain.” So by the time the cargo ship had made its way to Point-à-Pitre, the townsfolk were eager for a sight of their returning son and the news that he would be bringing, and they crowded the dock to greet his arrival.

When he appeared at the railing of the ship they saw a fine-looking young man of twenty-one, with erect posture, light hair edging down toward his left eyebrow and a reserved countenance which was capable of breaking into a warm smile, but the lasting impression he created was one of dignity and capability. Many a mother seeing him about to land felt he was the kind of young man she would appreciate having visit her kitchen for a friendly chat and a supper with her daughter.

In the last moments, as the ship eased its way to the dock, Paul could see the two dear friends who stood side by side in the waiting area below, Eugénie Mornaix and Solange Vauclain, and he was struck by what beautiful young women they had become, each in her own way. Eugénie, the smaller and fairer of the two, was a little jewel with a delicate figure totally appropriate to her size, and a lovely smile which she flashed at Paul as he waved. Solange was taller, slimmer and more provocative as she stared at him with her dark, handsome face tilted slightly to one side. She was, he thought, like a Caribbean volcano waiting to explode.

The troubles revealed themselves gradually. Paul laughed when his father warned: “Two restless young women out there waiting for you, son.” He was intent only on reestablishing his warm relationships with his family, and reported twice each item of news from Barcelonnette.

“I met some wonderful girls in France,” he said, describing Brigitte and explaining to his parents what family she was related to.

“I know them!” Mme. Lanzerac cried. “Oh, why didn’t you bring her home with you?” He said: “I could never get the girls of Point-à-Pitre out of my mind,” and forthwith he began his serious dual courtship, with the town aware of what was happening.

Jocular bets were made as to which of the lovely creoles would land Paul in her net, and sometimes the talk grew serious. A woman observant of island life reflected as she sat with a neighbor on a bench in the sun-filled square: “It’s such a mysterious moment. Three lives in suspension. A golden moment, really. A choice made that determines a lifetime.” The older listener, who was staring at the cargo ships preparing for the run to the offshore islands, nodded: “And most often we choose wrong.”

As the first delightful days of reacquaintance passed, the young people became aware that they must get on with their lives. The girls knew they had reached the age of bearing children; Paul knew he was eager to start a family, had, indeed, been ready that last year in Barcelonnette, so the process of choosing became more intense.

He did not cast up the comparative virtues of the two women, with points for this or that, but he was aware of the great basic differences that had existed since his earliest days with Eugénie and Solange: the former was the perfect mate, the latter a woman who exploded the heart, and when he was alone with either he was content. But as the pressure increased he tended to show sympathy for Eugénie, who had lost her father, and then preference, and when this was perceived by everyone in Point-à-Pitre, Solange did something she would later regret. She confronted her friends and said accusingly: “If I’d been white …” and she fled to her father’s plantation, refusing to participate in the wedding she had foreseen, nor was she present when the young couple set up housekeeping in the House of Lace.

Each new ship arriving at Basse-Terre brought more shocking revelations about the discord that was shattering the homeland—abolition of the monarchy, installation of radical new agencies of government, war against external enemies—and finally the gruesomeness that shocked the island into sullen silence: “King Louis has been executed. All is in turmoil.”

In the following days the French island of Guadeloupe reacted precisely as the English island of Barbados had done one hundred and forty-four years before when British revolutionaries had chopped off the head of their king: everyone in any position of dignity declared himself to be an adherent of their dead king and an opponent of radical new patterns, and no one was more committed to this lost cause than Paul and Eugénie. Because they sensed intuitively that the chaos in France must ultimately reach Guadeloupe, with disruptions that could not be defined, they decided, in preparation for the storm, to restore their friendship with Solange. So together they rode out to the plantation, where she greeted them among her wealth of flowers. “Come back with us,” Eugénie pleaded. “We’re destined to be friends forever,” and after gathering bouquets to liven up her room in Point-à-Pitre, Solange saddled her horse and joined them on the return trip.

Her reappearance as a close friend of the Lanzeracs was an embarrassment to no one: she loved Paul, as she had from the age of nine, but after his marriage to Eugénie she seemed to have stored that part of her former life in a closet, with every apparent intention of keeping it there. Both Paul and Eugénie realized that Solange adored him, but they agreed that so long as emotions were kept under control, no one was the loser in the present arrangement, and husband and wife took serious steps to find the beautiful Solange a husband.

This shameful act intensified the emotions of the island Royalists, who held meetings at which they orated … while spies listed new names. Paul Lanzerac, already a man of substance although only twenty-three, led the fiery orations, calling upon memories of France’s greatness under her distinguished kings, but what really animated him was the arrival in the French islands of a decree announcing that any worship of God or Jesus or the Virgin Mary had been abolished in favor of what was called the Cult of Reason. There was also to be an entirely new calendar, with months named for natural phenomena like Germinal (seed month) and Thermidor (heat month) and Fructidor (fruit/harvest month). A subsidiary note reported that priests and nuns were being exterminated at a lively rate, with a suggestion that patriots in the colonies might like to conduct a similar cleansing.

When Paul heard these revolting stories his anger flared to such a pitch that he led a huge mass meeting in the plaza opposite his father’s shop, at which he railed for some minutes against the assassins who had killed the king and queen and now sought to kill Jesus and the Virgin Mother, and it was in the soaring emotions of that afternoon that at least the eastern half of Guadeloupe declared itself unequivocally in support of the old system of government and religion as opposed to the new. And when Paul finished, Solange leaped to the improvised stage and declared that the women of the island felt their own devotion to the dead queen and the church.

The dash of these volunteers, plus Lanzerac’s excellent leadership, established a perimeter of safety inside which plantation owners could survive the attacks of the dark-skinned rebels, but during one sortie far to the eastern shore of the island where plantations bordered on the Atlantic, a fellow rider asked Paul: “Did you know that Solange Vauclain has gone out to her plantation to help her father save it from burning?” When he asked his troop: “Shall we ride back by way of the Vauclain place to rescue Solange if she’s still there?” they demurred: “No concern of ours. She’s mulatto and no doubt fighting on their side.”

So the detour to help Solange was aborted, but late that night when Paul told his wife: “I’m really frightened. She’s out there and she’s got to be brought in,” she replied without hesitation: “Of course,” and she kissed him goodbye as he left to round up three volunteers to aid him on his starlit gallop eastward.

It was not a long ride, just to the safe perimeter and three miles beyond, but the last portion could prove extremely dangerous if the rebels were alert, so at the point where the riders had to leave the protection of the French guns, he cried: “We’re heading over there. Any who wish to remain, do so,” but none stayed, so with his three men behind him he made a dash for the Vauclain plantation.

It was a sharp ride over rough terrain, but they did avoid the rebels and at dawn approached the Vauclain plantation, but one of the men, knowing of Paul’s affection for Solange, galloped ahead and immediately returned, right hand in the air to stop the riders: “Don’t go. It’s terrible.” Brushing past him, Paul sped on to see the fearful desolation that had been wreaked upon one of Guadeloupe’s finest sugar settlements. The big house had been leveled; its fine mahogany furnishings were smoldering. The owner, a just man and a fine manager, hung by his neck from a tree that he had planted.

When Paul, near fainting, started to poke among the embers to see what had happened to Solange and her mother, the others tried again to stop him, but when he heard a whimper from a chicken coop, he found the girl and her mother huddled inside, terrified lest the horsemen might be a second round of rebels come to finish the destruction.

For a moment Solange, the daughter of a murdered father and a rebellious mother who had deserted her, looked in confusion at the man she had always loved, and felt near to collapsing. But with the same strength that her African mother had shown, she calmly shook the dust from her skirt, and then cried: “We go!” And after Paul helped her mount and himself eased back into the saddle, she clasped him about the waist and they headed back for Point-à-Pitre.

Eugénie Lanzerac was not surprised when she saw her husband ride up with their dear friend mounted behind, nor was she shaken by the burning of the Vauclain plantation, the murder of its owner and the decision of the widow to join the rebels. “These are dreadful times,” she told Solange consolingly, and in succeeding days each helped the other during shortages of provisions or attacks by the enemy. The town was in a state of siege, and on days when Paul led a detachment of his cavalry out to forage for extra food, the two women, each twenty-one and mature, stood at the doorway to their house and bade him farewell and Godspeed. When he returned safely, it would have been impossible to detect which woman greeted him with greater affection or uttered the more sincere prayers.

But when one of Paul’s three companions was wounded during a sortie, both Paul and Eugénie were in for a surprise when the next excursion set forth, because on the wounded man’s horse rode Solange, ready for the chase east. No one, not Eugénie or Paul or the other two horsemen, made comment; she was a creole woman, a daughter of the island, and her people needed sustenance. When she rode back with the men in late afternoon, Eugénie helped her down from her horse and embraced her.

One afternoon when they came home exhausted, drooping in their saddles, the waning sun on their faces, Eugénie met them at the gate and thought: They are so handsome. As if they had been made for each other. But this obvious fact did not disturb the friendship, because when Eugénie appeared that night at supper with her baby son, Jean-Baptiste, tucked in motherly fashion under her left arm while she ladled up soup with her right, Solange thought: She is so much the mistress of a home, so much the mother. And Solange’s own participation in this curious arrangement remained on an even keel.

Then in early 1794, when distant Paris was caught in a vortex of terror, when one after another of the bloody leaders was executed—Hébert, Chaumette, Cloots, Danton, Desmoulins, each dead with a hundred crimes on his hands, a thousand corpses—a minor terror of its own kind was about to strike Guadeloupe, but it appeared first in the guise of salvation from a most unexpected quarter.

When it seemed that the rebellious slaves and their mulatto leaders were about to overwhelm the beleaguered town, a small flotilla of ships appeared in the harbor, and a watchman shouted: “My God! They’re British!” Paul Lanzerac and two other daring men leaped into a rowboat, and ignoring the danger that they might be fired upon by the sailors, pulled right under the bow of the lead ship, and cried: “We’re Royalists! The slaves are besieging us!”

Since Paul loved the daughter of a slave and appreciated the qualities mulattoes could have, he was antagonized by Oldmixon’s crude dismissal of anyone with color, but could not forget that in the recent rioting, mulattoes had sided with slaves against the whites. Maybe the English rule as exemplified in nearby Barbados was correct—“White with black, a forbidden mix”—while the French willingness to accept if not encourage such liaisons might be a mistaken policy. But he could not abide Oldmixon; the man was insufferable, seeming to take delight in lording it over the French, whom he apparently despised, but he was the potential savior of the island and therefore had to be accepted.

For these tangled reasons, Paul Lanzerac, a Frenchman of such devotion to his native land that he wept when he heard of the disasters overtaking it, was constrained to help a British naval force capture both wings of the Guadeloupe butterfly. The occupation was made without much loss of life, since at Point-à-Pitre, Paul and his associates welcomed the British sailors, while at Basse-Terre the opposition was minimal. Within two weeks the island was secure.

A curious event happened when the British army units that came ashore early in the battle marched inland from Point-à-Pitre to subdue the last of the slaves; when they thought they had the rebels penned into their final redoubt, they found to their astonishment that it was commanded by a ferocious woman whom spies identified as the widow of the murdered French planter Philippe Vauclain. Hearing of this preposterous affair, Admiral Oldmixon rode up on a horse provided him by Paul Lanzerac and demanded of his men: “What in hell goes on here?” and they explained: “There’s an old black woman in there, every time we arrange a truce because they don’t have a chance … you can see that … she starts the fight again.”

Oldmixon was outraged. A blustery type to whom everything not authentically English was anathema, even his fortuitous French allies here on the island, he was not about to allow a slave woman, and an elderly one at that, to hold up his occupation of Guadeloupe, so he bellowed at his men: “Storm that plantation and shoot the old bitch,” but at this moment young Lanzerac, having heard of the impasse, galloped up, shouting: “No! No!” and when he dismounted before the irate Englishmen he said: “You can’t. She’s the widow of a white man and the mother of a trusted friend.”

“Throw her into jail,” the Barbadian said, and despite the most fervent pleas from Paul and Eugénie and Solange when they had Oldmixon to supper that night, he persisted, because, as he said: “She was once a slave, and she’ll never forget it. Can’t beat the urge for freedom out of ’em. Rebel once, rebel always.” But as the night waned, Paul noticed that Oldmixon kept his eye always on Solange, and when the Englishman left the house to return to his ship he said at the gate: “That girl, if only she was white, what a beauty!”

During the occupation the Lanzeracs repeatedly invited Oldmixon, as leader of the superior force on the island, to dine with them. He rightly suspected that they did this mainly because he could bring rations of scarce meat for their meals, but even so, he enjoyed the companionship of intelligent people and an opportunity to refresh his considerable mastery of French. “My goodness, you do handle the language beautifully,” he told Solange one night, and she replied: “Small wonder, seeing that my father was from Calais.”

“Indeed! A sailor perhaps?”

“His father was. He feared the sea,” and Oldmixon said: “So did I, but me father beat me over the head with a stool and said: ‘It’s the navy for you, me hearty,’ and here I am, commander of an island which I’ve captured for the king.”

“Solange, your mother will die in jail, and I want to see her freed.”

“So do I.”

“Admiral Oldmixon told us to tell you … if you’ll … if you wanted to stay aboard his ship till the fleet leaves …”

Solange was sitting in a chair near the fireplace when Eugénie said this, and for a long time, while light from the fire shone on her handsome face, outlining its bony structure, she said nothing. Then, laughing almost irreverently, she said: “You know the four rules they teach us mulatto girls? First, attract a white man. Second, make him happy enough to marry you. Third, when you have a daughter by him, see that she too marries a white man. Move up, always move up, and make the family whiter.”

“But Oldmixon would never marry you,” Eugénie said, and Solange burst into laughter: “Then we bring in the fourth rule. Take every franc the poor fool has.” But then her face grew grave and she looked long and deep into her friend’s eyes. “We never intended the rules to apply to us, did we?” she whispered. For a long time they sat together, sadly silent, until Eugénie went to join her husband.

“Solange won’t be going to the admiral’s ship,” and Paul replied: “I was sure she wouldn’t.”

In the still-orderly year of 1783, in a small town in the French portion of the island a barbershop of mean dimension was operated in a grudging manner by a young Frenchman who seemed designed by both birth and development to be a prototype of the world’s average man, for he lacked any outstanding feature that would have distinguished him from the general mob. Victor Hugues (last name OO-geh) was then twenty-one, reputedly the son of petty merchants in Marseilles, but there was some confusion about this because he had an olive complexion, neither white nor mulatto but halfway between, and regardless of where he went, the rumor spread: “Hugues is part African. His mother must have been careless, Marseilles being a port town and all that.”

He was of average height or slightly under, and of average weight or just a bit over. He had good teeth except for one missing on the left, a ratty type of hair of no distinct color, and a habit of staying off to one side and watching to see how an argument was proceeding, then suddenly intervening with great vigor and some skill in haranguing those opposed to the side he had arbitrarily taken. He did not read much, but he listened with the acute skill of a preying animal, and one thing was certain above all others: he was brave, always willing to flail about when debate descended into blows, and if he lost one tooth in such brawling, his opponents lost mouthfuls. He was a fearful adversary, and would allow nothing to stand in his way.

Despite this fevered activity he was not a traditional roué who treated his conquests with contempt; he adored women, respected them, and let them know that he considered them individually and as a group the best part of life; few women he had known remembered him with animosity. Yet there was a darker side to his passion, one which could produce wildly aberrational behavior at the end of an affair, and some of his women mysteriously disappeared from the community.

His ownership of the barbershop in St.-Domingue had come about because of this combination of rhapsodic pleasure and murderous opportunism, for when he arrived in Port-au-Prince a near-penniless youth of nineteen, he chanced to fall in with a mulatto who had both a barbershop and a young wife of exquisite amber coloring. Imploring the barber to teach him the skills of that trade, he spent much time with the barber’s wife and, perhaps by coincidence, just as Victor mastered the profession of cutting hair, the barber vanished and after a decent interval Hugues appropriated both the shop and the widow.

This fortuitous disappearance occurred in 1785, and for the next two years Hugues ran a profitable barbering establishment, cutting the hair of white plantation owners who ran St.-Domingue and of the few mulattoes of marked ability who assisted them. Blacks, who comprised nine-tenths of the population, were forbidden entrance to the shop, though some later testified that: “At night, when the whites and mulattoes were not around, Victor invited any free blacks who had the money to come to a back door which led to an inner room, and there Hugues would cut their hair. He always had a great affinity for blacks, especially the former slaves, for he told me once: ‘They are the dispossessed of the world and merit our charity.’ ”

This report reached Paris in November 1788, and a liberal spy in the office to which it was addressed made a copy for a fellow member of a private political club called the Jacobins, and it was in this oblique way that the barber-brothelkeeper came to the attention of Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre, a member of the French gentry and a revolutionary whose ideas were germinating at a fantastic rate.

In early 1789, when affairs in France were at a boil, Robespierre began thinking about the colonies, especially St.-Domingue, which associates assured him was “the greatest producer of wealth in the entire French system.” Appointing a study committee of fellow Jacobins to advise on how the colonies should be handled if a revolutionary form of government ever attained power, he suddenly remembered this barber out in St.-Domingue and sent him a message: “Come to Paris. I require your presence on important matters.”

His prediction came true dramatically, for when he finally did meet Robespierre, then on his bloody ladder to ascendancy, the fiery leader embraced him almost as an equal. And when the new government which had replaced King Louis XVI, the Legislative Assembly, decided to send a French army to St.-Domingue to pacify an island disturbance which threatened to interrupt the orderly flow of sugar to European markets, Hugues was asked to brief the commissioner who would be taking the troops to the island. He submitted such a perceptive oral report that the leaders of the government heard about it and marked him for preferment:

The commissioner asked: “Couldn’t a union of white interest, mulattoes and a determined French army preserve peace and keep the sugar flowing?” and Hugues said impatiently: “You’d never have an army big enough … or healthy enough. These are hot lands, Commissioner, and fever knocks down more men than bullets do.”

The commissioner did not appreciate such advice, and after Hugues had left the room he said to an aide: “What could you expect from a barber who runs a whorehouse? Probably got his ideas about black power from some African slave he’d been sleeping with.”

Then Hugues walked slowly back to where his other men waited, signaled to them, and they brought their creaking cart drawn by two oxen into the center of the square, where he directed them in the fascinating process of reassembling their guillotine. First the two towers were brought upright, the ones that would guide the dreadful knife in its fall, then the supporting structure to keep the towers erect, then the platform on which the condemned would kneel, then the curved part into which the neck would fit and the movable piece that would hold neck and shoulders firm, and lastly the big, shining knife itself, heavy and swift and final. A test drop using a head of cabbage having satisfied Hugues that the miraculous machine was in working order, he signaled for his spies to point out the wealthiest landowner in the district and any others who might be assumed to be enemies of the new regime, and these frightened people, women among them, were immediately segregated and placed under armed guard.

“He was always an enemy of the people.”

“He let his pigs roam in my garden.”

“He made us work on feast days and paid low wages.”

Raising aloft both hands to stanch the flow of charges, Hugues said in a sepulchral voice: “He is condemned!” and the quivering wretch, too frightened to comprehend fully what was happening, was dragged by the constables to the guillotine and up its three steps to the fatal platform. There the carpenters took charge, bound his hands behind his back, forced him onto his knees, and brought his head forward so that his neck fitted into the curved portion of the block. With a noisy creaking of wood against wood, the upper bar was brought into play, pinning the neck fast. Then, slowly, one of the carpenters cranked a windlass, dragging the immense slanted knife high aloft in the twin grooves of the tower. When it was in position, Hugues addressed the crowd: “This is the punishment that overtakes all enemies of France,” and with an upraising of his right hand he signaled the carpenters to release the knife, which fell with silent swiftness onto the exposed neck and with such awful force that the head rolled away while the severed neck gushed blood.

In each small town he visited, Hugues liked to guillotine three prominent citizens on the first day; he had learned that this brought the whole area to attention and made his inquisition of the remainder easier, for each man was eager to testify against his neighbors before they testified against him. His procedures, swift and remorseless and certain, caused two different reports concerning his work to be sent to Robespierre:

Robespierre read these reports in September 1793, and thought: How effectively the barber gives his haircuts. I do wish I had a dozen more like him in Lyons and Nantes. These were two strongholds of Royalists where shortly an appalling number of resisters would be slain in ways far less neat and effective than those utilized by Hugues and his traveling guillotine. Ten thousand would die in Lyons in mass murders of the wildest frenzy involving all sorts of excesses, fifteen thousand in Nantes while Hugues plodded along, methodically lopping off the heads of his eight and ten, day after day, with never an uprising in protest. “The man’s a genius,” Robespierre told his associates, and when in mid-October, Queen Marie Antoinette, that foolish, giddy thing, was to be beheaded, Hugues was invited back to Paris to participate in the celebrations that followed. It was during this holiday that Robespierre intimated to him that a more important assignment was in the offing. Since he did not say what, Hugues returned to his deadly travels and lovemaking, assured that his efforts toward freedom were appreciated in Paris. Then, at the close of that frightful year, came the communication he had been awaiting:

Repairing at once to Rochefort, a tiny Atlantic harbor on the Atlantic between Nantes in the north and Bordeaux to the south, Hugues learned to his disgust that his supposed fleet consisted of two overage frigates, a corvette, two small vessels and two lumbering cargo ships with exactly 1,153 poorly trained farmers as troops. When he complained, the harbormaster assured him: “Not to worry. Ship arrived last week from Guadeloupe. Island’s safe in our hands. All you have to do is reinforce our ships and troops already in command.”

The harbormaster was right; so were the officers from the trading ship recently arrived from Guadeloupe, for when they left their island it was still French. What they could not know was that shortly after they sailed, Admiral Oldmixon leading a strong British force had stormed ashore, captured the island, and dug powerful emplacements for his guns and fortifications for his thousands of hardened troops. The St.-Domingue barber and brothelkeeper was heading into a hornet’s nest of which he was totally unaware.

Nevertheless, he was nervous, for a cart which he had dispatched from Paris well before he left had not yet arrived, and it looked as if he might have to sail without this precious cargo. “Can we delay two more days?” he pleaded with the captains of his ships, but they said, properly: “Our job is to avoid British warships. We sail as planned.” To Hugues’ relief, at dawn on the last day the big cart rumbled onto the dock to deliver its seven crudely wrapped packages.

There was much speculation as to what kind of precious cargo might have warranted such concern, and the sailors who struggled to bring the items aboard made many guesses, until one farm boy, more daring than the rest, furtively tore open the end of one package and found himself facing an immense steel blade.

“Mon Dieu!” he whispered. “A guillotine.”

Too uninformed on warfare to realize that he had no chance of winning, Hugues ordered his little ships to clear the harbor, which amazingly they did, whereupon he led his troops ashore in a charge three times as valiant as Oldmixon had ever seen before, and after unbelievable heroics the Hugues forces had recaptured that half of the island. An English colonel said later: “This French barber who had never read a book on tactics was too stupid to know he couldn’t win, so he won.”

The first thing Hugues did on taking possession of Point-à-Pitre was to draft a report to the Convention back in Paris. In it he described himself as ten times braver than he had been, which was brave enough, and the message was so inspiring that the authorities caused it to be published in a Paris broadsheet illustrated with a fine woodcut showing Hugues, saber in hand, leading a charge into the very muzzles of the British guns. It was entitled: SANGFROID INTRÈPIDE DE VICTOR HUGUES, COMMISSAIRE DU GOUVERNEMENT Á LA GUADELOUPE.

By the time he came ashore, Hugues was overcome by an inner determination of tremendous force to be the revolutionary governor of this precious island that had strayed so far from principles which now governed France. And the citizenry of Point-à-Pitre would have been terrified had they realized what the seven huge packages he had brought with him contained.

His men started unloading the packages at two in the afternoon, lugging each piece to the sunlit square in front of the House of Lace, and while this was being done Hugues was following the routine which had served him so well in the little towns around Paris. Assembling the island’s revolutionary spies, he inspected their lists of Royalist names, flicked them with an official tick of his right forefinger, and said: “Arrest them all.” But before the men could go about their task, aided by armed sailors, he asked: “And who is the banker? The richest plantation owner?” and when they were identified, he said. “Be sure to fetch them. And who has been the most outstanding Royalist?” and when this was agreed upon among the spies, he said: “That one we want for sure.”

At about a quarter to five that first afternoon the guillotine was placed at the center of the square, and when practice drops of the great knife proved its good working order, an awful hush fell over the crowd of watchers, for prior to this they had only heard of this monstrous machine as it operated in distant Paris and had never dreamed that it might one day appear on their island.

“You must hurry,” a local spy warned Hugues. “There’s no twilight here in the tropics. Six o’clock it’s night, just like that.”

“Who is that one?” Hugues asked, and a mulatto, who had participated in the earlier riots but who had now turned spy for the revolutionaries, whispered: “Name’s Solange. Daughter of a white planter the rebels killed and that black woman you just released from jail.”

“And why did this Solange cry out?” and the spy whispered: “Because she grew up with those two,” and he pointed to where Paul and Eugénie Lanzerac stood among the first group to be executed, and it seems preposterous to say, but in the very instant when this cold, bloodthirsty man saw the Lanzerac woman, more desirable in her peculiar French way than even Solange, his warped mind devised a battle plan: he would have both these women.

A sailor from the ships beat out a drum roll, an assistant to Commissioner Hugues lifted a sheet of paper closer to his eyes and read: “Plantation owner Philippe Joubert, you have stolen sugar that belonged to the people, you have mistreated your slaves, and you have declared yourself an enemy of the Revolution. You are condemned to death.” And the terrified man was dragged to the well-used platform, brought to his knees, and strapped into the neck restraint. The drum sounded, almost softly, the sun sank lower in its own swift descent, and down came the knife in its awful rush, striking the exposed neck with such a powerful slicing force that Joubert’s head rolled into the street, where a sailor lifted it from the paving blocks and tossed it into a basket.

“Paul Lanzerac,” the man with the list shouted, and two sailors rushed him to the execution area. He was twenty-four that June evening, recipient of the best education that France provided, and possessor of a mind and character and the kind of precious talent that would have proved invaluable to the nation. Yet here he stood, listening to the charges against him: “You have tried to defeat the Revolution by bringing a new and foolish king to the throne. You have mistreated slaves and you have misused public property. You are condemned to death!” And brutal hands dragged him up onto the platform and fixed the wooden frame about his shoulders.

“Take her away,” he said without any ugliness in his voice, and when this was done, he gave the signal, the knife fell, and the fairest head in the islands rolled on the cobblestones.

Now came a series of sharp commands, and Eugénie Lanzerac was hauled forth, the list of crimes her dead father was supposed to have committed was read, and she was thrown down upon the boards leading to the neck restraint. But now a real dilemma developed, for Solange, numbed from watching the death of Paul Lanzerac, simply could not allow her dearest and truest friend to be executed, so she broke free, clambered onto the platform, and threw herself upon Eugénie’s prostrate body with the cry: “Take me, not her,” and she clung so tightly that she could not be dislodged and something drastic had to be done.

The mechanics working the guillotine looked at the chief executioner as if to ask: “Shall we let the knife fall?” and Hugues, almost automatically, said: “Stay the knife. Release them,” and the men tending the rope that would free the blade for its terrible descent asked: “Free both of them?” and Hugues said: “Yes.”

The four years of the Hugues dictatorship, 1794–1798, were marked by extreme brutality, excellent statesmanship, liberal social legislation far ahead of its time, and the dictator’s incessant chasing after women.

He conducted his extirpation of the upper class rapidly and effectively. He hauled his portable guillotine into all corners of the populous eastern wing of the island, erected it at central points to which he summoned anyone with wealth, land, slaves or suspected Royalist tendencies and chopped off their heads in public displays that became something like sporting events or rural celebrations.

A hundred leaders died in this manner in the first weeks, seven hundred by the end of the first year, and finally, more than a thousand of the island’s finest citizens, the ones on whom the future of Guadeloupe would have depended. All vanished, their heads in baskets, and when that mode of execution proved too cumbersome, they were lined up in tens and scores and shot.

Since it was too difficult to lug the guillotine to the western wing of the gold-green butterfly, executions there took not only the form of mass shootings but also public hangings, with the rabble cheering as their so-called betters danced wildly in the air, and there were outbursts of vengeance in which clubs and rakes and pitchforks were utilized. This half of the island also suffered an almost complete depopulation of its leaders, including priests and nuns who had represented and defended the old regime. Never did the killing wane while Hugues was Commissioner.

Major General Dundas was no military flunky, but despite his careful upbringing, or perhaps because of it, he had acquired the harrumphing, no-nonsense, teach-’em-their-place superior attitude of a Scottish country gentleman. At any rate, any human being with a drop of color in his blood or skin which betrayed “a touch of the tarbrush” was both beneath contempt and outside the law so far as Dundas was concerned. How ironic it was, therefore, that a few short months after his triumphal conquest of Guadeloupe he fell victim to a disease and died surrounded by black and mulatto nurses who did their best to cool his fevers.

He was buried in the islands, his grave marked by a small stone bearing an inscription in English which informed the world that here rested a gallant British hero, but when Victor Hugues came upon the stone following his occupation of the island, he flew into a blind fury and issued a proclamation, which said:

Forthwith, the corpse of the British hero was disinterred, hung up for the birds to pluck, and then thrown into the public sewer. A stonemason from one of the French ships was brought ashore to incise a monument which contained on one side the above condemnation and on the other these words:

Hugues himself had composed the second inscription, for, as he explained to his citizens: “All honest men deplore the cruel acts of the infamous English king.”

But even though he was able at this frantic speed to behead fifty in the space of an hour, he was not satisfied, so he ordered the remaining men, women and children to be fettered together in twos and threes and marched to the edge of a pit, where they were shot by untrained woodsmen firing at random. Some of the Royalists were killed outright, some were wounded, and some escaped the chance firing altogether, but at a signal from Hugues all were pitched alike into the pit, where men shoveled earth upon them, burying alive all who had survived the bullets, their screams for mercy going unheeded.

Despite the sadism, he was sincerely desirous of attaining order at home. As any good politician must, he gave the island an excellent administration, doubling its production of sugar and rum, producing food in abundance where there had been shortages before he arrived, eliminating useless and expensive jobs, and introducing an effective creole police force which served well, once most of the French-born whites had been slain.

He also had what might be called a foreign policy, for, having put his own island in order, he decided to export his revolution to others, and his small, swift boats sneaked past big British warships to invade and capture All Saints, Grenada and Tobago, in each of which he inspired slaves to take arms against their masters. Having accomplished this, he sent his secret agents throughout the Caribbean, fomenting slave rebellions against French, English and Spanish plantation owners.

One of the international moves he made that produced excellent results was his encouragement of Dutch contraband shipping, for, as in centuries past, the Dutch were the imaginative operators in the Caribbean. Having only the smallest islands of their own, they insinuated their ships into the major ones, scorning local laws against them and bringing to places like Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Cartagena the trade goods so badly needed. “An honest Dutch pirate,” Hugues said, “is a man of endless value.”

One night while he was haranguing a group of junior administrators, mulatto and black, he cried with great enthusiasm: “I dream not of victory here in Guadeloupe or in British Barbados, but of the day when the kind of benevolent French rule we have introduced here will extend to all islands in the Caribbean. Not only in St.-Domingue and on Martinique, which we already have, but on Jamaica too, and Trinidad and all the Virgins. Above all, Cuba. One government, one language, all guided spiritually by our Cult of Reason.”

He returned often to explain this vision to others: “This glorious sea—you know I’ve been in all parts of it—it must be ruled by one power. Spain had her opportunity and threw it away. England might have succeeded but she lost energy. Those American colonies, they’ll try someday. But the people who have the best claim, the most appropriate concepts are we French. This ought to be a French sea, and it shall be.”

And he did exactly what he preached, for he told the blacks: “You’re no longer slaves. That’s ended forever. But you’re not wastrels either. You work or you go to jail. And I warn you, there’s damned little food to spare for prisoners.” Through this enlightened leadership he coaxed the blacks into producing more than they ever had before and without constant exhortation or beatings.

He attended also to lesser problems, erasing those petty restrictions on mulattoes and blacks which were so galling and productive of animosities. He wanted all children to enjoy a free education and he emptied the jails of prisoners who were not white. Eager to prove that former slaves could hold positions formerly held by whites only, he was constantly on the search for capable blacks, and when Solange’s mother came out of jail during the dispensation, he spotted her as one with governing ability and installed her as a kind of aide, and from this position she was able to save from the guillotine several Frenchmen who had behaved themselves respectably in the treatment of their slaves.

He was a brilliant politician, no doubt about that, but midway in his commissionership certain of his acts caused observers to ask: “How sincere are the man’s beliefs?” When he learned almost a year late that his friend and sponsor Robespierre had himself been guillotined, he immediately softened his revolutionary rantings, and after something called the Directory assumed control in Paris, he, without understanding a word of what it stood for, proclaimed himself a loud supporter. Watchers said: “Look how he’s stopped appointing blacks to high positions. Mark my words, any day now, he’ll bring slavery back.”

Regardless of his successes or failures, Hugues would always be remembered in Guadeloupe for his traveling guillotine and wandering eye, and in the closing months of his regime the entire island watched in amusement as he became even more deeply entangled with the two young creoles, Eugénie Lanzerac and Solange Vauclain. What made his frenzied courtship diverting in a gruesome way was that everyone knew that since these two creoles had been in love with the murdered Paul Lanzerac, they must loathe Hugues and even pose a threat to him in their hunger for revenge.

His pursuit of the two women could have been played out as one of those delightful European comedies in which a pompous official from the capital swaggers into some Italian or Spanish or French country town, casts his lecherous eye on two comely housewives, and is made a laughingstock by their superior wit. But this master plot could not play in Pointe-à-Pitre because the scrawny Hugues was no fat Falstaff; he was an ogre with his own guillotine.

Finding Eugénie unapproachable, since she was preoccupied with mourning her dead husband and caring for her son, he turned to Solange, who, since the destruction of her family’s plantation, lived in town with her freed mother, and the more often he saw her moving about the square, the more desirable she became in his fantasies. She was the epitome of those black and mulatto people he had rescued from oblivion; she represented his vision of the future when all the Caribbean islands would exist under what he interpreted as a benevolent French leadership, the tyrannical whites having been exterminated. Thus she became not only an extremely attractive young woman of beautiful face and exquisite movement, but she was also a kind of spiritual symbol of the new world that he was creating.

Of course, coincident with this growing infatuation with Solange, he was bringing to his bed at night an endless chain of whatever women he could inflict his hungry body upon, and some of the stratagems he devised to accomplish this were so wretched that they seemed antithetical to any normal concept of sexual passion. How could a man who spoke of loving a woman cause her husband to be guillotined on Tuesday and derive pleasure from forcing her into his bed at the House of Lace on Thursday? Hugues found no contradiction in such behavior, and he also applied pressure against children to bring their mothers to him and separated girls of fifteen from boys of sixteen who were striving to protect them. One observant Frenchman, an advocate of the revolution in France insofar as he understood it, wrote in a secret letter to Paris: “In your city they speak of a Reign of Terror. Here we whisper about a Reign of Horror, for all decency seems to have fled.”

Hugues started his assault on Solange by promoting her black mother from a position as his aide to one which required her to work in his office, and when she was comfortably established, he made it plain that she would retain his favor only if she made it possible for him to see her daughter frequently. “You might invite her to help you here,” he suggested, and she replied: “Solange is no longer under my control,” and he said in tones that could not be misinterpreted: “She’d better be.”

When Mme. Vauclain alerted her daughter, Solange said nothing; because of the barbarous conditions in Guadeloupe she was afraid to confide anything to her. Since her mother had been the recipient of the murderer’s favor, she could very well have been enrolled as one of his spies, so she kept her counsel, but sometimes late at night she would slip into Eugénie’s house to resume plotting with her only confidante.

“I had the strangest feeling yesterday, Eugénie. I was talking with my mother and she asked me a question … can’t remember what it was … probing, though. And I warned myself: ‘Better not tell her anything. She may be one of his spies.’ ” She looked down at the floor, then looked furtively about, for Hugues’ spies were everywhere, but she had to share her bitterness with someone, so she continued: “That horrible man. We must go ahead.”

“Did you love him so deeply … that you’ll risk your life?” Eugénie asked, and Solange replied: “You’re willing to risk yours,” and Eugénie said sensibly: “Of course, but we were married,” and the beautiful mulatto, even lovelier in the shadows, replied: “We were too, in another way. And Hugues must die for the great wrong he did us both.” With this confession from the past and commitment to the future, the two creoles embraced for the last time, reconciled to the fact that if things went wrong, they might never see each other again, and as they parted in the darkness Eugénie whispered: “Rest easy, beloved sister. If you don’t succeed, I shall.”

In December 1797, Solange Vauclain moved into the House of Lace with the man she was determined to murder, and for some six weeks this grotesque love affair progressed. She dissembled her feelings so adeptly that Hugues felt the elation that any thirty-five-year-old man would feel at having won the affections of a beautiful twenty-four-year-old woman, but since he never underestimated his potential enemies, he told his spies: “Find out about this one,” and they reported: “She hasn’t seen her friend Eugénie Lanzerac since the execution. No danger there. She is, of course, the daughter of a French Royalist, now dead. Her mother could be trustworthy or not. You’re the best judge of that.”

There was more, but none of it added up to a serious suspicion of Solange except for the one irrefutable fact: “She was, at one time, you must always remember, in love with Lanzerac, but so far as we can determine, nothing came of it.”

He spent the rest of that morning at his usual duties, including approval of the next batch of executions, then took his lunch with Solange on the balcony of his quarters, the House of Lace, overlooking the square. In the afternoon he and Solange went riding, and he was again impressed with the way she seemed to be able to do almost anything a gentlewoman should; he felt like an adoring husband as he watched her dismount, and kissed her ardently when inside the house which she had known so intimately when Paul and Eugénie occupied it.

Dusty from his ride, Hugues repaired to an upstairs room, to which former slaves brought buckets of hot water for his bath. When they were gone and he was luxuriating in the tin tub which he had brought from Paris, he heard a rustle at the door, and called out: “Is that you, Solange?” and she came slowly, purposefully into the room, holding extended before her a long, sharp knife. With extraordinary speed and deftness, he sprang from his bath, sidestepped her attack, and knocked the blade from her hand. Screaming in terror “Help! Assassins!” he cowered in a corner.

First into the bathroom was Mme. Vauclain, Solange’s mother, who understood instantly what her daughter had attempted. “Ah! Girl!” she cried. “Why did you fail?” And she leaped upon Hugues, trying to wrest the knife from him and finish the job. Before she could do so, guards burst into the room and pinioned both women, while Hugues continued to moan: “They tried to kill me!” But as the women were being led away, Mme. Vauclain broke away from the guard, rushed to Solange, and embraced her: “You did right. Don’t fear, the monster will be destroyed.”

At high noon next day, his private guillotine having been moved into the lovely square, Victor Hugues watched as the African slave woman Jeanne Vauclain was led forth in chains, her face a mass of bruises from her interrogation by the guards, and dragged onto the execution platform. Thrown to her knees, she was locked into position, and the great knife fell. Moments later her exquisite daughter, slim and graceful as a young palm tree in a tropic breeze, was pushed up the three stairs to the platform and forced down till her neck was properly exposed, and again the knife fell.

With Solange out of the way, Hugues’ pursuit of Eugénie became more concentrated, and although he could not reasonably expect her to move into his quarters, he did apply ingenious pressures to make her consider an alliance: “Madame Lanzerac, we need a new apothecary in the town, so it becomes inevitable that you must leave your home to others who will put it to better use.”

When she asked: “Where shall I live?” he replied hesitantly: “There’s always room in your old home,” but she professed not to understand what he was proposing.

Once, in extreme irritation, he reminded her: “You remember, of course, that on the night of our arrival you were sentenced to death? Spared only by my generosity. That sentence still hangs over you.”

But still she repelled his suggestion, not masking the fact that she considered it odious. So he adopted harsher methods. One morning as she returned from her marketing at the far end of the square facing the ocean, she was greeted by a screaming woman: “Eugénie! They’ve stolen your boy!” and when she rushed to the room in which she had left him, she saw that he was gone.

In the anguished days that followed she received a bombardment of bewildering rumors, orchestrated by Hugues but never voiced by him, for he intended to step forward later as her savior: “The boy Jean-Baptiste was found dead!” and “The little Lanzerac boy was found in a marketplace near Basse-Terre.” In this cruel broth he would let Eugénie stew until she became, in his words, “ready for my closer attention.”

The closer this eventuality came, the more certain she was that within a week of such a move, she would murder this dictator, even if she herself was guillotined the next morning: He must not be allowed to live, wallowing in his crimes, and this curious phrase became her shibboleth, the rubric that defined her. She would allow him to possess her over the dead bodies of her husband and son, but in achieving this triumph, he would be signing his death warrant. She, unlike Solange, would not let him see her coming at him with a knife. She would murder him as he lay beside her in his sleep.

But Hugues, more or less guessing her thoughts, confused the situation by sharing with her astonishing news: “You know, Eugénie,” he said in the street one day, “if you shared my quarters, there might be some way of finding your son.”

She did not raise her voice or charge him with being an inhuman monster for using a child, supposed to be dead, in this way, for she did not wish anyone to see her anger and remind Hugues of the perilous game he was playing. Instead, she asked quietly: “Commissioner, are you intimating that my son is alive?” and he said, with a carefully composed smile: “What I meant was, that under proper circumstances I could direct my men to search more closely.”

As he left her to consider this persuasive offer, she remained in the square, staring after him as he entered her House of Lace, and each item of his ugly appearance she found more repulsive than the others: That grisly hair. That slouching walk. Those ridiculous pipestem legs, the shoes that look too big. Those long arms like in the pictures of monkeys, and the hands covered with blood. Comparing him with her memories of Paul, she felt faint to think that one so ill-favored should live and that Paul should be dead.

She was more determined than ever that Hugues must die, but the possibility that her son might be alive, and recoverable, forestalled her, and for some days she wandered Point-à-Pitre trying to resolve her dilemma. There was no solution. If Jean-Baptiste was alive, she too must stay alive to rear him, which meant that she must tolerate the only man who could restore her son, the unspeakable Hugues.

“They already have,” Hugues said, his hooded eyes sparkling with desire, and from an inner room a black maid appeared with Jean-Baptiste, four years old and each day a closer replica of his father. With a cry of “Maman!” he rushed into her arms, and Hugues smiled benevolently at the sight of this reconciliation of a boy who might one day be his adopted son and the mother who would soon be his mistress. Then, as she prepared to take Jean-Baptiste to her home across the square, he warned her: “Remember, Mme. Lanzerac, you are still under sentence of death.”

Miraculously, an unexpected event occurred the next day which spared her from Hugues and removed the necessity for her to commit murder; a ship arrived from France with exciting news: “Napoleon’s won victory after victory, and he’s now heading for Egypt.” A much less radical government was in control and its more sober members felt disgusted with Hugues, whom they were replacing with a new commissioner carrying surprising orders: “Send Hugues back to Paris under close arrest.” By nightfall he was thrown out of his quarters and into a small cabin aboard the newly arrived ship.

When Hugues, defiant and undaunted, learned that the ship would require seven days to unload its cargo and take on the sugar and foodstuffs that Paris required, he demanded: “Give me pen and paper.” And when his captors complied, for they knew him to be an important official, he sat in his cabin scratching unceasingly with his pen and composing a masterpiece. It ran to sixty pages and depicted the many miracles of good government he alone had engineered. He spoke glowingly of his courage in battle, of the economic revolution he had inspired, of the many victories his aggressive little fleet had won against Britain and the United States, of his freeing of slaves, and especially of his overall probity and unmatched insight into the problems of the Caribbean.

His self-written panegyric was so mesmerizing that it would have befitted a Pericles or a Charlemagne, and it achieved its purpose, for when the very officials who had ordered his arrest read it, they cried: “This Hugues must be a genius!” and forthwith they appointed him governor of another colony, from which he wrote similar reports of his achievements in his new post.

His most unbelievable switch, however, came in 1816, after the coronation of a new king to replace Napoleon, for he now revealed that he had always been an ardent Royalist, ignoring the fact that on Guadeloupe some years earlier he had beheaded more than a thousand such people without giving one of them a chance to defend himself.

He was allowed to make this amazing volte-face for several reasons: he really was a first-class administrator; in 1794 he had with only eleven hundred troops defeated ten thousand; and in the naval wars his few little ships did capture nearly a hundred American ships and an equal number of British. It is recorded that even in his sixties he was pursuing and often catching beautiful women, and he died in bed … covered with honors.

Meanwhile, Eugénie Lanzerac, shed of her oppressor and reunited with her son, became one of the most desirable young creole widows in the French islands, and more than a few officers, refugees from the terrors of Paris, sought her hand, for they were hungry for the tranquillity of Guadeloupe. She finally married a young fellow from the Loire Valley, scion of one of the castled families in that region, and with him worked to restore the quiet beauty of Point-à-Pitre.

After they had been married for some months, she sought the stonecutter who had made the infamous marker for the Dundas gravesite, and gave him a strange commission: “Find me a small, stout stone and fashion it as if it were two headstones in one.” When this was done she asked him to inscribe on it the first names of the two she had loved: PAUL ET SOLANGE, and this she embedded in the wall of her House of Lace, where it remained for many decades after her death.

IN 1789 THE WORLD’S MOST PROFITABLE, AND IN MANY WAYS THE most beautiful, colony was that portion of Columbus’ grand island of Hispaniola owned by France. The colony formed the western third of the island—the eastern two-thirds having remained in Spain’s hands—and was called St.-Domingue.

Its terrain was mountainous, covered with a growth of marvelous tropical trees, and watered by many tumbling streams. Its yearly rainfall was precisely that required for the growing of sugarcane, coffee and a host of luscious tropical fruits not known in Europe, especially succulent mangoes and plantain, a kind of banana eaten fried. Interspersed among the low mountains were numerous flat areas ideal for plantations, of which it had well over a thousand, each one of them capable of earning its lucky owner a fortune.

St.-Domingue, which would soon be surrendering its French name for the old Indian Haiti, produced so much wealth that one planter said before heading back to Paris with his fortune: “You plant sugarcane and the soil turns to gold.” The colony’s two main settlements—Cap-Français in the north, Port-au-Prince in the south—each a small city, gave proof of this fact with the profligate way they displayed their wealth.

Of the two, Cap-Français was bigger and more important because it fronted on the Atlantic Ocean, and was thus the first and easiest port of call for ships arriving from France. It had a spacious anchorage, a splendid waterfront and a population of some twenty thousand. Its glory was its huge theater, seating more than fifteen hundred patrons, with an “apron” stage that brought the actors well out into the middle of the audience. Since these players had to come all the way from France, it was good business to hold them in the colony for a three- or four-year stint, and this was practicable because there was an even finer theater in Port-au-Prince, seating seven hundred, plus half a dozen rural theaters in the smaller towns in between. Thus the colony could easily support two or three full-sized companies, and Paris actors passed the word among their colleagues: “St.-Domingue is a fine experience.”

The theaters offered four kinds of entertainment: current popular dramas, musical plays, a kind of vaudeville and, from time to time, the great classical dramas of Racine and Molière, so that even a child growing up in a small country town would have an opportunity of seeing plays of high quality in his local theater.

Glorious as the colony could be—and on fine days, which were plentiful throughout most of the year, the breezes at evening were pleasant, the scenery majestic and the food an exotic mix of the best French cuisine and Caribbean opulence—it could not have produced the endless wealth it did without human beings who were equal to the task of utilizing this richness. And in this respect St.-Domingue was both blessed and cursed.

The blessing was that some deity seemed to have said: “I’ve given the colony beauty and riches, now I’ll populate it with people to match,” and as a consequence the beautiful land was occupied by some of the ablest citizens in the Caribbean. The French settlers were educated, hardworking and of strong fiber, the blacks were positively the best brought out of Africa; so the colony should have been a stable area destined for greatness.

Its curse was that three classes of its citizens hated one another, and the wild upheavals of twenty years—1789 through 1809—not only failed to weld these groups into a reasonable whole; they divided them so thoroughly that tragedy became inevitable. The top group was clearly defined: landowners, skilled professionals and fonctionnaires sent out from Paris to govern the place, and they were invariably white, rich and in control of everything. They owned the plantations, operated the expensive shops and contributed funds for the theater so as to monopolize the best seats. They tended to be passionately pro-French, even more passionately conservative and indifferently Catholic; religion did not play a major role in St.-Domingue, but the traditional blanc would have looked askance at a Protestant who tried to start a business or build a home at Le Cap.

There were two divisions in this class whose interests sometimes diverged—the grands blancs, that is, the big whites of the top financial and social category; and the petits blancs, the little whites, some of whom amounted to very little indeed. But in the period starting in 1789 they were more or less united.

Caught in the middle between the two extremely powerful grinding stones of white plantation owner and black slave writhed a considerable mass of citizens who were neither white nor black. Their racially mixed brothers and sisters appeared on all Caribbean islands and always faced the same impediments, promises, hopes and crushing disadvantages; in those other colonies they might be called mulattoes, coloreds, half-breeds, half-castes, creoles, criollos or bastards, but in St.-Domingue all those terms were avoided, especially mulatto, which was deemed to have a pejorative ring. Here they were called gens de couleur, or, in English, people of color, or, more simply, free-coloreds.

Despised by whites, who saw them as parvenus striving to climb up to a level to which they were not entitled, and hated by blacks, who saw them as constituting a middle layer which would forever prevent the slaves from attaining power, the free-colored were spurned from above and below, and their history in St.-Domingue paralleled the experience of similar mestizo groups in the British Caribbean, in India and in South Africa: They had no real home, no ally whom they could trust, and no ascertainable future. But although there were these similarities to the situation in other world colonies, their role in St.-Domingue was especially frustrating because again and again they would come close to reaching a solution, only to find themselves betrayed and hunted down like animals.

In 1770, when it became clear to commercial observers that the English colonies in North America must sooner or later fall into either trouble or rebellion, the great shipping house of Espivent in the French seaport of Nantes saw that its traditional business of running slaves from Africa to the New World would have to be increased dramatically in the frenzied time before war erupted. The major branch of the family, ennobled centuries before, decided to place in command of its nine slave ships the most daring captains available, and to tempt them with large bonuses to move their ships to Virginia and Carolina more rapidly than before in order to maximize their profits while slaving was still possible.

Finding only eight acceptable captains, they looked among the many members of the family who worked for them, and spotted Jerome Espivent, twenty-nine and a man of character who had served on many family ships. He knew the slave coast of Africa, the slave markets in Carolina and the Caribbean, and could be trusted to submit honest reports of his dealings. Assigning him to one of their larger ships, his noble relatives told him: “Make our fortune and yours,” and he had applied himself so assiduously that by the time the American rebellion broke out in 1776, he had amassed considerable wealth and a rare knowledge of the Caribbean. In 1780, as the war was waning, and running the English blockades no longer paid huge dividends, Espivent decided to quit Nantes, where he would always be under the thumb of the noble wing of his large family, and settle in the Caribbean. Naturally, he thought first of the French islands, Martinique in particular, for it was a place of high culture and rich social life, but he also considered the more plebeian Guadeloupe. Yet in the end he selected a fine hillside in the town of Cap-Français, for in most criteria it far excelled locations elsewhere.

He was now forty-eight, a tall, imperial-looking man, with graying hair, a tightly trimmed mustache and a finely pointed Vandyke goatee. Despite the tropic heat, he favored the flowing capes worn by noble Frenchmen in the past century, so he asked a local shopkeeper to import from India cloths of the sheerest weight, from which seamstresses produced elfin-thin capes in light blue or shimmering black, and when he appeared at the theater in one of these, his cockaded hat at an angle, he seemed to be telling the citizens of Le Cap that he bespoke the ancient glory of France.

He was a Royalist, an admirer of the nobility of which he was a collateral part, and a shrewd investor of his savings, for it seemed that whatever he touched prospered beyond expectations. No longer commanding a ship of his own, he served as a kind of shore agent for those operated by other men, and year after year he appeared to make more profits from these ships than did their owners. He also bought coarse muscovado sugar from other plantations which lacked the facilities his had and refined it himself, importing for that purpose big shipments of clay from Barbados. He was a very rich man, but he was no miser, for he helped support the theater, sent bright lads to France for their education even though they were not his sons, and was available for all contingencies, for he felt that Frenchmen of station were obligated to maintain a public presence.

He had one curious concern that had started as a hobby but which had grown, as hobbies will, into an obsession. Believing as he did that God had put white blood into the world to help Him save it from barbarism, he had become fascinated by what he called “the contamination of the black,” and this led to a conviction that dominated his life: Even one drop of black blood mixed with white can be visibly detected through the seventh generation. Since this meant that a child in the seventh generation would have had 128 ancestors, he had devised a table which showed every possible combination from 128 pure white = o black, to the disgraceful end of the spectrum, o white = 128 black.

Of course, the actual mixing was more confused than in his ideal example, and some of the names of the 128 possible mixes were fascinating: a child one part white, seven black was a sacatra; three parts white, five colored was a marabou; but he considered one of the most exciting mixes to be the griffe, one white, three colored: “Those girls simply do not know when to stop.” His incredible system reached the number 8,192, representing the ancestors a human being would have if one counted back to the thirteenth generation: “Only in that generation can a man win his way back to the respectability of being white from which his ancestor departed in shame.” He also warned young men: “Counting an average of twenty-two years to a generation, it will require your descendants two hundred and eighty-six years to correct your dreadful mistake if you marry a woman with black blood. The moral? When it comes time to marry, stay away from the free-coloreds.”

With such implacable views it was clear that Espivent would have strong feelings about the non-whites in his colony. He had to do business with them, have his beard trimmed by them, order cakes from their bakeries, and employ them to serve as overseers when men from France were not available. Wherever he moved in St.-Domingue he ran into them, bright young men with bright skins and fine teeth “trying always to be better than they are.” But the more he saw of them, the more he despised them, for he was sure he could detect in what he called their shifty eyes signs of the revenge they would one day seek. Everything about them infuriated him: “Mon Dieu, some of them speak better French than our own children. Did you know that Prémord, that speechifying menace over in the tailor’s shop has had the nerve to send his two sons to Paris for their education? These coloreds buy books, they fill the theaters, they attend our churches, they parade their pretty daughters before our sons and hope to trap them. They’re worse than mosquitoes, the curse of our colony.”

Jerome Espivent called his huge plantation Colibri, or Hummingbird, and to cultivate its rich acreage he utilized some three hundred slaves—“the best in the Caribbean,” he boasted to his fellow planters. He could claim this because during the years that he supervised his slave ship and those of his family, he invariably anchored each new arrival from Africa first off Cap-Français, where he inspected the newcomers, selecting for his plantation the strongest and those who looked the most intelligent. The rejects he shipped on to the American colonies, where such high standards could not be enforced.

But his best slave, César, had reached him not in his own ships but by a most curious route. When the blacks on the Danish island of St. John rebelled in 1733, most of the rebels were executed in terrible ways, but one of the leaders of the revolt, a slave named Vavak, César’s father, had fled the island in a small boat, accompanied by his woman. In furtive rowing, they skirted the larger Danish island of St. Thomas, where certain death awaited any fugitive black, and made their way to the north coast of Puerto Rico, where they hid ashore for seven days before proceeding in their same small rowboat to the eastern end of the big island of Hispaniola. There they fell into the hands of a Spanish plantation owner who, predictably, enslaved them again, but they managed to flee to the French side, where they were once more thrown into slavery on a plantation just north of Port-au-Prince.

César and Marie first saw the great plantation that would be their home on a stormy afternoon in the spring of 1780, and as they trudged behind their new master on his spirited horse, he suddenly reined in, ordered them to halt, and pointed to a magnificent landscape ahead: “The stone house on the right, that hill to the west, the lands sloping down toward the ocean that hides behind that rise, all mine. All yours to tend.”

César’s first reaction to the plantation was professional delight in the fact that it looked as if sugarcane would grow easily, then pleasure in seeing it was in fine condition, with roads that had been leveled, small houses with roofs, and land that had been properly tilled. But before he could comment, Espivent rose in his stirrups and pointed to a distant hilltop which he could see but the slaves could not: “That’s Château Espivent, my home. Sometimes you’ll work there, when the hedges need tending.” With that, the plantation owner spurred his horse and rode toward the collection of huts in which his new slaves would make their home.

In the years that followed, César did not see his owner regularly, for Espivent did not come often to his plantation, and when he did, it was to examine the cane fields, not the slaves. When riding inspection through his valuable hectares he could stare imperially down avenues of cane and never see his three hundred slaves. He did not ignore them; he simply looked past them as he did past the trees that edged the fields.

Since it was impossible for César to imagine any better system of slavery than the one he knew, he accepted the belief voiced so often at Colibri: “Ours the best plantation. I been others where they whip. Nobody as good as Monsieur Espivent.” Now as the fateful year 1789 edged toward the middle of summer, tremendous events were convulsing metropolitan France, but the slaves of St.-Domingue were prevented from learning about them. Fearful lest black yearnings for freedom be ignited into conflagrations that could not be controlled, Espivent encouraged the grands blancs in a campaign to keep all news from France away from the slaves, and he succeeded.

If the black Vavals knew nothing of the revolutionary fires that swept France in the tumultuous days following the attack on the Bastille, the free-colored Xavier Prémord and his wife, Julie, certainly did, for their two sons in France sent them detailed letters about the changes then under way. “Things won’t be the same after this,” Xavier told his wife, but the improvements he sought were superficial compared to the root-and-branch alterations Julie dreamed of. “It’s all got to be different,” she said repeatedly as news filtered in of peasant uprisings in the French countryside, mob action in Paris and proposed new forms of government.

Xavier’s reaction to this physical and intellectual violence was: “Now we free-coloreds will get the vote and gain some respect in Cap-Français,” but his wife aspired to a complete modification in social patterns: “No more will we coloreds be the despised and trod upon,” and she was determined that Espivent in his prosperous château cease serving as arbiter of the political and social life of the northern community. Listening to Xavier, one could visualize a slow but steady transition to new patterns of life, but if one attended to what Julie was saying, one heard echoes of revolution.

Xavier and his wife were prime examples of why the grands blancs feared the free-coloreds. He was a tall, handsome man in his thirties, obviously intelligent and prudent in the management of his business; while she was the type of colored woman against whom Espivent railed—slim, attractive and with an amber skin that enshrined her in a golden glow. In addition to this visible benediction from nature, she was a sharp-minded, canny businesswoman with those instincts of caution and profit which seemed to come easily to Frenchwomen of the middle class.

She did not help her husband in his shop; she assumed responsibility for the small plantation inherited from her father near Meduc, a village opposite the pirate island of Tortuga. In fact, it was to the land now occupied by this plantation that the buccaneers Ned Pennyfeather and his uncle Will Tatum had come hunting wild boar more than a century ago.

Once when Espivent met the Prémords as they emerged from Xavier’s shop on the way to the opera, the doyen of Le Cap society explained to white friends standing nearby: “That saucy fellow’s about eighty-eight white, forty black, very presumptuous type. She? I’d say ninety-six white, thirty-two black, and it’s a good thing she’s already married, because young officers just out from France would grab at her.” And then he gave her high praise: “She runs her plantation out at Meduc as good as any man.”

Like all the other free-coloreds who owned land, the Prémords relied upon some forty slaves to cultivate and press the cane, but Julie had, in her first days of management, differentiated herself from the other owners. They often treated their slaves worse than whites treated theirs. This was caused in part by the visceral fear in which they held their slaves, for they saw them as creatures in the abysmal pit from which they themselves had climbed, and back into which they might someday be pushed by the grands blancs like Espivent. Julie, in contrast, saw her slaves as human beings and tried to treat them as such.

“I used to think that,” Julie said, choosing her next words carefully. “But recent experiences at the plantation have begun to make me wonder. We have an enormous number of slaves in this colony. They outnumber us fearfully.”

“We’ve always known that.”

“And I’m quite sure they aren’t always going to remain slaves. The disturbances in France will someday filter down to us.”

“They’re illiterate. They’re savages. They know nothing of France.”

“Our grandfathers were too, but they learned.”

In response, Xavier retreated to one of the great clichés of social analysis: “That was different.”

“When our slaves start to move the way our grandfathers did, hundreds of thousands of them, we’d better surrender your vain hopes of acceptance by the whites and join the slaves, for they will prevail.” He started to rebut, but Julie forestalled him: “We must do it quickly and firmly, so they see that we do it of our own free will … and that we do it to help them gain their liberation.”

“Not in our generation, Julie,” her husband said. “We coloreds are civilized, they aren’t.”

The Prémords had as friends two married couples who were also free-coloreds and who also owned plantations out toward Meduc, so that sometimes discussions of these vital matters involved six concerned people, the division being three who wanted to ally with the whites, Julie who advised joining the blacks, and two who counseled: “Wait and see.” But one of these rather destroyed his own argument by adding: “I listen in Le Cap. I’ve been to Port-au-Prince. And I’ve never felt tensions so high. Events may do the choosing for us.”

The Prémords were accustomed to tension, for the laws of St.-Domingue, as dictated and enforced by Espivent and his grands blancs, were infuriating in their pettiness toward the free-coloreds. When Xavier talked with others of his caste during chance meetings in the rear of his shop, the men ventilated their fury at the injustices under which they were forced to live. Said one: “We’re forbidden to use the good seats in the theater,” but another complained: “What irritates me is that I’m the best shot in this colony. Proved it in a score of competitions, but I’m not allowed to serve in the militia. The French say they can’t trust a man like me … wrong color.”

They were forbidden to copy the dress styles of Paris or play European-type games. But what galled Julie whenever she joined these discussions was the mean spirit of the rules enforced by the white women of the colony: “I am forbidden to entertain six of my free-colored women friends at lunch lest we conspire, and there cannot even be a group celebration when two of our young people marry. ‘Free-coloreds may not engage in any activities which might become boisterous,’ the law says, and if a spy caught us talking together in secret like this, we could all be thrown in jail.”

She and Xavier were delighted, therefore, when on cherished occasions a cadre of gallant free-coloreds in Meduc invited friends from the northern part of the colony to a clandestine dinner-discussion-dance. When Julie whispered: “Xavier, they’re doing it again,” he knew that the courageous Brugnons were once more assembling the free-coloreds illegally, and so he and Julie quietly joined two other couples at the edge of Le Cap. On horseback, with three slaves attending them on mules to mind the horses and the baggage, they rode west. The air was quite festive, a real vacation from sugar and shop-keeping and daily duties. But Julie grew increasingly apprehensive as they neared Meduc, and warned her husband: “None of that foolishness at the dance this year,” and when he reassured her: “I’ve no taste for it either,” she made him promise: “You’ll keep an eye on me and grab me for your partner at once.” He said he would, and on those terms they entered the beautiful little seaport, found lodging with their free-colored friends, and spent the rest of the afternoon in deep discussion about events in Paris and the future of St.-Domingue.

“For help on what?” Xavier asked, and the man replied evasively: “Sooner or later, won’t you, too, have to strike for freedom, eh? The way we did in Paris?” When Prémord ignored the question, the man shrugged and moved along to others, posing the same question.

An orchestra of six slaves played light theater airs during supper, changing to animated dance music when the chairs were pushed back for the real entertainment. It was a vigorous affair, this lively dancing of the free-coloreds, and as movements became increasingly uninhibited, Julie caught her husband’s eye, and he nodded, assuring her that he would be staying close.

In those moments before the riot of the night began, he had strongly mixed feelings. As a young man he had found wild delight in these dances of his people, but now, as an older man with a pretty wife and a position of some importance in the colony, he felt that the untrammeled behavior which he knew was about to begin denigrated the free-coloreds and gave the whites justification for some of the ugly things they said about them. So he felt both a sense of increasing excitement, as in the old days, but also a revulsion when he remembered that the stranger from Paris would see how the free-coloreds misbehaved.

At a signal from the men running the dance the orchestra began playing faster and faster, and both men and women started calling to other dancers and even shouting into the air with no message intended. At a sudden cry from the managers, the music stopped, the lights were blown out, and men and women began groping almost blindly one for the other. A particularly attractive young woman, and many were present, might be grabbed at by three or four men, while a handsome fellow like Prémord would be certain to have several women fighting for him.

When the random pairs were established, with the less aggressive men and women having to accept what was left over, the couples retired upstairs, or to hiding places on the lawn, or to the stables behind the square, or wherever they could find reasonable privacy, and there the lovemaking and the squealing and the oaths began, to last long into the night as partners switched and fights began.

“It will change when we gain the respect that all men desire,” Xavier said.

“Why are you here?” Julie asked in the blunt way that her husband knew so well.

“Visiting.”

“And what have you been whispering to our men?”

In the dim light provided by a solitary lamp at the far end of the porch, the visitor looked quizzically at Xavier, who nodded: “She knows all that I know,” and the man said approvingly: “Good. My wife, the same. What I’m here for, Madame Prémord, is to inform you people that Vincent Ogé, a free-colored leader of some talent, may be calling upon you for help … soon.”

“To accomplish what?” Julie asked evenly, and the stranger said: “The freedoms that we must have.”

“Is this Ogé talking revolution?” Julie asked, and the man said quickly: “No! No! He knows what you and I know, that your group of gens de couleur is the smallest in the colony. You’re nothing, except that you attend to the management that keeps your colony surviving, and if under Ogé’s leadership you present our demands in the proper style …”

“We will be slain,” Julie said quietly, and to her surprise the man said quietly: “Then we will be slain, but we can wait no longer.” Julie, noticing that in this firm declaration he had switched from the pronoun you to we, asked: “Are you then one of us?” and he replied: “From the day of my birth.”

“Where?” Julie probed, for she feared alien agents provocateurs, and he said: “Down south. In the port town of Jérémie,” and she asked: “Who owns the big store in the public square?” and he said without hesitation: “The Lossiers,” and she said: “They’re my cousins.” Upon her direct questioning he refused to give his own name, but as he left the saturnalia Julie could see the disgust on his face as he watched two men shedding their clothes as they chased after two almost-naked girls.

They had spent their last days persuading a knowledgeable slave to teach their son the alphabet, and as a result, César had, through the subsequent years, read accounts of what was happening in France and other parts of the world. He knew, for example, that the American colonies not far to the northwest had won their freedom from Great Britain, which also owned Jamaica, a colony much like St.-Domingue not far to the south. But the news in which he would have been most interested, the fiery rebellions in France, was still kept from him, for Espivent preached constantly in his club: “Do not allow the slaves to know anything. Madness seems to have taken over in France, and it would be a good idea to keep papers and journals away from the free-coloreds, too.” But from a dozen subtle hints, César deduced that things of moment were happening, either in France or in other areas of St.-Domingue, and he was eager to learn more about them.

Julie Prémord perplexed him, for she was obviously a most lovely woman, but the fact that she managed a plantation which had many slaves made her a kind of enemy, except that he had been told by other blacks: “That one, she the best. Her plantation hard rules but you get enough to eat, you get extra clothes.” Once as he was lugging plants to beautify Château Espivent he had come face-to-face with her in the street, and for no reason that he could see she had smiled at him, a warm, human gesture that had both pleased and bewildered him. That night he told his wife back at Colibri: “She seem almost like one of us, more black than white,” but as soon as he said this he realized how preposterous it sounded: “No, they’re far, far from us, all of them, and in the end they’ll be worse than the whites.”

Despite these feelings, he and his family did not hate anyone, except for one beastly overseer, but they were all prepared to take whatever steps would be necessary to attain the kind of freedom his father Vavak had spoken of. The word revolution, with its attendant burnings and killings, would have been anathema to them, but in recent months a new force had come into their lives, one which brought the concept of revolution right onto their plantation. It came in the form of a man, a runaway slave no longer attached to any specific plantation, a fiery-tempered man named Boukman, who said: “Don’t ask me where I come from. Ask me only where I’m goin’.”

He was a voodoo priest, a man of powerful insight and oratory, and at night meetings at the various plantations he preached a compelling doctrine, after conducting arcane rituals which reminded the slaves of their African origins. He intoned old chants from the jungle, performed rituals hundreds of years old, and used phrases they had almost forgotten, but mostly he shared with them the pulsating news he had picked up while helping unload cargo ships newly arrived from France: “Big fighting in Paris. That a city in France, bigger than Le Cap. People like you, me, we takin’ command. All new, all new. Pretty soon, here in Le Cap, too, big change.” When he had the attention of his midnight listeners, he dropped the vernacular and preached in good French: “There must be liberty for all. There must be a true fraternity between master and slave. And there must be equality. Do you know what equality is?” and he would scream: “It means ‘You’re as good as the white man,’ and we all must work together, side by side, to prove that.”

Literate slaves like the Vavals, and there were a few on each plantation, paid little attention to Boukman’s voodoo exhortations, but when they spoke with him, as César did one night after a long session at Colibri, they heard words that were almost identical to those spoken by the scar-faced stranger during the debauch at Meduc: “The day is coming … there will be freedom … justice is at hand … I will send a message … we will need you.” How soon the message would arrive, Boukman could not say, but César and his wife became convinced that it would come, and they prepared themselves for the great challenge. A vibrant spirit was in the air in all the plantations, for the heady arguments of Paris had penetrated at last into St.-Domingue.

In February 1791 a quiet call came for free-coloreds from all parts of the colony to rally to the banner of Vincent Ogé, one of their number who had been trained in France and who preached that the time had come to demand equality with the whites. Leaving their plantation, Xavier and Julie Prémord answered the call, but arrangements were so poor and instructions so inadequate that they wandered far south without making contact with the insurrection. Perhaps this was fortunate, for the affair petered out in confusion, with Ogé and his scar-faced lieutenant barely escaping to sanctuary in nearby Spanish Hispaniola.

The putative uprising was successful in one respect—it aroused in the colony’s free-coloreds an unquenchable determination to gain freedom within a liberated France, and in that mix of patriotism, confusion and deepening commitment to their caste, the Prémords crept quietly back to Cap-Français.

He was so obsessed by his hatred of the free-coloreds that after Ogé and his leading supporters were extradited from Spanish Hispaniola, he forced his friends in the government to hand down a punishment which alone would have been enough to ignite rebellion throughout the colony. The two Prémords, free-coloreds of education, judgment and unquestioned patriotism, left their shop to stand inconspicuously in the crowd on the day the punishment was carried out, and César Vaval happened to be in town delivering a cartload of plantation produce to Château Espivent.

Had Espivent, Prémord and Vaval—these principal actors in the tragedy about to explode—been able to meet and discourse intelligently, three men of wisdom and impeccable love for their colony, they might have reached understandings which would have permitted St.-Domingue to weather its transformations peacefully. If there are, as the ancient Greeks believed, gods eager to aid mortals at times of crisis, one could imagine such gods pushing them toward an understanding which would save their homeland, for it could have been saved. But on this day the gods were inattentive: the Prémords mingled in silence at the edge of the crowd, Vaval remained with his cart at an opposite edge, and Espivent stood like an avenging fury at the foot of a gallows erected in the center of the plaza, crying “Bring forth the prisoners!”

When they were led forth, the Prémords gasped, for in front was the stranger from that night at Meduc, the provocateur with the livid scar, and behind him Vincent Ogé, a handsome man of light color and aristocratic mien that seemed to infuriate his white captors, for two of them knocked him to the ground and kicked at his neat clothes. The stranger remained upright, and in the confusion that followed the fall of Ogé he scanned the crowd and saw the Prémords; without betraying that they might have been part of the conspiracy, he flashed a clear signal: See, it has come to this.

Those were the images that the free-colored Prémords and the slave César carried away that night, and as the former returned to their shop they vowed: “After this horror, there can be no retreat,” and César, when he got back to his plantation, assembled his wife and children: “It was brutality for the amusement of watchers. Madness is afoot, and we must study how to use it for our purpose when the great riots begin, for they will.”

He was right in his prediction, for seething resentments were about to explode, but they came from a totally unexpected quarter. On the dark night of 20 August 1791 the wandering voodoo priest Boukman slipped back to harangue the slaves on Colibri with a fury which Vaval and his wife had not heard before. Now there were no obscure religious overtones, no jungle incantations, there was only the throbbing summons to revolution, and for the first time César heard Boukman actually call for the death of all white men: “They have enslaved us and they must go! They have starved our children and they must be punished!” When César heard this last cry he thought: No one on our plantation ever lacked food. Wrong cry, wrong place to make it. And it was that simple realization that would guide him and his family in the tumultuous days that were at hand: he hated slavery and opposed Espivent, but he did not wish him dead.

But the real horror lay in the loss of life, in the extreme hatred the blacks manifested toward the whites. Hundreds upon hundreds of white lives were lost that first wild day: men killed with clubs, women drowned in their own private lakes, children pierced with sticks and carried aloft as banners of the uprising, and there were other savageries too awful to relate. One black woman who had not participated in the orgy of killing said as she passed the piles of dead bodies: “This day, even the earth is killed.”

Colibri Plantation, at the very heart of the firestorm, was not destroyed, for César Vaval and his family stood guard, fending off the oncoming rioters with quiet words: “Not here. He is a good boss,” and since César was a man who had earned respect, the wave parted and rejoined to burn the next plantations in line.

In the meantime, all the whites who could had thronged to Le Cap, where Jerome Espivent was organizing a defense. His first action was representative of the contradictions of this terrible day: because there were not enough white men to defend the town, he had to call upon free-coloreds to help, and he was not embarrassed to seek assistance from the very men whom he had only recently sought to terrify by his brutal execution of their co-patriot Vincent Ogé. When he hurried to their shop to enroll the aid of the Prémords, it never occurred to him to apologize for his past behavior toward them: “I’m assigning you to the most important posts. It’s us against the slaves. If they break through, we’re all dead.” And the Prémords, having no alternative but to obey him, for they knew that the safety of their town depended on the courage and leadership he would display in the next flaming hours, took positions along the most exposed perimeter where they could kill the most blacks.

For more than a week the fury raged, with Espivent denying the slaves entry to Le Cap, and César Vaval protecting Colibri. As the raping and burning began to decline, the black leaders of the rioting were grateful to César for having maintained the plantation, for it became an oasis of sanity in a fractured world. Blacks came there for food and water and to find rest among the trees. It was an errant irony that the detested Espivent plantation should have been spared.

It was during this savage period that César became a man so well spoken of by his fellow blacks that his reputation spread afar. “He’s a man of stability. He knows what can be done and what can’t,” they said, and one day in September, as a result of this good report, he was visited by a tall, imposing black man, who said: “It was difficult getting through the lines. New troops arriving from France. They’ve caught Boukman, you know. Going to rack and hang him.”

“What plantation are you from?” César asked, assuming the man to be a slave, and the stranger replied: “Bréda,” a well-regarded plantation almost as fine as Colibri. Then he added: “I’m the manager there. From what they tell me, you ought to be manager here.”

“Monsieur Espivent would never hear of that,” and the big man said: “He would if he were wise.”

“But what’s your name? And why are you here?”

“Toussaint L’Ouverture. And I’m here to see you. To satisfy myself as to what you’re like.”

He remained for two nights, during which he met with all the other slaves of whom he’d heard good reports, and at the close of his visit he told César: “You’ll be hearing from me. Not now. Too much confusion. But hold yourself ready. Remember my name, Toussaint, and when I call, come.”

This clearly meant that the free-coloreds had no hope of justice, now or in the future, and upon no one did the disillusionment fall harder than on the Prémords, who felt so ostracized and humiliated that Julie cried in despair: “We must fight this out with Espivent … now!” She forced her reticent husband to march with her to the château, where at first they were denied entrance. But when the owner heard the ruckus at his door, he came out from his study: “What’s going on here?” and when he saw the Prémords he growled: “And what do you want?”

“Justice,” Julie snapped, but Espivent, always a proper grand blanc and a minor member of the nobility to boot, ignored her, indicating he would not discuss any important matter with a woman. But to Xavier he said: “Come in,” and when they were inside, he pointedly kept the handsome couple standing, refusing them even the courtesy of a chair. “Now tell me,” he said grudgingly, “what is the matter?”

“Your refusal to allow the laws of France to operate here,” Julie said with such force that he had to acknowledge her this time, but his answer had a terrible finality about it: “France is France, and if it runs wild, this colony will pick and choose.”

“And you choose to keep us in bondage forever?” Julie asked, and he said: “You have greater freedoms than you merit,” and he edged them toward the door, thus informing them that they could expect no improvement of their lot so long as he and his friends remained in control of the island.

So, with expanding revolution threatening to destroy metropolitan France, her colonies and indeed her civilization, the people of St.-Domingue remained separated into their three stubborn groups, each unwilling or incapable of leading the colony toward rational behavior. It is difficult to visualize the pitiful condition to which their continued brawling brought the colony, but the American first mate on a trading vessel out of Charleston in South Carolina reported what he saw when he left ship at Port-au-Prince to travel overland to rejoin his crew at Cap-Français:

He concluded with comments which summarized his judgment as an experienced trader in these waters:

But this was merely the start of the upheaval, for shortly thereafter came startling news: “All free-coloreds to be granted legal, military and social equality,” and then: “Complete freedom for any slave who has ever served in the French army, and also for their wives and children.”

A bellowing of rage greeted the last decree, and it came not only from an outraged Espivent and his fellow grands blancs, but also from Xavier Prémord and his free-coloreds, and it would be difficult to determine which faction detested the new regulations more. Certainly Prémord saw it as the first fearful step in a movement that must ultimately alter his life, for once the slaves were free, the free-coloreds would become superfluous, and in rejecting the new law he used almost the same words as Espivent: “The dam is breaking.” But his wife was more hopeful: “We cannot change what has happened and we must be prepared to adjust to whatever comes next,” and she let her husband know that in her management of their plantation she would begin to take those steps which would enable them to adjust to freedom for their slaves when it came.

And it did come with startling suddenness, for on 14 June 1794 a packet boat arrived from France with final instructions from the revolutionary government: “All slaves in St.-Domingue are to be granted complete freedom.” At last it seemed that this glorious island, so filled with human promise, was about to be restored to sanity, with its three groups working together toward the common purpose of equality and productivity. Optimists calculated that within two years the plantations would recover to the point where they would be delivering as much sugar as before, but Julie, who understood her slaves, assured other owners: “We’ll do even better, because when your slaves are free, they’ll work harder than before.”

“Madam,” Espivent said without raising his voice, “had you uttered those words out in the street, you would have been shot. This is war, war to the death, and you must stand with us or we shall both be swept away in a black hurricane.” So that night the free-coloreds of Cap-Français placed themselves once more under the leadership of the grands blancs for the defense of the town.

Why did they submit so passively to this repeated humiliation and betrayal? Xavier Prémord had known why from the start: “We have no other option. We’re trapped between unyielding whites and vengeful blacks, but since the whites have the guns and the ships, we must ally with them and trust that sooner or later they’ll show us generosity.” Julie, of course, argued differently: “The blacks are so numerous they’ll overcome the guns and ships. We must ally with them,” but as a woman, her voice in council mattered little.

When the outlines of the great civil war that would destroy even further the wealth of St.-Domingue were drawn, César Vaval, snug in his leadership of the blacks on Colibri Plantation, told his wife: “We have no quarrel with Espivent and he has none with us. Keep calm and do nothing to create a new frenzy like the one Boukman started.” And between them they persuaded the Colibri blacks to remain aloof from the rapidly forming battle lines.

But one night that compelling black leader from Bréda Plantation returned, loomed ominously in the doorway, and told Vaval: “I said I’d be coming back one day to summon you. I am here,” and Toussaint L’Ouverture’s appearance was so commanding, his dedication to the black revolt so forceful, that Vaval asked but one word: “Battle?”

“Against Le Cap again?” When this question was asked so boldly and so quickly, Toussaint became evasive, but César pressed: “Not Cap? We heading south to Port-au-Prince?” at which the Negro leader blurted out: “No! We’ve been offered tremendous promises by the Spaniards to fight on their side … against the French.”

Vaval was stunned. He had always supposed that the slaves’ fight for freedom would be a prolonged affair against reluctant French whites like his own master, Espivent. But now to be asked to join a foreign army, to fight against what he considered his own country, that seemed treacherous and unworthy, and he said: “I would not feel easy,” and Toussaint reached down and grabbed him by the neck: “Do you trust me or not?” and Vaval looked up: “I do.”

“Then come!”

Thus in mid-1793 the great black leader led Vaval and some half-dozen of his other lieutenants across the mountainous border and into camps where the Spaniards were preparing a full-scale attack on St.-Domingue. It was a bold decision, a terrible one, really, but Toussaint, having watched a score of constructive laws passed in Paris but ignored in the colony, saw no way to correct such injustice except to join with the Spaniards, drive out the French, and then make the best deal possible with the new victors.

The strategy worked, at least in the beginning, for the reinforced Spanish armies swept across the border and quickly captured the mountainous eastern third of the French colony. With surging joy Toussaint cried to his black troops: “We’ll soon have the whole country!” But cautious Vaval probed when they were alone: “Then what? Spaniards don’t like us any better than the French do,” and Toussaint, finding strength from being back on familiar terrain, said: “Old friend, you must trust me. I want what you want, but the secret is to keep fluid. If you keep watching, you usually discover what the next step must be.” Now César, who was becoming his general’s conscience, warned: “Don’t be too clever.”

He had barely uttered this warning when runners from the seacoast brought frightening information: “Toussaint! The British have declared war on everybody—the French, the Spanish, even us. They see a chance to steal the entire colony. Their warships have captured every port on the Caribbean side.”

“Le Cap, too?”

“No, the French still hold that.”

Toussaint started by sketching in the earth a rude map of St.-Domingue: “If the Spaniards, with our help, hold this eastern third of the colony, and the British with their ships hold the western third, the French can control only this narrow strip down the middle,” and his generals visualized the enormous areas under foreign control. “But there is an important difference,” Toussaint continued. “The part the French own is mostly mountains, the part that’s easy to defend. The Spaniards and the English have had it too simple up to now. The real battle is yet to begin.”

For three days the black leader, a rugged, finely disciplined man of gigantic courage and imagination, kept his own counsel. He was only two generations out of Africa, where his ancestors had been men of leadership, and for that reason, he had great respect for fellow blacks like Vaval whose parents had also known Africa. On the third night of his lonely vigil he invited César to walk with him, and they climbed to a small rise from which they could look down on the smaller hill held by the Spanish soldiers: “What you said, Vaval, it’s been nagging at me: ‘The Spaniards don’t like us any more than the French do.’ What would you do in my place?” The two men spent several hours striving to unravel the future although they were barely able to understand the present. “Let’s sleep now and talk further in the morning,” Toussaint said abruptly, and off he marched to bed. But at half after three that morning an aide awakened Vaval with a curt message: “General Toussaint’s tent, immediately!” and when he and the other generals reported, the black leader unveiled his astonishing plans: “This morning … now … we rejoin the French. Help them fight off the Spanish on the east and the English on the west.”

“Why?” a grizzled old fighter asked, and Toussaint whirled about to face him. “Because, old friend, if either Spain or England captures our colony, it’s back to slavery for us. But if we help France win, we have a fighting chance. At least they’ve given freedom to their own people!”

Then, before the sleeping Spaniards on the other hill became aware of what was happening, Toussaint, Vaval and their complete black army were marching off to unite with the French, and when Vaval whispered to Toussaint: “I never slept an easy night in a Spanish uniform,” the leader confessed: “Nor did I … I’m French.”

Now Toussaint proved that he was just as able a leader of men as he was a strategist, for with a grudging promotion to make-believe general conferred almost comically by the French high command, he launched a series of brilliant thrusts, first to the east against the Spaniards, then boldly to the west to throw the British off balance. In these actions he demonstrated an unusual mastery of not only the spectacular one-time tactical raid on an isolated target but also the long-range strategic operation that moved an entire enemy front back a few precious miles. He had converted himself into a real general and, with reliable lieutenants to execute his orders, he had become a formidable one.

In a series of lightning sorties to the east, he practically liquidated the Spanish, but he still had to come to grips with the British, who had poured a huge number of troops into St.-Domingue in hopes of stealing that weakened colony for their empire. Their success had been spasmodic, now surging forward to wipe out the French, now retreating before Toussaint’s inspired blacks. But in 1797 they began a final drive, with a chain of spectacular victories. Toussaint, with remarkable self-discipline, allowed them to rampage among the small targets while keeping them isolated from the big, until it became common in the British mess to refer to their black enemy with grudging praise as “that damned Hannibal,” for he, like his famous black counterpart from Carthage, utilized mountains with great skill.

There the British commander, a Scot from a noble family, offered one of those valiant gestures which make others smile at British gentlemen but also salute their devotion to the honorable act; realizing that the black generals had outsmarted him at every turn, he gathered his staff at a port of debarkation and told them: “Those stubborn beggars have been a gallant foe. Let’s give them a real salute. They’ve earned it.” And his soldiers decorated the town, built a triumphal arch laden with flowers, conscripted local musicians to augment the military band, and assembled the local cooks to prepare a feast.

On the appointed day the British officers rose early, dressed in their brightest regimental uniforms laden with braid and medals, and marched behind the band to the edge of town, where they greeted in full panoply the two black generals. As those victors approached, the British had to smile, for tall Toussaint took such big strides that stubby Vaval, a head shorter, had to pump his chubby legs twice as hard to keep up. Joined by the Scot, they formed the front rank of the parade, and entered the town to the wild cheering of the black citizens and the polite applause of whites. At the local church Toussaint was handed a silver cross, which he bore proudly to the banqueting hall, and there he listened in solemn grandeur as the Scottish officer, a gallant adversary, said: “At the start we British had every advantage—controlled all your ports, occupied most of them, drove you inland. Total victory for our side.”

The British officers applauded, and the speaker continued: “We overlooked these two—General Toussaint L’Ouverture, who could not be pinned down no matter how hard we tried, and this stubborn little fellow Vaval, whom we could never quite catch but who struck at us again and again.”

Here the British officers turned to face the black generals and applauded loudly with cries of “Hear! Hear!” Then the Scotsman asked: “Honestly. How did you do it?” and the two black generals sat silent, tears coming to their eyes.

Toussaint and Vaval stood at the dock until the last British troops withdrew, and as the seven ships left the harbor Toussaint said, almost plaintively: “Vaval, our own French leaders never treated us with half the respect that enemy out there did. It could have been so different if they’d only dealt with us honorably.”

“You mean the slaves? Us?”

“We can tend the land as well as the French.”

“But why would you risk fighting a lion like Napoleon?”

Toussaint, a slave who had been allowed no education or access to books or the friendship of learned men, fell silent, for he too was amazed at what he was now proposing—grappling with the foremost military genius of his age.

“Time’s at hand, old friend, when we must strike out against the French.”

“Wait!” Vaval pleaded, raising his voice to an unaccustomed level. “You can’t go on doing this. First we side with the French, then the Spanish, then the French again, and now against them. You make yourself look foolish.”

“No man is foolish when he calculates strategies to gain his freedom. Besides, we’ll have no choice.”

“Why not?”

“Because Napoleon will never let us exercise any control in this colony. Sooner or later he’ll send troops against us.” Bringing his shoulders forward, as if he were a boxer preparing either to attack or defend, he said grimly: “Now we prepare for whatever Napoleon throws against us, and what a shock we’ll have for that one.” And off the two black generals went to prepare their troops for the battles that could not be avoided.

Napoleon, during his march through Europe, often found recreation at night by reading reports from his colonies, and insofar as the Caribbean in general was concerned, he was not unhappy: “Guadeloupe back in our hands, slave uprisings under control. Our Martinique does remain in British hands, but in retaliation we’ve captured three of their richest islands. Now, what is happening on that damned St.-Domingue? What do those slaves think they’re doing? Are English officers leading those black troops? Some outsider is.” Whenever he voiced that suspicion, he concluded: “We’ve got to teach those slaves a lesson. About who controls France these days.”

Napoleon stopped him right there: “He did desert to the Spanish, didn’t he?”

“With that able assistant, General Vaval.”

“Sounds French.”

“Black as midnight, but a manly little fighter. Helped Toussaint kick the British completely out of St.-Domingue, and now there’s talk among the slaves that they’ll throw us out, too.”

“Never!” Napoleon growled. “Time’s come to discipline them. Get them back to the sugar plantations … all of them.”

Once he voiced this decision his aides saw his eyes gleam with conspiratorial delight, and they supposed that he had suddenly imagined some stratagem which would startle and subdue Toussaint and Vaval, but that was not the case. What pleased him was the prospect of finally discovering how to get his obstreperous younger sister Pauline out of Paris. For the past five years she had presented him with one difficult problem after another; only twenty-one, she had already weathered some half-dozen tempestuous and even scandalous love affairs, and seemed quite prepared to add to that list whenever she encountered one of his handsome colonels or married generals.

Some months ago he believed he had solved the problem: he had married her to a fine young officer of good family named Charles Leclerc, medium height, erect carriage, dashing, and with a ready wit. Napoleon had attended their wedding, had given his sister away, and had then rushed the promotion of the bridegroom to senior general. Now he said: “We’ll put Leclerc in charge of the St.-Domingue expedition, let him win his spurs and make him a duke or something. That would please Pauline.” When the announcement was readied, Napoleon warned his aides: “We won’t put it in writing, but most important—Pauline must accompany him. We’ve got to get her out of Paris.”

On the evening of 1 February 1802, César Vaval, now forty-six, stood on a breakwater at Cap-Français and looked in awe as eleven big French ships dropped anchor in the roadstead while small boats scurried back and forth bearing messages. General Toussaint stood silent beside him, calculating the number of trained French soldiers the ships must carry. Finally he said, with no emotion: “Maybe twelve thousand,” and suddenly springing into action, the wily Toussaint dragged the speechless Vaval back into the town, where he gave him surprising orders.

“Things look perilous tonight. But we shall drive that crowd waiting out there right back to Paris … if you do your job right.”

“I’ll try.”

“Don’t try. Do it. Tomorrow, the next day too, and for as long as possible, fend them off. Don’t let them land. Say there’s a plague … any trick to hold them aboard ship for two days.”

“Where will you be?”

“Bringing our troops down from the mountains. And while I do that, you see to it that every white man or free-colored who remains in this town is driven out … out!” Then, to Vaval’s surprise, Toussaint started running like a hare through the empty streets, shouting: “Pile stacks of wood here! Stack dried tree branches here! Bring in hay from the barns! We’re going to light a fire that will be seen in France!” Showing Vaval which houses to ignite first to ensure a giant conflagration, he said grimly: “No matter what general is waiting out there, when he looks ashore I want him to catch a fiery taste of what’s ahead when he puts one toe on our land.”

On the second evening, when the rat-a-tat of gunfire ashore echoed through the fleet, Leclerc issued his order: “We land at dawn. All forces in small boats to storm the beach.” But about an hour before dawn Pauline awakened him: “Charles! The town’s on fire!” and with his other generals Leclerc went up on deck, to see wild flames rising above the town that was to have been his capital.

It was a ghastly day, with houses and buildings burning to their foundations. Most of the handsome town was leveled, but the two centers so stoutly defended by Espivent and the free-coloreds still stood defiant when the embers died. From the walls of the château the grands blancs had fired such withering blasts at any blacks who tried to storm the place that the arsonists were kept away, but even so, at one critical moment the defense might have collapsed had not General Vaval himself—as he had once defended Colibri—rushed up with a curt command: “Draw back. That one was decent,” and the château was saved.

The lovely theater also survived, for there Prémord’s free-coloreds maintained a fusillade so resolute that the rioting slaves had to fall back, the fiery brands in their fists useless against guns.

General Leclerc, who could not from his distant point of observation know that anything of the town had been saved, nevertheless put up a brave front. His eyes reddened from the smoke that drifted across his fleet, he cried: “Men, prepare to storm the beaches! I shall lead!” and the little boats were loaded with fighting men. But before Leclerc himself could leave, Pauline gripped his arm and whispered: “When you’re the leader, first appearances are everything,” and she made him dress in one of his finest uniforms, with sash and cockaded hat, so that when he stepped gallantly ashore with Pauline on his arm, she also in her best, they were indeed emissaries of the great Napoleon come to command a capital town from which the reconquest of the colony would be launched. Because they came properly dressed and apparently unafraid, they gave the white survivors of Le Cap a courage that would otherwise have been lacking.

“A good omen,” Pauline said graciously, whereupon Espivent flourished his blue cape, bowed low, and kissed her hand: “My house is your house,” and to the general: “My town in ashes is your capital, for I’m sure you will rebuild it,” and on these emotional terms Leclerc took possession of the château and plunged into the maelstrom of the colony he had been sent to subdue and rule. While Pauline remained below directing the four Espivent house slaves how to rearrange what furniture was left, her husband withdrew to a room on the second floor, where, apart from others, he unsealed a secret letter which Napoleon had handed him eight weeks before in Paris.

It was one of the most Machiavellian documents in history, and a treasure for those scholars who would seek to unravel the mystery of how Napoleon’s mind worked. Why the great general allowed a copy to survive is a mystery, but there it rests in the harsh glow of history, revealing the immorality and duplicity of the man.

Napoleon gave Leclerc minutely detailed instructions, not knowing that his orders in many ways duplicated the ones with which King Philip of Spain had saddled Medina-Sidonia, his unfortunate admiral general of the Armada; had Napoleon been aware of the similarity, and the pitiful results King Philip obtained, he might have given his brother-in-law and sister more freedom to make their own decisions.

The recapture of St.-Domingue, Napoleon wrote, would be relatively simple if a rigid schedule was followed: fifteen days to occupy all port towns, perhaps another month to strike at the slave armies from many different directions, then not more than half a year to track down isolated units that would no doubt try to take refuge in the mountains—after which, victory would be proclaimed and the troops could come home.

This military strategy was first class, even though the time allowances would have been more practical for an assault on a settled European principality without mountains, but the subsidiary orders were venal. Leclerc was ordered to conduct himself differently in each of the three stages of occupation:

At the end of fifteen days, when the second stage was to begin, the screws were to be tightened, and so much pressure was to be applied to Toussaint that he would see the impossibility of relying upon isolated units in the mountains to continue the struggle:

The infamous fourth instruction was so shameless that it could not be put into writing, for Napoleon did not want anyone to see the inflammable words a return to slavery, but during the final meeting in Paris between the two men, Napoleon had said: “Slavery is a word never to be spoken. But it is a system to be reimposed as soon as conditions permit.”

Now began the historic battle for St.-Domingue. In the coastal regions of the north, General Leclerc and his immense French army controlled everything, and enthusiastically supported by blancs led by Jerome Espivent, laid careful plans to subdue the slave uprising and capture Toussaint and his main aide Vaval. To accomplish this, the French troops would compress the rebellious slaves into ever-smaller enclaves in the center and southern portions of the colony, and when the noose was so tightened that the noirs could no longer obtain arms, supplies or new conscripts, Toussaint and Vaval would have no option but to surrender.

Leclerc handled his task superbly, displaying a talent for military tactics which startled even his own subordinates. He made not a single mistake, and almost on the schedule that Napoleon had dictated, he had Toussaint’s men driven completely out of the northern areas and so hedged about in the mountains that he could confidently report to Napoleon in Paris: “We have completely demoralized the slaves, and the surrender of their generals can be expected at any moment.”

Toussaint and Vaval refused even to consider surrender. “Trusted friend,” the powerful black general said whenever prospects looked bleak, “we grow stronger with every backward step we take … more compact on our side … more scattered on theirs,” but at the close of one day in which Leclerc drove his men six miles deeper into the mountain retreats, Vaval leaned against a tree, exhausted, and asked: “Does Leclerc never give up?” and Toussaint replied: “He will. Time, and the mountains, and events we cannot foresee will force him to get back aboard his ships and return to France.”

Once, when he watched Pauline dallying with a married colonel, he lost his temper and asked a lieutenant: “That one, is she never satisfied?” and the young man replied with a leer: “Not too soon, I hope.” Espivent thought that as a member of one of France’s noble families, he ought to discuss this matter with General Leclerc, but when he saw the fighting little fellow stagger in exhausted from pursuing Toussaint, he had not the effrontery to badger him with Pauline’s behavior: What that man needs is not lecturing, but sleep. And when the two dined together, for Pauline was usually out in the ruined town with someone else, he asked only about Toussaint.

“We have him worried,” was all Leclerc would say. “I can see it by the moves he makes.”

“How can you tell a thing like that?”

“I’ve seen it three times. He’s had a clear run to the south. Might even do us real damage on the way down. But he refuses the escape we’ve left him … and do you know why?”

“My mind doesn’t work like a noir.”

Leclerc laid down his napkin: “He’s not a noir, Espivent, damn him, he’s a full-fledged general. And if I didn’t have three more armies in the field than he does, I’d never catch him.”

But despite the brilliance and courage of the black generals, Leclerc proved himself such a bulldog, hanging tenaciously onto the heels of his enemy, that the day came when Toussaint had to face the fact that he could not continue the campaign indefinitely. So on a dark night at the end of April, he asked the one man he could trust to walk with him in the darkness: “Dear friend of battle, I can’t continue this fight.”

“Toussaint!” Vaval cried. “We have them on the run.”

“What nonsense from an old friend.”

“I mean it.”

“Leclerc has never let up. He’s trailing us right now, out there.”

“I don’t mean the troops he has in the field. I mean the ones in their graves.” And he told Toussaint about the information their spies had brought: “That hard fighting unit who saw duty along the Rhine … gave us so much trouble at the start? Why don’t we still face them? A black woman who helps nurse them explains why. Three months ago they started with about thirteen hundred men.”

“How many now?”

“Only six hundred alive, and four hundred of them in hospital, that leaves only two hundred able to fight.”

“But they keep bringing in replacements,” Toussaint said, and Vaval replied: “They do, but always from the north of Europe.”

“What does that signify?”

“They aren’t accustomed to the tropics. Watch how many are able to face us at the end of two weeks.”

This was more generous than the black revolutionaries could have hoped for, and Vaval saw it as a testimony to the integrity of Toussaint, who had rarely killed civilians and who had resolutely clung to one abiding principle: “The slaves must be free.” In the entire world since the first efforts of Spartacus, he was the first slave general, and a black one at that, to have attained his goal.

On 6 May 1802, exactly three months after the arrival of General Leclerc, the French army units stationed in Le Cap were given a late and generous breakfast at eight, ordered into their dress uniforms at ten, and mustered at eleven to give the salute to Generals Toussaint L’Ouverture and César Vaval as they surrendered their swords to the superior power of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte and his able brother-in-law Leclerc. Pauline, watching the ceremony from a small thronelike affair in the square, thought: What a handsome man that Toussaint is. Sixty, they say, and he carries himself like a young stallion.

On 5 June 1802, after a month of idleness at his plantation, Toussaint was invited to a gala dinner at the neighboring headquarters of the local French commandant, a General Brunet, and he looked forward so avidly to an afternoon of relaxed military recollections that he asked his aide, General Vaval, to join him: “Give the French a bottle of wine, they talk better than anyone, and I’d enjoy that,” but as they neared the plantation where Brunet waited, Vaval had a blinding apocalyptic vision. Reining in his horse, he ordered the black troops accompanying the two generals to move ahead, and said, with panic in his voice: “Toussaint! Death awaits if you go in there. For God’s sake, turn back. For God’s sake, don’t go!”

“What’s the matter, old friend?”

“Terror! I’m shaking with terror,” and he held out his trembling hands.

“Fool! Grab your reins and let’s get on with our little celebration.”

“I cannot! The angel of death hovers above that house,” and with that, Vaval turned back and galloped away as if the fiends of hell were at his heels, never to see his hero again.

He had barely stepped into the room when General Brunet hurried forward, embraced him like a brother, and excused himself for a moment to tend the wine. The moment he left the room, the French officers around Toussaint drew their swords, pointing the sharp ends at his heart and throat. “Citizen Toussaint, you’re under arrest,” and when Brunet, visibly shaken by the disgraceful thing he had been forced to do, returned to the room, thus able to avow in later questioning “I had nothing to do with the arrest of General Toussaint,” he said merely: “You’re to be sent back to France … bound hand and foot.”

Betrayed by a breach of honor so foul that all men in uniform reviled the act, Toussaint was immediately thrown aboard a small French ship, abused as a prisoner who had dishonored France, and taken to Brest, from where he was whisked to a fortress prison on the Swiss border. There, in the care of a sadistic jailer, he was starved and ridiculed as a black who had preposterously aspired to equality with the French.

Often during the days of his degradation he reflected upon the contrasting treatment he had received from his two enemies. “The English, who suffered greatly from me,” he told his jailer, “gave me a banquet, toasted me as an honorable foe, and embraced me as they sailed away. You French? You lured me to a meeting, your general betrayed his honor, and you threw me into this filthy dungeon.” He stared at the jailer and asked: “How could you do these things to a French citizen who fought for France against the Spanish and the English to protect your rights?”

The jailer understood not one aspect of this moral dilemma, and on a spring day in 1803, when he came to bring General Toussaint L’Ouverture his breakfast, he found the great black general dead of exposure in his ice-cold cell, protected by only one thin blanket.

With the arrest and deportation of Toussaint, General Leclerc felt certain that final victory was near, for as he assured Espivent’s associates during a dinner at the château: “I have only to subdue that pestilential Vaval and the pacification of St.-Domingue will be complete. Our troops can then return to France.”

Only he was in the field with anything that might be called an army, and one night, when defeat and surrender seemed inevitable, he sat with his wife at the edge of a forest and lamented not his fate, for he was prepared for anything, but that of his noble leader, Toussaint: “Marie, he defeated everyone. He was magical, a genius. He beat the Spanish before we joined them. He drove the English back into the sea. He defeated armies of free-coloreds when they came at him, and most of all, he defeated the French before they threw thousands of fresh men at us. And what did he achieve? Nothing. He won all the battles and lost the war.”

His wife would not accept that: “He won us our freedom. We’re not slaves anymore.”

“From what I understand, that was mostly the work of good-hearted men in France.”

“But we are free, and even if you have to surrender tomorrow, you can’t change that. Even in his jail, Toussaint couldn’t take credit for that.”

Such a nebulous victory gave little consolation to Vaval, who could foresee only the impending defeat of the last of his army and his own surrender as the black general who had held out to the end, and he slept that night on a rude paillasse under the trees, assailed by this gnawing sense of failure.

But he was awakened at dawn by sentries bringing before him a pitiful black straggler who had tried to infiltrate the lines. He was in his seventies, an emaciated man whose lank, bent body showed the hurt and hunger he had undergone in order to join the rebelling slaves of St.-Domingue. He stood head bowed as his captors pushed him before their general.

“Like we have here,” Marie Vaval said. “Slaves no more.”

The man turned to look at her, and said: “My wife said the same: ‘Slaves no more!’ but then he came, that monster Napoleon, and shouted at us: ‘You’re slaves again, and slaves you will remain forever.’ ”

“What?” Vaval shouted, and the soldiers who had captured the stranger called for others to move close to hear the appalling news.

“Yes! Slavery crushes us again in Guadeloupe. And it will return here too, unless you fight it to the death. It will come here on the next boat … or the one after that. Look at my back,” and the man pulled up his flimsy shirt to show a crisscross of welts on his black skin. “They did this when they caught me trying that first time to sneak off the island: ‘You’re not to tell any of the other islands about slavery coming back. They’ll receive word when we think it’s proper.’ They were desperately afraid some slaves might hear the news at a bad moment for them—like now, on this island—while you still have armies in the field. They’re afraid the news might make you fight harder.”

Although Vaval was thrown into a sullen rage by this news, he could not be sure that the man was telling the truth; he might well be an agent sent by the French to goad the final black army into precipitate action: “How did you get to us? All the way from Guadeloupe?”

“With difficulty—hiding from the search dogs, beaten near to death on my first try, relying on companions who lost heart when they saw the bigness of the sea they were supposed to cross. No food … fight in the cane fields … a stolen canoe …”

As the refugee spoke, Vaval heard only the first portion of his words, for he was remembering the days in the sugar fields in the southern part of St.-Domingue when his father, the slave Vavak, told his children almost the same story: “A stolen boat … a beach in Puerto Rico … escaping the chase dogs in Santo Domingo …” The story of black refugees seeking freedom never ended, never changed, and sometimes, as in this dawn confrontation, the words and images exploded in terrible fury, blinding men to the risk even of death.

But because Charles Leclerc was also a heroic man who knew how to use his superiority in numbers, he was able to drive Vaval’s ragtag army slowly backward into the final valley from which there would be no escape. Vaval, realizing this, grew ever closer to his wife, who had supported him during so many bleak midnights, and they took an oath between them: “We will never again be slaves. The French shall not capture us alive.”

Despite the valiant boast of its general, Vaval’s collection of former slaves certainly would have been pushed back into the final closed valley had not an ally stormed into St.-Domingue to fight on his side. It was a remorseless antagonist, General Yellow Fever, and the prediction made earlier by Vaval was about to come true in terrible dimension. The disease struck the French troops with such fury that the Europeans were overwhelmed by the assault. Carried by mosquitoes, a fact then unknown, it attacked the liver so that jaundice resulted, but it also produced a debilitating fever which caused unrelieved aching in the head and back; then tiny ruptures occurred in the soft tissues of the throat and lungs, resulting in dreadful hemorrhaging from the mouth.

The fatalities were much worse than Vaval had suggested that night in his talk with Toussaint: of an average thousand-troop unit, eight hundred fifty might die, a hundred might be in a hospital of some kind, leaving fifty, if the commander were lucky, available for limited service, limited because a mild form of the disease might be enervating them. It was a monstrous affliction, and when fresh troops were imported from Europe, they provided not replacements in the line but merely new targets for the mosquitoes.

So the betrayal of General Toussaint accomplished little, for although some black units did defect to the French in hopes of landing decent work when the civil war ended, stubborn patriots like Vaval retreated to forest refuges, emerging stealthily now and then to punish careless French units. And they maintained relentless pressure by initiating their own imaginative responses when the French committed barbarities against them.

At Port-au-Prince, the French defenders of the town—assisted as always by the free-coloreds who still trusted that if they helped the whites when the latter were in trouble, the whites would accept them as equals when the trouble ended—thought to discourage Vaval by erecting a tall gallows at the edge of town where the black troops could see the hangings; there each day at noon they executed a black prisoner. Vaval told his men: “Erect me a tall gallows on that rise and fetch me all the white prisoners we have,” and next day at noon, after the whites in the town had hanged a black, the blacks outside did the same to a white. After three days of this, Vaval summoned all his white prisoners and told them: “Write your names on this list, then nominate one of your group to take this message into town: ‘We can play this game as long as you. Here are the names of the next to go.’ ” And the public hangings stopped.

After a series of skirmishes in which the Poles fought reasonably well, they found themselves supporting French troops in a beautiful town overlooking the Caribbean, the seaport of St.-Marc, where they, the Poles, were forced to become the villains in a cruel conflict. A black general who had been fighting as a trusted ally of the French suddenly decided that a brighter future awaited him if he and his men switched over to General Vaval’s slave army. This was a prudent decision, but in leaving, he abandoned one unit of his army containing over four hundred black troops stationed inside the town of St.-Marc in the midst of the French and Polish units.

When the French general commanding the Polish battalion was apprised of his former colleague’s shameful act—his taking more than half the combined army over to the enemy—he gave crisp and secret orders to his subordinates: “The blacks out there don’t know yet what’s happened. Quick, disarm them and assemble them in the public square.”

Quietly, his junior officers, all French, explained to the blacks: “The general wants to talk with us about the forthcoming attack. Stack your guns and follow us.” When the trusting blacks obeyed, moving forward to hear the general’s plans, they heard him cry to his own men and the Poles: “Close ranks!” and around the perimeter of the beautiful square the armed French and Polish soldiers formed a rigid barrier, bayonets pointed outward. Then came the quiet, dreadful order: “Men, kill them all!”

It was done with bayonets, but only by the Poles, while the French stood, prepared to use their guns if any blacks escaped. It was grisly, horrible, and swift. Unarmed men were gutted with one powerful swipe, or took bayonet thrusts to the heart, or fell wounded to their knees to be clubbed to death. Those few who managed to dash into nearby houses were dragged screaming back into the square, where they were stabbed as they knelt, begging for mercy. Not one black soldier escaped and not one French soldier had to fire his gun. The Polish troops did it all.

“Naturally,” Vaval said, but nevertheless, in subsequent months, he sometimes marched far out of his way in hopes of coming to grips with that murderous Polish unit. He did not succeed, but spies informed him from time to time that these Europeans were succumbing to the ravages of yellow fever even faster than he had predicted: “Two out of three Poles are either dead or in the hospital.” But his dogged tracking of their movements continued.

More than a year later, when his slave army had been victorious in many battles and when he was considered by the mass of blacks to be their finest general, he was on a drive which carried him to a mountainous corner of his old Colibri Plantation. As his aides were pitching his tent, a spy brought disturbing news: “Troops occupying that high hill. Guns all pointed this way.”

Vaval studied the height: “We’d lose lives trying to take that one,” and then the spy said: “The soldiers are all Polish. Second Battalion.”

When Vaval heard this he was paralyzed with indecision. Those men up there were the vicious crew who at St.-Marc had massacred defenseless black soldiers. Those Poles had outraged decency and the rules of war, and they deserved to die, which they surely would if he surrounded the eminence to prevent escape and then launched an assault upon it. But if he did, he would lose many of his best men, and uselessly. For once he did not know what to do, for he feared that if he ordered a costly assault at dawn, he would be doing so only to settle old grudges, and to lose good men that way would be dishonorable.

So at midnight, with the moon dropping low toward the horizon, the black general asked for three brave volunteers to move ahead of him with torches showing that he was carrying a white flag, and when the party was formed the four marched into the night: “Truce! Truce! We want to save your lives.”

As they reached the point where the path started climbing sharply upward, they were challenged by French troops led by a lieutenant who came forward, gun at the ready, to parley. At this point the black soldiers quickly thrust their torches into the ground and leveled their own guns at the Frenchmen.

“I am General Vaval.” The torches lit up his grave, determined face. “I come to offer you honorable terms to get off this peak. Who’s in command?”

“Tell him he can accomplish a good thing if he’ll talk with me … an honorable thing.”

The lieutenant gave an order to his men waiting behind him in the darkness: “Three step forward. It’s a legitimate truce party,” and when they appeared, to face the black soldiers, he and one of Vaval’s men disappeared up the hill.

“What will happen?” one of the black soldiers asked, and Vaval replied: “Common sense will win out, I hope.”

Rather promptly the French lieutenant and the black soldier came down the hill, bringing with them four well-armed white soldiers, in the midst of whom came a Polish officer, who said stiffly: “Colonel Zembrowski, Polish Second Battalion.”

Vaval moved forward, extended his hand, grasped the Pole’s in a warm clasp, and asked: “May we talk alone?” When they moved to a hill with guns from every direction pointed at them, Vaval remembered the dignity with which the English officers had treated him, and his first thought was: I must do no less. And so he said: “Colonel, as you no doubt saw before sunset, we have enough troops to take this hill.”

Very calmly Zembrowski, a man in his late thirties and far from home, said: “And you surely saw that we have the men and ammunition to make that very costly. That must be why you’re here.”

To the Pole’s surprise, Vaval changed the course of the conversation completely: “How is it going?” and Zembrowski, as soldier to soldier in a moment of military frankness, repeated almost to the word what Vaval himself had said months ago: “We should never have been sent here. Napoleon was afraid of us.”

“Fever?”

“We came with five thousand. Now we have not quite one thousand.”

“The British had the same experience when they tried to defeat us.”

“And you? Shall you win a nation for yourselves?”

“We already have.”

“We should never have tried to stop you. But in the end, Napoleon will.”

Then Vaval asked: “How is it … your soldiers fighting alongside the French?” and Zembrowski replied: “The French don’t like Poles, but of course they don’t like anybody. The generals, though, they’re brilliant. Trained. They know history. They study terrain carefully.” He broke into a soft chuckle: “Mind if we sit? My left leg took a small shot.”

When they were perched on rocks, he laughed outright: “Sometimes I don’t blame the French. One general came to me with a piece of paper: ‘What are we going to do about this, Zembrowski?’ and I saw that he had written the names of two of my junior officers: Źdźblo and Szczygieł. ‘We can’t handle names like that,’ and I said: ‘We’ll make the first one Dupont, the second Kessel.’ ”

After a pause he said: “They can’t accept us. Because we don’t do things their way, they’re quick to call us cowards. Claim we don’t do our share of the fighting. When our men hear this, when I hear it, we think our honor has been smeared, and to a Pole honor is everything.”

For some moments, as the torches flickered, the two soldiers looked only at moving shadows, then Zembrowski felt compelled to speak honestly out of his respect for this powerful black general: “Perhaps you know that our battalion was at St.-Marc?” and Vaval replied: “Yes, I’ve been trailing you ever since, hoping to catch you like this.”

“You know, of course, that it was French officers who gave the commands? Threatened to bayonet us if we didn’t bayonet you.”

“I supposed so,” Vaval said sternly, at which Zembrowski dropped his head in his hands. “Dishonored. General Vaval, we dishonored ourselves that day and I pray you can forgive us.”

Early next morning when the former slaves, with Vaval in the lead, climbed up the hill to wrest it from the Poles, they were astonished to see two French officers running down toward them, waving white flags and shouting: “We surrender! Flag of surrender!” and they had scarcely reached the bottom, their faces white with fear, when a series of titanic blasts enveloped the top of the hill, shattering it and killing every soldier there, including Zembrowski.

The honor of the Polish troops, whatever that means, had been restored. Rather than surrender, they had blown themselves to eternity.

Despite the stubborn heroism of generals like Vaval and the ravages of General Yellow Fever, Leclerc was painfully carpentering a victory pretty much along the lines Napoleon had laid out; black units, seeing the futility of trying to oppose the entire French empire with its endless resources, were beginning to defect in huge numbers, so that even an improvising genius like Vaval had to realize that defeat was at hand. The French were too strong, Leclerc showed a fortitude no one had expected, and the black cause seemed doomed.

French victory would probably have been attained had not Napoleon, believing that he had unlimited power over men, issued the appalling decree which restored slavery in Guadeloupe. This devastating news, which up to now Leclerc had kept suppressed in his colony, seeped out, and now the blacks could not blind themselves to what lay ahead, especially when refugees from Guadeloupe at the eastern end of the Caribbean arrived with tales of what disruptions had occurred on that island when slavery was reinstated.

Leclerc, still trusting that he could dominate the slaves, assembled all his senior officers at the château to inform them: “I’m sure one more push will do it. I’m heading into the mountains to catch that damned Vaval,” but before departing on what he hoped would be his final maneuver, he told Espivent: “Look after Pauline for me,” and off he rode.

As soon as Pauline was certain that her husband was securely gone into the hills, she began entertaining a series of his officers, and was so blatant about her upstairs sessions—a different man every three days it seemed—that Espivent felt he had to intervene, for it was his château that was being contaminated and his friend’s honor defiled: “Good God, madam! Can’t you control your appetites?” But even as he reprimanded her he was uncomfortably aware of her dark Italian beauty. She was twenty-two that turbulent year, a gorgeous human being who knew full well her effect on men and her skills of coquetry.

“Now, Seigneur Espivent,” she said gently, biting her left thumbnail, “you’re certainly not talking about the last century, are you?”

“I’m talking about all centuries. About the dignity of France. About the sister of the chief of state. And especially about the honor of a brave husband who is absent leading his troops into difficult battle.” As he thundered these words he was dressed in a red skullcap and one of his blue capes, and with his neatly trimmed Vandyke and flashing eyes, he could have been mistaken for some moralist of a preceding century, but he had little impact on Pauline, who that very afternoon entertained a colonel from Espivent’s hometown of Nantes.

During this assignation he remained on the ground floor, pacing in such a growing rage that when the colonel descended, smiling and adjusting his sword, Espivent jumped out to bar his way: “If you ever step into my house again, sir, I shall kill you.”

“What are you saying?”

The altercation brought Pauline down from her well-used bedroom, and stepping between the two men, she demanded: “What goes on here?” and Espivent said through clenched teeth: “If he comes here again on such a mission, I shall kill him.”

“Are you crazy, old man?” she shouted, and in growing anger he shouted back: “Leave my house. I’ve protected this château through fire and riot and disorder, and I will not have it dishonored in my final days.”

Espivent did fully intend to clear this disgraceful matter with Leclerc when the latter returned, but in the middle of October 1802, a brief eight months after his arrival at Le Cap, the general, while on a chase after Vaval, felt the onset of a virulent fever, and turning to his aide, he gasped: “I think it’s got me.”

He was rushed from the battlefield to the Espivent château, but by the time he reached there his exhausted body had passed into the second and third stages of the dreaded disease, and everyone who looked at his ravaged face and twitching body knew that recovery was impossible. Now Pauline, confronted with the certainty that this honorable man whom she had so abused was dying, became a true sister of Napoleon, fighting the disease with her constant ministrations and ignoring the warnings of her friends: “But, madam! You may become infected yourself.”

“He needs me,” she said defiantly, and through the long tropical nights she bathed his fevered body and did what she could to alleviate his pains. But on the fifth morning, when he began to hemorrhage from the mouth, she screamed for Espivent: “Help me!” and together they wiped the blood from his face, but to no avail. Charles Leclerc, who had proved his valor in the most unrelenting corner of the French colonial world, was dead at the age of thirty.

Four officers were assigned to accompany the cadaver and Pauline Buonaparte—she spelled her name the Italian way—back to France, and during the extended voyage, for the French ship had to dodge English prowlers, she found solace with three older officers, each of whom had been her lover at Le Cap. An officer, who was never invited to her cabin, was heard to say to one of the sailors: “Looking at those four, I feel like the fifth wheel on a cart,” and when the sailor asked what he meant, he said: “I’ve never been part of their merry games,” and the sailor asked: “Would you like to be?” and the complaining officer laughed: “Who wouldn’t?” and the sailor said: “Trip’s not over.”

He also attended to his rambunctious sister, finding her with amazing celerity an Italian nobleman, a member of the great Borghese family, as her second husband. As a gesture of appreciation, young Borghese sold Napoleon for pennies the vast Borghese collection of art and supervised its removal to Paris. To reciprocate, Napoleon made Pauline a duchess, but this only served to spur her bedroom activities.

With Leclerc gone and the bulldog Vaval still at large, command of the French troops in St.-Domingue fell into the hands of the son of an illustrious general who had helped the American colonies win their independence. Donatien Rochambeau turned out to be one of the horrors of the Caribbean, known for his disgraceful behavior and his Nero-like propensities.

To strike terror into the hearts of Vaval’s black remnants still opposing the French, he imported from Cuba a large number of savage dogs specially trained to attack Negroes, introducing the animals at a gala evening performance attended by eager whites. Three black men, stripped to the waist, were brought into an enclosed space, and while they huddled together, unaware of what was about to happen, hatches were thrown open and the dogs leaped into the arena. But they were quickly greeted by a chorus of booing, for the dogs merely sniffed at the blacks, circled them, and withdrew to fight among themselves.

Rochambeau, infuriated by the cries of derision, shouted to his soldiers: “Draw some blood. That’ll get them started,” and men with bayonets went out, protecting themselves from the dogs who wanted to attack them and not the blacks, and jabbed at the bellies of the three blacks until blood spurted, whereupon the dogs leaped at the men, tore them apart, and devoured them. The audience applauded.

Espivent applauded when his new friend disciplined a fractious black brigade in a manner that General Leclerc could not have approved. The hundred or so black would-be mutineers were marched to the public square, surrounded by French soldiers with rifles at the ready, and forced to watch as their wives were then brought into the square and executed in various ways, one by one. Then the guns were turned on the men, and all were slain.

Espivent himself participated in a general elimination of any Cap-Français blacks who were reported by white informants as “being so badly infected with the disease of freedom that they will never again make good slaves.” He set up an open-air office on the docks and from it directed some eight thousand blacks to board ships that would, he promised, “take you to freedom in Cuba.” When the ships were loaded, one by one, they sailed about a mile out into the bay, where sailors armed with guns and swords killed the blacks, pitching their dead bodies into the sea at such a rate that the nearby shores were lined with decomposing corpses. Espivent remedied this unfortunate development by instructing the captains: “Sail your ships farther so the currents will carry the bodies out to sea.”

Espivent did not personally participate in one of the more ingenious assaults on blacks, but he did provide a slaving ship for the experiment and supervised the engineering details: belowdecks a small furnace was erected in which wet sulfur could be burned, and the prodigious amount of smoke it produced was then conveyed by pipes into a lower hold where the blacks were crammed. One potful of burning sulfur gave off enough gas to suffocate sixty blacks, killing them without the waste of bullets or the construction of gallows.

Each night before his men launched some paralyzing move against Rochambeau’s forces, he moved among them, saying in his soft voice: “Tomorrow we win Toussaint’s victory for him,” and next day when he struck, his drive was so relentless, so composed of cold fury, that the French could not withstand the waves of destruction that crashed down upon them. Toward the end of 1803 an infuriated Rochambeau told his generals: “Dammit, there’s no handling that little fiend,” and one afternoon he simply gave up the effort. There was no grandiloquent gesture, no honorable acknowledgment that the blacks had won. He simply called in his ships, then spent a night drafting a report to Napoleon explaining how, through trickery and deceit, Vaval had gained a few unimportant skirmishes but would have been totally defeated had not yellow fever intervened.

At the railing of the last French ship to leave St.-Domingue stood Jerome Espivent, headed for exile from the colony he loved. He was now in his sixties, his hair and Vandyke completely white. He had about his shoulders one of his black capes, and in his eyes there was a mist of profound regret as he watched his stone château growing ever smaller. “We should never have lost that land,” he said to a young officer from the Loire Valley. “It was all because of the free-coloreds,” he added, and when he turned back to see Le Cap, both it and his mansion had disappeared from view.

The attempt to whip the blacks of Toussaint and Vaval back into slavery had failed. The great Napoleon, having lost the richest colony in the world and nearly a hundred thousand of his best European troops, would now turn his attention to his own coronation as emperor and his chain of rampages through Europe, culminating in his retreat from Moscow. In his immortal journey he would humble a dozen kings and humiliate a score of generals, but he managed to outsmart the slave Toussaint only by an act of trickery and dishonor, while General Vaval defied him to the end.

Now, as a man nearing fifty, he was not happy with what he saw in his new nation. One of Toussaint’s vindictive generals, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, had recently proclaimed himself Emperor for Life. And what a vicious man, Vaval thought one evening as he sat atop the Polish hill. Last year Dessalines had broadcast an amnesty to all the islands of the Caribbean and even to South Carolina: “You whites who fled Haiti, come home. The past is forgotten. Come back and help us build a great new nation!” They came back, yes they did, white people homesick for the colony they had loved. And what happened when they got here?

Vaval sat for some time, head bowed, as he recalled those terrible scenes. When Dessalines had them all in hand, he proclaimed one morning: “Death to every white man in Haiti!” and the killing began. At Cap-Français, the place they now call Cap-Haïtien, he lined up hundreds of whites. They thought he was going to lecture them about their duties as citizens in the new nation. No, no! He murdered them all, maybe four hundred, maybe five. “Cleansing the nation,” he called it, and every white in Haiti was slain.

Mortally ashamed of his behavior in those frenzied days, Vaval recalled his siege of Meduc. Under the leadership of the Prémords, the coloreds of the region assembled at their plantation, where the fighting was brutal. Vaval could not subdue them, and one of his men asked scornfully: “Vaval? If you handled Leclerc so easily, why not these few free-coloreds?” and he had no answer. They were heroic.

Now came a kindlier remembrance. At the end of the battles, when Vaval had to retreat without having dislodged them, Julie Prémord came to him, and she suggested a nationwide truce to stop this senseless killing. She’d guarantee adherence of the free-coloreds if Vaval would speak for the blacks. But when he sent a horseman into Cap-Haïtien with her suggestion, Dessalines replied: “No truce. Exterminate them.” But that could not be done, because the Prémords, the Toussaints of their race, were defending their plantation most ably. So Vaval had to withdraw, knowing that the last sensible opportunity had been lost.

Then his memory flashed to a village square lined with palm trees. Throughout the nation the free-coloreds were being hunted down and slain. In the north they congregated at last in Meduc—the town in which the free-coloreds had once met secretly for their riotous dances—a remnant so powerless they had to surrender. Because Vaval had grown to respect them, he pleaded with the government that these final few be allowed to live quietly in their corner of the north. And he was listened to. In fact, he was dispatched to arrange the terms of surrender and forgiveness.

So at Meduc on a clear, fine day Vaval assembled the free-coloreds who were surrendering and stood with Prémord and his wife as the final details were arranged. “The war is ended,” Prémord cried in a clear, solid voice that commanded respect, and as Vaval turned to look at him he thought: What a handsome man! His color is so much more attractive than I used to think. Prémord continued: “We have a new nation and a new ruler. France is gone forever and with it domination by the whites. On this happy day we begin a lasting friendship between groups that have for too long been separated.” With that, he embraced Vaval, shouting to his followers: “See how two old enemies start their new friendship!” and everyone cheered.

THE DECADES FOLLOWING THE SLAVE REBELLION IN HAITI SAW vast improvements in the fortunes of blacks throughout the Caribbean. Great Britain abolished slavery everywhere in its empire in 1834; France in 1848. The United States engineered a cynical trick in 1863; President Lincoln abolished slavery in the middle of the Civil War, but only in the southern states, over which he had no control. In those border states which he did control, it continued, but in 1865 it was honestly outlawed everywhere. Spanish holdings in the Caribbean retained a brutal slavery long after other areas had stopped, with Cuba continuing till an unbelievable 1886.

Blacks were technically freed, but it was sometimes difficult, when looking at a specific situation, to realize it. In Jamaica, for example, in 1865 a volatile black Baptist preacher, George Gordon, gave a sermon in which he cried: “God wanted slavery ended, and it was,” but even as he spoke, an ominous throwback to the olden days was brewing.

The man to whom he whispered his opinion was also a member of the council but entirely different in both character and appearance. He was Pembroke’s cousin, Oliver Croome, whose sugar estate was larger and more valuable. A hearty man in his forties, clean-shaven, ruddy-faced, somewhat overweight and given to explosive bursts of laughter, he saw his duties much differently than did Pembroke: “The queen tells us what to do, and we do it.” It would be unthinkable for him to utter even one word counter to directives originating from the Colonial Office in London: “And if our buggers think they can ignore the queen’s rules, there’s always the marines to whip ’em into shape.”

They were good friends, these dissimilar cousins—Pembroke austere and cautious, Croome flamboyant and given to wild statements—and although they usually differed in politics, with Pembroke a quiet, thoughtful liberal, Croome a loud-spoken archconservative, they did heartily agree on certain attitudes common to their class: loyalty to the crown, love for England, in which their families had spent more time than in Jamaica; and a fierce determination to protect the welfare of sugar planters. To accomplish these desirable ends, they gave their support to Eyre, a heroic type of man who did indeed look like some all-wise, paternal Jove or Jupiter come down from heaven to straighten out the affairs of Jamaica.

“He’s a man who knows what he’s doing,” Oliver whispered to his cousin, and the two nodded deferentially to the austere man seated at the head of their council table. Edward John Eyre, now fifty years old, was a towering figure, heavily bearded and with a mustache so thick that it obscured his mouth, making his halting speech rumble. Once when listening to him orate, Jason Pembroke had said: “When God spoke through the burning bush, He must have sounded a lot like that.”

The idea was bold, unexpected, and in October 1832, Edward John Eyre bought passage to the unknown continent, where he arrived in late March of the next year, a tedious voyage of more than a hundred and forty days. In Sydney, like any thoughtful Englishman of the period, he went from house to house, office to office, presenting the numerous letters of introduction which family friends had provided, but nothing came of these solicitations, and he was left on his own with no friends and only the vast, empty continent at hand to provide a home and an occupation.

By virtue of an iron will and a well-disciplined physique, he began heroic explorations into the loneliest parts of Australia, traveling thousands of miles, often attended by only one companion—the smiling, indefatigable aborigine boy Wylie. Together they penetrated the continent in a manner that later experts would say was impossible, and in the end Eyre was recognized as one of the bravest of all Australian explorers and was honored by having the continent’s largest lake named after him. His personal courage was unequaled, his perceptions far more acute than those common at the time, and his love for that land unmatched. Had he chosen to spend his life in Australia, he would have died a revered national hero.

But, hungering after fame, the pomp of office and the prerogatives of command, he quit Australia to join Great Britain’s colonial service, determined to win rapid promotion to the governorship of some remote colony which he could rule as emperor. His grand design ran into immediate trouble, for when he was posted to New Zealand in a minor position, he accomplished nothing. He had somewhat better luck on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent, and an almost soporific tour of duty on Antigua, after which, in 1862 at the age of forty-seven, he was posted to the important island of Jamaica as lieutenant governor, a job he discharged with enthusiasm and ability, especially when a great fire threatened the island’s principal town, Kingston. Reported a paper at the time:

There were, however, rumbles of discontent among the landed gentry of the island: “How dare they send us a governor with no decent family background when we’ve been accustomed to members of the aristocracy?” Others said: “His only qualification for this high office, once held by men of the highest type, often nobility, is that he once ran sheep in the godforsaken barrens of Australia. He’s not good enough for this island.” One of the more serious charges brought against him was that “he has been seen on several occasions riding not in his private carriage but in a public conveyance. Disgraceful! How lacking in dignity or respect for his position!” When a report of this impropriety reached London, Eyre’s immediate superior scribbled on the paper: “As to the charge of going in a public vehicle, I have known even a secretary of state guilty of such indecorum,” to which the head of the office, the Duke of Newcastle, replied with his own endorsement: “I’ve done the same.”

At the beginning of 1865, that critical year in which so many events would agitate Jamaica, Governor Eyre was so firmly ensconced that his ardent supporters like Pembroke and Croome had reason to suppose that he would remain in office permanently, although Jason had begun to suspect the man’s ability to hold the island’s various elements together in harmony. As he watched Eyre stalk out of the chamber in imperial grandeur, he said, tugging reflectively on his beard: “I begin to detect signs of great arrogance in our governor.”

“What in blazes do you mean by that?” Oliver asked.

“He’s so imbedded in Church of England …”

“So am I. So are you. Proper thing to be … what else?”

“But as our governor, he really ought to listen more patiently to the adherents of other religions that are growing strong on this island. Especially the Baptists.”

“They should all be shot, especially the Baptists.”

“Now that’s a silly thing to say, Oliver. The Baptists are here and they must be taken seriously.”

Some years before, a visiting Baptist clergyman named Underhill had published, on his return to London, a favorable book on Jamaica, but he soon began receiving from the island a drumfire of letters from local Baptists lamenting the actual state of conditions there. His correspondents were harshly outspoken about the disadvantages which all nonconformist sects like the Baptists suffered at the hands of an unfeeling, ungenerous Church of England majority: “We must pay taxes to support their church and their hard-drinking clergy, but they offer our chapels not one penny in return, even though our preaching is closer to the spirit of Jesus. And the governor hates anyone with a touch of color.”

Tormented by these cries, Underhill had, in late December 1864, submitted a noninflammatory report to British authorities. Copies were promptly forwarded to Jamaica, where Church of England leaders, including of course the governor and his supporters, were outraged to think that a mere Baptist would dare to complain against not only God’s chosen church but also, by extension, the queen herself, since she had appointed her local surrogates. “It’s close to heresy,” Croome grumbled, “or treason.” And then, with that forthright, simple character that cut through ambiguities, he said with great force, banging the chair next to him as he spoke: “Those goddamned Baptists are nine-tenths niggers, and they’re led by a gang of self-ordained preachers who are nine-tenths half-castes. This report strikes at the core of the empire, and the author should be shot.” Croome, like his ancestors, was strong for shooting people.

“Calmly, calmly, Croome. Anyone who charges Governor Eyre with being anti-Negro, whether it’s some local Baptist fool or you, is ignorant of the man’s past record. I’ve taken pains to look it up, because I’ve seen animosities growing between us whites and those blacks, with the half-castes in between shifting now this way, now that.”

“What was his record?”

“That’s why it would be criminal for us to allow the damned Baptists to smear his character. Who allowed copies of that Underhill letter to reach these shores?” Before Pembroke could reply, his cousin, now red in the face, uttered the freighted words that would dictate so much Jamaican behavior in this troubled year: “Jason, our task as members of the Executive Council is to do everything we can to prevent the terrors of the Indian Mutiny, or the horrors that occurred in Haiti when niggers ran wild.”

Those were the images that dominated: Cawnpore, the city on the Ganges River where hundreds of Englishmen, men and women alike, were brutalized, slain and pitched into deep wells; and nearby Haiti, not much over a hundred miles distant, where even worse massacres had occurred.

“We must do everything possible to keep peace,” Croome said, with grim lines etched on his shaven face, “and if I could lay my hands on that Underhill or any Baptist agitators, I’d shoot them.”

Governor Eyre, returning to the council chamber at this moment, saw the cousins and came to stand before them, tall and godlike with his flowing beard: “You are the men I must rely on to protect me when you next take residence in London,” he said with as much emotion as his austere nature would permit. “You’re as much at home there as you are on your sugar plantations. A rare breed, you two.”

Their council duties over, the two cousins rode together along the magnificent trails that led north from Spanish Town, following vibrant streams which had to be forded from time to time, and as they approached the Croome plantation, Jason bade his energetic cousin farewell. “We did good work for the empire this week,” he said as Oliver turned his horse toward his gate.

As soon as Pembroke recognized him at the head of the group of St. Ann farmers, most of whom lived just over the border from the parish in which Trevelyan stood, he realized there might be trouble, for Gordon’s jaw was fiercely set.

Gordon was a tough man, having come up the tough way. His father had been a sniveling white man who had slipped into an alliance with one of his female slaves, by whom he had seven children. But later in life, when he had accumulated a little money, he threw the slave woman and her brood out of his house, married a white woman, and refused ever to allow any of his half-caste children, George William among them, entrance to his new home. Even so, when the father fell into financial trouble, he came whimpering to his son, begging the money which would allow him to maintain decency. In the meantime, the young man had so prospered in various business enterprises that he was able to finance not only the purchase of a home for his father, but also to assist in the care of the latter’s white wife and children. Such a man could not be dismissed with contempt, despite his unfortunate color.

Pembroke sought to be congenial, inviting the black and colored farmers into the mansion, where he called for refreshments as he listened to the mournful reason for their visit. “You are the wisest member of the council, Mr. Pembroke,” one of the farmers said, “and you know our land in St. Ann better than anyone else except maybe Parson Gordon, who preaches there now and again. We are hardworking men, but we need land for our crops. Thousands of acres lie fallow there, no one working them. When emancipation came years ago we were supposed to receive that land … to buy it if necessary. We’ve saved. We have the money to buy it if the price is reasonable. But the government will not break it loose for us. They tell us: ‘Your role is to work for the white man at whatever wages he chooses to pay you.’ Well, there are no white plantation owners in St. Ann to hire us, and no land on which we can grow our own crops.”

Pembroke, understanding these matters, listened attentively to the farmers, and when they finished he suggested that they retire and draft a courteous letter to Queen Victoria, laying out their problems and their views as to how they could be solved. When Gordon volunteered to write the letter, Pembroke said gently: “I think not, sir. You’re known as a radical, and I’d be reluctant to submit one of your agitations to the queen, even though I believe you to be right.”

So with Pembroke’s help the letter was drafted, a sensible, restrained appeal for help in time of drought and a respectful prayer that the queen would release some crown lands, which they would then cultivate with their hearts and hands and remit the required rents. When it was read aloud, the farmers agreed that it represented both their cause and their affection for the queen, and they believed that she would listen favorably. Preacher Gordon felt that it could have been stronger, but Pembroke assured him that this was the proper way to address a queen whose generosity was known to all: “I will forward it through proper channels, and I can assure you she will respond.” And the rump meeting dissolved with mutual congratulations.

Two days later Oliver Croome strode into Trevelyan, his face livid: “What in the name of hell have you done, Jason?”

“What do you mean?”

“That petition to the queen. The one that swine Gordon wrote for the St. Ann people.”

“But I wrote it. In proper tone, I believe.”

“You! God, Pembroke, are you out of your mind? Don’t you realize that those people are all Baptists echoing the lies of that Underhill report? Those people are revolutionaries. Do you want another Haiti on your hands?”

As Jason started to read Carlyle’s rantings, Croome said: “I’ll inspect how you make your great Trevelyan rum,” and left his cousin alone in his study.

Quickly Jason caught on to the author’s two code words. All blacks, especially freed slaves, were called Quashee, a euphonious name which one of the African tribes used for any child born on Sunday. Carlyle apparently liked the word for the humorous way it dismissed any black to whom it was applied, for he used it almost ad nauseam in his vitriolic comments. He had also picked up, possibly from some visiting cotton or sugar plantation owner from the Carolinas, the idea that blacks spent all their time lolling in the shade eating watermelon, but since Carlyle had never seen a watermelon, he confused it with a pumpkin and filled his essay with humorous references to Quashee and his pumpkins.

Jason frequently gasped as he continued to read the essay, for he could not believe that an intelligent Briton could write such trash: “Our beautiful Black darlings are at last happy; with little labour except to the teeth, which surely in those excellent horse-jaws of theirs, will not fail!” “With a penny-worth of oil you can make a handsome, glossy thing of Quashee.” “No, the gods wish that besides pumpkins, that spices and valuable products be grown in their West Indies. Infinitely more they wish, that manful industrious men occupy their West Indies, not indolent two-legged cattle, however happy over their abundant pumpkins.”

He then rhapsodized over the brave British men who had brought civilization to the islands: “Before the West Indies could grow a pumpkin for any Negro, how much European heroism had to spend itself in obscure battle … Under the soil of Jamaica, before it could even produce spices or any pumpkin, the bones of many thousand British men had to be laid. How they would have rejoiced to think that all this was to issue in growing pumpkins to keep Quashee in comfortably idle condition!”

In fiery sentences Carlyle spelled out his vision of the world: “My obscure Black friends, you will have to be servants to those who are born wiser than you, that are born lords of you; servants to the Whites, if they are (as what mortal man can doubt that they are?) born wiser than you. That is the Law of the World, to be servants, the more foolish to the more wise.”

So sorely was Jason Pembroke shaken when he finished this incredible screed that he went outside and shouted to his cousin: “This is appalling—making fun of human beings, speaking of them as if they were horses, calling for the reinstitution of slavery.”

“Wait a minute! Do you want what happened in Haiti to happen here? Or another Indian Mutiny? Carlyle speaks the truth, the hard ugly truth. Niggers are really little better than animals, and if they won’t work our fields at the wages we propose, they must be made to work, and if that means bringing slavery back, so be it. They asked for it.”

Shocked by Oliver’s vehement adoption of all that Carlyle had said, Jason inadvertently stumbled onto the one name that would infuriate his cousin: “No wonder Gordon makes headway with the blacks.”

“Gordon!” Oliver bellowed as if stabbed near the kidney. “Are you listening to that ranting fool? People like you say he was kind to his white father. But did you know that he had money only because he stole land and houses from that father? Did you know that he had his workers run down the values of all the father’s farms so that the old man had to sell at a great loss? And who bought? Gordon.”

“But don’t you think,” Jason asked quietly, in an effort to lower the temperature of his cousin’s rhetoric, “that your Thomas Carlyle is just as damaging, preaching his hatred?” and Oliver answered: “But they are niggers, Jason.”

When Pembroke delivered the supplication of his St. Ann neighbors to Governor Eyre, that officer thanked him, but as soon as Pembroke was gone, he summoned Oliver Croome, and four like-minded planters who thought like Carlyle, to help frame the Jamaican comment on the farmers’ appeal to the queen, and they, drawing heavily on “Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question,” undercut everything the supplicants had said, assuring the queen that all was well in Jamaica and that the protest came almost exclusively from disaffected blacks and half-castes who were Baptists. “Not one gentleman or plantation owner in the entire island would demean himself by signing such an impertinent letter.” And off it went.

It would never be known for certain who drafted the reply to the starving farmers, but since it was delivered to Jamaica as Victoria’s personal response to their pleas, it became known in history as The Queen’s Advice:

When Governor Eyre showed The Queen’s Advice to Croome and some of his more conservative friends, they exulted over the fact that Victoria had adopted much of their phraseology, and they loudly agreed with Eyre when he said: “Well, I think that answers the agitations of Brother Gordon.” Eyre approved when Croome suggested: “It’s so clear, so fair that we must put copies of it on trees and buildings throughout the island,” giving authority to print up fifty thousand broadsheets. Croome and his friends arrogantly rushed to all corners of the island, posting these conspicuously and with a final flourish of the hammer as if to shout: “Well, that takes care of your silly petition!”

But when Pembroke saw what was being done, and the sullen rage with which the farmers, the little people and the undernourished mothers read the letter and sometimes spat upon it, he said to himself: It will be worse than Haiti. And he leaped on his horse and rode to Kingston to seek out Preacher Gordon: “My friend, I have grown to respect what you’re trying to do, so for God’s sake watch your step in the weeks ahead. Keep your lips sealed.”

“Why, in the face of such an insulting message from the queen?”

“Because she is the queen. And because men of great power wish you silent.” Then, to ease Gordon’s disappointment and disgust, he uttered a fatal sentence, which when quoted by agitated blacks and coloreds would account for two hundred of their deaths: “And you can be sure that the queen did not write that letter.” With that, he turned and rode back to his plantation, where he tried to reassure his own workers that the queen could never have written that cruel a reply.

It had quite the opposite effect, because the farmers of St. Ann who had helped draft the original petition saw at once that the queen had evaded answering every one of their complaints: “How can we work if no work is offered? How can we be industrious if we’re allowed no land on which to prove ourselves?”

Across the beautiful island, along the seacoasts and in the valleys, men of good will who were allowed no advantages began discussing the message, and its insolent, almost cruel, phrases created a great fury. They saw no hope for the future. Most powerful in the voices raised was that of Preacher Gordon, who moved through the island haranguing his Baptists and uttering statements that became increasingly inflammatory. “We shall have another Haiti on this island” and “I shy away from revolution, but if it must come, I hope it solves these terrible problems” and “It’s shameful to have a German immigrant as the custos of St. Thomas-in-the-East, the parish I love so dearly.” This last protest would, as months passed, have special significance.

Under Jamaican law, the governor appointed parish leaders who exercised considerable authority; their title custos and its plural custodes suggested the custodian role they filled. The custos of Gordon’s parish was, as pointed out so often, a German immigrant and a fearfully conservative man to whom any expression of public demand was repugnant. Maximilian Augustus Baron von Ketelhodt had been judicious, upon his arrival in the island, in paying court to a wealthy widow, who brought him in their marriage five rich plantations and acceptance as a member of the island’s ruling faction. A man of brilliant maneuvering, he ingratiated himself with the lower classes and was no tyrant, even though Gordon, who fell under his custodianship, deemed him so.

The long summer of 1865 was particularly hot and humid, and watchful sugar men like Oliver Croome became aware that the mood of the lower classes had become sullen, so dangerously so that he sought an audience with Governor Eyre to register a warning: “Governor, if things get any worse, we could have a serious rebellion on this island. The planters who accompanied me on the annual tour of the districts are deeply worried about the conditions we saw at St. Thomas-in-the-East, and we recommend that you summon your custos to give his assessment.”

Eyre, always terrified by the names Haiti and Cawnpore, grabbed at Croome’s suggestion, and a few days later Baron von Ketelhodt, tall and rigid and ready to stamp out any incipient uprising in his parish, reported to the governor: “That ass Gordon has been creating a disturbance. Seems to have affected one of his underlings, a clown named Bogle …”

“Isn’t that one a Baptist preacher, too?”

“He is. Gordon ordained him, just as he ordained himself. And there appears to be contempt for the posters of The Queen’s Advice.”

“Contempt? How expressed?”

“The broadsheets have been spat upon. And in three instances, torn down.”

Eyre’s face grew grave, his broad brow wrinkled and his long beard trembled. “The Queen’s Advice spat upon! We can’t allow that, Ketelhodt. What have you done to halt it?”

“Caution,” the baron said in his deep Germanic accent. “Not to raise tempers. But to watch. Careful. Careful.”

“And what have you learned?”

“That George Gordon is behind every move. That he is inciting to rebellion. That sooner or later we must throw a net for that one, but taking care to avoid inciting his damned Baptist renegades.”

Eyre rose from his chair, stared down at Pembroke, and said sternly: “Are you daring to denigrate the queen?” and Pembroke said humbly: “Certainly not, sir, but the people are disappointed in it, for it fails to …”

“The queen has spoken,” Eyre thundered, as if the lower classes were pestering him the way flies pester a noble animal, “and the people have naught but to obey.”

“Hear! Hear!” cried Croome and the baron together, and the meeting ended.

But that did not terminate agitation in Jamaica, because six days later while Gordon was speaking in Kingston, his associate Bogle in St. Thomas-in-the-East led a frenzied uprising in which infuriated blacks, tired of waiting for their complaints to be heard, ran amok, slaughtering in the most brutal fashion eighteen whites, including officers of the queen, plantation owners, minor officials and, with special vengeance, their custos, Baron von Ketelhodt, whose body they mutilated, cutting off his fingers. These they circulated as souvenirs of their successful uprising, and some blacks, participating in the wild rioting, were heard to shout: “Now we do like Haiti!” and island-wide rebellion loomed.

The two protagonists in the Jamaican tragedy, Governor Eyre and Preacher Gordon, were indisputably in Kingston when the deadly riot broke out in St. Thomas-in-the-East, many miles away.

In this extremity, with his governorship being threatened by widespread massacre, Eyre behaved magnificently. Cool, decisive, looking always at the strategic situation, he gave few orders but always the right ones. At dusk on the afternoon when he received word of the rebellion, he said: “Of myself I cannot declare martial law. That must be done only by our Council of War,” and Croome, who was a member of that council, volunteered to spend the night assembling it, and, in anticipation of their decision, himself drafted the decree.

Alone with Croome and Pembroke, the governor asked Jason: “Did not your ancestor gain fame for having pacified the Maroons … a century ago?” Jason nodded. “And was it not he who pacified those at the eastern end of the island?” and again Jason agreed. Making an instant decision of great subsequent importance, Governor Eyre cried: “Pembroke, ride posthaste to the Maroons and implore them not to side with the niggers in this dreadful affair.” When Jason snapped: “Yes, sir!” Eyre urged: “Make any concessions. Offer them any inducements. But keep them from joining the rebellion.” That was his first use of that fearful word, and during the next four decades it would be one he would constantly employ when he justified his actions: “It was rebellion and I had to put it down.”

Before seven that morning Jason was riding hard to the perilous mountain area which his great-great-grandfather had penetrated under comparable conditions to try his hand at peacekeeping.

At eight the Council of War proclaimed martial law for the east, and as soon as this gave him the authority he required, Governor Eyre, accompanied by Oliver Croome, chartered a French packet ship to speed him along the coast to the troubled area, and at ten in the morning he was on his way. Intercepting another ship limping into Kingston crammed with refugees from the rebellion, he heard for the first time the gruesome details of what had happened in one of his most peaceful and prosperous parishes: “Church of England Reverend Herschell, tongue ripped out while still alive, hacked to death, black women tried to skin him. Member of Assembly Price, a black man, belly ripped open, guts pulled out while he still alive. Lieutenant Hall, him brave, pushed into privy, door locked, he burned alive. Eyes scooped out, heads smashed open, brains dripping. German baron, hacked to death but he fight them to the end.” Thanking the refugees for their horrifying reports, but sickened at hearing them, he told them to proceed to Kingston, while he headed for St. Thomas-in-the-East.

For three sleepless days Eyre prowled the coast, satisfying himself that the rebellion which had ravaged St. Thomas was not spreading to nearby parishes, and when he returned to the scene of the major uprising and saw that each morning the courts-martial were hanging dozens of black prisoners with never a one found innocent, he was able to tell Croome: “We’ve broken the back of the rebellion. You stay here with the troops and see that the pacification continues.” With that, he boarded the chartered French vessel and returned to Kingston, from where he immediately sent a report to London that he had contained the rebellion with a minimum loss of white lives and without having to throw all of Jamaica into convulsions by imposing martial law generally. When he finally fell into bed, he felt justified in believing that he had acted swiftly and in the great tradition of British colonial governors; indeed, he was so pleased with his behavior that he got out of bed and added a postscript to his report: “By stern and prompt action against the queen’s foes, I believe I have averted another Indian Mutiny or a Haiti-type uprising.”

Now Eyre vowed: I will find Gordon and take him to St. Thomas; but no one could inform him as to where the archcriminal was: My God! Has he fled the island? Has he escaped the wrath due him?

For two days Eyre fumed, telling his subordinates: “I must have that criminal! Find him! Find him!” But Gordon could not be found and Eyre could not sleep, for the vision of Preacher Gordon standing on a gallows with a rope around his neck tormented his hours. His frustration in not being able to haul the man to justice infuriated him, and he roared at his underlings: “Find that man. Track him down,” but not even spies among the black population knew where he was. Summoning the local custos, he stormed: “Sign a warrant for his arrest,” and this was done, but it accomplished nothing, so his anger continued to seethe.

Then suddenly, on the morning of the third day, George William Gordon, still looking like a contentious preacher, walked calmly into Kingston’s army headquarters and said quietly: “I think you may be looking for me. I am Reverend Gordon.”

The astonished officer called for his commander, who gasped, then rushed to Eyre’s office to inform him Gordon had been taken.

The ship Wolverine was scheduled to sail within the hour, but it was delayed because an agitated man with the highest credentials burst into Eyre’s office, dusty and near exhaustion, with the cry: “Oh, sir! You must not send him to St. Thomas. You really mustn’t!” and since the governor had to pay attention to this particular speaker, the delivery of Gordon to certain death was delayed.

On the morning almost a week before, when Jason Pembroke was commissioned to use his family’s honored name to prevent the wild Maroons from joining the rebellious blacks, he entered upon an adventure which seemed an evocation of some earlier century. After a determined ride he left the Kingston area and entered turbulent St. Thomas-in-the East, and as soon as he approached Monklands, the settlement farthest west, he saw signs of upheaval, and a white planter who recognized him shouted: “Go farther at your own peril!”

“Government business,” Jason shouted back as he headed resolutely for the Blue Mountains. They might not have been impressive in comparison with the Himalayas or Andes, but they were much higher than anything in Great Britain, reaching up at times to more than six thousand feet, deeply ravined and tree-covered. When he had traveled halfway to the east coast he turned his horse sharply to the north, up a rugged path containing a few slave shacks perched at lonely spots. Again he was warned, this time by blacks: “Here no more, massa! Yonder big trouble—Maroons.”

“It’s them I seek,” he cried back, whereupon the blacks said: “Not go, massa, soon you hear horns,” and not long after he passed the last shack in the ravine he was following, he heard that deep-throated mournful sound which terrified Jamaicans: the pulsating moan of three or four great horns sounded in unison, the lonely cry of the Maroons, those runaway slaves who had persisted in the mountains of Jamaica, living their own untrammeled lives for the past two hundred years. Laws did not affect them. Police never dared enter their mountain, and even well-trained army troops preferred not to engage these formidable warriors. No white man could even guess how they lived. Coming down from their mountain now and then to work for wages, tilling their fields and engaging in small-scale raids, but retreating quickly to their hidden lairs, they made do.

But in recent years it meant primarily trouble for other blacks, rarely for white men, because as happened repeatedly in other parts of the world, like Panamá and Brazil, in which renegade slaves fled to the jungle to gain their freedom, they saw other blacks as their major enemy, people never to be trusted. The Maroons had gained their greatest concessions from white men by serving as human bloodhounds—tracking, capturing and returning valuable runaway slaves—but they had also admitted slaves to their brotherhood, especially black women, to keep their own numbers strong.

They were redoubtable warriors who had been able to defend themselves for more than two centuries, keeping alive traditions inherited from Africa and posing a kind of mythic background to Jamaican life. They understood English but preferred their own indecipherable patois rich in African words, and they were extremely black in a way that made their visages terrifying to a white man. Not one white person in ten on the island had ever seen a Maroon, but everyone had been aware since childhood of their presence—“Be quiet or the Maroon will grab you”—and it was into the fastness of their hideaways that Pembroke now proposed to penetrate.

As he moved higher into the mountains he became aware that the Maroons had spotted him, for he heard first one mournful horn in the far distance, then another, but remembering his brave ancestor Sir Hugh, who had been the principal agent in pacifying the Maroons, he plunged ahead, hoping that he would be allowed at least one moment to identify himself to someone who would remember favorably the Pembroke name. It was risky and he knew it, so when the path grew steeper, as if in approach to where the Maroons had their remote dwellings, he dismounted and walked close to the right flank of his horse so as to protect himself from at least one side.

Then he began calling out: “Pembroke coming!” and repeating this at intervals while the sounding of the horns intensified.

These men were not savages from some jungle. They wore tattered trousers and torn shirts, and were clean-shaven. Pembroke, aware that what he did in these first moments might determine whether he lived or not, allowed them to take his horse, made no gesture that could be interpreted as unfriendly, and repeated over and over: “Pembroke your friend. Pembroke your friend.” The men, making nothing of this, looked at each other as if to ask: “What shall we do with this one? He seems brave.” They must have reached some unspoken decision, for one man led the horse forward while the other guarded Pembroke with his club as they started up the remaining portion of the climb.

Quickly they came to a village of sorts surrounded by small cleared fields, which their women tilled. The twenty-odd houses were little more than rude shacks, but a larger one in the center was sheathed in metal roofing and obviously housed the chief, an older black whose ancestors had fled to this mountain from the fields in 1657, two years after they had been landed as slaves by Sir William Penn, the British admiral who had captured the island from the Spanish. When the chief saw this white man coming toward him, his first inclination was to have him either slain for his impudence or thrown off the mountain, his horse being kept behind as a treasure, but Jason, hoping to prevent either of those misadventures, began talking swiftly, trusting that someone nearby would understand the force of what he was saying: “I am Pembroke. Same Pembroke who brought you peace, long ago.”

The words had a magical effect, for the Maroon leader caught his breath, came forward to inspect the visitor, and then embraced him: “We know Pembroke. Many years. Good man. Trusted man.” Extending his right hand, he said: “I am Colonel Seymour … in charge here.”

When Jason saluted as if the man were a real colonel, the latter called for a rough-hewn bench, placed it alongside his own, and invited Jason to join him. After some pleasantries, Jason broached the purpose of his visit: “Big trouble Morant Bay.”

“We know.”

“Former slaves killing and being killed.”

“Governor, big man, he send me to ask you not to join the rioting.”

“I know governor. Name Eyre. Pretty good man. What he promise us, we stay out?”

“Horses. Like that one. Maybe more bullets for your guns.”

After protracted dickering, the colonel astonished Jason by saying firmly: “We just about ready to march to Morant …”

“Oh no!” Paul pleaded, desperation almost checking his words. “If you join the rioters …”

“We not join them,” the colonel said. “We kill them.”

“No! No!” Jason pleaded. “Don’t kill them. Don’t kill the blacks. Don’t kill anybody.”

“Former slaves no good. They defeat you buckra, quick soon they go after us. We kill them first.” And no urgent plea that Jason could utter had any effect on the colonel, who had decided long before Jason’s arrival that the best interests of the Maroons would be served if they stormed into the troubled area and killed the black rioters.

With a speed that astonished Pembroke, Colonel Seymour signaled for the horns to resume blowing, and within minutes an expeditionary force consisting of some two hundred black men from various villages assembled, bringing with them a surprising number of good horses. Ordering the men who held Jason’s horse to return it to him, Colonel Seymour said: “You ride, too. Speak the officers what we do.” As Jason started for his horse, reluctant to participate in what might become a fearsome raid, he heard Seymour say: “Battle over, you can leave,” and he deemed it wise to go along.

“Seymour,” Jason cried as the murder continued in a second village the riders encountered, “no more killing!” But the colonel harshly ignored this plea: “Niggers no good. Kill all,” and he encouraged his Maroons to annihilate any blacks they came upon. Women and children were burned alive in their flaming shacks or shot as they tried to escape, and in this way the Maroons approached the principal town of Morant Bay.

There, fortunately, an army man, Colonel Hobbs, was in command, and he, anticipating the great confusion that would result if the Maroons were allowed into the town already beset by riots and hangings, had drawn his soldiers into a line to prevent the savage mountain men from entering. Undaunted, Colonel Seymour turned and led his marauders toward other rural areas where they could rampage at will. Pembroke, left behind and awed by the storm he had let loose and its fiery results in death and destruction, told Hobbs: “I came here on orders from the governor. To try to persuade the Maroons not to join the black rioters. I never dreamed they’d assassinate them.”

Hobbs waved his left hand as if dismissing the dead bodies: “Forget them. They’re rebellious niggers and there’ll be hundreds more dead before we get through.” Then he turned his horse northward and said: “Before you head back for Kingston you might like to see one of our courts-martial in operation,” and he led the way to an improvised grass-walled shack in which three very young army and navy officers were conducting that day’s trials.

A group of twenty-seven black men and two women stood shackled in one corner of the room guarded by armed sailors with dogs. The trial took exactly nine minutes, with the president of the court, an army man in his early twenties, asking: “What are the charges against these criminals?” Pembroke supposed that since Hobbs was senior officer present, he would object to this terribly pejorative implication that the accused were already criminals before the evidence was in. But then he discovered that there was to be no evidence. A white man told the court: “These were all involved in the rebellion.”

“Even the women?”

“Yes.”

In a sense those seven were lucky, for the improvised mode of hanging allowed for no sudden drop to break the neck. The men were hauled aloft, kicking and struggling and slowly strangling, until the sergeant shouted: “Pull those men’s legs!” and soldiers moved forward to lift the almost dead bodies slightly, then jerk them down with as much force as could be applied in that unsatisfactory way. Since this accomplished little, most of the men continued to strangle and gyrate on their ropes until the sergeant, in disgust, moved along the line shooting at them upward from the point of the chin through the head.

Pembroke was sickened by this brutality performed in the name of Governor Eyre and Queen Victoria, but it was what happened to the two women prisoners that made him realize the awful things a military court restrained by no law was capable of doing. The two women were stripped from the waist down, thrown on the ground with buttocks uncovered, and given twenty-five lashes each on the bare skin, not with an ordinary whip but with a cat-o’-nine-tails into which strong wires had been woven. The sailors given the task of whipping the women seemed to enjoy it, for they struck with such force that by the end of the fifth application of this almost deadly instrument, the flesh along the women’s backsides and legs was raw and bleeding. Young soldiers watching the beatings counted out the strokes in a chorus, and at the end of the first twenty-five lashes the beatings stopped, with the women almost unconscious from the pain.

But that was far from the end of their punishment, for after they were revived by water thrown in their faces, they were again thrown onto the ground and another twenty-five were applied with increasing vigor by the energetic sailors, who were applauded by the counting soldiers. Again Jason expected Hobbs to intervene, but the latter stood near the two women, a smile on his face, fists clenched, and counting as the blows fell.

When the fiftieth lash tore at the shredding skin, the beating stopped, and Jason felt impelled to protest: “Colonel Hobbs, stop this cruelty, please.”

When the hideous performance ended, with the flayed women unconscious beside the seven men who had been shot and below the dangling legs of the twenty who had been hanged, Pembroke wanted to flee, but as he prepared to ride back to Kingston, fifteen more accused were led into the shack where the same impartial court awaited them. At this moment, Hobbs said something which spurred Jason into precipitate action, regardless of the consequences: “Good news just in from Kingston. They’ve caught that bastard Gordon, and Governor Eyre is sending him over to us for trial.”

As soon as he heard this wretched news, Jason realized how improper it was, and wishing to dissociate himself from the murderous Hobbs, he quietly slipped away and galloped eastward, hoping to persuade Governor Eyre to countermand what he knew to be a misguided order.

By dint of forced riding on a horse already tired, Jason reached Eyre’s Kingston residence before the decision to ship Gordon to a St. Thomas court-martial had been put into effect, and breaking unannounced into Eyre’s office, he blurted out: “Governor, for the love of God and mercy, do not send George Gordon to a court-martial in St. Thomas-in-the-East. They’ve gone crazy over there.”

“They’re doing their duty,” Eyre said sternly, holding himself erect and speaking with controlled force. “Those who rebelled against the queen must pay the price.”

“But the court’s behavior is inhuman. Lashing women with wire bands in the cats.”

“Women are often the worst offenders. They should be hanged also.”

“Governor Eyre, I reached the Maroons. Kept them from joining the riots on the side of the blacks.”

“Sterling job, Jason. Dangerous, too.”

“The Maroons went on a rampage against the blacks. Killing, burning. Women and children.”

“But he was not in St. Thomas. He played no role in starting the riot.”

Governor Eyre was so infuriated by this defense of the man he was determined to hang that he almost dismissed Pembroke, but the young man’s gallantry in going alone into Maroon territory warranted approval, and Eyre had to bestow it: “You’ve behaved like a true Englishman, Pembroke. Duty called and you answered.”

“Now it’s my duty, Governor, to tell you one basic truth. Everything you’ve done so far, every action you’ve taken has been impeccable. Governorship at its best. The rioting has been brought under control. Island-wide disturbance has been avoided.”

“Thank you. I tried my best … against great difficulties, I must say. They all wanted me to declare martial law throughout the island.”

“Thank God, you didn’t. And now you must halt it where it does exist.”

Eyre could hardly bear to listen to such advice: “Gordon has done a terrible wrong in starting this rebellion. Punishment must continue as a lesson to rebels and he must bear his share.”

“But you can’t send him to St. Thomas. That’s judicial murder.”

“He must learn his lesson.”

With anguish in his voice, Pembroke begged: “Governor Eyre, all you’ve done so far bears the mark of greatness. But if you do this to Gordon, and keep the courts-martial operating, you run a terrible risk. You will be seen as having corrupted the channels of justice. England could well condemn you.”

“I don’t believe he ever did,” Pembroke said. “He merely protested the silly letter released in her name,” but Eyre insisted: “He spat upon her letter,” and when Jason again corrected: “Some foolish women did, not he,” Eyre snapped: “He encouraged it and must pay the penalty. Come, we’re sailing to St. Thomas today.”

“Governor, I must protest again. You do this at great risk to your reputation. All honest men, Governor, will see that your actions are illegal and colored by a desire for personal vengeance. For the sake of your honorable name, do not do this thing.”

Eyre could not be deterred. George Gordon, a frail bookish man in steel-rimmed glasses, was marched in handcuffs to the waiting Wolverine; Eyre came aboard attended by Pembroke, who still hoped to dissuade the governor from committing a hateful deed, and the fatal journey to St. Thomas-in-the-East began. But the short sea passage was like something from an ancient drama in which gods and nature conspired against an evil act, for a great storm arose, buffeting the ship for three days and nights and delaying Governor Eyre from delivering the preacher to the waiting court-martial. During this turbulence Pembroke had a last opportunity to talk with Gordon, who said with a surprising calmness: “I shall be hanged tomorrow, and Jamaica will never forget that day, for it will be murder.”

When the storm abated, the preacher was led ashore under a naval guard and marched through the streets to where the court was sitting, and as he went, soldiers and sailors, convinced of his guilt, hurled epithets at him, and some cried: “Here comes Parson Gordon on his way to be hanged,” while others shouted: “I’d love to give you a taste of the cat before you die, you traitor!” The mood was so savage that one reporter noted accurately: “Doubtless, if the blue jackets had been left to exercise their own will, he would have been torn to pieces alive.”

There was evidence: letters written to the court from persons elsewhere in the island who were not present to be cross-questioned. Several people said they were sure Gordon had been responsible for the rebellion, and very damaging evidence was brought forth that he had scorned The Queen’s Advice. The Morant Bay postmistress testified that since she always read whatever material came through her office in printed or open form, she could state positively that Gordon had mailed subversive literature, though what it was precisely she could not remember.

The young judge allowed Gordon to make a statement in his defense, but it contained only what the preacher had always said to Pembroke and others of his friends, that he wanted to help the citizens of Jamaica better their lot. The three judges paid little attention to his rambling and had no difficulty in finding him guilty, or in sentencing him to be hanged.

The trial was held on Saturday afternoon, and because the officer who would carry out the sentence felt it might be improper to hang a clergyman on a Sunday, the execution was deferred till Monday morning. It rained Sunday night, and on Monday heavy clouds, fringed by the sun which hid behind them, darkened the stone archway from which the rope was suspended. The preacher stood on a wooden plank, totally pinioned lest he try to escape, and when that plank was suddenly withdrawn he plunged to his slow, strangling death. Governor Eyre had been avenged for the insults he imagined that Gordon had heaped upon him.

But Jason’s analysis was flawed, for the real horror of martial law had not yet shown its cruel face. The Maroons, considering themselves free to loot and burn, shot nearly two hundred blacks, rejoicing as if engaged in a jolly hunting party. Colonel Hobbs’ men specialized in shooting any blacks they saw on remote hillsides, competing among themselves as to who could kill at the greatest distance. When Jason protested these barbarities, Hobbs showed him the letter from the island headquarters under which he served:

That, of course, was license for extermination, and Hobbs discharged his assignment with exuberance, finding special delight in hanging men or lashing women if it was said of them: “That one scorned the queen.” He could not tolerate the thought that a black had cast aspersions on the queen, and his eyes glazed over when Jason argued: “Hobbs, can’t you see that their protest was not disrespect for the queen?”

“How could that be?”

“They were unwilling to believe that she could have dismissed them so coldly, for they love her.” Hobbs, eyes still glazed, rasped: “You heard. They laughed at her Advice. Hang them.”

Jason could never anticipate what Hobbs might do next. Once along a distant road they came upon a black man who could have had no connection with the rioting, but when Hobbs heard that the man’s name was Arthur Wellington and he was reputed to be an obeah man, a sorcerer, he fell into a maniacal rage: “How dare a nigger take the name of a great man like the duke! How dare he claim to have strange powers! I’ll teach him!” and he had Wellington tethered to a tree on the far side of a gully. Then, ordering all blacks from nearby to watch, he had his men line up and fire from a distance of more than four hundred yards. Several of the bullets struck the tethered man, killing him, whereupon Hobbs shouted to the watchers: “What mystical powers does he have now?” and they were impressed with the superiority of the white man’s gun over the black man’s powers.

Pembroke, revolted by such excess, begged Hobbs to halt the killing, but the honored veteran of the Crimea, a man of proved valor, seemed to have turned into a frenzied savage, for all he would respond was: “It’s like India … colored men rising against white. And it cannot be permitted.”

While Pembroke was going through the agony of seeing Englishmen run wild, his cousin Oliver was having a much different reaction to martial law. He was serving as second-in-command to a certified military hero, Gordon Dewberry Ramsay, who had galloped in the lead during the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava and won England’s highest honor for doing so, the Victoria Cross. He served in Jamaica as a police inspector, and because he was a hearty type, Croome worked well with him, assisting in the floggings, the shootings and the hangings. Like Ramsay, he believed that the honor of the white man had been traduced by the blacks, that Baptists had scorned the established church, and that almost every black had insulted the queen. Under those circumstances, mercy was unwarranted and almost any punishment that Ramsay meted out was justified.

Ramsay, carrying a small stick like a baton, would march through a village and peremptorily order his men: “Give that one a dozen,” whereupon the metaled cat would be applied on the spot. Several times he growled: “That one looks a bad lot. Give him a score,” and the man would be thrashed.

On one occasion he was watching the application of fifty lashes to a thin black man who had given no offense, when at the forty-seventh blow the man grimaced from the unbearable pain. In a rage Ramsay shouted: “That man bared his teeth at me. Take him down and hang him.”

Jason Pembroke, having witnessed Hobbs behaving no better, had at least questioned his mental stability, but Oliver Croome saw nothing wrong with what Ramsay was doing, and even helped him rampage through St. Thomas dispensing blind revenge. Once as the pair watched a black woman receiving a hundred strokes of the cat, Ramsay said: “She was heard by three different people to speak ill of The Queen’s Advice,” and Croome said: “You do well to halt such treason.”

An admiring newspaperman who traveled for some days with Ramsay and Croome wrote:

Of the routine hangings, Hobbs and Ramsay accounted for about two hundred.

On the last day of October 1865, Governor Eyre, a humane man at heart and unaware of the terrible havoc Hobbs and Ramsay had been creating, ended martial law except for those already under arrest, and what was more important, granted a general amnesty. Then, to demonstrate what a perceptive political leader he was, on 8 November he persuaded the inept Legislative Assembly, which had proved itself powerless to halt the rebellion, to abolish itself, thus terminating self-rule in Jamaica and reinstituting it as a Crown Colony to be governed by edict from London.

It was remarkable that grisly events in a remote corner of an island in the Caribbean should have disrupted the headquarters of empire, but Jamaica was no ordinary colony. For two centuries it had been a source not only of sugar fortunes but also of political power. Selfish laws bulled through by its members of Parliament had been a prime cause of the American Revolution, so that what happened on its great plantations had always been a matter of concern in London.

But there was another group of British leaders, more sober and less sentimental, who deplored Eyre’s behavior on a distant island far from the scrutiny of Parliament, and again some of the greatest names rallied to this version of the cause: Charles Darwin, the geneticist; Herbert Spencer, the moral philosopher; Thomas Huxley, the scientist; John Bright, the powerful Quaker reformer; and again above all, John Stuart Mill, perhaps the wisest and most brilliant man in the world at that time. These men, always brooding about the problems of right and wrong, believed that for Great Britain to condone Governor Eyre’s frenzied behavior in the remote parish of St. Thomas-in-the-East was to imperil the security of the empire, and they were determined that he be brought before the bar of justice to give an account of himself. They interpreted his cruelty against blacks as a frightening throwback to the days of slavery, a last-gasp attempt of wealthy landowners to protect their interests, and an affront to all decent Christians and lovers of liberty.

Neither side was noted for restraint or its willingness to accept compromise.

The field was set for a fierce battle between two groups of men who evaluated the future in drastically different ways. The writers wanted to recapture the glories of the past or at least hold on to what remnants still existed throughout the empire; the scientists hoped to get on with building a new and better world. The writers put loyalty to the crown above everything; the scientists, loyalty to reason and inevitable development. The writers were committed to the defense of the white man in his benevolent rule over others; the scientists, to that fraternity of peoples which alone, they believed, could build the future. And in a curious way, each group was ardently loyal to the concept of British Empire, the writers holding that it could be preserved only by the bold actions of governors like Eyre, the scientists arguing that a few more governors like him would destroy any chance of keeping it together.

People in all corners of the British Isles found themselves either supporting Eyre or condemning him, but there was also another topic of singular importance agitating the public. Britain in these years was struggling to pass a Reform Bill which would, at long last, award the smaller cities their proper share of the vote, which meant taking parliamentary seats from Conservative rural areas and turning them over to Liberal urban ones. Leaders of the anti-Eyre group, Mill and Bright in particular, were vigorous advocates of this reform, while pro-Eyre men were against it. However, attention at the moment focused not on Parliament but on what had happened in St. Thomasin-the-East, and as in the 1760s when Jamaican planters dominated British politics, the descendants of those men now played an important role in British history.

On a sunny day in early 1866, a ruddy-faced Oliver Croome left the mansion in London’s Cavendish Square which his sugar-rich ancestors had erected when they bought their seats in Parliament, and he was astonished to see coming from the Pembroke mansion on the opposite side of the square his cousin, the bearded, able Jason. Rushing over to him, Oliver cried with delight: “Jason! What brings you here?” and under the trees the two men who had worked so long and so well together revealed the surprising developments that had brought them by different paths to London.

Jason bowed his head, looked at his knuckles, and said quietly: “Sorry to tell you, Oliver, but the men who’re determined to drag Eyre into court asked me to come help them. Miserable business.”

To hide his shock, Oliver asked: “Didja bring your wife with you from Jamaica?”

“No, Beth said she’d heard enough of Eyre and his problems.”

“Nell didn’t want to come for the same reason,” and Jason consoled his fellow bachelor: “We won’t be here long.”

Oliver generously proposed that his cousin stay with him: “Save time and trouble.” But Jason had a good excuse for not accepting: “Mill has cramped rooms and likes to hold the meetings of our committee in my quarters. There is ample space,” and the two parted, vowing not to let the Eyre business affect their personal relationship. Croome, from his side of the square, watched as the moral giants opposed to Eyre assembled in the Pembroke mansion, and thought: What an ugly group of self-righteous men, not a smile in the lot.

In any group of which John Stuart Mill was a member, he was the automatic chairman to whom others deferred, an icy intellect, a man carved from marble. On this day he was tardy, and in his absence John Bright sat with Jason between the two mammoth statues which had graced this room since the 1760s: Venus Resisting the Advances of Mars and Victory Rewarding Heroism. At first Bright sat facing the Venus, but her voluptuous curves so disturbed his Quaker austerity that he said: “Better, I think, if I exchange chairs with thee, Jason,” but now he faced a blatant glorification of heroism, and this too he found intolerable: “Reminds one of Carlyle’s nonsense, heroes and all that. Let us sit over here,” and having found escape from the oppressive statues, he asked: “I suppose thee knows, Pembroke, that our Mill is a prodigious man?”

“I’ve seen he commands attention.”

“But has thee heard of his schooling?” When Jason shook his head, Bright said with obvious enthusiasm and envy: “Never was he allowed to attend a day of school or university.”

“Why not?”

“And it didn’t turn him sour?”

“The contrary. His father wouldn’t allow that. Took him on holiday journeys, gave him joyous books to read, introduced him to men of substance, anything to forge him into a man of learning and judgment. In my efforts for others, I’ve known many of the fine men of this world, and the best rate four to his ten. I myself rate three.”

“What impressed me,” Jason said, “was that when he learned I was from Jamaica, he hurried forward, sat me down beside him, and said, staring at me: ‘What we desperately need is the truth. They tell me you were there, in all parts. What happened? Not what you heard, only what you saw.’ ”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said that the official report said that four hundred and thirty-nine people had been murdered, six hundred had been whipped, and a thousand homes had been burnt. He asked: ‘But what really happened?’ and I said: ‘I saw at least six hundred dead, many killed in far corners by Maroons, bodies that could never be counted. I myself saw more than three hundred whipped, about half of them women. And since I passed at least a thousand destroyed houses, the real number must be twice that.’ ”

“And what did he say?”

“He put his hands to his head for some moments, then looked at me and said in that grave voice: ‘Terrible carnage. Terrible wrong.’ ”

Now Mill came into the room like a cold, clear moon rising suddenly in autumn. Seeing Bright, he hastened to him: “Good friend, we’ve taken one step forward in the Eyre matter. We’ve forced the courts to issue warrants of murder against two of the officers who conducted those infamous courts-martial.” This brought cheers from the others, except Bright, who pointed out the nagging fact: “But Eyre himself still escapes us, does he not?”

Cries of Hear! Hear! greeted this reaffirmation of war, and Jason thought: How much he sounds like Eyre hounding Gordon. But then Mill began to speak in a more gentle voice, and for the first time Pembroke had a chance to hear this sixty-year-old oracle expound the wisdom for which he was famous. Totally bald and clean-shaven except for sideburns that framed his chiseled Roman face, he spoke deliberately as if calculating the precise weight of each word: “I have been much impressed by the reflections of a German scientist versed in the workings of the human mind, and he has led me to speculate on the error which trapped Eyre into persecuting Gordon, ignoring law and propriety and the tenets of military justice. The professor coined a new word for this affliction, monomania, built of two fine Greek words: mono, meaning alone or one, and mania, which of course is madness. Eyre is a classic example of the aberration. He was driven by one compulsion: vengeance on Gordon, and when we prove that in court, he … is … doomed.”

“Can we lure him out of Market Drayton?” Bright asked, and Mill said: “If not, we shall carry our fight to him there, in his courtyard,” to which Bright, a veteran brawler in the rugged alleyways of public opinion, warned: “The rustic justices of Market Drayton will not be much concerned about what happened in Jamaica, but they’ll be most concerned about our hectoring a decent man who was trying only to do his duty.”

In some perplexity Jason listened as these bulldogs of justice ended the meeting. He, like Mill, was determined to see Eyre chastised publicly lest this man of flawed character become a national hero, but he wanted to go only so far. He was willing to throw words at the man but not legal sanctions, and this confusion led him to reflect: When Oliver and I came to London, it was for five or six months at most. The other day I heard a lawyer say that if a trial is held, it might take three years. I must have Beth by my side.”

Upon consulting with Croome, he found him of like mind, so they dispatched urgent notes to Jamaica: “Please hurry up to London. We need you,” and when the women arrived to take charge of the mansions, Cavendish Square resembled the old days when the families spent nine months of each year in London.

The closeness of the two wives encouraged Croome to believe that he had a chance of weaning his cousin away from the Mill madness and over to the side of responsible patriots defending Eyre: “You simply must meet our men, Jason. They’re the backbone of Britain, and right now I’m taking you to see the best of the bunch, Thomas Carlyle. He’ll straighten you out.”

Jason said: “It might be improper for me to meet him under false colors, as it were. I am against Eyre, you know,” and Oliver said: “You won’t be after today,” and Jason went with him, for he did want to see this formidable man whose writings recommending that slavery be reestablished had so astounded him, and who now fought so stubbornly to defend Eyre. They drove to a modest house in London where a man of smallish height greeted them in the very heavy Scottish tweed suit he preferred, his head of thick hair trimmed just above his eyebrows, his graying beard and mustache somewhat unkempt, but his deep-set eyes flashing with that intelligence which amazed his readers.

Recognizing Croome as one of his adherents in the Eyre case, Carlyle extended his hand, then asked: “Is this young man also one of us?” and Croome lied: “He is. And I brought him to fortify his commitment.” At this, Carlyle invited them to join him in his study; as he led the way, they passed Mrs. Carlyle, who without any introduction said almost casually: “So you’re the men who are going to protect dear Governor Eyre from the niggers?”

“Yes,” Croome said eagerly, and she said: “Fight the good fight, young men. Evil spirits are afoot.”

When the three were comfortably seated, Carlyle gave an animated account of his recent efforts on behalf of Eyre, ending with the exciting news: “The Earl of Cardigan, hero of Charge of the Light Brigade—excellent poem that, by our friend Tennyson—has come over to our side. Gallant fellow, the public loves him and will listen.”

As Carlyle ticked off the charges being made by John Stuart Mill and his committee, whom he termed “lunatic” and “corrupt,” he became fiery in his denunciation: “They seem not to realize it! They’re threatening the very existence of the empire, all the good work our men have done in civilizing the savages, all to protect lazy Quashee so he can eat more pumpkins.”

Then, before either of his visitors could interrupt, he proceeded to lecture them on the realities of Britain’s position: “All sensible men during the troubled years just past supported the Southern side in the American rebellion, for it represented stability and strength of character. Those not concerned about the ultimate freedom of their nation or mankind favored the North. Same factors operate in the Eyre case. All who love decency and moral force defend Eyre. Those who care not for the continuity of empire attack him.” Jason was eager to challenge this, but the dour Scotsman thundered on, his beard almost sparking with the fire his words carried: “And mind you this, young men. Trouble’s brewing in Europe, and if the sad day ever comes when Britain aligns herself with France against Germany, the empire is doomed.”

“Why?” Jason asked, and Carlyle snapped his reply: “Because Germany represents manly behavior, the highest aspirations of nationhood, France the pusillanimous female meanderings.”

“Then why is France a nation and Germany not?”

“Pitiful leadership. But with our strong men coming onto the scene, real heroes in the ancient sense of that word, Germany will reign supreme on the Continent, and we must support her and ally with her.” He also gave it as his opinion that it would not be until well into the next century that any country in Europe would have to take the United States seriously: “They lack strong men. Lincoln was a disaster.”

“How will you defend him against the charge that he sanctioned brutality?” Jason asked, and Carlyle glowered at him, an intense man afire with righteousness: “In the long run of history and in the defense of human progress, young man, do not brood sentimentally over the fate of Quashee and a few of his pumpkin-eating friends. We are fighting for salvation, Eyre was fighting for it too, the salvation of the human race. Quashee has nothing to do with that, he will never make any contribution to it. Eyre contributed a great deal in pacifying Jamaica. Forget Quashee. Defend Eyre.”

When his voice rose, reiterating his tirade against Quashee, Croome broke into applause: “Sir, you make the truth so explicit!” but Jason thought: What was that word Mill used to define blind rage? Monomania? Isn’t Carlyle an example of it too?

On the ride home Croome misinterpreted his cousin’s perplexed silence as proof that Carlyle’s forceful logic had changed Jason’s view of Eyre, and he believed that if his cousin would now experience the persuasive power of the governor’s principal defender, Alfred Tennyson, he would be converted. To that end he directed his driver to stop by the house in which the great poet was staying during meetings of the Eyre committee, and there he scratched a note on the back of an envelope, asking the butler at the door if it might be delivered to Mr. Tennyson.

“Highly irregular,” the man said stiffly, but Croome persisted: “We’re members of his committee, you know.” The man closed the door in their faces, but not before saying: “I’ll ask.” And in this way the two cousins from Jamaica worked their way in to see the most famous poet of his time.

They found him a tall, languid man dressed in formal black, with a heavy beard that covered most of his face, a very high forehead leading almost to baldness except that what hair he had was kept very long, almost obscuring his proper white collar. But his distinguishing mark was one which visitors never forgot, an unusually strong nose framed between a pair of deep-set eyes that seemed anguished and saddened by their view of the world. In every outward aspect, he was a poet in the grand visual tradition of Byron, Shelley and especially Keats.

“You may remember me,” Croome said. “On your committee. Very strong for Governor Eyre.”

“No need to remind me, because I remember well in the last century the important role played in this city and in Parliament by your ancestor, gruff old Pentheny Croome.” Then, turning gently toward Jason, he asked: “And would I be wrong in presuming that this young man’s name is Pembroke? Two Peas in a Pod they were called in the old days.”

“How could you know that?” Jason asked in amazement, and Tennyson replied: “I know much about the old days … the gallant fighters for what side was right … ancestors of those who are fighting the good fight today.” He said this in a rather high, wavering voice.

Inviting them to sit, he called for tea, and as it was being served, he pointed to one cup that had been left empty: “Fortunate you came when you did. The Earl of Cardigan is stopping by, and you must meet him, the great hero of the charge at Balaklava, a veritable lion in defense of Eyre,” and with the utterance of that name his voice lowered, became more grave and sharpened.

“We have much work to do, gentlemen. John Stuart Mill and his scientists are mounting a formidable assault on the splendid man we must defend,” but holding his principal comments until Cardigan arrived, he turned to Jason and asked: “In Jamaica, did you get a good supply of books?”

“Oh yes! I remember so well that exciting day when the first copy of Locksley Hall arrived. I must have been no more than fourteen and Mother thought it too complex for me, but I read it anyway, and tears came when I realized that he was not going to win the girl he loved.”

“It is good to know tears when you are very young and trying to sort out the world, and also when you’re very old and realize what you’ve missed. But no tears in the middle years. Then there’s work to be done, and a man must be a man.”

“When I was older I became fascinated by one of your most powerful lines: ‘Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.’ ”

“You have a good ear. That was effective, because it makes an important point with clarity, yet in simple words that can be easily comprehended.”

“See! Life imitates art. The problem arises in every generation, where to apply one’s talents.”

“But did you honestly mean that fifty years in Luxembourg, say, was better than a thousand years in China and Japan?”

“Unfair! Unfair! I never mentioned Luxembourg, which I’m sure is an attractive place. But are fifty years in the Europe of Paris, Berlin, Rome and London more meaningful to the human race than a cycle of China and Japan? Yes, a thousand times yes, because the great work of the world has been performed here, the worthy ideas hammered out, and very little of significance has been contributed by Asia.” He said this with great firmness, then added: “Of course, in the future, as exchange between various parts of the world improves, we may expect this to change. Even India, under our tutelage, will undoubtedly develop the capacity to make contributions, but for the present I will stand by the line you find troublesome.”

This speculation ended when the butler announced the arrival of one of the flamboyant men of the age, the resplendent Earl of Cardigan, a lean, handsome man, approaching seventy but with a sure step, a head of gold-streaked white hair, dramatic sideburns, clean dimpled chin and a gargantuan mustache, heavy over the lip, majestic in its extended waxed tips that reached parallel to his ears. Wearing a neat, simple uniform decorated with only three of the two dozen medals he was entitled to show, and with a heavy leather belt encasing his slim waist, he was a fighting man to be admired, and he knew it.

Tennyson spoke first: “Ah, Cardigan, our strong right arm. These are two of our young friends from Jamaica. They know full details of the Eyre business and have come to help us protect our hero.”

Cardigan, sitting primly with teacup balanced easily in his left hand, said in the mumbling, harrumphing manner he affected for dealing with the junior officers in the regiment whose colonelcy he had bought, and on which he spent a reputed ten thousand a year of his own money: “Damned poor business, hauling a governor up like this. He should have shot not four hundred of the black buggers but four thousand. Man is sent out to the ends of the world to govern, he’s supposed to govern.”

“Gallant crew, I’ve heard. Where did they so lose their courage that they allowed their splendid governor to be so abused?”

Jason broke in with: “How does it feel, milord, to be the hero of a poem that everyone in the world is quoting, and with such admiration for both the poet and his subject?”

Cardigan, approving of both the idea and the gracious manner in which it was expressed, nodded first to Tennyson, then to Pembroke, and mumbled through his elegant mustache: “Man gives an artist something to work with, and if he’s a genius, he does something with it, eh, Tennyson?” and he slapped the poet on the knee. Tennyson nodded.

“Are we making headway against those who would tear down the empire?” Cardigan asked, and Tennyson told the aging warrior: “We have thousands of men like these who agree with me. We’ll give our lives rather than see Eyre abused, for we know we’re fighting for the soul and future of England.”

“Hear, hear!” Cardigan cried, banging his saucer and its cup on the table. “Day’s past for allowing atheists like Mill and that Quaker Bright and Darwin, damn his heretical mind, to corrupt our government abroad. Damn me, you’d think we’d learn something from the Indian Mutiny—allow the little black ones to make one move on their own, they want to govern the world. You stop that nonsense with force, force I say,” and all the teacups except Pembroke’s rattled from the banging.

Then Tennyson spoke in a quieter tone: “His Lordship is correct. We cannot allow the lesser classes to dictate to those designated to govern. That way lies chaos. We must retain that hallowed discipline that allowed Cardigan here to lead his men into the mouths of the Russian guns, and encouraged his men to follow. When that spirit of nobility is lost in the world, the world is lost.”

“What one must do, all nations, all times,” Cardigan said, “is give manly men duties to do and support ’em when they do ’em. Eyre will not be persecuted so long as I have a right arm to defend him.”

More gravely, Tennyson said: “Not fighting fire with fire, Cardigan. Fighting unreason with reason, an appeal to the everlasting qualities of patriotism, loyalty, love of queen. A return to the faith that made us great in the first place.”

“We must not move too fast,” Tennyson said. “Do nothing that might raise questions or ridicule. In private life Eyre is, after all, barely qualified to call himself a gentleman. An earldom? No, too soon. It would divert attention. Our task is to put out fires.”

The rest of the afternoon was spent in devising strategies that would keep Governor Eyre out of the courts and out of jail, and in the discussion, Jason noted, the driving force was Tennyson, this almost effeminate poet who showed repeatedly, at difficult points, a courage to make decisions and the valor to execute them. “He sees himself,” said Pembroke to his cousin, “as one of his embattled knights in one of his ancient lays. One goal, one path of honor, one right arm to strike the blow for justice. He will be formidable, and he will save Governor Eyre.”

His chance meeting with Carlyle and Tennyson so disoriented Jason that on the drive back to Cavendish Square he listened attentively as Oliver tried to persuade him to abandon his allegiance to the men trying to persecute Eyre and join the vast majority of patriots who were defending him: “Jason, Eyre’s one of us. He represents all that’s good in England, all that’s safe and proper—our church … our queen … How can you turn your back on everything the Pembrokes have stood for through the centuries? Eyre represents us, he defends us against the hordes … and we must rally round.”

The hammering continued without respite, forcing Jason to question the propriety of heckling a man whom so many sensible people considered a wronged governor and a brave one. In an effort to defend himself he asked: “But the brutality during martial law? You saw Ramsay. I was with Hobbs. Those men, supposed to be officers, behaved like beasts.”

“Jason! It was war. Black brutes against all we held dear. I saw no excess. Harsh punishment for evil acts, nothing more.”

“You lack judgment if you saw no excess in Ramsay’s behavior.”

“But even if I grant that, it in no way touches the governor. He was not there. He did not condone their behavior. And certainly he did not order it.”

“No! No! And he did terminate martial law as soon as possible. He stands guiltless, and you must call off your dogs.”

They had reached Cavendish Square when Oliver made these final strong points, all of which Jason had to concede, and for some time they stood in the grassy area between their two houses while Oliver nailed down his persuasive reasoning: “A few blacks were killed after having murdered the queen’s representatives. That and nothing more. Tomorrow you must go with me to Tennyson and inform him that you’re joining his crusade to save an innocent man.”

Bewildered, Jason crossed to his mansion where the gargantuan statues writhed in their marble agonies, and he sat in considerable confusion between them, knowing on the one hand that Governor Eyre had been morally responsible for a terrible chain of crimes, but knowing also that Oliver was right: Eyre had not ordered Hobbs and Ramsay to do the dreadful things they did, nor had he been present when they were carried out. “No court will convict him,” he said to Mars and Venus. “Our effort to punish him is doomed.”

This conclusion so distressed him that he left the mansion, whistled for a carriage, rode posthaste to the modest house where John Stuart Mill kept his headquarters during the battle for men’s minds, and there blurted out his apprehensions: “Eyre cannot be held technically responsible for something he did not order or personally supervise. I do fear our effort will be fruitless.”

The powerful intellect behaved as always when a problem was placed before it, pausing and evaluating relevant facts. Then the man with the placid face and endless brow asked quietly: “Now, friend Jason, what experience inspired this defeating conclusion?” and he listened intently as Pembroke described his discussions with Carlyle, Tennyson, the Earl of Cardigan and his cousin Oliver Croome.

“But Tennyson was persuasive. You can’t charge that immortal poet with playing the brute.”

“A hundred years from now, Jason, Tennyson will be uncovered for what he is, a doddering old fellow in bedroom slippers who played the sycophant to anyone higher on the social scale than himself. His immortal poetry, as you call it, will be laughed at by those who know what real poetry is, the cry of a human heart. My father recommended that poets be barred from society because they made untruth and irrelevance palatable, deceiving the public with their wit and lack of brains. Tennyson with his sugary confections best exemplifies what my father despised. Do not take him as your moral guide in this troubled year when so much is coming to decision.”

“The Earl of Cardigan said about the same as Tennyson—Eyre is to be commended, not condemned.”

Upon hearing this dubious hero cited as an authority of anything, Mill leaned back, turned his face upward, closed his eyes and reflected for some moments: “How can I phrase this so as to do justice to the truth and to the present debate. I’ll try.” Opening his eyes, he twisted his head so as to face Pembroke, and said quietly: “Cardigan is an ass. And far from being a hero at Balaklava, he proved he was an ass, sacrificing his Light Brigade in his stupidity. And he is the perfect example of Carlyle’s nonsense about heroes and hero worship. Heroes are usually counterfeit in their creation and preposterous in the adoration they receive, none more so than Cardigan.”

“But he did lead his men personally, none braver than he, Tennyson said so.”

“Jason, I shall give you Cardigan in a few sentences. Incredibly stupid in school. Was able to join a regiment only because he paid his way in. Bought the colonelcy, no military talent whatever. Ruled his officers like an insane tyrant, so wretched that most quit and one of his own men with spirit dueled the old fool in an effort to kill him. At Balaklava he and his equally stupid brother-in-law the Earl of Lucan got their orders from that classic incompetent Lord Raglan … all mixed up, and disaster followed. The three should have been court-martialed and shot; instead, a silly poem makes the worst offender a hero. Jason, I pray you, do not look to a ninny like Cardigan for guidance.”

“Charles Kingsley wants to have the queen create Eyre an earl? You really don’t want me to comment on him, do you? I believe even Carlyle and Tennyson have begged him to remain mute, and not a moment too soon.”

“Surely, Dickens …”

“A master storyteller whom time will not treat kindly. Can tug at the heartstrings, but no brain at all.” He brought his fingertips to his lower lip, bowed his head in dismay, and then looked up with a rueful smile: “Our nation is not under good leadership these days.” When Jason said nothing, Mill added, his voice growing ever more determined: “But we fight on many battlegrounds, Jason, and we lose individual skirmishes here and there, but in the long run we win the war. Our fight to bring Eyre to justice is a struggle we may lose, but in doing so, we shall educate the people in the greater questions of social justice, and it is our war for the reform of Parliament that we shall win. Great Britain will be a finer place when you and I are through.”

“Then you’re surrendering in the Governor Eyre case?”

The answer to this penetrating question came in a curious way, not in words but in actions, for a messenger from the rest of the Jamaica Committee broke in with startling news: “The magistrates of Market Drayton have refused to indict Governor Eyre! He goes free!”

Mill did not rise from his chair, nor did he speak until he had rung for a servant, who received instructions: “I think you had better speed about and assemble the others,” and on that night of defeat, with Bright at his elbow and powerful men like Huxley and Darwin in support, Mill revealed his daring strategy: “English law allows any citizen who has been outraged by the refusal of ordinary channels to deal with an obnoxious case, especially where murder is concerned, to bring his own charges, which the courts must adjudge. Tomorrow I shall lodge a formal accusation of murder against Governor Eyre, and I shall take Jason Pembroke with me to establish a Jamaica connection.”

Some of the members considered this so radical a move, and so likely to fail, that they dissociated themselves from the attempt, but the icy determination of Mill kept Jason and others in line, and early next morning Mill and he reported to legal authorities and took the first steps toward entering a charge of murder against the governor, thus throwing all of thoughtful Britain into a great debate.

One night, as Jason walked slowly back to Cavendish Square, he thought: I’ve watched three fine men trapped in the toils of their monomanias the way a peccary in some South American jungle is encoiled by a python. Eyre was so determined to punish Gordon that his judgment was affected. Carlyle is driven almost insane by his desire to establish Eyre as a hero and to protect him against all charges. And Mill, in his cold way, sees himself as an avenging angel … Then Jason broke into a laugh: And the Church of England zealots see the whole affair as proper punishment for the Baptist nonconformists. A crazy world.

But it was not until he reached his door and turned to look at the other Jamaican mansion facing his that he appreciated how painfully this affair had separated the families: There’s Oliver and Nell in their lonely hall, there’s Beth and me in ours, and that’s insupportable. And despite the late hour, he determined to have a talk with his cousin. Quickly he went across the square and banged on Oliver’s door until a light showed, and when the butler asked in sleepy tones: “What’s this?” he brushed his way in and ran up the stairs. He found Oliver and Nell in their bedroom, exhausted by hours of rushing about London, drumming up support for Eyre.

“Jason!” Oliver said, startled at this sudden appearance. “What brings you here?”

“My committee is haling Governor Eyre into court … Charge? Murder.”

“Oh my God!” Like a tense spring uncoiling, Oliver was out of bed. “This is terrible. Are your people out of their minds? Can’t they see that all England is against them?”

“Mill says that doesn’t signify. He’s out to establish a principle.”

“Let him write a book, not destroy a good man.” Gripping his cousin by the arm, he said with great fervor: “And he is a good man, Jason, misguided in details perhaps, but damned good.”

“You shall tell him,” and calling to Nell to bring him his trousers, he joined his cousin in the square, then waited while Jason ran to inform Beth that he would be away for a bit longer.

“Doing what?” she pleaded, and he kissed her: “I’ve a job to do. An error to correct,” and he hurried to the cab which his cousin had waiting. Through the London night they sped to the modest house into which Eyre had moved from his sanctuary in Market Drayton. There they wakened him, and in his nightclothes he sat with them and listened quietly as Jason spoke: “I’ve supported Mill and his men because, as I warned you in Kingston, I felt you were persecuting poor Gordon for solely personal reasons. Many have abused you for that. But I cannot stand by and see a loyal public servant charged with murder because of atrocities committed by his half-crazed subordinates when he was in no way involved.”

The gaunt hero of Australian exploration, in only his early fifties but his life already ruined, nodded deferentially to the young man who had in recent years been his enemy. His hair was still a solid black, but his copious beard now showed flecks of white and his once-fierce eyes had lost their ardor: “Thank you, Pembroke, for your gentlemanly support. I shall stand trial and testify as to my motives. But I assure you of this. I have never wavered in my belief that the English people and their splendid courts of law will in the end vindicate me as a civil servant who faced a cruel crisis and handled it as best he could. Do I repent the cruelties that others perpetrated during my proclamation of martial law? Of course. But do I repent of anything I myself did to save Jamaica for the empire? Never. Never.” Thanking Croome for having brought him the news, he nodded gravely to Pembroke and went off to bed.

When Jason hurried to Mill’s quarters to report the news, he saw the great leader at his best and worst. When Mill learned that he had lost again, he showed neither rage nor passive disappointment: “The courts have spoken and all must abide.” But then, his brow darkening and his fists clenching: “Those courts have spoken. But there are other courts, and to them we shall drag him.”

“Oh, sir! You’re not going to go through this again?”

“I have determined that Eyre shall be punished, humiliated in public for the great wrong he did to the concept of just colonial government,” and like a dog gnawing at a bone, he immediately started proceedings to have Eyre hauled into another court, in another jurisdiction to face a completely new set of charges. Reluctantly, the court ordered Eyre to stand trial once again, this time for high crimes and misdemeanors. A date was set to begin, 2 June 1868, almost three years after the riots and the courts-martial, but an impassioned defense lawyer asked members of the preliminary grand jury to “put yourselves in Eyre’s place,” and consider what steps a man facing a wild rebellion might do to save his island, his empire and the honor of his queen. Public observers in the courtroom cheered, and early next morning the jury announced that all charges were dismissed. At long last Eyre was really a free man, and at the next election John Stuart Mill would be thrown out of Parliament.

Jason, confused by what he had witnessed in the past three years, asked: “Professor Mill, about that interesting word you used. Do you think your hounding of Governor Eyre was an example of monomania?”

Mill, appreciating the acuity of the question, allowed a smile to touch his icy countenance and said: “When the other fellow does it, we call it monomania. When I do it, we describe it as unwavering adherence to principle.”

As he rose to go, he brought his stick down on one of the huge statues and said gruffly: “Get that monstrosity out of your home, Jason. Leave such outmoded images to Tennyson and Carlyle.”

Jason took his advice. On his last day in London he arranged for stone-cutters to segment the statues, haul them out of the mansion, and reassemble them in a park attached to a zoo.

The final word on these hectic events was one which, had it been anticipated, might have saved Jamaica its travail and Great Britain the bitterness of its inflamed debate. Not long after the turbulence at St. Thomas-in-the-East, both Colonel Hobbs, the laughing monster with whom Pembroke had served, and Police Inspector Ramsay, whose savage behavior Croome approved, committed suicide, the first by shooting himself, the second by leaping off a steamship in midocean. Competent medical experts judged that the men had already been insane when performing their atrocities but that no one had noticed, because when martial law rages, insanity becomes the norm.

ON 8 JANUARY 1938, DAN GROSS, EDITOR IN CHIEF OF THE Detroit Chronicle, saw on the Associated Press ticker a throwaway color item which could have been of interest to only a few American editors but which excited him enormously, for it fit like a searched-for piece in one of his jigsaw puzzles.

The Chronicle faced a unique problem. Because of the meandering way in which the international border separating Canada from the United States twisted and turned as it picked its path through the Great Lakes system, at this point Canada lay well south of the United States. This made Detroiters refer to the important Canadian city of Windsor as “our southern suburb,” and Detroit newspapers which circulated widely there were forever trying to develop stories attractive to their Canadian readers.

The item which excited Gross read:

Tearing the item from the long roll of paper coming from the teletype, Gross hurried to a small bookcase in which he kept those reference books which enabled him to command much of the world’s knowledge: a thesaurus, two big atlases, a French dictionary for use with Canadian material, and a most valuable book with a grease-marked, tattered jacket, Ploetz’s A Manual of Universal History. Turning to the index, which he had learned to use with precision, he found that a suspicion awakened by the teletype item was confirmed. In 1763, at the Treaty of Paris, which ended what was known in Europe as the “Seven Years’ War” and in North America as the “French and Indian War,” an unbelievable set of options was seriously debated among the major powers: Should Great Britain receive all of Canada or the tiny Caribbean island of All Saints? Yes, there was the astonishing fact, but what to do about it?

Gross had on his staff an earnest young reporter named Millard McKay who had done graduate work at Columbia University’s School of Journalism, and who showed solid, if somewhat unimaginative, talent but improved each month he was with the paper. He would in time, thought Gross, become a mainstay of the Chronicle, a man who could be relied upon to cover acceptably whatever topic he was assigned.

Mr. Gross had once asked him: “How did you generate this great love for things English?” and he told an unlikely story: “I grew up in a village of three hundred in the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey, and they can be very barren. Got a scholarship to Rutgers University in northern Jersey and fell under the spell of a professor who’d been a Rhodes scholar. He lived and died for England, and I took three courses with him. He made us write long papers on various aspects of English life, and he threw the topics at us arbitrarily. I got ‘How the English Parliament Functions’ one term, ‘Six English Novelists from Thomas Hardy to Greene’ the next, and believe it or not, for the third course I wrote on ‘English County Cricket.’ When you study that way, you learn something.”

When the copyboy called “Mr. Gross wants to see you,” McKay immediately thought: What have I done wrong? But a rapid inventory of his recent stories produced none that were vulnerable, so he assumed he was about to receive a new assignment, and with restrained confidence he entered the editor’s office, where the teletype fragment was thrust into his hands.

“You’re an English-history buff,” Gross said. “Any idea about the significance of this?”

Millard studied the elements in the story and found nothing that related to his rather wide knowledge of English history and custom. Wrentham was not a name that had played any significant role in English history, and although he knew how cricket was played, he could see no special significance in that brief reference. “I’m afraid it escapes me,” he had to say.

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand my next question. But does the date when Wrentham is supposed to arrive in All Saints, February tenth, ring any bell?”

“No.”

“How about the Treaty of Paris?”

“Mr. Gross, you’re throwing puzzles at me.”

“I sure am,” and with a chuckle Gross passed across his desk the Ploetz manual. “Look up the Treaty of Paris, 1763.”

“I never knew that!” Millard cried. “All of Canada in exchange for one little island!”

“And note the date: ten February 1763. Lord what’s-his-name assumes command in All Saints on that anniversary.”

“You want me to draft an article about this, for our Canadian readers?”

“Much more. I want to do this right. You get yourself down to All Saints, look the place over, and give us a long, thoughtful article or maybe a series, comparing All Saints today with Canada. Give our Canadian friends a good laugh.”

From his bookcase he took an almanac. “Yes, here is it. Canada, 3,851,790 square miles; All Saints, 303. Population: Canada, 11,120,000; All Saints, 29,779. Keep those figures in mind and give us a rattling good yarn.” He stopped, leaned across his desk, and asked: “You know Canada, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir. I visited Calgary for the Stampede. From Winnipeg to Nova Scotia, I know rather well.”

“Good. Bone up. Catch a train for Miami tonight, and you have maybe a week and a half before His Lordship reaches the island. Stay as long as needed, but this is a work trip, not a paid vacation.”

The third Lord Wrentham left the Caribbean and returned to England, where he performed such valiant services for the crown that he won significant promotion to Earl of Gore, a title which had since passed in orderly fashion to seven Wrentham inheritors.

The various Earls of Gore accomplished little of merit except the cultivation of their huge sugar estates on Barbados and All Saints, from which as absentee landlords, they garnered vast fortunes, to be spent ostentatiously in London. One of their minor grandsons, Alistair Wrentham, did return to the Caribbean as a first lieutenant aboard H.M.S. Boreas with the great Horatio Nelson, and served with him again at Trafalgar. For his heroism, he had later been commissioned admiral of the Caribbean fleet, in which capacity he gained several resounding victories over the French.

McKay, who relished the intricate rules governing English titles, learned from his swift scanning of Burke’s that whoever was Earl of Gore also held the subsidiary title, Lord Wrentham. Millard mused: But the news clip said Lord Basil Wrentham. Whenever they use the first name, it means he’s not next in line. Means he’s a younger son called Lord as courtesy. Title dies with him. Lord Basil can never become Earl of Gore unless his older brother dies. But … even on those restricted terms, it would be nice to be a lord.

In his research he discovered an attractive story, which he planned to use in his first article, as to how All Saints got its name:

And in a small book which Millard grabbed at the last moment, he discovered the most intriguing fact of all: “Through all these varied shifts of ownership, a minor branch of the Wrentham family stubbornly stayed on All Saints, some of the members growing darker generation by generation as their parents mingled with black slaves. But regardless of their color, they were all distantly related to the Earl of Gore.”

Before hurrying home to pack, McKay proved what a prudent young man he was by returning to Dan Gross’s office to explain a problem: “Sir, this is an English colony, and I had it drummed into me by my professors who studied at Oxford: ‘Never barge into any English social group without being fortified with letters of introduction establishing who you are and verifying your character.’ Could you please write me such letters?”

“No! First of all, it’s a British colony, not English. And you know our rules. We kowtow to no one, seek no extra privileges. You arrive in All Saints like an ordinary tourist. See things fresh and unbiased.”

“Of course I know the accurate name has been Great Britain since 1603, but English sounds better, and I do know that in an English colony, letters …”

“No letters. Do it our way.”

McKay entered All Saints by the most beautiful approach in the Caribbean: on an early sun-drenched morning he stood in the bow of his ship and watched two lovely peaks loom out of the sea. “That’s Morne Jour to the north,” a fellow traveler explained, “Morne Soir to the south.”

“I don’t know that word morne,” Millard said, and the man replied: “Hill, I guess. All the place names here are French.”

“I’m sure they would be,” McKay said. “Seeing that the island was French longer than it’s been English.”

Now McKay saw the wonder of this approach to a tropical island, for the two protecting rocks were so placed that any view of the sea behind was cut off. “We’re in Baie de Soleil,” the traveler exulted nearby. “The Bay of the Sun, and look at that sun!”

Dead ahead at the far end of the baie, perched on a rise which ensured a commanding view, stood the colonial settlement of Bristol Town, a congregation of two- and three-story white, gray and ocher houses, none dominating the others. “How harmonious!” McKay exclaimed, but the Englishman did not hear, for his eyes were fixed upon a stately structure that occupied the top of a small hill behind the town. Protected by tall trees, the rambling house looked cool, aloof and quietly efficient.

“Government House,” the man said, turning toward McKay, and the reverential way in which he uttered these words evoked the grandeur of the British Empire. “Bristol Town may be one of the smallest capital cities of the empire, but it’s one of the most memorable.” The forcefulness of his speech carried an implied warning: “The names on the land and the heritage of the people who occupy it may be French, but the government is British … and don’t you forget it.”

The dock at Bristol was bustling, with scores of black stevedores moving at a slow, steady pace as they unloaded the ship and brought the passengers’ luggage ashore. “Hey, hey!” McKay shouted at a man who was starting to walk off with two suitcases. “Those are mine!”

“I know, Mr. McKay. We be expectin’ you,” and then Millard saw that the man was wearing a badge indicating he was from the Belgrave Hotel. “Just follow me,” and with delightful, dodging assurance, he darted into the traffic that crowded the dock area. He was headed for a ramshackle three-story building protected by verandas on each floor, and since these were held aloft by numerous slim wooden poles, the hotel displayed a fairy-tale elegance, even if it was a bit seedy. A man could grow fond of a place like this, Millard thought.

Hurrying him along, the porter took McKay to a nondescript one-story building that could have housed a cheap restaurant but which turned out to be the Waterloo, a convivial bar with half a dozen old-style pedestal tables, where patrons lounged over their morning drink. The owner, who stood smiling behind his bar, was clearly a mulatto, but not an especially dark one. Half the patrons were mulatto but lighter than he, half were noticeably darker. The two waiters were very black, with no visible admixture of white blood. McKay was the only white there. It was an amazing congregation, assembled by chance and an instructive introduction to an island where a man’s skin color was all-important.

The owner, an amiable, hefty man in his forties, winked at McKay’s porter, indicating: There’ll be a tip for you, bringing this customer to my bar.

The porter nudged McKay: “Waterloo owned by this nice man. His name Bart Wrentham, but they calls him Black Bart, famous pirate.” He backed away, grinning broadly to make sure that he was remembered as the one who had delivered this customer.

“And your name?” Black Bart Wrentham asked with the easy familiarity of a bartender who wished to keep every customer at ease.

McKay gave his name, and added, so that his intentions should be understood from the start: “Newspaperman. Detroit.”

Upon hearing these words, Wrentham’s manner became even more genial, for he knew the value of having his bar mentioned in American newspapers. McKay became not an ordinary tourist but a most important visitor whose introduction to the island merited careful orchestration. Besides, as a man of color whose forebears had lived on the island for nearly three hundred years, Bart had certain strong attitudes that he wanted an American writer to understand. So, moving closer to where McKay stood, he leaned expansively on his side of the bar and said, in beautiful English with a lilting island accent: “Any new arrival brought to my establishment by Hippolyte gets a Tropical Bouquet.”

“The English side of my ancestors came here …”

“I know,” McKay broke in with one of the most productive interruptions he would make in his career as a newsman. “Your people came over from Barbados in 1662 with Sir Geoffrey Wrentham.” He smiled at the man, who stood mouth open to find that this American had paid All Saints the respect of having studied its history. Slapping the bar resoundingly, the owner shouted to one of the waiters: “Give this learned American another free Tropical Bouquet! But leave out the pineapple, it costs money.” More important, he left the bar and came around one end to lead McKay with his new drink to a table.

“Now, tell me,” he said conspiratorially as he sat beside McKay, “what are you really here for?”

McKay evaded the question by taking a long swig: “You make good drinks.”

“We try,” Wrentham said, moving closer and staring directly into McKay’s eyes. “Now answer my question.” His words conveyed a challenge which Millard met by leaning back, revolving his glass, and saying carefully: “I work for the Chronicle, one of the better papers of our Midwest. Large readership in Canada.” He returned to his drink to allow those facts to sink in.

“Quite clear. You’re down here to report on the installation of our new Gee-Gee.”

“Is that what you call your governor?”

When Wrentham heard the question he sucked in his breath, uttered a clicking sound, and said: “It’s not easy to explain, unless you know the islands. As a Crown Colony, we’re entitled to a governor. On other islands they call the governor ‘H.E.,’ His Excellency. Our governor has control over half a dozen other islands, so he is the governor general, and we abbreviate that to ‘G-G’ or ‘Gee-Gee’—that’s how we always write it, even in the paper. You should do the same in the article I’m sure you’ll be writing.”

McKay pointed his right forefinger as if firing a pistol: “You’re a sharp fellow, Wrentham.”

Wrentham leaned back, studied the young newsman, and tapped the table twice, as if to signify that he had made up his mind: “You free?”

“I haven’t checked in yet.”

“Hippolyte took care of that. You ready for a spin?”

“I’d like that,” and the two went out to where the bar owner had parked his 1932 left-hand-drive Chevrolet coupé. “Hop in. We’ll do the north circle. It always refreshes me to see the beauty of my island.” And he drove rather fast to the east, leaving the town by a twisting road that climbed through wooded land to a prominence from which they could look out upon the dark, surly Atlantic Ocean.

“My ancestors landed on that dangerous beach down there, Baie du Mort. I suppose you know French.”

“Since I do a lot of my reporting in Canada, I’d better. Bay of Death.”

For the balance of the twelve-mile drive north the two men talked of scenery, but Millard had a strong suspicion that this was not the purpose of the trip. “Our island isn’t fine level land like most of Barbados. Didn’t permit big sugar plantations like Jamaica. But once you treat this soil respectfully, it treats you the same way. We never starved.”

When the road started west, toward the Caribbean, Wrentham said: “We should get a picnic,” and he drove into the quaint, sleepy town of Tudor, where a shopkeeper, also named Wrentham and much darker than Bart, put together a large bag of groceries for the construction of a rural feast. “Better give us something to drink,” Bart said, and his distant cousin responded with two bottles of English beer and a can of American fruit juice.

With this comforting cargo the sightseers headed due west across the top of All Saints, and McKay, in the right-hand seat, enjoyed this calmer view of the Atlantic but still had no clue as to why Wrentham had taken him upon such a long journey. It could not be from mere kindness. When they were well west of Tudor, the man began describing with a mix of bitterness and amusement the social structure of his island, and it became obvious that he had much he yearned to say, especially to a writer from America. He began disarmingly: “You must understand, Mr. Detroit, that almost everyone on this island will hate you, just a little.”

“Ah, but you’re an American. And so was she.”

“Who?”

“Wally Simpson. We love royalty on this island—all of us, regardless of color. And we adored King Edward. He was such a glorious young fellow when he visited us as Prince of Wales. If you look in a hundred of our homes like those over there, you’ll find sixty or seventy with a chromo portrait of Edward. We can never forgive your Mrs. Simpson for having knocked him off our throne.”

“I always supposed he knocked himself off.” The words were scarcely out when Wrentham slowed the car and turned to warn his guest: “You’d be well advised not to voice an opinion like that in All Saints. You’ll find all doors closed against you, because his memory is revered.”

“I apologize.”

“You should. Your tantalizing witch almost destroyed an empire.”

Several moments of silence followed this surprising outburst, but it was soon clear that Bart had other things on his mind that he wanted to talk about, for he grasped the steering wheel with both hands, leaned forward far over it till his head almost touched the windshield, and said in conciliatory tones: “Even though your lefthand drive is a mite inconvenient, an American car is superior.”

“Is it difficult?” Millard asked. “I mean, driving from the wrong side, as it were?” and Wrentham said with the pleasing lyrical intonation that was special to the Caribbean: “Indeed, it is most difficult because the driver cannot see all that ought to be seen, but it’s worth it to have a fine car that holds the road and turns so easily.”

Having rebroken the ice, he began the lecture to which everything up to now had been a prelude: “You may not use my name in your dispatches, but you can refer to me as a well-informed businessman of color. At the last census, All Saints had a population of twenty-nine thousand stacked in hundreds of different social levels, each determined by color. I am one level higher in scale than a man one shade darker than me. And I am certainly one level lower than the man who is a touch lighter in coloring. And remember, it’s only the color of the face that counts, not how it looks down here,” and he slapped his belly.

“What do you mean by ‘good county family’?”

“No one knows scientifically, but everyone knows operationally.”

“For example?”

“Daughter of a well-respected clergyman, but never a Baptist or a Methodist. Son of an official who conducted himself well. ‘Good county family’—with us that explains everything.”

Millard asked five or six rapid-fire questions which proved that from his college courses he understood the niceties of English rural life, and after fielding them, Wrentham continued: “The women who determine who fits in where socially keep the county group rather small, but then comes the rather large third level to which you might aspire if you immigrated here, behaved yourself, and had voted Republican in America. It includes all the whites of respectable reputation, especially the French farming families who have been here longer than any of us English.

“But then the separation becomes brutal. Remorseless, like the swath of the reaper’s scythe. Level four, the ladies and gentlemen of color, spelled our way c-o-l-o-u-r. Light skin, much lighter than mine. Been to Oxford, maybe. Or the London School of Economics. Or Harvard. Serve in the gommint.”

“The what?”

“The gommint. You better learn that word. We all say it that way, even the Gee-Gee. What you colonials call government. On an island like All Saints, the gommint is all-powerful, and the top officials of color are entitled to membership in this exalted level four, also a few substantial businessmen, some wealthy widows, and now and then someone difficult to justify. But of one thing you can be certain, Mr. Detroit. Their color will be much lighter than mine. That’s the badge of honor.”

Wrentham’s disgust with the system he was describing was obvious, though he was able to talk of it with some levity. “Levels five, six and seven are all lighter than me … and keep that in mind,” he said, “because I am an eight,” which he then described as “hardworking men and women who save their money, send their children to school and know how to use a knife and fork.”

There were, he said, about six levels for those of mixed color darker than his own, and now he was approaching the sharpest line of all: “Below them is nothing. The blacks with heavy lips, fine teeth and no education—slaves, perpetual slaves.”

“What if a black man were to immigrate here from, say, Carolina? Or a Hindu from India?”

“If he’s black, he’s black.”

“Can he never aspire to entering the higher groups? Where you people of lighter skin come to rest?”

Wrentham drove in silence, ignoring this ugly question, then said: “Mr. Newspaperman, we’re soon going to be at Cap Galant, where you will see the great beauty of our island. And there on the blanket I always carry in my Chevrolet, we shall spread our picnic, your first in the Caribbean, so we must make it unforgettable.”

But before spreading the picnic he wanted to share the basic rule of All Saints, the one that all young people understood: “It will also explain things if you decide to visit the other Caribbean islands. A young colored man of promise simply must, if he wants to get ahead, marry a girl with lighter skin. He will fight, lie, steal, and murder to achieve this. And the colored girl of great beauty who wants to make something of herself, she must marry a man with skin even lighter than hers. And it is watching what happens in this whirligig impasse that produces the hilarity of Caribbean life, and the tragedies, and the suicides.”

After a short run to the southwest, away from the Atlantic, they came to a small elevated peninsula jutting due westward and commanding an incomparable view. To the north, the distant ocean, to the east the slopes of Morne Jour reaching almost four thousand feet into the cloudless sky, to the south a perfect little bay with an arc of light sand, and best of all, to the west the quiet blue Caribbean spreading all the way to the Maya ruins of Cozumel.

“Which view is your favorite?” Millard asked, and Wrentham replied: “It’s all so grand, I can never decide,” and it was obvious that he was proud of this belvedere.

Wrentham had placed the blanket so that his American guest could lean comfortably against a rather large rock, and as the two men drank beer, munched sandwiches and nibbled at fine English biscuits and tartlets, Bart resumed his instruction: “On the hill behind Gommint House, which I’m sure you saw from your ship, there’s a building of no great distinction surrounded by tennis courts, bowling greens and croquet lawns. That’s The Club, and it is severely restricted to an all-white membership. Most of the people in levels one through three, including especially the French … Incidentally, the French speak little French. Their names announce them, not their verb forms. What was I saying?”

“Membership in The Club.”

“Well now. Suppose for a moment that you did emigrate here. Satisfied the paperwork and all that. You behave yourself. Pay your bills. Act with respect toward your superiors. You could still fail to be accepted.”

“Why?”

“You’re not English. And you are American. And that means you’ve got to be an uncultivated boor.”

“So I’ll never see this glorious club?”

“Of course you will! You can be invited there, but to be an actual member, never.”

“Is it pretty posh?”

“Heavens, no! Dues are minimal. Décor is deplorable, I’m told. I’ve never been allowed in, you understand. But I’m told its attraction is that it’s like a cocoon or a womb. Your own kind of people. Your own color.”

“Who runs it?”

“The women, fiercely. The wives of the senior officials, aided, of course, by Major Leckey. He’s in charge of seeing that it remains pure.”

“Who’s he?”

“How?”

“They more or less determine what group you fit into. What affairs it would be proper to invite you to. Who would be urged to attend if your daughter gets married on the island.”

“An ugly type?”

“No, no! The Leckeys are the salt of the English earth. He didn’t get three medals and a mention in dispatches because he’s a dolt. He can trounce you at tennis, that I’ll wager.” He hesitated, took a large bite of sausage roll, then summarized his reaction to the ineffable major: “I find it difficult to like men who are a stone and half underweight and who have all their hair the color it was twenty years ago.” Then he added a note of serious caution: “If you want to see All Saints at its best, you must build a bridge to Major Leckey. If you do, all doors will be opened—invitations to Gommint House, dance at The Club, the interviews you seek. If you don’t … Siberia!”

“And how do I build that bridge?”

“I’ll tell you, old chap, it won’t be easy and I’m not teasing. Our tourist ships drop off scores of Americans and Canadians like you … often people of considerable wealth and power back home. Here they’re boors. Refuse to do things the British way, try to muscle their way in. And all they get is rebuffs. Major Leckey and his wife refuse even to see them. They never get to see Gee-Gee. And they go home cursing All Saints as an unfriendly place where the blacks are abused. That’s what’ll happen to you, old chap, if you hang around with the likes of me and don’t get friendly with the Leckeys.”

“And how do I do that?”

“You follow the traditions, long ingrained, of the British colony. You go to Gommint House before nightfall on the day of your arrival and sign the visitors’ book, to let the officials know you’re in town and are paying your proper respects. Then you present your credentials to assure people that you’re who you say you are and that someone in the echelon higher than yourself back home is vouching for you. Then you retire to your hotel room, behave yourself in public at meals, and wait.”

“Would my being seen in your saloon be a help or a hindrance?”

“But if I do the things you suggested, would I be accepted in, say, level three?”

“Laddie! The government of this island is not stupid. They seek good reports in American newspapers. To augment tourism, if nothing else. You behave yourself, Major Leckey will be falling all over you. But not if you try to bull yourself in. Try that and you’re cut off, like a dead limb.”

“But if I reported that snobbery in my articles?”

“You’d never do that, laddie. Because you’re part of the system. I can see from our brief conversation that you’re prime club material. You already enjoy this island more than I do.”

A light-skinned couple who had been picnicking not far away recognized Wrentham and walked slowly over: “Hullo, Bart, shall we be seeing you at The Tennis tonight?”

“Of course. Save me a place at your table. This is my friend just in from America, Mr. Detroit Newspaperman.”

The greetings were cordial, with the woman saying: “If we can do anything to help while you’re here, call upon us. Roger has the importing business not far from Bart’s Waterloo.”

When they were gone, Millard asked: “What’s this with tennis? You have lighted courts for night play, or what?”

Saying no more, he gathered the remnants of the picnic, threw the rubbish in a green-painted oil drum placed for such purpose, and started the drive down the western half of the island. As McKay watched the Caribbean, a sea of splendor in this latitude, his eye caught a sight which would enthrall him as long as he was in the islands: a hedge of low shrubs whose big copious leaves were multicolored, six blazingly different leaves to one stem, five radically different colors to each leaf.

“What’s that magnificent thing?” he cried, and Wrentham replied: “Croton, symbol of the Caribbean. One central stalk, many contrasting colors,” and Millard said: “A man could grow to love an oceanfront highway decorated with such flowers.”

Ten miles of croton along the road brought them to the golden beach of Anse de Jour, and to The Tennis. As they passed the low, beautifully landscaped building Wrentham said: “It’s better kept, really, than The Club. But that’s as it should be. Its job is to hide a lot of heartache.”

“That’s two clubs, highly restricted,” Millard said. “Where are the clubs for the bulk of the population?”

“What do you think my Waterloo is? That’s where those who can’t get into the other two can meet and have fun. You’ll be welcomed at the Waterloo. And you’ll be able to find many of the people you’d like to meet.”

“But the real blacks? The ones you called slaves? Where do they meet?”

“On the waterfront. There’s a bar called Tonton’s.”

“Four clubs, then. Would I be welcomed in Tennis and Tonton’s?”

“You’d need an invitation to The Tennis. And I wouldn’t just drift into Tonton’s. They’re proud, and they might think you were slumming.”

McKay had been on the island seven hours without seeing the inside of his hotel, and he did not know what to expect. But when he pushed open the two swinging half-doors of the Belgrave and looked into the archaic lobby, the spacious dining room with its teakwood chairs and the lovely porch beyond with wicker furniture and a broad view of the Baie de Soleil, he cried aloud: “They employed Joseph Conrad and Somerset Maugham to decorate this place!” and he knew then that he would spend happy and profitable hours beneath the seven big fans that rotated slowly to keep the air fresh without cooling the food on the linen-clad tables laid with glistening silver.

The light-colored girl at the desk said with a soft island lilt: “Mr. McKay, your Hippolyte has taken your bags to room six, which has one of our best views down the baie.”

Room 6 had not only a superb view of the baie but also a glimpse of the Caribbean beyond; a black maid with an immense smile came to tell him she had unpacked his bags and that he would find his shirts here and his socks there. She said: “My duty, mastuh, to see you happy. Ring bell, tell me when you want hot water in your bath.”

“Is the water in the tap good to drink?”

“Good me, maybe not you. I bring bottles.”

He asked her when dinner was served, and she said: “Eight o’clock prompt, sir. Very punctual.”

After a hot bath and a short nap, McKay sat on his veranda with a tall drink as he watched the tropical sun descend with a crash into the baie: Three weeks of evenings like this, All Saints will look better and better.

Returning to the dining area, he came directly to McKay’s table, to say in a carefully cultivated English accent: “I say! You must excuse my rudeness, but aren’t you McKay, the man I’ve been looking for?” He coughed modestly, and added: “And I should think you might have been looking for me.”

McKay rose, extended his hand, and said: “Millard McKay, Detroit Chronicle.”

“I know. Please be seated. I’m Etienne Boncour. Jeweler and chairman of the Tourist Board. It’s my job to greet writers like you. To facilitate whatever it is you came to do. For we appreciate the value of your visit.”

“Won’t you join me?”

“Oh no, I mustn’t intrude on a guest. But I’d be most gratified, really I would, if you’d join me over there.” Then, realizing that this must also be intrusive, he laughed appealingly and said: “I mean, since we are in the same business, more or less.” When McKay looked puzzled, as if unable to see how the jewelry business and newspaper work could be related, the young man said: “I mean, I’m often engaged in writing publicity for our island, and you write too.”

The explanation was so gracious and so obviously well intended that McKay could not resist. Picking up his napkin, he moved to the other table, where he said: “I’ve pretty well decided on the chicken, but tell me, where does your island get all the meat on this menu? The beef and pork?”

“Refrigerator ships from Miami, but forget the beef and chicken. The chef always keeps a fish or two which he’ll fix for special customers. That’s what I’m having, and if you’d like, I’ll alert him to cook up one of his bigger ones.”

“I would like that,” and while they waited for the sea bass baked in fennel, Boncour said: “Don’t let my accent confuse you. I’m part of the French contingent on All Saints. Been here since 1620 or thereabouts. Family’s never left. But I did go to Durham in England for my education.”

“And member of the Gee-Gee’s Executive Council. That’s the most fun.”

“How did all that happen?”

“The business? My grandfather started it when tourists began to arrive. The education? I did well in school and won a rather substantial bursary. The council? In the old days, only white men of impeccable background and usually born in Britain. Recently the authorities have been reaching out to a few men of color, and I’m one of that lucky breed!” And McKay thought: I was right. He is a four.

“Does your council have any real power? Or is it what we call ‘window dressing’?”

“Nice question. Let’s say we’re made to think we have power, but actually, Gee-Gee decides things pretty much as he wishes.” Then, fearing that this might appear in print, he corrected himself: “There’s a breath of freedom blowing in from the sea. We’re terribly anxious to see how our new Gee-Gee responds to it.”

“Hope the food comes soon. I’m starved,” McKay said. Boncour glanced at his watch, and this led to a whole new path of conversation, for McKay asked: “Is that a Rolex you’re wearing?” and when the jeweler nodded, McKay said like an admiring schoolboy: “I’ve never seen one. Just the ads in glossy magazines,” and Boncour slipped the watch from his wrist and handed it over.

McKay was fascinated by the sharp styling, the reassuring heaviness of the watch: “Feels as if it could run for a hundred years.”

“I’ve never heard them claim that.”

“Since I saw my first good Swiss watch at age fourteen … in a Canadian shop … I’ve wanted one. But they’re murderously expensive, aren’t they? Cheapest Rolex I ever saw was ninety-five dollars, American.”

“The one I’m wearing”—it had a solid-gold case—“sells retail for many times that,” Boncour said. “I don’t own it. Just wear it now and then to be sure it’s working.”

“What does an ordinary Rolex, the kind I might buy if I had the money …” Millard began, but Boncour hushed him: “Mr. McKay, I didn’t visit your table to peddle watches. But if you stop by the shop in the morning, of your own volition, it could be that I might surprise you.”

After the fish had been consumed, McKay summoned the courage to ask: “Does a man like you, well educated, familiar with European countries and customs … do you experience any discrimination?” Immediately he added: “I’m a newspaperman, you know. But I’ll not quote you.”

“No censorship here.”

“On the other Caribbean islands?” McKay asked, and Boncour replied: “All the English islands are pretty much the same. I have two other stores, you know. Barbados and Trinidad. Not much difference.” Then he added: “In the islands where I have my shops, everyone knows my views. Of course there’s discrimination, but it’s tempered with decency. And the whites are sensible enough to offer us concessions, tiny perhaps in your view, in ours very significant.”

“Like what?”

“Let’s put it this way. The supreme social accolade open to us non-whites is to be invited to Gommint House. Major Leckey calls you on the phone and you tremble, thinking that maybe lowly you is going to be invited, and he says in his crisp, hesitant voice: ‘That you, Boncour? Good. Leckey here. Could you possibly break free and come to a little reception Gee-Gee is holding, Thursday at dusk? Good.’ ”

“Then what happens?”

“I rustle out and get my hair cut, ask my maid to press my white suit, and up I go to Gommint House, where I see that I am one of only seven men of color, and I am, to put it frankly, elated that I have been allowed entrance to the Holy of Holies. And Gee-Gee, at least the last one we’ve had, is no fool, for lost in the middle of the crowd will be one jet-black man, to prove that Gommint House is available to all.”

Then the light touch vanished, as Boncour said slowly and softly: “But when the gala ends, the taxis arrive to carry the important white people over to The Club for their dinner. The colored in their family cars ride out to The Tennis for their dinner. I come to the Waterloo, while the lone black man stops off at Tonton’s, where his mates josh him enviously for having played the swell.”

Common sense prevented the system from becoming a tyranny, and cooperation between the Executive Council, comprised of mostly white appointed officials, and the Legislative Council of twelve, including five elected members, served to maintain an illusion that the general populace had some say in the government.

Etienne Boncour was one of the five elected members; officially he represented Bristol Town’s business community, but emotionally he was known as one of the three members who had strong ties with the French component. In any important vote he and the other two Frenchmen were smothered by what was called “the alliance of proper Englishmen,” a situation that generated no ill will, for as one Englishman growled at The Club: “Our French? They’ve jolly well been proper Englishmen for the last hundred years.”

In the morning, but not too early, lest he betray his eagerness, Millard strolled over to Boncour’s jewelry shop to see, as he told the owner, “what the story is on these Rolexes.” The story was shocking. A solid-gold Rolex could cost upward of $2,500, an honest one in a lesser metal but with all the features, $125, but after Millard had inspected the less-expensive ones, realizing that he could not afford even them, Boncour amused him by producing, from a case in another part of the shop, a rather good-looking copy made in Hong Kong, indistinguishable from a real Rolex but priced at $17:50.

“Amazing,” Millard said. “How do you tell the difference?”

At this point Boncour was called away by an entering customer, and Millard was left alone to study the shop. Before he could see beyond the high-priced display cases and the low, he was distracted by the two golden-skinned girls who tended the shop, and they were so refreshing, so graceful with flowers in their hair, that he thought: It’s not fair to young unmarried Englishmen to have girls as beautiful as that around, and of the wrong color.

When Boncour returned he said seriously: “I know what it is to want a really good watch. That’s how I got into the business. I have a Rolex here, not new, but nearly so. Man brought it in to be fixed, and he may have stolen it, because two weeks later he was murdered. The police and I advertised everywhere, even on other islands, but I never found the owner. I want to get rid of it. I want my expenses for the replacement parts I had to send for and the advertising. I’ll let you take it off my hands for thirty-two dollars.”

Millard stepped back and looked at Boncour. As a newspaperman in Detroit he had investigated every kind of scam: the supposed millionaire who had died intestate in the Nevada gold fields, the bait-and-switch sales, the cruel deception in which widows deposited their savings. He not only knew the old angles, but he had also learned to be on the alert for those new tricks which had not surfaced before.

“That’s a good watch. Worth a lot more than thirty-two dollars.”

“Right on both counts.”

“But I’d want police clearance on it before I could be interested.”

To McKay’s surprise, Boncour said: “You’d certainly get it! I want a record too … of having cleared up the case,” and, pocketing the watch and some papers relating to it, he led McKay to the police station, which could have been a fake, except that it had a permanent sign outside and two uniformed officers behind the desk.

“The chief in?” Boncour asked, and one of the desk men indicated with his shoulder that the inner door was open. Inside, McKay faced a colored police sergeant in a natty twill uniform, who asked jovially: “Who’s done what?”

Boncour spoke, placing watch and papers on the desk: “It’s that watch the murdered man left. I have about thirty-two dollars in it, new parts and those advertisements. Mr. McKay, newspaperman from Detroit, needs a watch and is willing to pay the thirty-two dollars.”

“Police verification that I didn’t steal it. A receipt so that Mr. McKay can take it back with him to the States.”

“Why haven’t you looked for a buyer here?”

“Thirty-two dollars is a lot of money for most of my customers. And it is essentially a used watch.”

The sergeant shuffled the papers on his desk and was about to sign the prepared receipt, when he looked past Boncour and McKay and cried with huge affection: “Sir Benny! Come in!” and into the office came a most unusual man. He was jet-black, about five feet six, slightly chubby, beautifully relaxed and wreathed in an ingratiating smile.

Nodding graciously when introduced to McKay, the man greeted Boncour and the sergeant as old friends, then said in a low, soft voice with an impeccable English accent: “Sergeant, I’ve got to tell you before you go any further, my sister found the wheelbarrow.”

The sergeant laughed: “I told you she would.” Then turning to McKay, he said: “This criminal type is Sir Benny Castain.”

McKay, thinking Sir Benny to be one of those calypso singers who favored names like Lord Invader or Emperor Divine, made a tremendous gaffe: “Have you recorded any of your songs?”

“No, no!” the station sergeant laughed. “He’s a real knight. Sword of the King himself. Our greatest cricketer, batsman and/or bowler.”

“He wouldn’t know about cricket,” Sir Benny said apologetically, but Millard corrected him: “Indeed I do. Don Bradman. Douglas Jardine.”

The three island men gaped, and Sir Benny asked: “Now, how does an American know those names?”

“At Rutgers University, near New York, there were always West Indians playing cricket in some park. I read about it in a book by Neville Cardus. Part of my course in English.”

“I cannot believe this!” Sir Benny said, and the men sat down while the sergeant recalled the glory of All Saints’ cricket: “Lord Basil Wrentham, him who’s to serve as our new Gee-Gee, brought a first-rate English team to the West Indies, 1932 it may have been. Four matches. They won handily in Jamaica, had a better challenge in Trinidad, and won again by a big margin in Barbados. We’d never had a topnotch international match in All Saints, but for that occasion we’d built a new oval, sodded it well, and could offer a first-class pitch.

The sergeant, eager for this interested American to understand the greatness of Sir Benny, began to recite the details of that memorable four-day match. But as he started, McKay had a happy inspiration: “Why don’t we all go over to the Waterloo and discuss this? Drinks are on me.” The men instantly agreed. Leaving the police station, the sergeant said to McKay: “Don’t forget your watch,” and Boncour nodded: “It’s yours now.”

At the Waterloo, Bart Wrentham greeted them with enthusiasm, bowed to Sir Benny, and asked if he might join them. McKay said: “Yes, if you’ll send out for the kind of picnic we had yesterday,” and he handed Wrentham some pound notes. “You buy the food,” Bart said. “I’ll treat for the beer,” and shortly he was back with another feast.

“England batted first,” the sergeant resumed. “Brutal. Scored 352, with the loss of only six wickets.” Turning to McKay, he asked: “You know what ‘declaring’ means?”

“Yes. If England already has 352 runs, a huge lead, they figure they’ll be able to get your team out quickly and then make you follow on—that is, go right back in and do so poorly that your combined score will be less than 352. So with England batting only once, they swamp you and win the match, 352 to something like maybe 207. Great victory.”

“Amazing,” Sir Benny said. “Never thought to see an American who understands cricket.”

Then Bart Wrentham interrupted: “There were eighteen or more of us colored Wrenthams in the oval next day, and the rest were like me. Immensely proud that a white Wrentham was captain of the all-England team, but also excited that our crowd had put up such a fine showing against the best.”

“Did you think,” McKay asked, “that All Saints had a chance of winning?”

“Wait, wait! This wasn’t an All Saints team. It was players from all our islands. Benny here was the only All Saints man. And having inflamed his home island with his batting, he now took to bowling, and when England’s great batsmen came out, Hammond and Hendren and Jardine, they weren’t so cocky, because they knew they had to put a lot of runs on the board to make their side safe. Had to have maybe 250 more, something like that.”

The sergeant wanted the honor of reporting Sir Benny’s immortal bowling that afternoon: “He had a mix of three, a fast ball, a right-arm chinaman, and a googly, and believe it or not, he put down seven of England’s greatest batsmen for a total of only 57 runs. The fourth day of the match ended with the score England 409, West Indies 291, but with a fighting chance to overtake.

“I cannot tell you how we felt that night, here in All Saints. I had to get up five times to pee, and at dawn I was still awake. That day, at eleven in the morning, I think the entire population of All Saints was at the oval or near it. When play started, England had three more batsmen, but this tremendous fellow”—and he patted Sir Benny’s knee—“dismissed them for only 21 additional runs. England 430, West Indies 291.”

The men paused to recall that tremendous moment in their island’s history, then Wrentham said quietly: “But our other batsmen picked up the challenge …” Here his voice rose to a roar, and he banged the table with his fist: “And we won! We had beaten England.” On impulse, both Boncour and the sergeant rose and embraced Sir Benny, the black man who had brought black majesty to their island.

“The part I remember best,” Wrentham said, “was when the players left the pitch. Lord Basil sought out Benny, threw his long right arm over his shoulder, and walked out of the oval with him.” He stopped, looked at McKay, and said: “I predict he will be a very popular Gee-Gee.”

Much could be learned about life in a British Crown Colony by observing the social laws governing Lord Wrentham’s XI, as the English cricket team was invariably called, since Wrentham had picked his men and assumed responsibility for their pay, which amounted to about $700 American per man for the entire tour, plus steamboat fare and meals.

Of course, only the professional cricketers received pay, for the team was rigidly divided between gentlemen, that is, amateurs of good family, and players, professionals, who played for a living. The distinction between them was rigid: On the passage over, gentlemen sailed first class, players second. At clubhouses there was one entrance for gentlemen, another for players. A gentleman was referred to by his initials and last name, such as W. H. B. Wickham, and addressed deferentially as “sir,” a player would be known and addressed simply by his last name, rarely even with the prefix “Mr.”

At evening functions the team also divided, gentlemen often attending parties given by county families, the players dining at their hotel, with the senior professional carving the joint and serving the junior man last. But such distinctions were so ingrained that they were taken for granted and caused little rancor.

The day came when blacks thronged the streets, shouting: “The Gee-Gee, he ship in the baie!” and when the vessel from Southampton edged into the dock, McKay was there to watch the arrival of the new governor general, and he observed the present incumbent, a tall, slim, good-looking regimental officer in his sixties, waiting in the island’s only Rolls-Royce, an impressive Silver Ghost. Now the crowd cheered, for at the top of the gangway Lord Basil Wrentham appeared, almost a twin of the man waiting in the Rolls: tall, underweight, austere, with a military bearing and a haughty manner. They must have a factory somewhere in England where they punch out these cookies to impress the colonies, McKay thought.

The new Gee-Gee stood very erect, saluted the ship he was leaving, and came imperially down the gangway, but he did not go to the waiting Rolls; he merely bowed to his predecessor, acknowledged the salutes of the guard, and looked inquisitively about the crowd. Then, having located what he sought, he moved briskly forward, ignoring everyone until he stood face-to-face with Sir Benny Castain. Throwing his arms wide, he embraced the chubby black man as he had done years ago at the end of that resplendent afternoon. “I guess there must be something extra about cricket that they don’t tell you in books,” McKay said aloud as he watched, but he could hardly hear his own words, for the crowd was cheering wildly.

People who had read the abbreviated excerpts that appeared in the All Saints Journal, courtesy of the Associated Press, nodded approvingly to McKay as he passed them in the streets, and since Bristol Town had a population of only six thousand, everyone soon knew who McKay was and what he had said. The passage most frequently commented upon was one he had worded carefully, relying upon data provided by Bart Wrentham and Etienne Boncour:

This harsh, but accurate, summary of how one’s skin color determined status was alleviated by McKay’s rhapsodic description of the island’s rich natural beauties, including croton, and an affectionate account of Sir Benny Castain’s old cricketing relationship with the newly appointed governor general. The article ended: “So if you’re contemplating a vacation on some Caribbean island this winter, try All Saints. It could be close to the best.”

Both Etienne Boncour and Bart Wrentham were pleased with McKay’s report and told him so. Bart said gruffly: “Flattering but not excessively groveling,” and Boncour assured him: “Gommint is delighted. When the Gee-Gee read it he said: ‘Well, we’re off to a good start,’ but Major Leckey warned him: ‘He wrote that before you got here. Let’s wait. He’s an American and we’ve been burned by them before.’ ”

There was a cryptic English couple staying at the Belgrave who took a more circumspect view of both McKay and his article. The Ponsfords, a married pair in their late fifties from one of the fashionable suburbs of London, had sailed to All Saints on the same ship that brought Lord Wrentham and his daughter Delia. Being rigorously proper, they did not impose upon His Lordship while aboard ship, but upon landing in All Saints they immediately hired a taxi, rode to Government House, and signed the book. In due course Major Leckey had called to invite them to afternoon tea, where they told Lord Wrentham and his daughter that they had shared the steamer with them but had not wanted to intrude upon their privacy. The courtesy was appreciated, and Major Leckey himself assumed responsibility for delivering their other letters of introduction to the proper authorities, so that within a few days the Ponsfords were moving within what was called “the cream of All Saints,” that restricted circle of Britons from good families who ran the island. After his five weeks on the island, McKay had met none of that group.

“I could see no justification,” Mr. Ponsford said with august condescension, “why one would feel obligated to stress the dark side of the island.”

McKay was astonished. “I didn’t think I did,” and Mrs. Ponsford, a well-preserved and neatly coiffed woman with an aquiline nose that seemed always on the point of sniffing, explained: “You are harping on the fact that All Saints is mostly black.”

“But it is!” McKay said, with obvious desire to stress the truth. “Just look about you.”

“If it is,” Mr. Ponsford said in his bank-manager manner, “it’s unfortunate and should not be broadcast to the world. Excellent men and women with the best intentions govern this island, and they deserve every support we can give them.”

“There is nothing finer, I told my husband the other day, than to see a distinguished man like Lord Basil riding through the streets in his Rolls-Royce, symbol of all that’s good and right in the British Empire.”

McKay, suppressing a smile, said to himself: I’ve got to remember that one, and thought: People make fun of Americans abroad, and I guess we can be pretty bad, but it takes an English couple like this insufferable pair to be really obnoxious. However, aware that he might have to share the dining room with them for several weeks, he turned to Mrs. Ponsford and asked: “Then what about the colored who fill so many of the spots here in Bristol Town? Dare I speak about them?”

“In time, as they educate themselves and move upward in the social scale,” Mr. Ponsford said magisterially, “they’ll become more and more like white people. They’ve already earned three places on the Executive Council.”

“You’d expect nothing less,” her husband said, but the pair were interrupted before they could explain further their interpretation of All Saints life by a handsome young Englishman in a trim off-white suit which displayed his slim, athletic bearing. He had neatly trimmed blond hair and the professional smile of one accustomed to greeting people.

“This is Major Leckey,” Mrs. Ponsford said approvingly. “The governor general’s invaluable factotum. This is Mr. McKay, who wrote about your island for the newspaper back in the States.”

The next moment would be forever etched on Millard’s mind: Major Leckey, who had known from the moment of McKay’s arrival who and what he was but who felt honor-bound to ignore him until he presented his credentials properly, turned his head slightly away from looking at the Ponsfords, and gave the American interloper a brief, icy smile of semirecognition. Then, without offering to shake hands, he resumed conversation with the English couple, whom he had come to escort to an afternoon affair at Government House. In a flash they were gone, all three of them, and no one bothered to excuse himself to McKay.

He met Leckey again the next day at Boncour’s jewelry store, and since Etienne was occupied with a woman tourist from England, the two men had to stand awkwardly almost side by side, but again the major studiously refused to recognize him. Only when another customer bumped into them, did they have to acknowledge each other. Major Leckey gave McKay a withered smile, to which McKay responded with the slightest possible nod, involving no shoulder movement. McKay felt that warfare between them had been declared.

It did not enflame at that moment, because Leckey had come to the shop on a more important matter. “I was told,” he said to Boncour, in crisp and somewhat superior tones, as if he were slumming, “that the Honorable Delia would be awaiting me here.”

She had a head of golden hair that was not completely tamed—obviously she did not want it whipped into set patterns—and it formed a kind of frame for a face that was larger than one might have expected, larger in each dimension and wonderfully composed, so that she seemed always to be smiling in quiet amusement at the follies of the world about her. She had large eyes which sparkled, a generous mouth and a way of tilting her impressive head that made her seem about to speak in a kindly manner to anyone at whom she looked. She was so much the acme of the young English gentlewoman of her period that one could not avoid asking two questions: “Why isn’t she married?” and “Why in the world did her father bring her to a place like All Saints?”

“Yes! Miss Wrentham,” Boncour cried as he hurried forward to attend her. “I have three to show you,” and he was about to bring forth a tray of small bejeweled items when Major Leckey interrupted: “Delia, I’m most sorry, but your father’s waiting, and he sent me to fetch you.” With that, making no apologies to either Boncour or McKay, he whisked her out of the shop and into his waiting chauffeured car.

When she was gone, leaving an echoing void behind, McKay whistled to break the tension: “I never thought that daughters of Gee-Gees looked like that,” and for a few moments the two men discussed her appearance and her manner. Boncour said: “She came in unannounced last week, as nice a customer as we ever meet. No frills, no demands, just sensible questions about some small items for what she called a charm bracelet.”

“And what’s that?”

The story, provocatively illustrated, told of the Honorable Delia Wrentham’s escapade with an older married man and implied former misbehavior with several young Oxford and Cambridge chaps. The young lady who had brought the magazine from the rear of the store seemed to be an expert on the Honorable Delia, and said saucily without being asked: “Her father whisked her out here not a minute too soon. You ask me, he accepted the appointment to this sorry little post so’s he’d have a place to cool her off.”

McKay’s jaw dropped. He had not expected a colored clerk to speak so freely and so boldly, but a moment’s reflection set him straight: Hell, it’s girls like these salesladies who set the patterns. They are the islands. And he asked the girl a chain of questions, learning from her that the Honorable Delia was one of the lights of the London social whirl, “a damned fine lass, if you ask me, and a great help to her widowed father, who overlooks her sporting behavior. He adores her, the stories say. And one look at her tells why.”

In the days that followed, everything on All Saints seemed to focus on Sir Basil and his lively daughter. Talk at the Waterloo centered on little else, and at the Belgrave the American McKay was discovering a topic about which the Ponsfords were eager to talk: the history of the English Wrenthams and especially the doings of the Earl of Gore and his immediate family. Mrs. Ponsford said: “Very distinguished. They go back a long distance in our history. Famous for producing beautiful daughters.”

“The Gee-Gee’s Delia must be one of the best,” McKay said, and both Ponsfords agreed.

Once the ice was broken, McKay found the couple to be rather interesting, solid middle-class Englishmen who adored their betters. They are stuffy, he told himself. I suppose they were trained that way, but once you discount it, they’re not bad. However, he still wondered what they were doing in All Saints, but they surrendered no clues.

He was beginning to like them because they were willing, at meals which he took at their table increasingly, to talk about the Wrenthams: “Actually, we knew Lord Basil’s father, before he inherited the earldom. Fine, outgoing man, very good on a horse.”

“What was he like?”

“Understand, when he became the earl we didn’t see him anymore. We’re not members of those exalted circles.”

Mr. Ponsford flinched at such a direct question; one did not ask questions like that in English society, but his increasing respect for McKay’s sincerity and honesty encouraged him to respond: “Marine insurance, in a small company …” to which his wife added with obvious pride: “But by the time he retired … of course, he didn’t need to retire, actually, because by then he owned the company, and a larger one in Liverpool.”

“What do you make of the Gee-Gee’s daughter?”

“She’s a darling,” Mrs. Ponsford said, but her husband was more cautious: “That one gives her father real headaches,” and there the opening conversation about Delia ended, because Major Leckey appeared in gray tropical dress and topee to lead an excursion of the Ponsfords, the Gee-Gee and his daughter to a picnic at Cap Galant. When McKay heard this, he started to inform the Ponsfords that he had been picnicking at Cap Galant … But before he could finish, Leckey moved them off, for to him McKay without letters of introduction was still a non-person.

In the next days McKay interrogated the Ponsfords, Bart and Etienne about the Honorable Delia, and acquired a bit of information. Bart told him: “Lord Wrentham, the real one that is, heir to the earldom, was said to be quite upset by his niece’s behavior. Delia wouldn’t listen to Lady Gore, and only a sharp rebuke from His Lordship himself caused her to break off with a German colonel she had taken a liking to. She’s twenty-two, you know. Has a mind of her own.”

A man at a nearby table said: “The affair with the German colonel is supposed to have come close to tragedy,” and McKay asked, his voice betraying his surprise at such a statement: “What kind of tragedy could a girl her age stumble into?”

The man volunteered no explanation, so taking his leave, McKay said: “I want the jeweler to engrave my initials on the Rolex he sold me the other day,” and he walked to Boncour’s shop, only to find that by the happiest coincidence Delia herself was there to finish the business she had started when Major Leckey had so imperiously dragged her away on her earlier visit.

She had pretty well selected the little charms she wanted when the door to the shop slammed open, Major Leckey strode in, took her by the arm, and led her away without speaking a word to anyone. McKay, looking at Boncour when this happened, saw that he flushed as if he had been struck, and Millard could make nothing of the incident until the talkative salesgirl who had shown him the magazine whispered, when Boncour was attending to another customer: “She comes in here all the time.”

When McKay’s second article reached the islands, it made him a hero, for in it he had written with delicate charm of the social life on All Saints, with a most ingratiating portrait of the new Gee-Gee and his style. The Honorable Delia came off as a gift to any island she chose to occupy, and her father was presented as incredibly straight and stuffy by American or Canadian standards, but just about what the island needed according to British custom. McKay also offered ingratiating pen portraits of The Club, The Tennis, the Waterloo and Tonton’s, inviting each reader to decide at what level he would fit should he visit the island.

Some English cynics asked: “How dare he write about The Club and The Tennis, seeing he’s never been invited to either?” but they had to acknowledge that he had a right to describe the Waterloo and Tonton’s, since he hung out at the former and had twice patronized the latter with Sir Benny Castain. The Ponsfords asked sharply: “How’d you know about The Club?” to which they’d already been invited on several occasions, and he gave the reporter’s favorite explanation: “I’m a good listener.”

“You must go there one day,” they said sincerely, and he replied: “I’d like that.”

The Gee-Gee was no fool. His long association with reporters who covered cricket matches and those who dealt in politics had taught him how valuable a newspaper story could sometimes be, and he suspected that his forthcoming reception would be worth an entire article in McKay’s paper.

On a lovely Thursday night in early March 1938, Lord Basil Wrentham, the governor general of All Saints, the British island in the Caribbean, invited to his home for a gala celebration all the other Wrenthams on the island. Thirty-nine had been found who could come, men like Black Bart Wrentham, the owner of the Waterloo, women like Nancy Wrentham, who served as head night nurse in the charity ward at the hospital. They came in all kinds of dress, had all shades of coloring. Only two were white, a husband and wife who ran a farm near Anse du Soir, and well over half were decidedly dark, running to nearly black, so diluted had the noble Wrentham blood become.

But they were a sterling group, men and women whose ancestors had experienced the full triumph and tragedy of this island. Four had been in jail, and Major Leckey had made this known to the Gee-Gee, who said: “They aren’t in jail now.” The food served was a little more solid than usual, the drinks much weaker, but the same band played as for the all-white receptions and the floral decorations were just as carefully positioned about the big rooms. Lord Basil met everyone, greeted each as his cousin, and made the evening a true reunion.

Half a dozen members from each of the other All Saints social groups had also been invited: white business leaders, Sir Benny Castain, light-colored merchants and politicos like Etienne Boncour. The Gee-Gee took special pains to introduce McKay in the various rooms, telling his guests: “We’re honored to have this distinguished American writer visiting our island and sharing with his readers some of the truths about us.” As they passed from one room to another he whispered: “I’m having a small supper at The Club after we break and I’d be delighted if you could join us.”

In that one instant each pair saw the other, their eyes meeting, their voices unable to form words. Then Leckey gripped McKay’s arm and hurried him along to another room. Neither spoke. Neither would ever refer to the incident. But each knew that what they had seen carried a terrible significance: for Major Leckey because the scene struck at the very fabric of the social order in All Saints; for Millard McKay because he was a practiced newsman, but also because he had himself fallen in love with Delia Wrentham.

The supper at The Club was a tense business—Delia, Leckey and McKay had to share the same table for twelve, with Lord Basil at the head, yet they could barely look at one another. Etienne Boncour, as a man of color, was ineligible to dine at The Club, of course, even if the Gee-Gee’s daughter was infatuated with him.

Several of the older guests stopped by to congratulate McKay on his second article: “Much better than the first with all that white and black nonsense.” One husband and wife asked: “Is The Club pretty much as you imagined it?” McKay ignored the barb and smiled: “It’s a haven. A wonderful, tropical haven,” and he pointed to the luxurious flowers.

He went to bed that night impressed by Lord Wrentham’s imaginative gesture in bringing his island relatives together, but disturbed by his daughter’s brazen lovemaking with Boncour. As he twisted back and forth, unable to sleep, he began to see the affair as any ordinary newsman would: She’s a spoiled bitch. Been kicking up her heels all over Europe. Got in the habit, so when she hits an end of the world, like All Saints, she simply has to look around for any man who is remotely eligible. Hell, it could be anyone. This won’t last long. She’ll move on to another man in a short while, just like she did in England. And with that, he fell asleep without having given a thought as to how he was going to report this heartwarming reunion of the island Wrenthams.

His heart thumping, he walked nonchalantly from the dining room, stood behind some shrubs where he would not be noticed, and waited for this bewitching woman. What could be the meaning of her summons? Why would the granddaughter of an earl seek him out? He had not even begun to frame the possibilities when a small English MG pulled up and he ran out to hop in.

“I need your help,” she said tersely as the car leaped forward.

To McKay’s surprise, she headed for the southeast corner of Bristol Town and the famous mountain road that first climbed up in a series of very tight turns, then dropped down in a chain of frightening hairpins downhill to the oceanfront town of Ely. Delia drove the straight-ahead portions connecting the seven turns at high speed, then, as the next hairpin approached, she slammed on the brakes and screamed half-sideways round the corner. McKay, sitting in what was for him the wrong side of the front seat, was terrified.

It was, he later said, “the worst ten miles I’ve ever ridden,” but when he became accustomed to it, he had time, especially during the straightaways to think: This is great! I’m heading to an unknown destination with a titled Englishwoman, and a knockout! High adventure for a Detroit newspaperman educated at Rutgers, and he laughed at himself for feeling like a freshman.

Finally he asked, “Where are we going?” and she said: “You’ll see.” He did not venture even a guess as to what was happening.

He had half expected her to stop in Ely, a town he had wanted to see for its snug harbor on the Atlantic, but she roared through its narrow streets, rousting chickens and terrifying citizens. “Slow down, killer!” he cried. “This is a town.” But she ignored him, exiting by a narrow southern trail that ran along the cliffs overlooking the ocean.

After a breathtaking ride they reached the top of a long descent at the foot of which lay the colorful and isolated town of York, a big village, really, strung out along the two sides of Marigot Baie, a starkly handsome indentation from the Atlantic. He had read that in hurricane season York sometimes absorbed a good deal of punishment, for great waves came storming into the enclosed baie and tumbled helter-skelter onto the roads and houses at lower levels. But a few days of sunshine usually dried out the damage and York resumed its quiet ways.

She was adorable, there was no other word McKay could think of as she sped them to the south arm of the baie where the island road ended. Darting impatiently from one cul-de-sac to the next, she found herself hitting dead ends repeatedly, and was forced at last to halt the car, summon a black peasant to her window, and ask almost petulantly: “Where’s the road to Cap d’Enfer?” and he explained what she already knew: “There be no road, ma’am, just a path.”

“I know,” she snapped. “But where is the path?”

He showed her the almost invisible exit from the paved streets of the town to an earthen trail which would have been appropriate for cattle but not for a car accustomed to well-kept highways. But the man wanted to be helpful, so he assured Delia: “You drive slow, strong car, you get there fine.” She thanked him with a huge, warm smile and took off down the dusty trail at a speed much greater than he would have advised.

Now McKay insisted that he be taken into her confidence: “Tell me what we’re doing or I’m getting out.”

“Not likely!” she said half scornfully. “You jump out of this car at this speed and you’ll be a dead pigeon.”

“Does it have to do with what Leckey and I came upon the other night?”

“Let’s just say you’re my alibi.” She flushed, turned her eyes from the path, gave him an almost anguished look of appreciation, and said almost tearfully: “You know what that bastard Leckey’s done? Because Etienne dared to kiss a white girl, he’s been dismissed from the council, lost his job with the Tourist Board, and his jewelry business is already beginning to suffer!”

“I can’t believe it. What a rotten deal …”

She leaned forward over the wheel as if to distance herself from McKay, then said in sincere frustration: “Have you ever reflected that in London, Etienne would be a sensation with those good looks, those manners, his solid education? The man’s a find. In Paris he’d be the king of the Left Bank. But here in All Saints …”

“Or in Detroit,” McKay added.

“Okay, so now tell me.”

Slowing the car to avoid the deep cuts which made the road perilous, she said: “I’ve never been down this way …” Then bluntly: “I need assistance from someone I can trust.”

As she maneuvered the car deftly around the holes, McKay said: “You seem like the last girl in the world who needs assistance,” and she laughed in agreement: “But I do need your secrecy. I trust you, Millard. I have to.”

Now even this fragmentary trail ended, but off to the left continued a mere footpath leading to Cap d’Enfer, Cape of Hell, the rocky southeast tip of the island where in the old days sailing boats had frequently come to grief. Driving gingerly along the edge of a deep cliff, Delia, with a slow, sure hand, slowed the car to a walk, and at last they reached the tip end of the land, and there Etienne Boncour stood waiting beside his blue Ford pickup.

Delia leaped from the driver’s seat and dashed across the somber headland to embrace Etienne and lead him behind the pile of rocks which marked the end of the island. There they remained for more than an hour while McKay tormented himself with imaginings of what they were doing. When they reappeared, Etienne more handsome than ever, she a windblown beauty standing out against the turbulent Atlantic, they formed a magnificent pair, and McKay was proud that he had been allowed to know each of them.

From the back of her MG, Delia produced a surprise hamper, the wicker kind that makes English and French open-air picnics extra delectable, as if demonstrating that the person who assembled the picnic had done so with proper seriousness. It was a sad feast they shared there at the end of the world, with a cliff for a table and an angry ocean for a tapestry, these three distraught strangers: a headstrong English girl rejecting womanly restraints, a fine young island man striving to find his precise plan in the world of shifting definitions, and a brash but perceptive American intruder, inheritor of English value systems respectful of island traditions. Proof of the confusion in which they found themselves came in the fact that each of them merely toyed with the good food that Delia had brought and stared disconsolately at the dark ocean to the east.

Boncour, however, wanted to explain: “Leckey acted only as he’s done for the past nine years. Anything, even the most trivial, if it threatens the governor general’s office in any way, he must stamp out. This island is on the brink of black-white trouble, all the Caribbean islands are, believe me. I see it when I travel to my other shops.”

“Even Barbados?” McKay asked, and Etienne snapped: “Especially Barbados. But in All Saints, we’re going to evade that trouble by bringing blacks and coloreds into full political partnership. Maybe even real self-government … earlier than you’d think.”

“I believe you’re right,” Delia said. “And from things I’ve seen my father do, like that Wrentham gala …” She stopped, placed her arm about Boncour’s shoulder, and quietly continued: “The night you and I were found out …” She did not complete her thought about her father.

“So,” Boncour resumed, “if the daughter of our Gee-Gee and an island man of color were to become items of gossip …” He made a slashing motion with the edge of his hand: “Chop him off.” He then looked at Delia and kissed her: “Or chop her off, if necessary. You’re in as much trouble as I am, Lady Delia.”

“I learned that during the trouble in Germany. Both sides were willing to throw little Delia overboard.” She rose, walked to the edge of the cap and tried to toss stones into the ocean, but they fell short.

For the next half-hour they talked of many things, and then Millard said: “I’d love to extend my stay, maybe I could wire the boss, asking him to allow me to take my vacation here in All Saints. I’ve grown to love this island … people like you … scenes like this.”

“Why don’t you?” Delia asked. “You could write a book about us.”

“It would take lots more knowledge than I have …”

“But Etienne and I would provide all your spadework. He knows All Saints, I know the government of British colonies.”

McKay looked at them, this handsome pair of people who had become so important to him: “The much bigger question is—what are you going to do?”

Without hesitation Delia said: “If this were France and we were going to live in France, we could get married, now. But in English territory …” She turned to McKay, placing her hand in his: “If we lived in Detroit, would it be any easier?”

“What’s inflammatory?” she asked with snappish irritation.

“Black and white. Nobody’s ready for that yet.”

“But this man is not black. Look at him. He’s damned near as white as you are.”

“Does Major Leckey think so? That’s what really matters.”

When the time came to leave this tiny sanctuary, Delia jumped into Boncour’s truck, tossed her keys to McKay, and said: “I’ll pick it up at the Belgrave,” but Etienne would have none of that. He knew she needed to be protected from herself, and said: “Delia, you must ride with him,” and he made her leave his car.

He also insisted that she and McKay start off first: “I’ll follow long after and enter York through a different side road, one not often used. If Major Leckey does have spies watching you, I’ll fool them.” Of course, Delia roared back into York with her dust and noise only alerting everyone to her presence, and McKay’s cry “Don’t drive like a damned fool” merely encouraged her to drive faster.

When McKay submitted his third long article, a tough assessment of Britain’s future in her smaller islands like All Saints, his editor in Detroit assumed that he would be sailing home promptly, but McKay had become so emotionally involved with the probable fate of Delia and Etienne, with the success or failure of Lord Wrentham and Major Leckey, with the fortunes of his two dark friends Bart Wrentham and cricketer Sir Benny, and yes, even with what might happen to those formless Ponsfords, that he wired his paper for permission to take his 1938 vacation early, in All Saints, and Gross replied that since his articles had done so much good for circulation in Canada, the publisher wanted him to take a reporting trip to Barbados or Trinidad or both, and on regular salary, not vacation.

He replied SAILING TRINIDAD THEN BARBADOS TONIGHT, and he sought out Etienne at his jewelry store and then Delia at Gommint House to explain his absence and to wish them well. As he was about to leave the Belgrave he encountered Major Leckey coming to escort him to the ship: “McKay, we’ve been immensely pleased with your stories. Remarkable that an American could penetrate our mysteries so accurately. Gee-Gee sends his regards.”

“What does that mean to a man like Boncour who’s in trade?”

“If he does very well indeed, there’s always the chance his daughter will marry a gentleman. Then, depending upon her father’s habits …” He waved his right hand nebulously. “He could very well be accepted in the better circles and in his later years even become known as a gentleman … if his trade earns him a respectable fortune.”

“Then Boncour has a chance?” McKay asked.

“Not that one. I’m afraid he’s blotted his copybook.”

At the ship, Leckey said with great sincerity: “When you’re through with Barbados and Trinidad, come back here. We’ve grown fond of you, really.” And then he cried: “Goodness, look who’s come down!” It was the governor general and his daughter Delia, and they repeated what the major had said: “We’d like you to come back.”

McKay spent six days in Trinidad, where his ship stopped first, and where he found so much strange and exciting material that he produced not one but two articles for his newspaper. For example, he had not known before that Trinidad contained so many Indians, that it was in some ways more a colonial adjunct of India than of England: “Hindus and Muslims, who were imported into Trinidad in the last century to work the great sugar plantations, perpetuate the tensions they experienced in their homeland, but in future, if they conciliate their differences, they can be expected to exert a new and vibrant political force in the island.”

But it was McKay’s obvious affection for the clean orderliness of Barbados that shone through his opening article on that island: “At various periods in history the United States has speculated about occupying this or that Caribbean island: Cuba, Santo Domingo, the Virgin Islands, Nicaragua on the mainland or Haiti? We’d have been much smarter not to have conducted negotiations with any of that group. What we should have done in the early days is purchase Barbados from Great Britain. We’d have had a paradise, self-sustaining too. We still ought to think about it.”

He filed that story on Wednesday, and on Thursday night he called Detroit: KILL WEDNESDAY STORY. HELL BROKE LOOSE BARBADOS. WILL FILE. And early next morning he filed the first of six long accounts of the race riots that had suddenly erupted on seemingly peaceful Barbados and various other British islands in the Caribbean including Jamaica. The condescending type of paternalism he had witnessed on All Saints had finally become so galling to the blacks that they could no longer tolerate it, and in wild anger and resentment, mobs coursed through the towns and villages while smaller bands tried to burn plantations. On Barbados it was a savage uprising, resulting in many deaths, and McKay’s previous experiences in All Saints enabled him to write perceptively about the background causes.

As soon as Dan Gross in Detroit read McKay’s dispatches he realized they were an international scoop, so he placed them on the Associated Press wire, which assured the articles nationwide and even worldwide attention. With those chance articles, McKay became a national figure, and others beside his own editor began to view his work favorably.

Six days later, when his homeward bound ship put in to Baie de Soleil, All Saints still slumbered in the sun as if no uprisings had occurred throughout the other islands. Here was peace. Here was British colonial government at its best, and as the manifold beauties of the baie revealed themselves once more he realized that his affections were permanently tied to this island. When he reached the Belgrave he actually ran forward to greet the Ponsfords, whom he had once considered to be impossible. As soon as his bags were deposited in his room, he hurried off to the Waterloo, where Black Bart left the bar to embrace him and listen to his adventures during the riots.

Then, in a much more sober attitude, he walked slowly toward Etienne Boncour’s jewelry store, where he found the fastidious Frenchman, as he was usually called, eager to talk. They went into a back room, where they could have privacy, and shared confidences. McKay had little news to offer, since Boncour had branch stores in both Barbados and Trinidad, but the Frenchman had much to confide: “Delia’s seriously talking about marrying me and setting up our household on another island. Keep this shop operating, because it’s the moneymaker. She thinks we could have a good life.”

“And what do you think?”

Boncour smiled gently and held out his hands palms up: “Impossible. She once told me she was a child of Europe.”

“She told me the same thing.” McKay stopped. “You know, Etienne, I was very fond of that young woman. Still am.”

“Who wouldn’t be? She seems to have broken hearts around the compass points.”

“So what’s going to happen?”

Boncour stiffened, as if harsh decisions had firmed his backbone: “One cannot say. One simply cannot say, but one thing’s certain. That girl could not exist, not happily, on a small British island.”

This momentary sentimentalism over vanished Spanish grandeur did not mask his great pleasure at being safe within the security of All Saints: Actually, I like everything about this island except Major Leckey and the heavy food. Upon reflection, one of the things he liked most was the efficient way in which the Gee-Gee governed: Like at the cricket field the other day. He appeared for practice in his old all-England blazer, chased ground balls that black players hit, then took his turn at bat and swiped two or three out toward the boundary. Players and casual spectators alike, they loved it. They felt he was one of them.

McKay also appreciated the clever tricks by which Lord Basil made blacks feel welcome at all his functions, save meals at Gommint House or soirees at The Club. He showed no personal animus toward blacks and preached to his white associates that the time was coming when blacks would have to be admitted into governing circles. But he also sternly upheld the dignity of his office, and he never looked better than when he rode in full uniform in the rear seat of his Rolls-Royce, nodding grandly and finally stepping forth in full authority and austerity to open a new school or dedicate the wing of a hospital. McKay had never before seen a British governor in action, and he was impressed: Maintains a more believable image of noble rule than, say, the governor of South Dakota.

On the first full day after his return a pleasant surprise awaited him, for Delia stopped by the Belgrave in her MG to invite him on a circuit of the north, and when they reached that incomparable picnic ground at Cap Galant and lazed in the April sun, he felt it appropriate to broach the critical question: “Delia, if marriage to Boncour is impossible on this island …?”

“Who said so?”

“He did. He’s not stupid.”

“He should let me make my own decisions.”

“Why couldn’t you two marry and live on Barbados?”

She laughed almost insolently. “Have you ever been to Barbados?”

“I just came back. You know that.”

“But before the rioting the life was so … well, attractive … reassuring.”

She became angry: “McKay, you fool! You’ve had a great time here, a genial reception in Barbados. But on either island, have you ever met a black family? I mean the people who work the fields, who make up four-fifths of the population. As they say in the cinema: ‘Son, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!’ So don’t ask me to live on Barbados.”

He reflected on this as he watched her throwing the tag ends of her picnic back into the hamper, then said: “You seem to make everything a matter of race.”

She laughed. “Don’t you realize, Millard, that every human relationship on this island is a matter of race? Suppose you ask one of Etienne’s pretty-clerks for a dinner date, it becomes an affair of state—she asks: ‘Where will we dine? I have to be careful of where I am seen with a white man.’ Why do you think I took you all the way out to Cap d’Enfer?”

“I’ve been wondering.”

“For one thing, I’d never driven the road before, didn’t know the way. But the main reason was to protect Etienne from being seen with me.”

He could not accept that nonsensical rationalization: “Don’t con me, Delia. On the way back you wanted to ride in his car … let everyone see you.”

“That was on the way back. Love sets you free sometimes. You don’t give a damn.” She stared at the sea, then added: “Like that time with the German colonel. I could have got myself killed.”

“Were you afraid?”

“No!” she cried with great emphasis. “I don’t give a damn about myself. Never have. Ask my father, he’s nursed me through enough scrapes.”

“So back to my question: ‘What’ll happen to Boncour?’ ” and she replied: “Sooner or later we shall hurt each other terribly. He knows that, but we also know that the game’s worth the risk. To live totally, that’s everything.” Abruptly halting her foreboding, she looked intently at McKay and repeated: “To live, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?” and she jumped into the car.

Impulsively he cried: “Delia, what’s going to happen to you? Trouble wherever you go, so far as I can learn. Near-tragedy in Germany, in Malta, here in All Saints. One of these days your luck will run out.”

She leaned over and kissed him lightly: “You’re sweet to care. But really, does it matter?” and the extraordinary way in which she looked sideways at him as she spoke made him think: My God! She’s letting me know she wouldn’t mind if I wanted to make love to her, too. In great confusion he scrunched over into the far corner of the front seat, interlocked his knuckles in a grasp so tight they turned white, and said softly: “Delia, you know I’ve fallen in love with you.”

“That’s sweet,” she said, almost flippantly, as if the avowal merited no deeper consideration.

“And I most desperately want you to do the right thing.” Realizing that this must sound juvenile, he lamely added a cliché that made things even worse: “I want you to find happiness.”

Dismissing him as she would have an attractive child, she teased: “McKay! You’re talking like my maiden aunt! The one who moped her life away by dreaming of the grocer’s boy she fell in love with,” and there ended the serious discussion he had attempted to inaugurate.

When they reached Bristol Town she delivered him to the Belgrave, where they found Major Leckey, obviously outraged, awaiting them: “Really, Delia, you must keep us advised as to where you’re going. An important visitor has come to Government House. Your father …”

“Well, here I am. Let’s go.”

“Not in those clothes. It’s the German ambassador. Came from Barbados in that Royal Navy vessel you saw in the baie … if you bothered to look.” And off they went, with Leckey driving very fast in his large car and Delia following a few yards behind in her small one.

“Permission granted?”

“Of course. Our relations with Germany have never been better. We hear there’s to be a pact of mutual friendship with Italy, too, so the people of ill will who’ve been trying to keep our nations apart have lost out.”

McKay had been vaguely aware that the various nations in Europe were having their differences and that harsh words had been voiced about Adolf Hitler, but in the areas west of Detroit, which contained many Americans of German descent, those rumors were derided. He was also aware, but in only the roughest terms, that since his departure from Detroit, Germany and Austria had united under some kind of agreement, but he had been led to believe, from the scraps of information he had available, that it was generally held to be a move toward peace in that part of the world.

Both Ponsfords were of that opinion: “We cannot abide the French. Hitler may have his faults, but the Jews did nearly overrun both Germany and Austria.” Mr. Ponsford said: “I for one would be delighted to see the Graf Spee in the harbor. The Germans may be our allies one of these days, and I’d like to see what they’d bring into the partnership.”

It was about quarter to nine that night when McKay was summoned to the phone. “Hullo, McKay? Leckey here. The Gee-Gee wants to know if you can join us and a few men?… Yes, right now.… Good! I’ll fetch you, but would you be considerate and be waiting outside?”

When he was ushered into Lord Wrentham’s study, he found four island men, all white, sitting with Wrentham and a ramrod-stiff European in his mid-forties: “Ambassador Freundlich, this is the distinguished American correspondent from the very part of the United States you were asking about. I wanted you two to meet. Exchange of ideas and all that.”

The Gee-Gee seemed eager to introduce his daughter and ordered Leckey: “See if Delia can instruct the servants to fetch us some coffee.” When she appeared, radiant in a charming pastel frock, leading two black servants who passed the cups and the biscuits, she seemed the epitome of the well-bred English lass of twenty-two whose anxious parents were beginning to seek a husband, but as she passed McKay with her coffee, she gave him a sly wink.

He used this break as an opportunity to ask, as he always felt honor-bound to do: “Am I allowed to wire Detroit, before it happens, that the Graf Spee will be paying a visit here?”

Lord Wrentham answered: “It was the ambassador’s suggestion that you be invited, late though it was.”

McKay said: “I think these courtesy visits are a great idea. Builds friendships.” He stopped, aware that he was being somewhat more effusive than the occasion warranted, but then Major Leckey broke in with his own effusion: “You know, I’m sure, that in English the ambassador’s name means friendship. May that be a good omen!” And a toast was drunk.

It was agreed that all would be at the dock at ten in the morning when the great German cruiser would maneuver slowly and majestically between the guardian rocks protecting the baie. Cheers echoed and salutes were fired as the mighty ship edged up to the dock, but McKay did not participate in the noisy celebration, because Bart Wrentham, who served in the island’s volunteer marine rescue department, was whispering in his ear: “That’s no cruiser. That’s a bloody pocket battleship.” And indeed the vessel was immense, with its batteries of guns pointing in different directions.

“Ah, yes! He was with us three years. Reached the finals every year, but had bad luck. Last time he lost to an American, Don Budge.”

“He sends his best.” Then, seeing Delia in the second row and assuming that she was the governor’s daughter, he paused to acknowledge her with a bow, which she returned. Passing along, he came to Major Leckey, whom he recognized as the governor’s aide-de-camp by the handsome gold aiguillette he wore suspended from his shoulder. Saluting with a pronounced snap of the hand and click of heel, he said: “Would you be so kind as to deliver this letter of introduction?” Even though Leckey knew that the baron was treating him insolently, he had to accept the letter, and when he glanced at it he saw that it was addressed to “Fräulein the Honorable Delia Wrentham” and a seal indicated that it came from Baron Gottfried von Cramm.

The eight days in the spring of 1938 that the Graf Spee remained at All Saints wound up the three most memorable events of recent island history: the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1929, the match with Lord Wrentham’s cricket eleven in 1932, and now the monstrous presence of this great, sleek blue-gray warship. It made earlier visits by puny little British destroyers, which had once seemed so powerful, almost laughable.

On Thursday anyone on the island who cared to do so was invited to come aboard, and several thousand did. By means of ropes carefully strung and wooden stanchions properly placed, the islanders were led about the ship, but any so-called “military secrets” they were permitted to see could just as easily have been obtained from a picture postcard. But McKay observed that the Germans cleverly and unostentatiously provided three different tours for the visitors. White people were quietly diverted here and there; they were taken to see officers’ quarters and part of the bridge. Coloreds were led down other lanes, and they saw enlisted quarters and some of the smaller guns, while persons obviously black were taken on long, winding tours that showed them almost nothing they could not have seen from the dock.

“I’m American,” McKay said, and the officer smiled: “Then you know what I mean.”

On four successive nights there were festive dinners. The Gee-Gee invited the principal officers to Government House for a flower-strewn reception, followed by a sit-down dinner for twenty, and at both affairs three men stood out as the acme of their professions: Lord Wrentham, tall, slim, straight and very handsome in his formal attire with the three colorful ribbons signifying the honors he had been awarded; Captain Vreimark, the prototypical German naval officer, with a chestful of decorations testifying to his years of service with the fleet; Baron Sterner, young, good-looking, and crisp in formal wear with one ribbon over his left breast. Of the three, thought McKay, the Englishman was most impressive, and on the next night, when the officers of the Spee entertained aboard their ship, the Gee-Gee positively scintillated, for when he appeared in the dress uniform of one of the great British regiments, he was a most dazzling figure.

On the third night the civilian officials of All Saints entertained the Germans with a gracious buffet and island music, but the fourth afternoon and evening were best of all, for then a long entourage of island cars of every vintage carried the German officers north to the old town of Tudor, where a rural reception was held, with speeches and music, after which everyone rode on to Cap Galant, where tents had been erected to protect them against rain and where a typical island picnic was held, with entertainment by four calypso singers who happened to be visiting from Trinidad. Those Germans who understood English were not at ease with the flippant social and political observations of the uninhibited calypso men. “Such would never be allowed in Germany,” an officer told McKay. “I can assure you of that.”

It was during these dreamlike days that McKay first noticed that Delia alternately appeared and vanished, and since he knew no one in the official party whom he could ask about this, he had to fall back on the Ponsfords, who loved the tittle-tattle about their betters that so mesmerized the English middle classes. Mrs. Ponsford, adopting a conspiratorial manner as she shared a cold lunch with McKay, confided: “She’s seeing that handsome young baron at every opportunity, and I do believe she spent the night with him aboard the ship once or twice.”

“Oh, he’s impeccable,” Mr. Ponsford said, for he was as much a gossip as his wife. “I understand the Gee-Gee checked by cabling the Foreign Office.”

“Speaking about cables, what can I tell my paper about the purpose of this visit of the Spee? Seems most unusual.”

“They’re doing what we call ‘showing the flag.’ Herr Hitler wants it known that he has a ship like the Spee.”

“You think the Gee-Gee is sending signals home about this huge thing?”

“I’m sure of it. He’s no fool.”

“If he’s so smart, what’s he doing about his daughter and that phony baron?”

Mrs. Ponsford laughed to see her American friend so upset about the German: “He’s no phony, as you call it. He’s a very real baron from a distinguished Prussian military family. But that’s not what you asked. The Gee-Gee? I think he must be gratified to learn that his very lovely daughter isn’t going to marry an island colored man or an American.”

Mr. Ponsford weighed in with a heavy-handed joke: “And he wouldn’t be able to tell you which would be worse.”

Seeking comfort in his unease, McKay went along to Boncour’s shop, where, in the Frenchman’s absence, he thought seriously for the first time about what Delia had said that day at Cap Galant: “Suppose you invited one of Boncour’s beautiful clerks to a dinner date …” Looking suddenly at the two girls, slim and lithe and graced by the warmest smiles, he realized how easy it would be to fall under their spell, and how difficult it would be to do anything about it. Indeed, where could he take them to dinner, in what social circles would they move? And these two girls were almost white. What if he were to remain in All Saints and fall in love with one of those lovely creatures several shades darker than Black Bart? Now, that would pose a real problem.

“He’s a country gentleman, no cartoon Nazi. Her father cabled the Foreign Office for his credentials.”

Boncour looked up in surprise: “Don’t you realize what he is on that battleship? He’s the Nazi gauleiter …”

“He’s what?”

“Gauleiter. Block captain to check on the crew … see that they obey Hitler’s orders.”

“You’re crazy.”

“McKay, she’s about to marry him. They were talking about it on the ship. Maybe a big military wedding, Captain Vreimark officiating.”

“Oh.” There was no exclamation point at the end of this word as McKay pronounced it; it was the grunt of a man who had been punched heavily in the stomach by a superior foe. He was involved in matters about which he had little knowledge and over which he had no control. “Hadn’t we better speak to Delia about this? Frankly, all cards on the table?”

“She’s coming here. To say goodbye.” The two young men sat in silence. They were honestly thinking beyond themselves and of the damaging mistake Delia could be making.

And then they heard her swinging into the store and asking brightly: “Where’s Etienne?” and when the girls told her, she made her way into the back office: “Oh, there you both are! How terribly convenient.”

Boncour refused to accept her banter. “Delia, you mustn’t marry that German. He’s a professional Nazi. Your life among his gang would be hell …”

She stiffened, glared at the two men—lover and admirer—and decided to put an end to this nonsense: “Siegfried is exactly what he seems to be. A loyal official of the new German government.”

“Seems to be?” McKay blurted out. “Nobody knows who in hell he is, or what he’s doing aboard that ship.”

But it was sagacious Boncour, educated in England, who saw things most clearly: “Delia, can’t you see what’s bound to happen? Hitler and Great Britain, they’ve got to fall out sooner or later.”

It was so preposterous that McKay could not avoid laughing, but Boncour was beyond that, for he was fighting for a life: “Delia, for God’s sake, don’t do this reckless thing …”

He had used the wrong word. “Reckless?” Her voice rose: “I’ve been reckless all my life and it’s brought me what I want—excitement and joy. I’m not going to change now.”

“But not with an official in the Nazi party. Someday we will be at war with Germany.”

“Are you out of your mind? That’s twice you’ve said that. Germany and Britain have signed a nonaggression pact, and I want to be part of the union.” She moved nervously about the cramped office, then faced McKay, as if she had no further use for Boncour: “When I first went to Germany, I was thrilled at the vitality, the new world a-borning. Someone has called it ‘The Wave of the Future,’ and I do believe that.”

Boncour started to rebut, for he did most desperately wish to save this wonderful woman, but she cut him off: “I’ve got to go. I wanted you two to hear it from me, direct. Yes, Siegfried and I are getting married. Day after tomorrow, on the Spee.”

She kissed McKay on the cheek and tried to do the same with Boncour, but he turned away, so, as if to make him more miserable, she added: “And for our honeymoon we fly to Brazil!”

The wedding took place at five in the evening of the day prior to the Spee’s departure. On the quarterdeck a kind of chapel decorated with hundreds of island flowers had been erected, and within its sanctuary stood Captain Vreimark, more stern and erect than ever in his full-dress uniform. At his side were three junior officers, also solemn and very military, and beyond them sat the island band augmented by musicians from the Spee. Under a battery of big guns, Delia in a flowing pastel gown waited with her father in full uniform.

The bride and her handsome father swept past, paused to collect the baron, dressed in a military uniform, and all moved before Captain Vreimark, who greeted them, read a short ritual in German and then in English, and pronounced them man and wife. As guests lined up to sign the document attesting to the marriage, Delia spotted McKay and asked Major Leckey to fetch him: “Please, please, Millard, you sign too and let me know all is forgiven.”

“You have my blessing,” he said, and as the sun set over the glorious bay, with the two rocky pillars protecting its entrance, he had a brief feeling that perhaps Delia was right: Maybe the visit of this ship does signal a union between Germany and Great Britain. He did not know enough recent history to appreciate how unlikely that was, but he still voiced the hope as a blessing for Delia. She was an exceptional person, he had fallen in love with her and would never deny it. He was disgusted that she had chosen the German baron, but he had lost and he would neither grieve nor allow his loss to gnaw at him.

Because no woman could be allowed to sail aboard a German warship, the bridal party and many townspeople drove out to the improvised seaplane ramp at Anse du Soir, where a big, lumbering Pan American flying boat had delayed its schedule so as to carry the bridal couple to Rio. The band played a Hawaiian farewell song, “Aloha Oe,” Captain Vreimark and Lord Basil saluted, Delia kissed everyone, and Baron Sterner looked pleased at having married the granddaughter of an English earl. McKay, still regretting that Etienne Boncour had not come to say farewell, waved at Delia as she boarded the plane and whispered to himself: “Good luck, sea sprite. You splashed your way into my heart,” and suddenly he broke away from the noisy party, for tears were threatening to flood his eyes.

“Close the door,” Major Leckey said with crisp authority.

“What is this?”

“Shut up!” Mrs. Ponsford snapped, her lips taut, her gun still pointed unflinchingly at McKay.

Then, slowly, as he caught fragments of what was being sent and received, he deduced that pompous but subservient Major Leckey was heading a secret island apparatus which was reporting directly to similar intelligence agencies in London. For some reason Leckey and his team found it necessary to bypass the Gee-Gee and his official shortwave radio.

Now, from words that were dropped, it became obvious that the Ponsfords, tested agents from years back and with experience in different countries, had been sent from headquarters to reinforce Leckey’s operation, and the fact that they had fooled McKay so completely was proof that they had fooled others as well.

Mouth agape, he stared at the Ponsfords, piecing together the hints they had revealed concerning their mission but which he had failed to detect or evaluate: They did say they’d been friends of the Earl of Gore. Probably that’s why they were sent on his trail. They seemed to have a complete dossier on Delia, and I should have wondered why they’d have taken the trouble. And once they learned I was a newspaperman, they went out of their way to convince me that they were vaudeville silly-ass Englishmen. They kept turning up at all the right spots. I feel damned stupid, with her pointing that gun at me, after the way I dismissed her as a gossip.

Turning the microphone back, she reached for her gun and resumed guarding McKay, but the transmission was interrupted by the breathless arrival of Leckey’s man, who had been surveying and photographing the Graf Spee. It was Bart Wrentham from the Waterloo, and when he saw McKay with the gun pointed at this head, he blurted out: “What in hell is he doing here?”

“He stumbled in,” Leckey said crisply, “and we can’t allow him to stumble out until the Spee has sailed.”

Paying no further attention to his friend, Black Bart went to the transmitter and told the operator: “Get me Brazil,” and for about ten minutes he provided an agent of the British admiralty with a professional assessment of the pocket battleship. Then Leckey took over, speaking to London: “Why did the Graf Spee make this extraordinary visit? From things Captain Vreimark said accidentally, but so that we would be sure to hear them, they wanted our governor general to report favorably on German-British friendship. And since they had to know that some group like ours would be trying to determine the capacity of their ship, they invited us to roam around it. They wanted to scare us and for us to scare you. Their game succeeded. It is indeed a formidable ship.”

McKay was fascinated by what he was hearing, but he was not yet prepared for what Leckey reported next: “Lord Wrentham is a total prisoner of their propaganda. He extols Hitler, says he’s watched the Nazi rise to power, and now believes he’s unstoppable. He tries to convince any official visitor that Germany is destined to rule Central Europe and more. He despises France and holds America in contempt, but he’s smart enough to coddle naïve American journalists and mask his convictions from them. We know he is an ass, but a dangerous one because people like him so much. All Saints is a good place to keep him isolated from the European capitals, but he must be continuously watched.”

Having submitted their reports, the five plotters quickly disassembled their radio and packed its various parts in a surprisingly small set of hand-held grips. Then Leckey turned to the Ponsfords and asked: “What are we going to do with him?”

“He’s heard too much,” Mr. Ponsford warned. “And he is a newspaperman.”

“Under other circumstances, yes. Certainly we can’t let him run to his typewriter with what he’s heard.”

Black Bart said: “I’ve found him to be honest. Look at his articles.”

“Yes,” Leckey said, staring contemptuously at McKay. “Do look at them. Sycophantic. Falls in love with a bitch like Delia, writes poems of praise.”

“So what are we going to do?” Mr. Ponsford asked, and Leckey said: “We’ve got to keep him here until the Graf Spee is on its way to Brazil. And we must keep Lord Wrentham thinking that his close association with the German ambassador went unnoticed.” Finally speaking directly to McKay, he said: “So you stay in this room, guarded, until morning. Then we’ll decide.” Turning now to Mrs. Ponsford and her revolver, he asked: “Can you guard him till morning?” and she nodded.

So the four men, Leckey, Ponsford, Black Bart and the radioman, left the room, taking their radio gear to some other hiding spot, and were seen no more that night.

Without flinching, Mrs. Ponsford held the gun on McKay, rebuffing his attempts to engage her in revealing conversation. Once she observed: “This may seem a dirty business, but the enemy is unspeakable.”

“Then you think there’ll be war with Germany?”

“Don’t you? After what you saw with the Spee?”

“Would you shoot me if I tried to bolt?”

“Try me.”

He did not speak again until he had to go to the bathroom, and she said: “Go ahead,” but she followed him into the little room, saying: “No escaping out the window like they do in the flicks.” After a while he protested: “It’s not possible for a man to urinate with a woman standing behind him with a pistol to his head,” and she said: “Keep trying.”

Soon thereafter she suggested: “Try it sitting down,” and while he perched on the stool she ran water noisily in the basin, and this encouraged him to override his inhibitions.

Toward morning he asked: “Why did you put on such an English garden-party act with me?” and she said: “From the first I suspected we might want to use you. I acted the way you expected me to. Encouraged you to accept me.”

“Is he in charge of your group?” and she replied: “I won’t tell you. Bart at the Waterloo could be, or my husband, or me.”

“But Leckey gives the orders,” and she said: “He seems to. Maybe that’s the secret of his long success.”

When dawn in the east reflected on Pointes Nord and Sud, Major Leckey and Bart returned and told Mrs. Ponsford: “Get some sleep,” and she handed the revolver to Bart.

She fell asleep in minutes, and Leckey asked McKay: “Under what arrangements can we let you live?” and it was Bart who offered the workable suggestion: “He might be made to understand that his America is going to be at war with Hitler just as soon as we are. If he understood that, we could get him to swear that he’d write nothing about tonight … or our stupid Gee-Gee … or the Nazi gauleiter Sterner.”

“Would you accept his word? On a matter of such vital importance?”

“I think we have to.”

“Will you give us such assurance, McKay?” Before Millard could answer, Leckey said: “Before you swear to a promise you can’t keep, remember, if you double-cross us, we have people like the Ponsfords who will quietly slip into Detroit one afternoon, and you’ll have a nasty accident.”

“I think I’m piecing the bits together,” McKay said. “I’m not sure you’re right about Germany, but I’m sure you think so.” He licked his dry lips and said: “I give you my word.”

“Nothing about the Gee-Gee being a German accomplice, whether he knows it or not? Nothing about Baron Sterner? Nothing about our radio? Nothing about me or Bart, since we have to remain here?”

Pushing their way through the muttering crowd, the two men entered the beautifully organized shop, its gleaming counters neatly aligned. But when they looked at the display case that housed the expensive Rolex watches, they saw draped across it, arms and legs grotesquely extended, the inert body of the shop’s owner. Etienne Boncour had shot himself through the head, and his body had pitched forward with such force that it had shattered the glass case.

McKay was stricken by the appalling sight of his dead friend, but Major Leckey took only one hasty professional look, then quickly assumed his aide-de-camp pose. Waving his hand sideways to disperse the gawking onlookers, he snapped out a chain of orders: “Be about your business. Go, go! Leave a path there!” and he pushed people back to make way for the converted truck that edged its way in to remove the dead body to the morgue.

AT FIFTY-ONE, MICHAEL CARMODY WAS BEGINNING TO WONDER if he would ever find in his classes the brilliant kind of lad who makes teaching bearable.

“None so far,” he groaned one Monday morning as he reported early for the weekly grind. “Acceptable students, yes, but never that flaming talent bursting free to remind you of young Raphael or Mozart. P’raps they don’t make ’em anymore.”

An Irish immigrant to Trinidad, Michael Carmody was an instructor at Queen’s Own College in the pleasant town of Tunapuna, some eight miles east of the capital of Port of Spain.

Queen’s Own, in the British fashion, was called a college (in other parts of the world it would be called a high school), the supposition being that if a bright lad wanted to move ahead to advance his education, he would next attend a university. The educational standard was high and top graduates had no difficulty in either winning bursaries to the best universities in Great Britain or doing well when they got there, so Carmody kept hoping that one day there would come wandering into his room a future Isaac Newton.

In the few minutes before the students entered he read the poem again, and thought: This has to be Banarjee, and he visualized the timid Indian boy, fifteen years old, thin as an ebony wand, with dark complexion, a mass of almost shining black hair, and luminescent eyes that he seemed afraid to show in public. Ranjit Banarjee was unusually shy, especially with girls, and although he gave every evidence of possessing a mind of surprising capacity and range, he excelled in none of the traditional subjects. Classified by his teachers as “a difficult lad but never disruptive,” he moved quietly through the school system, always keeping somewhat apart from the other students—a Hindu in a Catholic school, an Indian among blacks and mestizos.

The bell signaling the opening of school rang and the delightful young people of Trinidad streamed into the room, all boys, since this was a segregated Catholic college, established in the years when the island had been Spanish. The complete range of color was represented, from blackest black of the Negroes whose ancestors had been slaves, to the half-black, half-white of the mestizos, the light browns of the Hindus and Muslims, to the delicate tans of the Spanish and French families with black infusions at some distant time, and on to the whites like Carmody who had come mainly from the British Isles, and relatively recently. As they came rollicking into his room he thought: A tropical bouquet, and how much more refreshing than the sea of pasty white that used to greet me in Dublin.

When his students came to attention he said, holding the two pages aloft in his left hand: “This morning we start with a surprise, and a most pleasant one I can assure you. When I came to work this morning I found a poem waiting on my desk. From the way it is laid out, can you tell me what kind of poem it is?” One boy called out: “A sonnet,” and Carmody asked: “How do you know?” and the boy said: “Eight lines at top, six at bottom.”

“Good, and the poem is good too,” and with that, he began in a rich Irish brogue intended for the recitation of poetry:

Betraying his delight with the sonnet, Carmody said quietly: “I’m sure we can guess who wrote these lovely words,” and almost automatically the boys turned to look at Ranjit Banarjee, whose embarrassment showed as he enjoyed the fruits of authorship.

“Yes,” Carmody said, “our fledgling poet is Ranjit, a quiet lad whose waters run deep,” and the class applauded, but he stopped them with a surprising discussion that none who heard it would ever forget: “There’s a great deal wrong with this poem, and in our enthusiasm we must not overlook the errors. Let’s look at the octet first.”

But after a long discussion of the rules of sonnet writing, Carmody stopped abruptly, placed his hands flat on his desk, and leaned forward: “Students, what have I just been engaging in?” When no one spoke, for they had not understood what point their teacher was trying to make with his harsh criticism, Ranjit said in a low voice: “Pedantry.”

“Yes!” Carmody cried, bringing his hands down on his desk with an invigorating slap. “Pedantry. Remember what we said about Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger? Victor, what was it?”

“He knew all the rules for writing a song but never how to write one.”

“Yes! Our Ranjit has broken all the rules, but he has written a perfectly lovely little sonnet immortalizing a great explorer.” He smiled approvingly at Ranjit, then concluded: “And I, who know all the rules for sonnet making, could never in a hundred years compose a decent one. Ranjit, you’re a poet and I’m not.”

Innocently, the Indian boy looked up at this master he had grown to respect, and said: “I don’t know.”

This irritated Carmody, who banged his desk: “Dammit, lad, you’ve got to put your mind to something, don’t you? Time’s wasting. Look at Dawson. He wants to be a medic, and by the end of next year he’ll have finished, right here in Queen’s, many of the courses he’ll need for the first year of his university work. What will you have accomplished and in what direction are you heading?”

When Ranjit said defensively: “But I don’t know. It’s all so confusing,” Carmody decided to take matters into his own hands. After gaining permission from the dean, he plopped the boy in his little Austin and drove to Port of Spain, asking Ranjit to direct him to his grandfather’s Portugee Shop.

“My grandfather is Sirdar Banarjee. Sirdar is a traditional name in our family.”

Sirdar was a bustling white-haired man who had kept his Portugee Shop focused on two essential services: providing cheap, well-made clothing for the locals and expensive trinkets for the tourists, with special emphasis on keeping both groups happy. Eagerly extending his hand, he said effusively: “Ranjit tells me you’re his favorite master, a very intelligent man indeed, Trinity College in Dublin. Now, what can I do for you?”

“Could we please talk about your grandson?”

“What’s he done wrong?” Sirdar asked, scowling at the boy.

“Nothing! Quite the contrary, he’s done so many things right that I want to talk seriously about his future.”

“Future? Here’s his future,” and he spread his arms outward to encompass his shop.

“Could we, perhaps, ask his mother to join us? These are matters of great importance, Mr. Banarjee.”

“Matters of great importance are settled by men,” he said, stressing the word, and he led Carmody and Ranjit into his cluttered office, where he said, with hands spread on his desk: “Now tell me the problem, and reasoning together like sensible men, we can solve it.”

“Your grandson here is a boy of dormant ability.”

“It’s really you, Mr. Banarjee, who must wake up.”

“Me? You don’t run a shop like this in Trinidad by sleeping.”

“Where’d you get the name Portugee?” Carmody asked, seeking to placate the man.

“When the Indians came here in 1850 or thereabouts to work the cane fields, most of the shops were owned by Portugees, and since they had the reputation of offering the best bargains, anyone who started his shop, like my grandfather, called it a Portugee.”

“Very practical, and now I want you to be practical.”

“This is going to cost me money, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I want you to send Ranjit on to the university. He deserves it.”

“University? Where?”

“I feel sure he could win a bursary in almost any of the finest. You have a very intelligent grandson, Mr. Banarjee. He deserves an opportunity.”

Carmody saw at once that he had used effective words: bursary, intelligent, finest and opportunity. The conversation had been elevated to a level that the grandfather recognized and appreciated.

“That word bursary. Does it mean what I think?”

“That the university will pay most of his fees? Yes.”

“Like what university?”

“Cambridge, Oxford, our own Caribbean university in Jamaica.”

For the first time Ranjit entered the conversation: “Columbia in New York.”

Sirdar leaned back and smiled, first at Carmody, then at Ranjit: “You mean that this boy could go to those places?” and Carmody said with vigor: “Yes, if you help him financially, and if he directs all his efforts to accomplishing something specific.”

On the trip back to school Carmody spelled out the agenda: “You’ve proved you can write, but you haven’t proved you can tackle a subject of some importance and stay with it. If you demonstrate that ability, I’m positive I can land you a major bursary, because remember this, Ranjit, all universities are searching for really bright boys. The average, they can get by the bushel.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t want you to do anything. I want you to settle upon some project of substance and show me what you can accomplish.”

The boy did not answer, but four days later Carmody again found on his desk a single sheet of paper, once again labeled Master Carmody, but this time it covered a sheaf of nine pages. The general title of the essay was “Teachings of My Grandfather Sirdar,” and before Carmody had read the fourth page, so Indian in subject, so mature in observation, he muttered: “He can do it. My God! This Indian boy out of nowhere can do it!”

Carmody was delighted to think that in two paragraphs Ranjit had succintly defined his ancestry, but he was far more impressed by what the boy revealed about the Banarjees of this century.

Carmody read these glimpses into Indian life with growing interest, satisfied that Ranjit had not only a grasp of his heritage but also understood the fascinating complexities and contradictions of Trinidad life.

Carmody was eager to see what Ranjit had to say about the Indians’ capacity to excel in business regardless of where in the world they emigrated, and the boy did not disappoint:

When Carmody read that excerpt he had to smile, because he had heard two lawyers and a judge affirm in his club that “Sirdar Banarjee is the biggest damned liar in Trinidad, with Tobago and Barbados thrown in.” Another, overhearing this judgment, added from his table: “If Sirdar swears it’s Thursday, check your calendar. It’ll be Friday, but he’ll say it’s any other day of the week if that’s to his advantage.” Carmody was fascinated trying to guess what his star pupil would say about that.

“I might like to go to some good school in New York.”

“That would be a mistake.”

“Why?”

“You live in the Caribbean. Your future is in these English colonies—I mean nations—among leaders who’ve been educated in the English pattern.”

“Maybe that pattern isn’t so good anymore. Maybe I ought to go to Japan. Like all the Banarjees, I find languages easy.”

The idea stunned Carmody. None of his friends in either Ireland or here on the islands had ever contemplated so much as a flying vacation to Japan, and now this youth, this hesitant boy, really, was talking of spending the formative years of his life there. It was preposterous.

“How about the University of the West Indies … in Jamaica … for your undergraduate work?” He stopped abruptly. “You are planning graduate work … to get your doctorate?”

“Well, if it worked out … maybe.”

Irritated by the boy’s indecision, Carmody asked gruffly: “How about U.W.I. to sort of feel your way about? You’ll get top honors, I’m sure. And decide then where you wish to move on to. Oxford … I’m quite sure you’ll be eligible … Maybe the London School of Economics if you have a political bent?”

“I still think I might want to go to Columbia in New York.”

“Ranjit, as I’ve already told you, attending an American university won’t help you if you want to make your life in what is essentially a British island.” The boy said nothing, so Carmody said: “You must tell me what it is you want to be.”

“A scholar. Like John Stuart Mill or John Dewey. I like knowing about things. Maybe I will study the history and the people of the Caribbean.” Almost diffidently he added: “I can read French and Spanish.”

Carmody contemplated this unexpected turn, and finally surrendered: “You could do well in such fields, Ranjit. You could pursue such studies and at the end find yourself qualified to go in either direction, writing or scholarship.”

“Why do you always put writing first?”

“No, I’ll be the one who gathers him the data.”

“In that case, you really must spend your first three years at U.W.I. in Jamaica.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll meet students from all the other islands. Learn from them the character of the Caribbean.”

“Why should I do that?”

“Dammit!” Carmody stormed as he pitched rocks furiously into the valley below. “Don’t act the indifferent fool. You said yourself you wanted to study about the Caribbean. The contribution you are ideally qualified to make focuses on this region. You’re a Trinidadian, a native of a special island with special opportunities. You’re an Indian with perspective on the British and French islands. You’re a Hindu with your unique view of the other island religions. And you have been endowed with a rare sense of words and the English sentence. You have an obligation to more than yourself.”

Before Ranjit could react, the emotional Irishman did something of which teachers are always aware but rarely reveal; he related the boy to himself: “It’s not only your investment, Ranjit, it’s mine too. A teacher finds a really promising student only once or twice in a long career. Many good, yes, but with a chance to be great … not often. You’re my one chance. I’ve taught you, charted your progress, written letters to get you bursaries. And for what? So that you will be able to use your brains to the maximum for the rest of your life. You are not allowed to be indifferent, for I ride with you, to the heights or the depths. I’ve committed these years in Trinidad to you, and you must go forward, because you take me with you.”

“I will go to Jamaica,” he said solemnly, “and make myself informed.”

When Ranjit Banarjee, a precocious Hindu boy of fifteen, flew from Trinidad to Jamaica to enroll in the University of the West Indies, he was amazed at the distance between the two islands, more than a thousand miles, and when he studied the map of the Caribbean and found that Barbados far to the east was more than twelve hundred miles from Jamaica, he told an incoming freshman in the registration line: “Jamaica must have been the worst possible site for an island university,” and the young man, a black from All Saints, replied jokingly: “Best location would have been my island, All Saints, but it’s too small.” Then he added: “Geography and history don’t mix well in the Caribbean.”

“What do you mean?” and the young black responded: “If Jamaica were a thousand miles farther east, where it’s needed, everything would be all right.”

Discussions like that occurred often during Ranjit’s first Michaelmas term at the university. When he was not astonished by the wide variety of students—jet-black boys like the one from All Saints, Chinese from the western end of Jamaica, French speakers from the Dominican Republic, and eye-stopping girls of light color from Antigua and Barbados—he was surprised at how well educated they seemed to be. They behaved with a quiet confidence, as if they had come to Jamaica to learn something, and he told himself: I’ll bet they were just as good at their books as I was, and his first days in class fortified that opinion.

These young people were able. They had all graduated from that commendable group of schools which England had scattered through her colonies, with each school likely to have one superb teacher like Mr. Carmody of Queen’s Own. But Ranjit was also aware that U.W.I. had no students from Cuba, largest of the Caribbean islands, and apparently none from Guadeloupe or Martinique.

But as Ranjit settled down for the three years of hard work—doing extra papers during vacations would enable him to graduate early—he found that the true excitement at U.W.I. was the faculty, who were so compelling that, as before, he was drawn to several different disciplines: anthropology, history, literature.

A Dr. Evelyn Baker, a white woman on loan from the University of Miami, was an inspired sociologist who had conducted field studies in four different islands while earning her doctorate at Columbia University in New York. She had an ecumenical grasp of the Caribbean that attracted Ranjit, who aspired one day to have the same. She was about forty years old, the author of two books on the islands, and a disciplinarian where term papers were concerned, for she taught as if every student facing her was destined to be either a sociologist or an anthropologist. Early on she recognized Ranjit’s capacities, and paid such special attention to him that before the end of the first term she was satisfied that she had in this bright Indian boy a new cultural anthropologist for the area she had grown to love.

However, another teacher—Professor Philip Carpenter—a small, wiry, acidulous young Barbados scholar, a black man with his doctorate from the London School of Economics, that inspired breeding ground for colonial leaders, quickly recognized Ranjit as a young fellow ideally suited for historical studies: “I read your contribution to the anthology, Banarjee. Remarkable historical insight regarding the various Sirdars of your family. You could make a real contribution. History of the Indians in Trinidad … or the whole Caribbean. Why they prospered in Trinidad. Why they didn’t in Jamaica.” He walked about, then asked: “Were you Indians ever tried as field hands in Barbados? I really don’t know. I wish you’d look into that, Banarjee. Give me a paper on it. We both need to know.”

Ranjit’s education did not revolve solely about his professors; his fellow students were equally instructive, especially a Jamaican whose parents now worked in London: “They paid my way to go over last year. What a wonderful city! Hundreds of Trinidad Indians there, Ranjit. You’d be at home.” He was so enchanted by the virtues of London that he wanted Ranjit to fly over in the coming vacation: “Once you see it, you’ll make it your second home. As for me, soon as I get my degree, it’s good old London for me.”

One of the best trips he took with the limited funds his grandfather was able to provide was a special air pilgrimage arranged for students by a Caribbean airline to seven different islands. He saw not only fascinating little islands like St. Martin, half-Dutch, half-French, but also the big French islands. Guadeloupe fascinated him. “It’s two islands, really,” the guide pointed out, “separated by a channel so narrow you could almost jump across.” When the students convened at Basse-Terre to compare notes, an extremely attractive young woman from U.W.I. sat down beside Ranjit; he was delighted because he would never have made any approach on his own. He learned that she was Norma Wellington, niece of the medical doctor on St. Vincent, Church of England, and a premed student at U.W.I. who thought she might go on to the States for graduate work in hospital management. She had a sharp eye, evaluated different islands unemotionally, and displayed no nationalistic preference for her island over any other. She obviously found this young Hindu scholar interesting, or even exotic, for she conversed with him repeatedly on the tour.

Still very shy where girls were concerned, Ranjit found it difficult to engage in the normal chatter that young men his age employed when trying to impress their women friends, but once, as Norma and he were trudging along together on a quiet road in Grenada, he summoned courage to ask: “Norma, if you’re so beautiful, why aren’t you engaged … or something … or even married?” and she laughed easily: “Oh, Ranjit, I have so much to complete before that sort of stuff.”

Interpreting this as a rebuff, when Norma had intended merely to say that she felt she must attend to her education first, he retreated from his burgeoning interest in girls and found solace instead in the work he was doing with his three professors.

Professor Hammond, the teacher of literature, told him: “You can write, young man. At least you know what a paragraph is, and that’s more than I can say for most of my students.” Dr. Baker, the sociologist from Miami, said: “Excellent perceptions, Mr. Banarjee. At some point in your education you might want to write more fully on the Barbados syndrome.”

But it was Professor Carpenter who provided the immediate impetus to Ranjit’s next concentrated work, for he gave an inspired lecture on a historical figure he termed “the most effective man the West Indies has so far produced and a principal architect of the American form of government.” His lecture started with a dramatic account of a typical West Indian hurricane:

Without revealing who the boy was, the professor read from the first paragraphs of the letter, pointing out that the writing was concise and the scientific data accurate. Only then did he disclose who the author was: “Alexander Hamilton wrote this account when he was either seventeen or fifteen, for throughout his life he lied about his age.” And with that, he launched a scathing denunciation of the presumptuously long middle section of the letter.

When he had the full attention of his students, he proceeded to the worst of Hamilton’s effusions, passages which caused the students to break into laughter, but then he squelched them:

He ended his lecture with the information that Hamilton, as a result solely of having written this letter, was invited at the expense of older men who saw in him a touch of genius to come to their America, where he would receive a free education at a school in New Jersey and later at King’s College in New York. With a flourish Professor Carpenter said: “So if you write good term papers, there’s no telling what good things might happen,” and his students applauded his bravura performance.

But insistently in his daydreaming he came back to the famous Hurricane of 1772 and the boy Hamilton caught in the mighty whirl but still taking mental notes of what was happening, and the event became so vividly real that he dropped out of classes for a full week to compose a heroic poem of a hundred and sixty-eight twelve-syllable lines. When finished, he typed out three copies, delivering one to each of his professors, with the curt explanation: “I’ve been engaged. Please forgive my absence.” And each of the three read his poem with the conviction that Ranjit had spent his arbitrary vacation working on ideas promulgated in his or her class:

TO ALEXANDER HAMILTON
STRUGGLING IN THE HURRICANE OF 1772

The first fifty lines of his poem summarized the reasons why a man like Hamilton in his day, or Ranjit in his, would feel driven to emigrate; some of the reasons were fatuous, most were real and inescapable, and their impassioned recitation by this Indian lad from Trinidad demonstrated how much he had matured since leaving the relative calm of Michael Carmody’s class at Queen’s Own two years before.

The next sixty lines depicted the kind of Caribbean area that might have kept Hamilton at home, a utopian society in which the races and the social classes cooperated in managing their wealth in sugar, cotton and bananas without the necessity of calling upon Marxism to lead the way. And the last fifty-eight lines were sardonic explanations of why the necessary cooperation was not possible, not now, nor ever in the future.

As Michael Carmody had done in Trinidad, Ranjit’s three professors saw to it that his poem was read in various places, and recommended him for various fellowships. And then, just as in Hamilton’s case, as if good actions as well as hurricanes repeat themselves, he received three offers of fellowships leading to the doctorate. And he had a choice of three different fields of specialization, depending upon which local professor had put in the recommendation to that particular university: Chicago wanted him for history, Iowa for writing, and Miami for sociology.

He oscillated among the three, inclining first this way, then another, but the first to be eliminated was the writing program, because he still felt that this was not his forte. Writing came easily to him, obviously, but not with the all-consuming force that he believed necessary to sustain a career in that calling. “I love words,” he explained to his literature professor, who had arranged for the fellowship at Iowa, “but truly, I have no conviction,” and from her long experience with Third World writing, she said in local lingo: “If you ain’t got that fire in the gut, Ranjit, you ain’t got nuttin’, and she wished him well: “Maybe you have something even bigger, Ranjit. You have a burning integrity. Maybe that’s what we need in the Caribbean more than anything else.”

“Are you going to take it?”

“I really don’t know. I’d not feel safe so far from home. Besides, there’s that color problem in the States.”

“Come on! You’re as good-looking as Lena Horne. She’s fought your battle for you.”

“You always think in historico-sociologic terms, don’t you.”

“I do. I want to anticipate how the various mixes are going to work out.”

“Dammit, Ranjit! You’ve got to make up your mind. Historical approach? Sociological?”

“I simply don’t know.”

With that melancholy kind of self-indulgence for which only the French word tristesse is appropriate, the two young people, a dark Hindu from Trinidad and a beautiful light-skinned girl from St. Vincent, strolled among the low hills that rimmed their university, each aware that with their graduation, even their ephemeral, barely stated friendship was ending. It would have been impossible for him to take a girl of color, no matter how lovely, back to his circle of Indian friends and family, especially since she was also an Anglican, while for her to take a Hindu, educated though he was, into her family would be equally unthinkable.

As they walked beneath tall trees, he asked with a sense of urgency: “Straight answer, Norma, if you were me, what would you do?” When she hesitated, he added: “You’ve known me for over a year.”

“Why?” Ranjit asked, and her reply, which came in short clear sentences, revealed what many young islanders who had considered the subject believed: “Whether we approve or not, Miami is destined to be the ipso facto capital of the Caribbean. Our trade is with Miami, not with London. Our money comes from there. When islanders want first-class dental or medical service, we fly to Miami, we do our shopping there, and for our vacations we go there and not to Paris or London. To put it briefly, most of our workable ideas come from there, so if you have a chance to get your doctorate in Miami and don’t grab it, you’re not thinking straight.” She hesitated, for what she had to say next was painful, especially for a young woman from an extremely British island like St. Vincent: “And most of all, I suppose, because inch by inch the Caribbean has to fall under American domination. Know the enemy. Go to Miami.”

Abruptly she stopped walking, stood beside a tree, and looked at him: “It’s awful, really, so goddamned awful.”

“What do you mean?” Ranjit asked.

“I mean that you’ll go to Miami, find a teaching job in the States and never come back to help Trinidad. And I’m worse, because I know better. I’ll go to Boston, lead my class in nursing school, and get four job offers to help manage the best hospitals in the states. Maurice will work for DuPont in Delaware, never for some firm that needs him in Grenada.” She looked away, and said softly: “The waste, the waste is so deplorable. Year by year the Caribbean is robbed of its best, and how in hell can a region survive if it allows that?”

When they returned to the campus, there was no sense of a tragic Romeo-and-Juliet parting; they were two sensible young people from the highest levels of Caribbean intelligence and deportment who understood that their two contrasting cultures would never mix, and there was no sense of loss about the impossibility. Norma appreciated the opportunity she’d had to probe the thinking of a Hindu, while Ranjit was grateful for this escape from the confinements imposed upon him in Trinidad, and when they parted back on the campus, they did not even kiss, for although Norma might have wanted to do so as her gesture of farewell, Ranjit was far too self-conscious.

“Come down and see the place when it snows in Boston,” he said, and she replied: “I just might do that.”

But his departure from Jamaica was not destined to be as placid as that. Two days before he was scheduled to fly back to Trinidad before enrolling for a doctorate in sociology at the University of Miami, he was in the center of Kingston having a kind of farewell dinner at a low-class eating joint when a riot erupted. A gang of terrifying black men, with long streamers of braided hair reaching almost to their waists, roared through the streets shouting incomprehensible cries. Some carried machetes which they swung wildly. Others dashed up to any white tourists they spotted, shouting in their faces: “Go home, fat white pig!” and in the confusion Ranjit saw two white people, a man and a woman, fall to the street with blood gushing from their wounds.

At the height of the melee he thought of stepping forth to shout: “They’ve done nothing wrong,” but he was deterred by fear of what the rampaging blacks with the terrifying visages might do to someone like him—a Hindu who had no privileged place in Jamaica and was disliked by many islanders, black or white.

So he stayed motionless at the door of the restaurant, trying to make himself invisible, and when the rioting passed to another part of town, the Jamaican students who had accompanied him to the restaurant explained: “They’re bogus Rastafarians. Thugs frightening people.” But next day when he flew homeward the Kingston paper carried bold headlines: FOUR SLAIN IN RASTA RIOTING.

Banarjee said years later: “When I got off the airplane in Miami for the fall semester, my lungs expanded, as if responding to the freedom in the air, the excitement. Those were the years when the free-wheeling Cuban émigrés were converting a sleepy playground for rich people into an international capital. Ah! It was so vital to be in Miami in those days.”

Finally she asked: “And where are you headed?” and Ranjit replied: “Miami University.”

Screaming in mock horror, she pointed at Ranjit and cried: “That’s a no-no! You said the dirty words!” and she asked Paul to explain.

“Miami University is a nothing little place in Ohio. It produces football coaches. The University of Miami is down here in paradise, and it produces football players. And you get both arms broken if you ever call it by its old name, Suntan U.”

“At the beginning,” the girl added, “it was a school for rich kids who couldn’t make it up North. All scuba diving and tennis. Scoffers dubbed it Suntan U. Now it’s a great place. Fine professors, tough courses.”

“What’s your field?” Ranjit asked, surprised that she should be so knowledgeable, and she said: “History and philosophy. All A’s and B’s.”

When Paul broke in to ask: “Where you gonna live, Jamaica?” Ranjit said: “I’m from Trinidad, and I haven’t a clue,” and the athlete explained: “Rule of thumb: Dixie Highway, otherwise known as U. S. 1, runs from Key West to the Canadian border in Maine. It divides the sheep from the goats, and you look like goats.”

“Meaning?”

“If you have money and a car you live west of Dixie, on the campus, in a new dorm. If you have no money and no car, you huddle in a batch of crowded housing east of Dixie so you can walk to classes. I know a real great bunch of houses. Lots of Caribbean kids live there. You’d like it.”

Although he was only eighteen when he began his studies for the doctorate, Ranjit was so naturally intelligent and so painstakingly organized that he sailed through his obligatory courses and quickly leaped headfirst into the most advanced work on campus. As before, at U.W.I., he had the advantage of working right through the calendar year—fall, winter, summer semesters—with no time out for vacations; students from the North groaned when the Miami summer approached with its fierce heat and wilting humidity, but Ranjit actually blossomed, as if his dark skin fended off the sun’s rays. “It’s simply that Miami in summer is so much cooler than Trinidad,” he explained to other students, who stared at him, and one said: “Warmer than here? You must boil down there,” and he said: “We do.”

But the speed with which he was working and the approval he received from his professors were catapulting him toward a singular precipice over which foreign students often plunged. And Ranjit would have remained blissfully ignorant of the danger toward which he was galloping had he not been accosted one day in 1974 by a tall, cadaverous Ph.D. student from Pakistan who took him aside for a fatherly warning.

Mehmed Muhammad was in his mid-thirties, and for some time Ranjit had been vaguely aware of him puttering about the library, extremely deferential to anyone in authority and with a perpetual half-smile that could not be dislodged, regardless of the day’s disaster. Ranjit supposed, from the man’s name and origin, that he must be a Muslim Pakistani, and that was the case.

“I’m from Lahore. My late father was a moneylender in a small way.” Speaking in a whispering, confidential voice, he added: “I had an uncle who paid for my first seven years at Miami. But he is dead now.”

“You’ve been here seven years?”

“Yes. Let me see what immigration papers you have.”

“Well, papers in good order, but, my friend, you’re sitting on a time bomb.”

“What do you mean?”

“Taken together, these papers mean only one thing. You’re legally in the United States only so long as you maintain your student status. The minute that ends, out you go.” He spoke in that beguiling Irish lilt that Indians and Muslims from the subcontinent had acquired centuries ago from the first teachers of English who came to India, a group of needy Irishmen; it was musical, Elizabethan in a way, and totally charming. “The problem is, my young friend, if you sprint through your courses the way you’re going, in two years you’ll have your doctorate, and then what? You lose your classification as a student and back you must go, to Trinidad.” He shuddered. He had never seen Trinidad, knew little about it except that it was crowded with Hindus.

“But I want to go back,” Ranjit said. “To work with my people.” When he saw the look of astonishment on Muhammad’s face, he asked naïvely: “Don’t you want to go back to Pakistan?”

Mehmed looked at him as if he were an idiot child whose question was incomprehensible but forgivable. Very slowly he asked, while staring at his knuckles: “Who would go back to Pakistan if he could remain in the United States?”

“So why don’t you stay here?” Ranjit asked, and Mehmed explained: “I want to. Ten thousand Pakistanis want to. But the minute I get my Ph.D., home I must go.”

“Then why get it?” Ranjit asked, and he was astounded by the duplicity of Mehmed’s answer: “I’m not going to get it. I’ll complete all the course work, write about half my thesis, then switch my major to something else. Maybe your sociology.”

“With your background, why not history?”

“Three years ago I was six weeks short of my Ph.D. in Asian history. Switched just in time to philosophy.”

“You could stay here forever. Who pays for your registration, your room?”

“Why do you do this?” and Mehmed replied: “Because sooner or later something will come up … a new law … an extension of privileges.”

“Do you ever intend to go home?”

“America needs me, and believe me, Mr. Banarjee, when you’re six weeks short of your Ph.D. and face the prospect of returning to Trinidad, you’ll realize that America needs you, too.”

Some weeks later, in the spring semester, he met Mehmed Muhammad again, and the Pakistani had good news: “I’ve been accepted in your department. Sociology of the Muslim-Hindu conflict. I could write my thesis this weekend if I had to.”

“But how do you have the course work to qualify for such a switch?” and Mehmed said: “I spent seven years in the colleges and universities of Bombay. I have enough undergraduate courses to qualify me for graduate work in almost anything … even calculus.”

In the summer of 1976, Ranjit interrupted his headlong drive for his Ph.D. to take an inexpensive Greyhound bus trip through the tier of American states fronting on Canada, and he was enraptured by Glacier National Park and the cool beauty of its mountains, but when a fellow traveler who enjoyed his company suggested they go into Canada to see that extension of the park which was supposed to be even more rugged, Ranjit drew back in visible fright.

“What’s the matter?” the traveler asked, and Ranjit explained: “Once I get out of the States, I might have trouble getting back in.”

“That makes sense. You being so dark, some horse’s ass on the border would delight in holding you up. Well, it takes all kinds to make a world and the pluperfect horse’s ass is never in short supply.”

When Ranjit returned to Miami in the fall, a new man determined to find a place for himself in America’s academic life, he awakened to the fact that he was perilously close to obtaining his Ph.D. in sociology before he had nailed down an appointment to some American university faculty. His right to continue as a student imperiled, he hastily switched his field of concentration to history, and this time he did not take his required courses in a rush. He spread them out during four semesters and took long vacations in the summers, finding cheap excursions to places like Yellowstone and Grand Canyon. By spacing his work meticulously and spending cautiously the funds his grandfather sent him, he felt sure of at least three more years of student eligibility.

It was in a barbershop on Dixie Highway that his life both as a student and a human being took a dramatic turn in 1981. Having managed to delay his doctorate in history, he had slipped into the gratifying routine of the scholar, pecking away in the library, drafting a learned paper now and then, and serving as substitute without pay when his professors had to attend the yearly meetings of their specialty groups. It was quite obvious to him, and to many of his fellow students, that he knew far more about the subject matter of the various courses than the regular professors, and infinitely more of the subtle interrelationships between the various fields. Also, he had managed to soften his sharp Trinidadian pronunciation so that he was now completely understandable to his American students.

Ranjit had to wait while two Hispanic students had their interminable haircuts, and when he finally reached the chair the barber, a tall man who had migrated to Miami from somewhere in the North, was actually glad to see him. “Where you from, young feller? Some sunburnt country out there, I’m sure.” When Ranjit said he was from Trinidad, the barber was delighted: “Isn’t that where they have the lake of asphalt? My teacher in the sixth grade told us that, and us fellows who’d seen roads being built and knew what asphalt was thought she was a liar.”

“That’s Trinidad.”

“I’m a bit unusual. I’m a Hindu.”

“Now wait! Aren’t they from India? Cobras and Gandhi and all that?”

“You’re right again.” Ranjit was beginning to like the warmth and interest of this barber, but then the man said: “Well, I’m glad you’re not another damned Cuban.”

Ranjit froze, for life in his grandfather’s Portugee Shop, where customers of all colors had to be treated with respect, had taught him tolerance. “I like Cubans,” he said quietly.

“Hey there! So do I,” the barber said with honest excitement. “They’ve remade Miami. Best thing that’s happened to us is the Cubans.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“Cubans as a group I like. Very much. But the individual Cuban gentleman sitting in my chair I dislike. Very much.”

“What do you mean?” As Ranjit asked this question he was vaguely aware that another man had entered the barbershop to take his place in the line of ordinary chairs used by waiting customers, but what kind of man he was, Ranjit could not have said.

The barber resumed: “You come in here. A nice-looking Hindu. You say ‘Elmer, give me a haircut,’ and fifteen, twenty minutes later you get out of my chair and pay me. But you take a Cuban man, especially a young one, your age, more or less. He sits in my chair and spends maybe four minutes instructin’ me in how to cut his hair. He wants this, he wants that.” The barber mimicked a Cuban dialect; it was obvious that he had rehearsed his complaint against Cuban men.

Leaving Ranjit for a moment, he addressed the other men in the shop: “One of those Cuban fellows you just saw leavin’ my shop, he instructed me for five, six minutes. It had to be just so. And when I showed him the mirror … stand back! It’s always the same. ‘Could you take a little off here? Just a little more off there? Taper the side just a touch.’ He gives me ten more minutes of advice, and he stays in my chair at least thirty-five minutes. The last fifteen with the mirror in his hand, a little here, a little there. He doesn’t want a haircut, he wants a masterpiece.”

As he brushed Ranjit with the whisk broom he said warmly: “But I will concede this. Fine-looking fellow like you, it would be nice if, when you stepped out there, a rich girl from the university came by in her Cadillac convertible, pulled over to the curb, and asked you to hop in. Because if you married her, you wouldn’t have to go back to Trinidad when you finished your education here.” Two of the listeners applauded as he concluded his monologue and he added: “Cubans in general, yes, yes! Cuban men in my chair, no, no!”

As Ranjit left the barbershop, heartened by the owner’s jovial banter, the unknown man who had entered during his haircut rose and followed him out. The barber, unhappy at losing a customer, called: “Only two ahead of you,” and as the door started to slam shut the man called in a husky, rasping voice far deeper than most: “I’ll be back.” And that was how Ranjit first encountered Gunter Hudak.

He was not a man to be taken lightly. About forty, with a hunched-up muscular torso, powerful-looking arms and a jowly dark face framed in very black hair that covered much of his forehead, he appeared to Ranjit to be a man accustomed to getting his own way.

Then came the rasping, ominous voice: “Could I speak with you a minute?”

In that first moment Ranjit knew that he ought to have nothing to do with this man, but he felt that he might be in greater danger if he rebuffed him, so in a weak voice he said: “Yes.”

“Name’s Gunter Hudak. Yours I know. Ranjit Banarjee, Jamaica and Trinidad.”

“How could you know that?”

“Mind if I walk with you, Ranjit?” Banarjee did mind, but he was afraid to admit it, so leechlike had the man become. “My business is to remind you how right that barber was when he told that story.”

“I have nothing against Cubans.”

“I mean the part where you would be saved from going back to Trinidad if some American girl fell in love with you and married you.” Before Ranjit could protest, he rushed on: “She marries you. Perfectly legal. You acquire legal status as her immigrant husband. Now nobody can force you to leave the country. Six months she divorces you, and there you are, on your way to American citizenship.” Maintaining hold of Ranjit’s arm, he whispered: “All for a lousy five thousand dollars. American citizenship for life.”

Ranjit brushed his hand away: “I’m not a fool,” and in his rasping voice Hudak replied: “You are if you don’t listen. Ask around the dorm. Ask how many young fellows like you have gained citizenship through marriage and divorce. The way I do it, foolproof.” Before he left he thrust into Ranjit’s pocket a slip of paper, then disappeared in the traffic along Dixie Highway. In the privacy of his room, Ranjit read the message: Gunter Hudak, 2119 San Diego, Coral Gables. It could be done for $4,000.

In the months that followed, Ranjit ran into Hudak about once every other week. On the occasions that Hudak spoke to him, always with the same low, rasping voice, he would say something ominous, like: “Good evening, Mr. Banarjee. I’m sure you heard about the three graduate students that were flown back to Iran last week. I-94 forms expired.”

At the beginning of the semester in September 1981, his eighth year in Miami, Ranjit’s attention was diverted from his own problems by a surprising announcement from his Pakistani fellow scholar, Mehmed Muhammad: “Wonderful news! The American government has just added mathematics teachers to the list of preferred occupations.”

“What does that mean?”

When he was gone, Ranjit made cautious inquiries about the supposed exempt categories and learned that Mehmed was right. Tailors were needed, glassblowers for the making of scientific instruments and a whole mix of curious occupations, for none of which was he remotely qualified. That avenue to freedom was barred.

Refusing to think about Gunter Hudak’s proposition, despite the fact that the man had lowered his price to three thousand, Ranjit spent the fall term in a kind of numbed euphoria. His work toward his history Ph.D. leaped ahead, and one of his essays on the Dutch experience with her Caribbean colonies had been accepted for publication in a learned journal in Amsterdam, causing an envious but generous young professor with his doctorate from Yale to say: “Banarjee, we ought to initiate a Doctor-of-Everything. You’d be the first to get one. How’s the thesis coming?” and Ranjit was tempted to say: “It’s safely slowed down, thank you.”

Before Halloween, Mehmet was back on campus exhibiting the same excitement he had shown when leaving for Georgia Tech: “The most wonderful news, Ranjit. Mathematics was more difficult than I thought. Could have done it, of course, but not in one year. What do you think’s happened?”

When Ranjit said: “Something promising, I’m sure,” Mehmet rhapsodized: “More than promising. Salvation at hand, on a silver platter!”

“Tell me.”

“The government has added a new category to its preferred occupations. Male nurses! Yes, a critical shortage. I’ve enrolled in the advanced program here on campus, and with my various credits … I’ve taken a lot of science in my day. They tell me I should get my certificate by June. And once I get that … bedpans, here I come!”

Relieved by the last-minute reprieve, he spent much of that year, 1981–1982, exploring the value systems of Miami, and as he came to understand the intricacies of the city, he gained added appreciation each day for the heroic adjustments it had made. A flood of Cubans had been digested with relative ease. They were now about to take over political control of the city and the state, too, no doubt, and some Anglos did not like this, but they were free to move to the expensive oceanfront communities to the north, like Palm Beach.

The crime rate disturbed him, and at one point as he was coming home from downtown Miami he laughed at himself: In Trinidad it irritated me when white people found it repugnant that Indians slashed people with knives, especially their wives, and here I am in Miami, finding it deplorable that Hispanic men so often kill their wives and their best friends with knives. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. But he could never joke about the drug menace that threatened most aspects of life in southern Florida; he could not imagine willfully introducing into his body any destructive substance: nicotine, alcohol, addictive medicines, and certainly not drugs injected into the bloodstream.

So Miami had its dark side, but on balance it was a magical city, with its miles of alluring waterfront, its increasingly beautiful new high-rise buildings, and the permanent charm of Calle Ocho, as Eighth Street was now known, for here the full flavor of Caribbean life manifested itself in carnivals and celebrations and the daily expression of Hispanic life. “Not as good as the real carnival in Trinidad,” he told friends, “but it will suffice.”

“Do you know how to drive?” Ranjit asked, and Mehmed said: “I’ve watched others. I’m sure it’s not too difficult.”

“Have you a driver’s license?”

“No, but who’s going to stop us?” and with an aplomb that amazed Ranjit, the emaciated Pakistani headed right into the midst of Miami traffic, screamed Urdu curses at anyone who refused to get out of his way, and came miraculously to that magical spot where knowing spectators in parked cars assembled each Saturday afternoon at five to watch the great cruise ships of the various lines head out to sea on their way to visit the Caribbean islands.

There was no place in America that equaled this, for the channel was so unbelievably narrow that watchers on land could see clearly the faces lining the railings of the huge white ships as they steamed past, one after another in majestic line. Deep-throated ships’ sirens blew, bands played, passengers cheered, spectators in the cars sounded their horns, and for the better part of an hour this unique parade continued. It enchanted Mehmed: “I could reach out and touch this next one,” and Ranjit agreed that the illusion was startling.

“Ah, there they go!” Mehmed cried. “After I get my nursing certificate, I’ll study to become a doctor, and then I’ll apply for ship’s doctor on this one coming along. ‘Madame, I’m afraid your appendix has burst. Matter of life and death. I must operate immediately.’ And the ship plunges this way and that, and maybe even the lights go out. Snip, snip. There goes the fatal appendix! Another life saved!”

Ranjit, despite his desire to remain in the United States, suffered a momentary pang of homesickness: “How I’d like to be aboard one of those ships. Jamaica, St. Vincent, Trinidad.”

“They are.”

Impulsively, Mehmed leaped from the car, ran to the edge of the channel, and shouted to the last ship, only a few yards away in the channel: “Great ship! Stop! Stop! Take my friend Ranjit with you.” And from the railing overhead passengers looked down and cheered the frantically waving Pakistani.

What Mehmed called remorseless destiny could no longer be avoided, so the mournful evening came, the time when Ranjit had to bite the bullet. Walking slowly along the streets east of Dixie Highway, he came at last to the address on the slip of paper he had kept in his wallet. Approaching 2119 San Diego from the opposite side of the street, he studied the ordinary two-storied house, imagined all sorts of ugly things happening inside, and was about to slink away when a firm hand grasped his right arm from behind: “Good evening, Mr. Banarjee. I’ve been waiting for you. Let’s talk.” It was Gunter Hudak.

He did not take Ranjit into his home, but maneuvered him down back streets to a Burger King restaurant on Maynada Street near the University of Miami. Without explaining his purpose in bringing Ranjit to this place, Hudak edged him into the line and trailed along as Ranjit approached the ordering counter, where a kindly woman in her late forties asked: “Yes? What will it be?” When Ranjit hesitated, Hudak said: “Whopper, fries and vanilla shake.” For himself he ordered a smaller hamburger and a strawberry shake.

When they were perched on revolving stools bolted to the floor, Hudak said in his insinuating rasp: “My sister works here. Which one do you think she is?” and while Ranjit studied the group of girls putting out the prepared orders, one of them, perhaps at a signal from her brother, moved into a position from which she could clearly be seen by the customers.

As she stood in the clean, bright light she was a memorable young woman. Her age? No one could say. She was about the same height as Ranjit, had the slim figure of a nineteen-year-old, and an attractive face with regular features set in a frame of neat brown hair. But her face was disturbing as well as inviting, for it had an acquired hardness which could have belonged to a woman of forty; nevertheless, she was a young woman that any man would look at twice, and Ranjit did.

Ranjit, who had never before received such a glance, was too befuddled to speak, but she continued. “My brother tells me interesting things about you, Mr. Banarjee. It would not only be a pleasure, it would be very exciting. A Hindu prince. Elephants. Tigers. The Taj Mahal. It would be wonderful.”

Awkwardly, Ranjit mumbled: “I’m far from a Hindu prince.” Then he tried a clumsy joke: “And I’m far from India, too. A Portugee Shop in Trinidad.”

“I’m sure that’s a fine place,” she said, and when the bell rang, indicating that fries were accumulating, she excused herself: “You know, around here people get fired if they don’t do their job. Mr. Banarjee, I’d be honored.” Since nothing had been said about what she would be doing to be so honored, Ranjit was left in the dark, but as soon as Gunter and he were back on the street, Hudak began to bore in: “Now, Banarjee, I know damned well you have to do something by the end of June. You can’t switch majors again. And your thesis is finished. I know the girl who typed it. So this time you graduate, and it’s back to good old Trinidad. Unless you marry Molly and follow the route we’ve discussed. It’s foolproof, it’s quick, and Molly and I can do our part for twenty-five hundred. Make up your mind. Now!”

He gave Ranjit additional instructions about laying a trail of paperwork at the university, meeting with his professors, a session with a religious counselor about the problems of a Hindu marrying a Catholic, two sessions with Molly’s priest, the purchase of a ring with Molly present. Keep the dated receipt. He had, in his management of several former such marriages, acquired a great deal of experience, and he knew how to fabricate the evidence that the Banarjee-Hudak wedding was an act of pure love, and he knew how to direct his actors in creating and maintaining that illusion.

So for six weeks Ranjit lived in a double dream world. He allowed his doctorate in philosophy to gallop toward a successful conclusion and at the same time he conducted his courtship of Molly Hudak. The latter operation involved bizarre elements. Four or five nights a week he sat in the Burger King staring at her as if he loved her, and by the end of the second week he did, for she was a delectable lass and sometimes he imagined what joy it was going to be when they were husband and wife, if only briefly; he walked her home faithfully, but she never allowed him to kiss her; and when he produced the two thousand dollars on which they finally agreed, it was Gunter who grabbed it, not Molly, for as he explained: “Not even the faintest taint of money must touch you, Molly. They’ll investigate every penny in your possession.”

“Investigate?” Ranjit gasped, and Hudak explained: “Like you won’t believe. They’ll look into everything, like bloodhounds, but we know how to cover our tracks. From now on, you do as I say.” He never said, as he must have been tempted to: “I know we can trust Molly. She’s been down this road before. But you, you stupid Hindu, I’m worried whether you can stand up to it.”

The awkward courtship ran its course, with Ranjit convincing spectators that he was not only in love, but gratified that a young woman so appealing should be interested in him; this required little acting, and the day came when the Hudaks, Ranjit Banarjee and Mehmed Muhammad as his scarecrow best man traipsed off to the courthouse in downtown Miami where a wedding was performed in a civil ceremony.

“Banarjee, you have to live in this house till Molly files for divorce, but you sleep down in the cellar. You use the laundry tub for your bathroom. You do not eat with us, never, and if you ever so much as touch my sister, by God, I’ll break both your legs above the knees. Do you understand?”

He had thrust his face so menacingly close to his terrified brother-in-law that Ranjit had to fall back a step, but Gunter pressed on: “Do you understand, you damned filthy Hindu? You touch my sister, I’ll kill you.”

Modern houses in Coral Gables have no cellars, for the land is so flat and near the ocean inlets that moisture would have filled their cellars with inches of brackish water. Since Hudak’s old house had been built on a slight rise, the builder had risked a cellar, which was now musty and fetid. In it Gunter had arranged a wooden slab on which his mother had thrown two blankets to form an inadequate mattress, with another blanket for cover. There, without adequate ventilation, Ranjit would sleep. A rusted, zinc laundry tub with a cold-water spigot was his bath, and he was given a big tin can for a urinal and instructions to go to the bathroom elsewhere when he got the chance, and never, under any circumstances, to use the Hudaks’.

To complete his agony, he must appear at the Burger King at least five nights a week to walk his wife home after closing, and in some ways this was the cruelest part of his treatment, for he would perch on one of the stools, watch Molly as she performed her tasks, then wait for her to join him, a beautiful young woman, really, one whom any man could love, and walk home with her in silence, for she refused to speak with him. Once, in despair, as they walked along Dixie, with the university looming across the highway, he cried: “Molly, how did you ever get caught up in such a dirty racket?” but she refused to answer him. She must have informed her brother that her husband was growing difficult, for that night Gunter grabbed his brother-in-law by the throat and started banging his head against the living-room wall: “I warned you not ever to touch my sister,” and Ranjit gasped: “I didn’t,” and Hudak stormed: “But you yelled at her. You ever do that again, I’ll kill you.”

Ranjit was diverted from the horror in which he was living by the unexpected appearance in Miami of a trusted friend, who arrived, as friends often do, exactly when she was needed most, but also, as so often happens, at a decidedly embarrassing moment. It was the hospital administrator Norma Wellington, the clever woman from St. Vincent and U.W.I. She was now an American citizen, with her nursing degree from Boston and a responsible job in a medium-sized hospital in Chicago, and she had come to Miami as a member of a four-person committee to advise on the interrelationships among that city’s many hospitals. Knowing that her friend Ranjit Banarjee was in residence, she tracked him down through the university and learned that he had a permanent carrel at the library in which he kept the stack of books he was currently using in pursuit of one of his various interests.

The little room had no phone, so a librarian led Norma to the door, and when it opened, revealing Ranjit seated among his piles of books, she cried in unaffected delight: “Ranjit, how wonderful.” The passing years and the important position she occupied had matured her in ways he could not have anticipated, and when the librarian left and she sat alone with this man of about thirty, the differences between them became apparent. She was a mature adult who interacted each day with other adults as able as she, for she had accepted and absorbed the years as they came along, not fighting the inevitable, but not surrendering to it either. In Chicago her light-colored skin was neither a hindrance nor a help, but it had aided her to avoid slipping easily into romances with either her doctors or the male members of her staff. Norma Wellington was about as well adjusted as a young woman of twenty-nine from a tiny island like St. Vincent could be.

Ranjit, on the other hand, had always been a diffident fellow, withdrawn as a lad, shy when girls became important, and now totally disoriented because of his relationship with the horrible Hudaks. As he welcomed Norma he fumbled, and when he faced her he did not know how to begin to tell her about himself.

When her purpose was almost overtly exposed, Ranjit drew back in trembling fear: My God! She came here to see me. And she thought: I’ve come so far and he’s still so shy, I really must say something. It was not clever what she said, but it was a statement from the heart of an extremely well-balanced young woman who had not endless years to waste: “I have so often wanted to see you, Ranjit. Those talks we had at U.W.I. … really, they were the best part of my education.” When he said nothing, she forged ahead: “In those days I think you and I both thought that Hindu and Anglican … they were irreconcilable, but after working in Chicago …”

“Norma,” he blurted out with his old ineptitude, “I’m married.”

She hesitated just a moment, then quietly and adroitly called back her exploratory cavalry: “How wonderful, Ranjit! Could I invite the two of you to lunch?”

He did not have the courage to tell her of the disaster in which he was trapped, but the pathetic way in which he mumbled “Sorry, she’s working” revealed so much that Norma thought: Poor Ranjit! Something terrible’s happened. But she did not try to find out what. Instead, she retracted into her own shell and began to evaluate rather more favorably than before a young gynecologist from Iowa, but both she and Ranjit knew that a proposal of marriage had been offered and rejected.

Norma and Mehmed hit it off, for within a few moments she had him catalogued: How often I’ve met you before. The perpetual scholar. Who knows how many years at the university? Unmarried, sympathetic, loving. Striving desperately to remain in America, and America needs you. To Mehmed she said: “How soon do you get your certification?” and he said: “June.”

Ranjit, who was watching his two friends carefully, could not fail to see the kindly scorn in which Norma, a no-nonsense working girl, held Muhammad, the ineffectual wandering scholar, and as they spoke together a horrible thought assailed him: Dear God! Do people look at me that way? A quiet Hindu off to one side, offending no one, just puttering around year after year? His flow of rhetorical questions was broken when he heard Norma saying brightly: “Mr. Muhammad, we’re always looking for reliable men like you,” and Ranjit, to assist a friend who had helped him, chimed in: “You know, Norma, Mehmed’s taken a lot of fine courses that don’t show in his record,” and she replied: “I’m sure.”

That night Ranjit, his mind in a turmoil from Norma’s visit, decided he simply could not go through the pretense of reporting to the Burger King to escort his wife home, but after starting twice to the Hudak house, he turned and went dutifully along Dixie Highway to his appointment, partly because he was afraid that Gunter might punch him in the head if he didn’t but mostly because he was truly in love with Molly and wanted to be near her, no matter how badly she treated him.

He was about to enter the restaurant when he was confronted by a man who pushed him into the shadows so they could not be seen from the restaurant. He was a Hispanic—a dark, handsome fellow with a small mustache and darting eyes—perhaps thirty-five and somewhat taller than Ranjit. His English was good but marked with the delightful singing lilt that made even a menacing statement light and airy.

“Are you the Hindu they told me about?” he asked ominously.

“So you’re the one married to her this time?”

Although aware that his response might mean fearful trouble, Ranjit said weakly: “Yes.”

“So you fell for it?” Ranjit was puzzled, and he recognized that this could be a trap. The man looked Cuban, but he could also be a paid informer for Immigration, so how to answer this question? He had no need to try to devise an adroit escape, for suddenly the man whipped out a long-bladed knife and held it to Ranjit’s throat: “I’m her real husband. You touch her, I’ll kill you for sure. Get your citizenship like the others. Get your divorce and get the hell out of Miami. Or …” and he pushed the knife closer.

“Who are you?” Ranjit asked when the knife was withdrawn, and the man said: “José Lopez, Nicaraguan. I got a good job, plenty money. And I want her back.”

Terrified by the complexity of the jungle in which he was entrapped and convinced that his assailant meant it when he threatened death, Ranjit tried to warn Molly during the silent walk home: “He had a knife,” but she said scornfully: “Oh, that one,” and she would say no more, but when they reached the Hudak house, Ranjit warned Gunter: “Molly’s real husband, the Nicaraguan, is making threats,” and the mastermind of deception said: “We’d better move you out of here as fast as possible,” so next morning Molly filed for divorce in the Miami courts on the grounds of cruelty.

His colleagues in the Miami office of the United States Immigration Service said of Larry Schwartz: “He may not be the brightest guy on our staff, but he does have that fantastic stomach.” They referred to the exceptional skill Larry had in evaluating the paperwork in a marriage suspected of being a fraudulent attempt to bring an alien into the country: “I’ve seen him do it a dozen times. He studies the papers, spots the fraud, and looks up at me and says: ‘Oooh! My stomach is as tight as a knot.’ And nineteen times out of twenty, when he goes to work on the case he proves that it’s … How does he phrase it? ‘As phony as a Nevada mining certificate.’ ”

But it was the last number, the 41, that caused the real knots in his stomach: “In this office, when we got our computer working, we identified eight women scattered around south Florida who had among them an average—an average, mind you—of forty-one fake marriages.”

“How do you define fake?” agent-in-training Joe Anderson asked, and Larry said: “Anytime an American woman who is a legal citizen of our country marries an alien man solely for the purpose of enabling him to get his Resident Alien Card, and without any intention of establishing an honest husband-wife relationship … we label that a fake and take action.”

“Why does she do it?” and Larry said: “Money. Going rate seems to be somewhere between five hundred dollars and five thousand dollars.”

So when the clerk who had first spotted the probable fraud delivered to Schwartz the rather fat dossier on the Ranjit Banarjee-Molly Hudak marriage and pending divorce, Larry turned the papers with a practiced thumb and felt his stomach definitely tightening at several facts: “She’s older than he is, and that’s always a flag. But my God! She’s nine years older. They’re not only different religions, but she’s a Catholic and he’s a Hindu, and you can’t get much further apart than that. Also, whenever you have a graduate student switching his major three times … What were his grades as an undergraduate? Almost straight A’s? But of course it was probably one of those Mickey Mouse universities in the Caribbean. But you can be almost certain he’s switching majors to avoid getting his Ph.D. How long’s he been in graduate school—1973 through 1986? That’s not an education, it’s a career.”

Special agents on the trail of what they had good reason to suspect was a fraudulent marriage followed one of two traditional procedures, as Larry explained to newcomer Anderson: “Some prefer to drag the couple in, interrogate them, throw the fear of God into them, and trap them into disclosing the fraud. Not bad. Often works. But I prefer the second route. Leave the couple alone, but quietly check their behavior, their work habits, their religious attendance, the comments of their friends, everything. And you’d be surprised at the canvas you begin to paint with those individual brush strokes. By the time you’re through, the word Fraud is written two feet high across your painting. Then you bring them in.”

So in the summer of 1986, Larry Schwartz, thirty-four years old, and his assistant Joe Anderson, twenty-seven, began spending many hours in the vicinity of the university, Dixie Highway and the area in which Mr. and Mrs. Ranjit Banarjee claimed they were living. They were careful not to speak directly to any university officials lest they inadvertently alert Banarjee, who after all, was not really the target.

“It’s not even the woman,” Schwartz kept reminding Anderson, “even though she’s probably pulled the trick three, four times.” Clenching his fist, he hammered his desk: “It’s the miserable pimp who arranges these deals. I want to get that swine.” Then he relaxed and laughed: “As soon as I nail down for sure that it is that bastard Hudak …”

When from a distance he checked the Hudak house, a plain affair a few blocks from the university, he saw that the Indian did come and go, but Larry was more interested in another youngish man who seemed to have the run of the place, and he quietly checked with some of the neighbors: “I’m the census taker. How many live in your house? And in that house over there?”

“You mean where the Indian married the daughter? Five. Him, her, the parents and their son Gunt.”

“Does Gunt have a steady job?”

“Never seems to keep one long.”

Larry Schwartz had been born in Boston and had worked the northern Immigration beats before winning an assignment to Florida, and he was so grateful for the hot weather and so fed up with the cold that he customarily wore a lightweight seersucker jacket, white shirt and no tie. This made him conspicuous in the Florida summer, but he was not comfortable without the coat, so when he had eaten at the Burger King three or four times, he failed to notice that while he was shadowing Molly, someone off to the side was shadowing him. It was Gunter Hudak, who had been alerted by his sister, who was far more clever than the men around her assumed. “Gunt, there’s this guy in a seersucker jacket keeps coming in at night.”

“Lots of people come in at night.”

“But he’s different.”

However, when Gunter studied the stranger he concluded that he was just another customer who had no wife and frequented the Burger King because the salad bar was copious and inexpensive, and he convinced his sister to stop worrying about him.

Then, one evening when Schwartz and Gunter happened to be in the restaurant at the same time, a tall, good-looking Hispanic came in, ordered a hamburger, kept his eye on Molly, and waited till her stint ended. Then, as she came out in street clothes, he moved close, took her arm, and encouraged her to snuggle up, betraying in a dozen different gestures that they were lovers. Her brother had become alarmed the minute he saw José Lopez, the Nicaraguan to whom his sister was legally married, and immediately notified his gang, who had given Lopez strict orders, and a few dollars, to stay away from his wife until she received her divorce from the Hindu, and this bold intrusion imperiled their plans. But what had worried Hudak even more was what he saw happening inside the restaurant: the man in the seersucker suit was carefully watching the lovers and making notes. And as Schwartz left the Burger King, he was grabbed by two members of the Hudak gang, who punched him about the head, and one of the men snarled: “Now who in hell are you, mister?”

She promised never to take such a chance again until the Immigration paperwork was completed, but two days later Mr. and Mrs. Ranjit Banarjee received a registered letter requiring them to report to the office of Investigator Larry Schwartz at Immigration headquarters, and that night Gunter Hudak began his intensive coaching.

“This is deadly serious,” he said to the divorcing couple, and with the assistance of a member of his gang who had handled such situations in the past, he laid out his instructions: “You have filed for divorce, and that’s what alerted the Feds. Our job is to prove that even though you’re splitting now, you did enter into a legal marriage last year.” His accomplice, an evil-looking man from the Gainesville area who had supervised numerous fake marriages for alien students at the University of Florida, warned: “You’ve got to make it sound real, and we’re here to teach you how. Molly’s been through this before, but you”—and he stared contemptuously at Ranjit—“can screw it up if you don’t learn your lines.” And from a grease-stained portfolio he produced a well-thumbed xerox of Title 8 of the Federal Criminal Code, Section 1325 (b), brutal in its clarity and threat:

When Ranjit realized he might be subject to a quarter-of-a-million-dollar fine, he cried pathetically: “Why did I ever get mixed up …?” but he was not allowed to finish, for Gunter struck him across the lips and growled: “Shut up, you damned fool. You asked to do this. You paid me money to arrange it.”

Satisfied that Ranjit was properly impressed by the gravity of the situation, he became conciliatory: “We’re going to be all right. We’ve been through this before and we know all the cons to beat the rap.” He told them that Schwartz, whoever he was and “ten to one he’s the guy in the seersucker,” would interrogate them separately, Molly in one room, Ranjit in the other, “and we’ve learned just about what questions he’ll ask to trap you. So memorize these answers.” And from a paper his gang had used when preparing for past interrogations, he hammered into their heads the answers they must both give when describing their happy marriage.

“Did you sleep in the same bed?… Yes.”

“Who slept on the right-hand side, looking down from the headboard?… You,” and he indicated Ranjit.

“Who went to bed first?” Again Ranjit.

“Did you use the same bathroom?… Yes. And I want Ranjit’s toothbrush and shaving things in there tonight.”

“How many people had dinner at the table, most nights? Five. Because he probably knows I live here.”

“How many went to church on Sunday? Where?”

He drilled them on about sixty questions with which interrogators tried to trick couples they suspected of fraud, and when he felt that his sister and her Indian had their answers pat, he turned to the matter of the money.

“Did you give her any money?” he roared at Ranjit, who fumbled. “Listen, damn you! This Schwartz could be very rough. He’s got a million tricks. Now, did you give her any money? The answer is No! No! No!”

“Did you give her a wedding ring? Yes! Yes! Yes! Where is it now? And you both say that she hocked it when we needed money for a suit for you—you damned dumb Indian.” And he gave his sister a pawnbroker’s receipt with an appropriate date. “It’s effective if you cry when you say it, Molly, and you must look very ashamed, Hindu.”

“This is my man Joe. Now, Joe, I want you to tell these good people what you did this morning the minute you were sure that these two and her brother Gunter had left the house at 2119 San Diego in Coral Gables, not far from the university.”

Joe, a hefty fellow who looked capable of defending himself if he stumbled into trouble, said: “I went to the front door, knocked, and showed the woman who answered the door this court order.” He showed them the document, a search-and-seize order covering the premises at 2119 San Diego.

“And then what?” Schwartz asked, and Joe said: “I searched the place, as you directed.”

“You mean the whole house?” and Joe said: “No, just the cellar, like you said.”

The Banarjees gasped, Ranjit more than Molly, for when Schwartz said: “Tell them what you found, Joe,” the latter went into another room and returned with the entire bed on which Ranjit had been sleeping since his marriage.

Then, with remorseless probing, Schwartz hammered at the now-confused couple and all of Gunter’s careful coaching flew out the window, for Schwartz did not ask one of the anticipated questions. When he had them hopelessly bewildered and practically admitting that their marriage had been a fraud, he signaled Joe, who now brought in brother Gunter and one of the men who had participated in the assault on him, and from an entirely different set of papers he read the results of a longtime investigation of the racket that the Hudak family had been running.

Icily he ticked off details of the three earlier marriages Molly had contracted, the amounts of money exchanged and the disposition of the cases against the unfortunate aliens who had been involved. When the irrefutable facts were laid out, he told Gunter and his thug: “Don’t ever slug a special agent in the mouth. There are harsh laws against that. It cost me three hundred and twenty dollars to get my teeth fixed. It’s going to cost you and your buddy about fifteen years,” and Gunter was led away by two policemen.

“We have the Hindu,” Joe said, but Schwartz cautioned: “That little fellow is starry-eyed. He still loves her … would never say a word against her.”

Joe protested: “Boss, consider what she did to him. Never allowed him to kiss her. Made him sleep in the cellar. Had her brother beat him up at least twice. Mark my words, Banarjee will make her burn.”

“I’m not so sure,” Schwartz said, for his stomach was sending messages, and when Ranjit was summoned to a hearing two weeks later, he refused to testify against the woman he had considered his real wife.

“Dr. Banarjee,” the Federal District judge said, “I want you to stand over here so we can talk, man to man.” Ranjit stood before the bench, a frail Hindu in a JCPenney suit that didn’t quite fit, and awaited the questions.

“Do you still claim that yours was a marriage for love, not money?”

“I do.”

“And do you still love your wife?”

“I do.”

“And if I order you to be deported, do you wish to be returned to Trinidad?”

“I do.”

“You will be removed this day to the waiting area at the Krome Avenue Detention Center, from which, two days hence, you will be flown to the airport at Port of Spain, Trinidad. You may approach the bench.” When Ranjit stood before him, he said so that others could not hear: “You seem a decent sort. I’m sorry you’ve treated the United States poorly and vice versa.”

Fifteen, twenty times during the flight Ranjit reopened the paper to study the front page and pursue the story on the inside, and as the plane approached Port of Spain he asked the stewardess if he could please have the papers that the other passengers were leaving on their seats, and she helped him collect some. He folded them reverently, for they contained the only photographs he would ever have of a woman whom he had, in his hesitant way, loved.

In Trinidad his friends, knowing of his arrest but not of Molly’s murder, received him with tears of gratitude over his having escaped a prison sentence in America. He had a full-fledged doctorate in philosophy from the University of Miami, but there were no openings at the main campus of the University of the West Indies, nor in its Trinidad branch, and his deportation from the States prevented him from ever returning there for a job. The local colleges, high schools really, judged him to be overqualified for their needs, so after sitting around in idleness for some months unable to find work of any kind, he flew back to Jamaica, asked that his credentials for graduate courses in history be transferred to the registrar at U.W.I., where he enrolled to take a second doctorate, this time in history, and although he seemed ill at ease when the course work started, for he was much older than the other students, he soon found his place and liked it.

He was referred to as Dr. Banarjee, and younger students who hoped to become scholars themselves deferred to him, but those in business or the sciences smiled at his overly courteous manner, his diffident way of avoiding direct confrontations, and his aroma, one might almost say, of bookishness.

Some students in the humanities who rather liked him were perplexed one day when, before the start of a class, he was handed a letter bearing quite a few stamps and readdressing labels. Ranjit took it, studied the writing on the front, and said clearly: “Well, well.” But his hands trembled as he opened it, and when he finished reading, he remained erect in the sunlight, but all the bones seemed to melt within his body, and finally he accepted help from a younger student, who led him to a bench. There he sat, a tidy little fellow, determined not to weep despite the tears welling from his eyes.

When he returned to Trinidad with his second Ph.D. he frequented libraries, poked about old records of shipping firms that had imported slaves, and created a bit of stir when it became known that several different universities in Great Britain had inquired about hiring him as professor. He was interested, certainly, and three times he went through the hideous British ritual called “the short leet” in which the university announced the three or four finalists who were being considered for an appointment. Photographs of the scholars appeared in the newspapers of the university city, of course, and were mailed off to the hometowns of the competitors, so that Trinidad papers could announce proudly: RANJIT BANARJEE ON THE SHORT LEET AT SALISBURY.

Sadly, he never won an appointment, but despite his repeated failures, his Indian friends in Port of Spain greeted him with extra deference: “You must be proud, Ranjit. Salisbury, no less,” and he would reply jokingly: “I’m beginning to feel like those Indian scholars in Bombay and Calcutta who write passionate letters to the editor and sign them: ‘Ranjit Banarjee, M.A. Oxon (Failed).’ They had been enrolled at Oxford, had tried and had gained prestige even in failure.” Ranjit’s ability to mask his disappointments in jokes at his own expense imbedded him more securely in Trinidad as “our scholar.”

The one man who was not fooled by Ranjit’s apparent indifference was his old master Michael Carmody, who came to him after each announcement that the appointment had gone to someone else: “It must be galling to go through that experience, but take heart. I read the other day that the world has more than a thousand good universities. One of them will want a real scholar like you,” but Ranjit replied: “Most of them are in the United States, and even if they did want me, I wouldn’t be allowed to go there.”

He also talked them into gathering a fund which enabled the U.W.I. to publish in respectable format a collection of Ranjit’s academic essays, including his long poem on Alexander Hamilton and the hurricane and his seminal essay “Indians in Trinidad.”

It was the circulation of these works which encouraged Yale University to invite him to publish through its prestigious Press his important full-length study Prospect for the Caribbean. Of course, the book earned no money, so Ranjit continued to live off the largesse of his family plus such funds as Carmody could quietly provide. And occasionally some older American couple would debark from a cruise ship for a one-day visit to Trinidad and inquire in the Portugee Shop: “Would it be possible, do you think, for us to meet your distinguished scholar Dr. Banarjee?” When the clerk said: “He lives quite close, I’ll just ring him up,” Ranjit would hurry down, greet the professor from Harvard or Indiana or San Diego, and lead the pair to the old Banarjee house built by his ancestors. There he would serve limeades and pistachio nuts and hold discourse with his fellow scholars.

PEOPLE WHO SAW HIM APPROACH GASPED, AND ONE WOMAN stood stock-still and cried aloud: “Oh my God!” All moved aside to give him free passage, and well they might, for none had ever seen anything like him on All Saints Island.

He was about twenty-five years old, six feet two inches tall and thin as the legs of a stork. His clothes were sensational: on his head a floppy gold and green tam, on his feet big leather flats, like those of a Roman centurion, with thongs winding up his pant legs, which were a hideous purple, all emphasized by a very loose T-shirt bearing a likeness of Haile Selassie and, in bold, well-printed letters, three phrases: I-MAN RASTA, DEATH TO POPE and HELL DESTRUCTION AMERICA.

But what made him look really wild and fierce was his hair, for it had been neither cut nor combed during the past five or six years. Natural tangling, assisted by plasterings of mud, oil and chemicals, had caused it to fall in long matted strands, which had been separated and plaited into two- and three-foot lengths that fell almost to his waist like writhing vipers. By this device he had converted himself into a male Medusa, whose frightening appearance was magnified by a heavy, untrimmed beard, equally matted. In addition to all this, he had a fierce, penetrating gaze and very white, big teeth that gleamed through his half-open mouth. He looked terrifying.

Passengers carefully avoided the man as they took their seats, repulsed by his savage appearance and fetid smell, but once the bus started north along the beautiful shoreline with its constant view of the Caribbean, they attended more to the unparalleled landscape than to their Gorgon-like companion. He seemed not to realize that he had frightened most of them, and at one point he leaned across the aisle, looked straight at two middle-aged women from Miami, and gave them one of the warmest smiles they had ever seen—all flashing eyes and dazzling white teeth: “Sistas, I-man nebber see ocean like dat.”

Although they could not fathom his words, they were encouraged by his friendly tone, and one of them asked: “Why do you do that to your hair?” and he replied, as if he had expected their question: “Dreadlocks.” Indeed, his strings of hair were known in Jamaica as dreads, but again the word had no meaning for the women, who now asked: “Are you a preacher?” to which he replied: “I-man be servant Jah, name belong me Negus, same Ras-Tafari, King Ithiop, Lord Almighty, Lion Judah, Ruler all Afrika, Savior World, Death to Pope.”

This was such a fusillade of ideas that the women could do no more than stare at the young man, but their curiosity had been aroused, and he was proving so congenial that they were emboldened to point to the messages on his shirt and ask: “Why do you want to kill the pope?” and he said, almost gently: “He-&-he Great Babylon, must be die, all men free.”

“But why do you want to Hell Destruction America?” and he explained something that was of extreme importance to him, his face becoming grave as he said in a low, confidential voice: “America Great Babylon, Great Whore of World, Bible say so,” and from the canvas sack that carried all his goods he produced a Bible, which he turned expertly to Revelation 14:8, reading in an apocalyptic voice which could be heard through the bus: “ ‘Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.’ ”

He seemed almost demented as he preached from his Revelation text, but having made his point about the destruction of the pope, America and the white race, he returned to his seat, leaned once more across the aisle, and whispered, with a smile so winning that it once again charmed the two women who a moment before had been terrified: “Sistas, Emperor Selassie, King of Judah, I-man save good people.”

When the bus came to a halt in Bristol Town, the driver managed rather clumsily to obstruct any exit of passengers until the island’s black commissioner of police, Colonel Thomas Wrentham, had time to leave his office and walk casually past the bus as if he had no interest in it whatever. But when Grimble descended with a half coconut shell dangling by a cord from his waist, a homemade lute under his arm and his sack in his hand, Colonel Wrentham positioned himself in such a way that the self-proclaimed Rastafarian had to pass near him.

“Hullo,” the police officer said easily. “What brings you to All Saints?”

“I-man go here, go there, Jah direct.”

“You have friends on the island?”

The newcomer, shaking his matted reptilian locks, smiled as if to embrace all the people on the island, and said: “I-&-I who love Jah, my friends.”

“Good,” Wrentham said, nodding to the young stranger as if the entire island welcomed him, but as soon as the Rastafarian had disappeared toward the little jungle of cheap waterfront shacks, he hurried back to his office, where he made several rushed telephone calls: “Tom, cable Jamaica. Ask them to send full details. Ras-Negus Grimble, age twenty-five, Cockpit Town.” To a schoolteacher he said: “Can you come down to the police office right away? No, you’re not in trouble, but I may be.” And to the Church of England minister he said: “Canon Tarleton, could I borrow your wisdom and counsel for about an hour?”

“Is he from Jamaica?” the teacher asked.

“Yes. And he has a valid ticket on to Trinidad, I called the airline. It’s an open date, so we may have him for some time.”

The clergyman asked: “Is there any way you can move him on? I mean, off the island? We’ve learned that men like him always generate trouble.”

For the moment Wrentham evaded the suggestion that the man be deported, for he did not wish to embroil the government in drawn-out legal maneuverings unless he had no choice. To gain time, he asked the schoolteacher: “They tell me that when you studied at the university you dug pretty deep into this Rastafarianism. Tell us how the damned thing got started.”

“Simple, if I’m allowed to skip the nuances. In the 1920s a Jamaican black, Marcus Garvey, appeared as a kind of John the Baptist talking about the revival of the black race, the return of blacks to Africa and the impending triumph of Africa over all the white nations. Heady stuff. He went to America, got hold of a ship illegally and proposed sending all blacks back to Africa. Landed in the penitentiary for fraud … set black minds afire. My grandfather believed every word Garvey said, tried to lead a contingent of blacks back to Yoruba lands. He wound up in jail, too.”

The commissioner nodded, then asked: “Where does Haile Selassie enter the picture? Wasn’t he the emperor of Abyssinia?”

“Yes,” the clergyman said. “Jamaicans call it by its Biblical name, Ethiopia. For some reason that’s never been explained, except that the Bible is full of references to Ethiopia and one to the Lion of Judah, the emperor’s appellation.… Anyway, the blacks in Jamaica generated the fantastic idea that Haile Selassie was the latest reincarnation of God. Jah is the name they use …”

“Haile Selassie is God?” the perplexed commissioner asked.

The clergyman hesitated: “I guess those who cannot read believe Selassie to be God. The more sophisticated hold him to be more like Jesus or Muhammad or Mary Baker Eddy, a favored recipient of holy power. But all believe that he’s somehow a form of Jah who will lead blacks to world power.”

“Yes,” the teacher said. “About six years ago.”

“Then why are these people so convinced that he will save them?”

His question, which he meant to be rhetorical, evoked a reply from the Church of England man: “Christians believe that Jesus long dead will do the same for them, and Muslims believe that Muhammad, dead well over a thousand years, will protect them. And I would think that Mormons and Christian Scientists have similar beliefs.” Realizing that his words might seem blasphemous, he coughed and concluded rather lamely: “So the Rastafarians with their Negus …”

“What’s that word mean?” Wrentham asked. “This young fellow calls himself Ras-Negus Grimble.”

The schoolteacher answered: “Means king. Selassie is often called simply Negus or The Negus.” But then the clergyman resumed command of the discussion: “The Rastafarian movement is bewildering to some, comical to others, but to many of us in these islands it is deadly serious for several reasons. It preaches that blacks will one day take over the world and rectify old injustices to their race. It teaches that the pope must be destroyed.”

“Why?”

“They say he represents and therefore commands the world power that oppressed them brutally in slavery days and more subtly now. And of course, the United States as the center of visible power in this part of the world—radio, television, autos, surplus foodstuffs—it too must be destroyed. Now, those targets are rather exotic, and the Rastas can’t do much about them, but when they get to fooling around with their favorite anathema, Great Babylon, that’s when you get into big trouble. For they have proclaimed that in addition to the pope and America, the police in the islands are Great Babylon which the Bible says must be destroyed.”

They sat quietly for a while as each man recalled reports of incidents throughout the Caribbean in which black men, their minds addled by Babylon, had attacked individual policemen, or stations, or town halls, or other symbols of repressive power. Finally, Commissioner Wrentham asked: “What should our policy be? On this particular island, when so far as I know we have only this one visiting Rastafarian?”

Colonel Wrentham was obviously perplexed: “Maybe I’d better seek him out tomorrow and order him off the island.”

“Not too fast,” the schoolteacher warned. “If he hasn’t done anything wrong, he could sue us … and he would.”

“What you’d better do,” the clergyman said, “is consult the island’s legal counsel.” Then he added: “But in the meantime I’d watch the man closely.”

“Thank you, gentlemen,” the commissioner said graciously, but when they were gone he told his sergeant: “They didn’t give me much usable advice.”

Alone in his office, he telephoned the prime minister’s legal adviser, who lit all kinds of signal fires: “Now look here, Wrentham! Last thing we want on this island is any kind of religious trouble. Don’t, for God’s sake, make a martyr of this Rasta. Hands off!”

“Can I keep him under close surveillance?”

“From a distance, yes. But religious dislocations we do not need. Be very careful.”

When Commissioner Wrentham turned his police headquarters over to the two night men, he walked homeward with only a vague program for dealing with this Rastafarian: Treat him decently, but get him off the island.

Conforming to his nightly custom, he walked home by a path that took him past his father’s famous café, the Waterloo, and he checked to see how his son, who now owned the place, was doing. When he became commissioner he had felt obligated to get rid of what was essentially a saloon, and Lincoln, thirty years old and named after the Liberator, had improved the place in many ways, making it even more attractive to tourists than it had been before. Thomas chuckled, recalling the troubles Black Bart had suffered on the island: He may have had no Rastafarian. They didn’t exist in his day. But he sure had something worse … The story was part of family lore. Bart’s own cousin, Governor Lord Basil Wrentham, was a bosom friend of the Germans. But Bart, helped by a clever little Englishman named Leckey, managed to tie Lord Basil’s tail in a knot. The noble lord was too stupid ever to know what hit him.

When he reached home, a small house occupied by his three forebears for almost a century, he was disappointed to find that his daughter, Sally, a young woman of twenty-two, would not be sharing supper with him, for although he prized the efficient manner in which his son had taken charge of the café, he had always had a special affection for Sally. She was intelligent, had done so well in school that she could have gone to Oxford or Cambridge had she cared to spend the years in England, and possessed the lyric beauty of movement and appearance which made certain young women of the islands so compelling. She was, thought her father, a person of special merit, and he had begun to speculate on whom she might marry.

Her position in the prime minister’s office, her good salary and her lively interest in political matters made her attractive to many young men; indeed, her would-be suitors ran the entire gamut, from a white Englishman who had come to All Saints to study its economy, through several shades of brown both lighter and darker than herself, and on to one very black chap who might prove the best of the lot. Even though the fact that color distinctions were now of diminished importance on All Saints, the commissioner, despite his modernism, was quietly proud of the fact that Sally was several shades lighter than he or his father. He would be interested to watch whom she settled upon, but he felt no concern, because almost anyone from the field, as he called the young fellows who buzzed around her, would be acceptable.

The caste system that had prevailed before World War II, when there were rigid delineations—aristocracy, good county families, all other whites, light-skinned browns, dark-skinned browns and blacks—had quietly evaporated with independence. London no longer sent out members of the nobility to serve as governors general, so this class had been eliminated. Families with county connections back in England still existed but played a much smaller role in social life, so the three former distinctions among the whites had coalesced into one: white.

“Where’s Sally?” Wrentham asked the older woman who had looked after his house since the death of his wife, and she responded: “She say: ‘Meetin’ on de black agenda.’ ”

Thomas laughed, for in recent months Sally had been caught up with a feisty group of young people who were discussing a problem that concerned thoughtful people on all the Caribbean islands except Cuba: “How should the principle of negritude, the spiritual essence of being black, modify personal and political life in the Caribbean?”

The commissioner approved of his daughter’s participation in these discussions, because both he and his father, Black Bart, had been resolute in their belief in black power and forthright in their application of it. The blacks and browns of All Saints still talked admiringly of the manner in which Bart had solved the problem of The Club, that ultra-exclusive gathering spot on the hill in back of Gommint House. Prior to 1957, when a restricted form of self-government was introduced, only whites were permitted to enter those sacred portals, and this exclusivity was not only understood by everyone but also generally approved: “Each man to his own group.”

But when real self-government came in 1964, with a white governor general still representing the queen but a locally elected black prime minister in effectual charge, Black Bart decided that a change was in order. So, one April evening, as the remaining white establishment was gathering at The Club to discuss the latest improprieties of the newly positioned brown and black officeholders, Bart Wrentham, by then police chief of the island, rode up the hill in his old Chevrolet, walked ceremoniously into the meeting room, and announced in respectful tones: “I’m applying for membership.” Some of the older members gasped at the insolence, but others clapped hands and half a dozen of the younger members invited Bart to the bar for a drink. The social revolution which so many on All Saints had feared occurred without one ugly word spoken or shouted in public.

At Bart’s death, The Club sent an official delegation of seven to his funeral, and in the elegies they spoke of him proudly as their first member of color and a man who had served both The Club and the island with distinction. His son Thomas, the present police chief, now called Commissioner, inherited his sensible attitudes toward relations between the races, and had passed them on to his children. Two days earlier, when his daughter had informed him that she planned to join the discussion group on negritude, he said: “Fine. Your grandfather wrestled with the problem when he lived in a Crown Colony with its rigid attitudes, and he taught me how to handle it in these years of independence. Your job is to be prepared for the future, for whatever changes are coming.”

As Wrentham reflected on these matters while eating his supper alone, Sally was immersed in a tense meeting of her group, some sixteen of the brightest young officeholders, all brown or black, who were discussing the significance of a powerful book on the subject of negritude written by a fellow Caribbean, Frantz Fanon of Martinique. His great book, Les Damnés de la Terre, had been published in English under various titles, but the copy which the leader of tonight’s discussion had acquired was called The Wretched of the Earth, and its mind-shattering call for social change had considerable application to black islands like All Saints.

But when the animated discussion was at its height a young brown woman named Laura Shaughnessy who worked in the governor general’s office appeared belatedly, bringing with her the young white Englishman who had come out from London seven years ago as economic adviser to the island government. Some of the discussion group were disturbed that a white official had been inserted into their group, for they feared his presence might inhibit the free flow of ideas, but the young woman who had brought him allayed their fears: “This is Harry Keeler. You’ve seen him about the halls. I invited him because he had been a British official in Algiers during the troubles and witnessed the economic and social data on which Fanon based many of his concepts.”

When this evoked a storm of comment, he listened attentively, made notes of the salient points, and then asked for the floor. He was careful to speak only as an economist and only on those matters about which he had acquired expert knowledge, but he ended forcefully: “I’m not sure you understand what I’m saying. We’ve allowed the discussion to become too adversarial. It shouldn’t be that. Fifteen years ago on this island, I’d have been a follower of Frantz Fanon on one simple principle: ‘It’s high time!’ You and I won that battle. I fought for it in an African country gaining its independence. But tonight it’s an entirely different battle, and Frantz Fanon is too impractical to teach us about how to take our next steps.”

His words were so judicious and so straightforward that when he finished, Sally Wrentham went up to him and said: “Mr. Keeler, you made great sense as a white man looking down from above. But how about us blacks who have to look up from below?” He noticed that although she could have been considered white in many societies he had known, she preferred to call herself black, a good sign in his opinion.

“Now wait a minute, Miss Wrentham. You’re the police commissioner’s daughter.”

“I am.”

On that evening throughout the world, as the sun drifted to sleep in the west, thousands of young unmarried men in a hundred different countries met socially in groups to talk with young unmarried women, and with reassuring frequency some man would see in a flash some woman of intelligence or understanding or sympathy or sheer attractiveness, and his breath would catch and he would find himself assailed by ideas which he had not entertained even ten minutes before, and everything would be changed.

“Your interest in these matters?” he began, and she stopped him: “My grandfather, Black Bart Wrentham they called him …”

“I know. He led the fight for independence. Sterling man I’m told.”

“He really was. Struggled to build a profitable café, saloon if you will, and became the first police chief under independence. Powerful force, that one. Died Sir Bart Wrentham, because respect for his integrity reached even to London.”

“You must be proud of being in that family.”

“I am.”

“And did you attend school in England?” The question had a chilling effect on Sally, for despite the best intention on Keeler’s part when he asked it, the only interpretation she could give it was: Since you are obviously a first-class person, your parents must have saved enough money to send you to England for your education.

She was irritated and about to rebuke him, when the door to the meeting room burst open to admit two men. The first was about five feet six, very black, and well regarded on the island as a sensible master of bookkeeping techniques and budgetary controls, but on this night no one even greeted him, because in tow he had the Rastafarian from Jamaica with his frayed shirt proclaiming DEATH TO POPE, HELL DESTRUCTION AMERICA and his coconut shell clacking against his lute as he walked toward the group.

Serene, his dreadlocks framing his bearded face, the newcomer flashed one of the most all-embracing smiles that Sally had ever seen, and said: “I Rasta Man come to help.” His eyes swept about the room, and he added: “I-man come this I-land help I-&-I I-cover things to happen.” When she, like all the other listeners, betrayed her inability to follow what he said, he lapsed into normal English, with a Jamaican lilt that was most agreeable: “I have come from Jamaica to help you discover and achieve whatever it is you think ought to happen.”

“Who sent you?” someone asked, and Grimble lapsed into Rastafarian again: “I-man have vision. ‘Seek out I-&-I belong All Saints bring I-vine help I-alogue.’ I-man come.”

“I think you better tell it straight,” the questioner recommended, and the visitor complied: “I was I-rected, I mean directed, to come here and hold I-alogue with you.”

“Do you mean dialogue?” a man in back asked, and with a big smile he replied: “Oh yes! I do.”

“And what is your message?” a young woman asked, and after carefully placing his shell and lute on the floor, he pulled up a chair, sat gracefully upon it with his long thin legs wrapped around each other twice, a feat totally impossible for a fat man or for most of medium weight. Flashing once more his smile of embrace and forgiveness, he explained: “Rastafari is a belief in peace, in tranquillity, in love of all persons …”

“How about the pope?”

Without changing pace or expression, he concluded: “… except those of evil intent.”

“We heard that in Jamaica, your people led riots, real violence.”

Turning on his chair, he looked benignly at his accuser and said in low, gentle tones: “It was Babylon that abused us, never the other way.”

“But don’t you say that Babylon must be destroyed?”

“With love. The way Gandhi destroyed the Great Babylon that oppressed him.”

Now Sally spoke: “Why do you say I so much—what does it mean?”

“But who is I-&-I?”

“You, those over there, all in this room, the whole world apart from me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“So when Rasta Man want to say you, he do not separate himself from you. He mean that you and he are together, you and he and everyone else in this room, we are a team. So it has to be I-&-I, because in Rastafari all people are equal. You cannot exist without a part of him. Rasta Man cannot exist without all you people to help him fight his battles against darkness. It is I-&-I, always the immortal team.”

Sally, shivering at the intensity of his reply, was relieved when another woman asked: “But I heard a lot of other I’s in what you said,” and now he turned his searchlight gaze on her: “You must understand. We Rasta Men lead simple, pure lives. Only natural foods eaten from this coconut shell. No meat. Every cloth I wear must be handwoven of natural threads. Same with words. From any word with morally sinful elements or negative syllables, we knock out those elements and substitute I, which is clean and pure.”

“How can a syllable be morally negative?”

Eagerly he leaned forward to explain this basic tenet of Rastafarianism: “Words with ded, like dedicate, mean dead. Life gone. Word must become I-dicate. Beautiful ideas like divine or divide one’s goods, they have die in them. They have to be cleansed, become I-vine and I-vide.”

“You mean you go right through the dictionary?”

“Yes, beautiful words like sincere and sinews must be cleaned up.”

“Why?”

“They have in them the word sin, so they have to become I-cere and I-news. But words with sin which are ugly and cruel, like sinister and sinking, they stay that way. They warn the world of their evil intent.”

Sally, who understood not a word, whispered to the woman standing next to her: “It’s like Latin in the Catholic Mass. You’re not expected to understand. Each religion has its own mystical language,” but when he concluded, she raised her hand and asked: “Share with us, please, what you were saying,” and he replied: “Exactly what I said in your language. That words are important and we must clean them up now and then … to keep them pure.”

For the members of the group this verbal and visual introduction to the Rastafarians was a mind-expanding affair, but with an innate showmanship Grimble had saved his most powerful impact till last—and reaching down, he picked up his lute.

It was a wooden box, sealed except for an opening over which four strings passed. Its neck was a length of board imbedded with seven staples as frets, while a metal bar served as bridge. When plucked, it had a surprisingly good sound, and when the box was drummed on, it echoed deeply.

Sitting with his legs still intertwined, he strummed for a moment, then startled his audience with one of Bob Marley’s most powerful chants, “Slave Driver,” which spoke of days in Africa and nights aboard the slave ship. It was powerful music, even more powerful imagery, and before long he had these descendants of slaves chanting with him: “Slave driver, slave driver.”

“Slave Driver” finished, the singer turned to one of Marley’s most provocative hits, one composed by another man but preempted by Marley as his theme song, “Four Hundred Years.” It had a haunting beat, an endless repetition of the title which referred to the years of slavery, and a summons to remember that servitude. Now everyone in the room, including Harry Keeler, who had always liked Marley’s music, became a slave assigned to some sugar plantation.

The evening ended with a dozen young people clustered about Grimble, for he had reminded them with music and imagery that some years back he must have been like them, an ordinary black man with an ordinary name. Their questioning pinned him in so tight that Sally had no chance to bid him goodbye, but he was so tall that he was able to catch her eye, and they exchanged glances as she moved toward the exit.

There Harry Keeler waited, and as she neared he asked: “May I accompany you home?” and wanting to be freed of the Rastafarian mystique, she said almost gladly: “I’d like that.”

As they walked through the lovely island night, with stars as brilliant as guide lights on distant ships, she said: “A remarkable performance. What do you think it meant?”

“I doubt that a white man is qualified to summarize.”

“But you know the islands. You know revolutionary movements, Frantz Fanon and his breed.”

“It’s a powerful breed, a necessary one. If I were a young black—without a university education, that is—I do believe that Brother Grimble might exert a strong and perhaps constructive influence on me.” He paused, then brought the evening together in a tight knot: “Blacks really are ‘the dispossessed of the earth,’ as Fanon claimed.”

“So you think that Rastafarians …?”

“Don’t jump the gun. As a white junior official who wants to see his society held together, I also know that Rastafarians really do believe that the police are the Great Babylon.” Turning to look at her lovely face, he warned: “I think I can predict that in the weeks ahead your father, as commissioner of police, is going to have a basketful of trouble.”

In All Saints that winter night it was Sally, the daughter of the commissioner of police, walking slowly with Harry, the promising young economist from England, who would be returning there one of these days with a universe of experience in Algeria, Ghana and the Caribbean. How valuable to world society he was as he strolled that night, how precious she was as the new Caribbean black who could accomplish almost anything in her island society. Two young people of immense value, restrained by inherited taboos but at the same time set free by recent revolutions, they walked for some moments in silence, and then her prejudice against an ancient enemy softened and she said, changing the subject: “Who do you think’ll get the top appointment in the Tourist Board?” and he said quickly: “It better be somebody damn good. For the next dozen years this island sinks or swims depending on how it handles its tourism.” He walked for several steps, then turned to face Sally: “Insist to your father that we can’t afford to blow up over the Rastafarian. Remind him that some years ago the Rastas nearly destroyed Jamaican tourism. I saw figures which suggested that Jamaica lost millions of American dollars.”

“Must we always sell our soul to the American cruise ships?”

“Correction. Not a single cruise ship that stops here is owned by the Americans. Great Britain, Holland, Swedes, French …”

“But it’s the American tourist they bring, with his American dollars.”

“Correction. With her American dollars.”

“You’re a clever lad, Keeler,” she said, and he replied: “I try to be,” and from his front window Police Commissioner Wrentham watched as his daughter kissed the young economist goodnight.

For example, his sometimes radical innovations regarding tourism had produced rather better results than he had predicted, and the island now had an airport capable of handling medium-sized jets, a first-class tourist hotel at spectacular Pointe Neuve on the new road in from the airport, and a set of some two dozen bed-and-breakfast places at York, which had never before shared in the tourist dollar because of a frightening mountain road which separated it from Bristol Town. Keeler had said: “Straighten the hairpins on that damned road, or announce publicly that you’re going to let York starve.” This had made him a hero in York, and many tourists reported their stay in the homes of ordinary black families along the shore of Marigot Baie was “the highlight of our trip, not only to All Saints but to the entire Caribbean.” Such reports came, of course, from the hardier travelers; the others preferred the deluxe accommodations at Pointe Neuve.

Keeler was proud of his contributions to All Saints: “It’s possibly the best-run black country on earth, and that includes everything in Africa.” But whenever he indulged in this comparison he drew back for two reasons: “Country? Can an island with only a hundred and ten thousand people be called a country even if it is represented in the United Nations? And its present prosperity does hang on the nebulous thread of tourism.” And success in tourism, as he knew, was mercurial. It required that rich Americans be kept happy.

That was the danger he had perceived that night when he met with the island’s first Rastafarian: “Who can forget what happened in Jamaica when that gang with their hideous dreadlocks and their fierce animosity began to molest white women and elderly millionaires? Tourism was wiped out for years. Untold losses and a change in government. That sort of upheaval we cannot afford.”

Indeed, as he pursued his more or less serious courtship of Sally he told himself: I would be quite happy making my life here. Helping the island to self-sufficiency, and yes, stepping aside in later years when blacks I’d trained took over. And if I made that choice, what better than to have a superior woman like Sally for my wife?

Three solid reasons, which he did not need to review, made such conclusions viable. He had no yearning desire to return to the drab village on the edge of Yorkshire from which he had come; life there had been oppressive and hemmed in. His memories of his failed marriage to Elspeth were enough to make him groan at night when he recalled them, and he wished no repetition; on the day their divorce became final he felt as if a village cart had been hauled off his chest.

His third reason for feeling content on All Saints could be appreciated only by another Briton. In previous centuries and in the first half of this one, the various parts of the British Empire had been ruled by well-disciplined young Englishmen who had attended the best boarding schools and either Oxford or Cambridge. They were sent out to India or Africa or the Caribbean as young administrators, deigning to spend a few years bringing civilization to God’s children before returning home to retired glory as Lord This or Sir That, or at least with a civil medal of some distinction. Young men of the middle or lower classes, who had edged their way into lesser English colleges known collectively as “the red-brick universities,” or the Scottish universities, who wanted to serve overseas were eligible only for minor posts. So in those days the British presence was almost invariably represented by an Englishman of good family at the head of government, flanked by young aides of social background much like his, and supported by a corps of men like him who could rarely hope to attain any position of major leadership.

Keeler was one of the new postwar breed of British colonial officers; the son of lower-middle-class parents, educated in ordinary schools and a red-brick university, he had progressed because of natural ability and hard work, and he found life overseas so congenial that he had no desire to leave. Consequently, marriage with an island girl like Sally was not only acceptable, but almost inevitable; he’d experienced a wife who had little interest in anything but her husband’s income and her own social triumphs.

As his studied courtship progressed, he found himself looking at Sally Wrentham as a possible wife-to-be. So on a Saturday morning he dressed in his best whites, drove to her house, and invited her to accompany him to the one-day cricket match in York at the far end of the mountain road. Her reply: “Can I pack a lunch?” His response: “That would be great,” and off they sped in his Volkswagen.

He always enjoyed driving this scenic highway whose newly revealed beauty was the result of his headstrong effort, and he was delighted when Sally said: “You must be pleased that your new road works so well. They were really after your scalp there for a while.”

“It’s a road that was needed,” he said as the vistas which his men had chopped through the forest revealed the distant Atlantic.

A one-day match posed special strategic problems. Team A could bat first starting at ten-thirty and score 300 runs in powerful but dilatory fashion before its tenth and final wicket fell, but then it would probably not have time to get all the batsmen of Team B out before the end of play at five-thirty, in which case the match, with Team A leading 316–57, would be declared a draw. Proper strategy would be for Team A to bat merrily, score about 190, declare their innings ended even though they still had four players eligible to bat, then try to get all ten batsmen of Team B out before five-thirty and before they could score 191. In that case, Team A would win. But if Team B, in its innings, belted the ball over the boundary with abandon and scored a surprising 191 before five-thirty, they won.

In no other game played throughout the world was strategy and taking bold chances so much a part of the contest as in cricket; American tourists, of whom there would be a busload coming over the mountain today, never appreciated the wonderful intricacies of the game and the way a clever captain would first use two fast bowlers to chop up the pitch, then slip in a new bowler with a googly or a left-handed chinaman to take advantage of the roughened turf to take the batsman’s wicket. Nor could they see how adroitly the captain placed his nine fielders—not counting the bowler and the wicket keeper—so that one of his men was positioned right where the careless batsman was likely to pop up an easy catch.

When Keeler and Sally turned off the mountain road and into town at a quarter to ten they saw that the tourist bus from Bristol Town had arrived as well as six other buses from the north end of the island and three from the airport. “I hope,” he said to Sally as they parked their car, “that no airplane from Barbados arrives at one this afternoon in trouble and needing ground support.”

Nothing in the British islands of the Caribbean was more important than cricket. Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados might disagree on the economy, airfares between the islands, the management of their one university, and what taxes should be imposed on Trinidadian gasoline, but when the time came to build a West Indies team for a tour of England, India, Pakistan or Australia, all differences were submerged and funds were mysteriously found to pay for the trip. Local prejudices drove the islands apart, cricket bound them together.

Today’s game was a brilliant affair, a sky-blue Saturday, with flowering trees in bloom, fruit abundant in the open marketplace, people of all complexions seated in the tiny stands or lying on the grass—and everyone caught up in the excitement of a one-day match. Cricket purists did not appreciate such condensed and often rowdy affairs; they preferred the more stately matches that covered two, three or even five consecutive days, for then captains could engage in intricate strategies, depending on weather forecasts and the likely effect on the condition of the pitch. In a series of five matches it was not uncommon for two or even four to end in draws. One of the beauties of cricket was to watch a resolute captain whose team faced almost certain defeat swing things about to deprive the enemy of a sure win by prolonging the battle until time ran out. In such circumstances, a draw was almost as good as a win and sometimes more exciting as men batted against the clock. A proper five-day match with a little rain to cause uncertainty was cricket at its best, but in the islands a rousing one-day struggle had equal merit but of a more noisy nature.

One of the two umpires was always Canon Essex Tarleton—with ruddy face, white hair and a rotund body that looked like a Toby jug. When he marched onto the field, with a dignified waddling pace, there was decorous clapping, for he was a much-loved figure who reminded them of John Bull, and of other aspects of England which they still treasured.

What made him especially memorable was his garb, for cricket umpires traditionally wore their trousers and white shirt under a linen duster that reached halfway down the calf, but the canon (an honorary but inaccurate title awarded him by his shipmates aboard a wartime cruiser) wore instead of the duster a heavy ribbed sweater made of natural wool from the Hebrides Islands off the coast of Scotland. As soon as the day heated, which was early in the West Indies, Tarleton removed his sweater and tied its arms in a tight knot about his ample belly, so that the bulk of the sweater covered his rear. Many photographs were taken of his umpiring, and most showed the heavy sweater drooping from his waist.

In cricket, at the climax of a close play, the umpire was not required to render a decision unless there was a formal appeal, and this took the form of a shouted question: “Howzzat?” There was difference of opinion as to whether the curious word meant “How was that?” or “How is that?” but when six or seven fielders shouted at the same time “Howzzat?” Canon Tarleton came into his glory, for he stood as tall as he could, stared at the supplicants, and delivered his judgment, which was never appealed. His word was law.

“We’ll see,” Harry replied. “And if it looks bad for us, Sally here will pray for rain.” In that case, no matter how poorly Bristol Town did after the lunch break, the match would be a draw.

Bristol did quite poorly, the Tudor brothers proving that they were bowlers of almost test class, all out for 133, leaving The Rest with ample time to win.

They sent in a cautious batsman first, paired with one of the good players from York, and although the cautious man went down quickly, the more experienced player hit out strongly and scored well. But when the next batsman came in, one of the tragedies of cricket unfolded. To score a run, both batsmen had to run, at the same time, exchanging creases, and it sometimes happened that a poor batsman would be too daring in his decision. He would try to run when the odds were against him; his partner, starting out of his safe area just a little late, would be thrown out through no fault of his own. Cricket being a gentleman’s game, the good batsman did not in this moment of frustration thump his inept partner over the head with his bat, but he would have been justified in doing so.

That is what happened: the poor batsman was safe, the good one out. So The Rest lost two wickets in a hurry, but then one of the radar men from the airport came to bat, and it was obvious after his first few runs that he had played a good deal of high-quality cricket in the English counties. He was good, and it looked as if he might notch a century when Harry Keeler made a remarkable play. The airport man hit a well-placed ground ball which rolled rapidly out toward the boundary. If it escaped the fielders, it would be a four, and even if someone from the Bristol Town side did run it down, two or perhaps three runs would be scored. So the batsman and his partner set out confidently, but Harry, running at startling speed, overtook the ball, reached down without stopping, grabbed it with one hand, and with unbroken motion threw it with great force right into the hands of the distant wicketkeeper, who deftly ticked the bails, the two wooden crosspieces atop the wicket, into the grass. The play was very close. Did the runner reach safety before the bails went flying, or had the ball beaten him? “Howzzat?” shouted the Bristol men, and Canon Tarleton stood impassive. Then, after a dramatic pause, he signaled the runner out. A cheer went up from both sides in tribute to Harry Keeler’s mighty throw which had dismissed The Rest’s leading scorer.

A visitor from Barbados, an elderly black man who had as a youth once toured England with Sir Benny Castain, took the trouble to find Keeler at the end of the match: “I’m John Gaveny, selector from Bridgetown, and I must say any team could use a world-class fielder like you,” but before Harry could feel elation, Gaveny added: “That is, if he could be relied upon to put together twenty or thirty runs.”

Harry and Sally were among the last of the Bristol Town contingent to leave York, and after darkness fell at a quarter past six like a curtain in a theater crashing down, they stopped at one of the niches carved in the side of the mountain for the passage of buses and kissed with some ardor. When they reached home, Sally said: “Come in and have supper with us,” and they found that the housekeeper had waiting for them and the commissioner a bubbling stew made of island vegetables, potatoes brought by ship from Ireland and beef flown in from Miami. After asking how the game had gone, Commissioner Wrentham said: “Those brothers from Tudor, if they can master a change of pace, they’ll be on the test team for sure,” and Sally said: “If you’d seen Harry’s defensive plays, you’d put him there too.” After supper Wrentham said: “I have work at the station,” and he left the young lovers alone, satisfied on all counts: he had raised a splendid daughter who was being courted by a man worthy of her.

But the courtship, so appropriate from every outside evaluation, did not go smoothly, because two weeks after the cricket match, Laura Shaughnessy, from the governor general’s office, said to Sally: “Let’s take tomorrow off. The Rastafarian wants to see the north end of the island, and I said I’d take him in my car.”

Today would be a harsh, almost brutal ride into the realities of a new black republic with its dominant African heritage extruding at a dozen unexpected points. Laura, several shades darker than Sally, drove her small car with Ras-Negus Grimble hunched up beside her in the front seat and Sally tightly packed into the rear.

The difference between the two excursions started immediately, for instead of taking the mountain road south, Laura headed north, and as soon as they left the town, the Rastafarian took command, as if he were a young king and they his concubines. What he wanted to see was the lay of the land, its capacity for agriculture, the crops it was already growing, and how the little farms that peppered this apparently empty part of the island were positioned. Twice he ordered Laura peremptorily: “Stop! I want to visit that farmer,” and when he left the car to talk with the black people occupying the hut he spoke about crops with such obvious authority, that Sally thought: I’ll bet his ancestors inspected their fields that way in Africa.

When they were about two miles south of Tudor, Sally accompanied him on a walking visit to a third farmer whose fields were off the road, and was amazed at the turn their conversation took. “Can you grow a good ganja on your back fields?”

“Never tried.”

“If I brought you number-one seed, would you try?”

“How I gonna sell ganja, suppose I grow it?”

“Great Babylon Americans hungry for ganja. Very good price.”

“We don’t grow much here All Saints. Don’t use it much.”

“All that’s going to change. Remember. I told you. Great God Haile Selassie say so.”

On the short hop into Tudor, Sally asked: “Isn’t ganja what is usually called marijuana?”

“Ganja is the sacred herb of Rastafari. Opens all doors.”

In Tudor he was electric, moving about among black people, who were overwhelmed by his tremendous locks, his colorful shirt, the secure manner in which he conducted himself. Sally noticed that he tended to keep away from people of light color like herself; his message was for the black farmer, the black storekeeper, the woman who washed clothes, and it was always the same: “Black people gonna rise all over the Caribbean. God comin’ back to earth in Ethiopia, reconquer the world for us.”

When the people stopped to listen to his ranting, intermixed with long passages of incomprehensible Rastafarian jumble, he dropped his voice and ended with great seriousness: “America the Great Babylon overseas. Who the Great Babylon here All Saints? The police.” Always when he said this, he stopped, stared at his listeners with a fierce glance, utilizing his height and the fearful appearance of his hair and beard to terrify them. Then he would drop his voice to a whisper: “Great Babylon must be destroyed. The Bible say so. Revelation.”

And now he whipped out his Bible: “Chapter Eighteen, verse two, look at it, read it for yourself: ‘And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen and is become the habitation of devils …’ And now read verse twenty-one: ‘And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.’ ”

Sally noticed that he always stopped short of calling for outright revolution or an attack on the police, but that was certainly the import of his words, and his listeners knew it. But when the tension was at its maximum, he became once more the gentle messenger she had seen that first night at the meeting. Then the warmth in his eyes and the reassurance in his placid face, framed as it was in his Christ-like beard, exuded love for all and an invitation to join his crusade to rescue the black people of this earth.

As he ate he took the opportunity to explain to his host in the gentlest terms the principles of Rastafari, and when one man asked: “Is it true you have ganja as your sacred herb?” he replied: “It’s the herb Jah sent down to earth to make black people joyous. You smoke ganja like Haile Selassie say, you catch a glimpse of heaven.” And he left the men bedazzled by his description of what life was going to be like when Haile Selassie, as the seventy-second incarnation of the Godhead, returned to take command of the hundred and forty-four thousand who were to be saved.

On the way west toward Cap Galant, Ras-Negus spoke with quiet fervor of Rastafarian principles: the concept that all women were empresses, that children were one of the world’s great blessings, that good men and women ate only natural foods and not canned poisons sent to the island in cargo ships owned by the Great Babylon in Miami.

The drone of his subdued and pleasant voice almost put Sally to sleep, but when, to keep herself awake, she asked: “Mr. Grimble …” and he stopped her: “Not Mr. Grimble, Ras-Negus, John the Baptist of the Leeward and Windward Islands.”

“Ras-Negus, what was that hundred and forty-four thousand saved you spoke about?” and for the first time when talking with her directly he produced his small leatherbound Bible and flipped it open exactly to Revelation, Chapter 14, from which he read in low and gentle tones: “And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads … These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.’ ”

Closing the Bible, he said, looking at Sally: “You and I should live our lives so that we can be one of the hundred and forty-four thousand.”

“You mean that of all the people on earth only …?”

“Group by group. Of these Windward Islands, maybe only one hundred and forty-four thousand saved.”

“In America, which has a huge population?”

“None. It is Babylon.”

After he had been orating for some time, a woman came up who had attended that first night meeting and asked him to expound on the curious Rastafarian vocabulary. This was apparently one of the aspects of Rastafari about which he considered himself an expert, for he declaimed wildly and sometimes with unintended humor about how the English language would be modified when the Rastas took over. Among his more memorable suggestions:

…“Politics is how the white man oppresses the blacks. We must call it by its right name, polytricks.”

…“Understand is too beautiful a word to be harmed by the negative concept under. It must become overstand.”

…“Divine has the noblest meaning, but it’s damaged by that first part die. It has to become I-vine, throwing all the divinity on the I, the immortal me.”

…“In Tudor just now I saw the new library. Marvelous place for children, but it corrupts them with false information in that first part lie. It has got to be truthbrary.”

…“One of the best things a Rasta can be is dedicated. But the power of the word is killed by that first part, dead. We call it livicated.”

On and on he went, as if he were playing a child’s game, dissecting the language and substituting crazy corrections. When he saw picnickers eating the most totally satisfying food of the islands, a ripe mango with its rich-tasting fruit and golden juice: “Man-go, it means some good fellow is dying. We make our word I-come.”

Sally had never before seen the notorious herb, illegal on All Saints, and was surprised at how pleasantly aromatic it was in its natural state, but she was even more startled when she saw how Ras-Negus smoked it. From what she had read in Time, she had expected him to roll it into something like a cigarette, but he did not. Taking a strip of newspaper, he formed a generous cornucopia, small like a cigar at the mouth end, flaring out to a diameter of three inches at the far end. When he lit the weed and started smoking in deep drafts, he looked as if he were making music on old Triton’s “wreathèd horn.”

He inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, allowed a look of saintly benevolence to clothe his face, then passed the strange contraption to the man standing near him, who took four deep first-time puffs. Since the cornucopia contained an immense amount of ganja, some ten young men could share it, and now it came to Laura, driver of the car. She had apparently been introduced earlier to the herb by Ras-Negus, for she took the smoking paper, dragged on it expertly, sighed deeply, and held it out to Sally.

This posed a problem. Sally, as the daughter of the commissioner of police, was well aware that even the possession of marijuana on All Saints, let alone the actual smoking of it, was illegal, but her experiences on this crowded day had awakened in her such an interest in Rastafari as an authentic black religion that she was inclined to participate in all its rituals, so she accepted the ganja from Laura.

“You must take deep breaths,” Ras-Negus directed, and when she did she felt the subtle smoke diffusing through her lungs and apparently her heart and head as well. Eight deep drags produced a positive euphoria, and once more she felt the sense of Africa.

Now Ras-Negus, in a grand euphoria, started finding in his Bible random passages which more or less substantiated the teaching of Rastafari. Again from Revelation came: “ ‘And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed …’ ” He said that this proved that Haile Selassie, who was a lineal descendant from King David, would soon take over Africa.

“But he’s dead,” Sally protested, and he countered: “His spirit. Not his followers, like you and me. Africa will be ours.”

To prove his point, he turned to Psalm 68, where he read in verses 31 and 32: “ ‘Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God. Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth …’ ” This clearly meant, he claimed, that Great Babylon America would soon fall under the sway of Ethiopia.

On and on he went, galloping through the Bible to lift this arcane morsel and that, but always he came back to Revelation: “Victory over Great Babylon isn’t going to be easy. Listen to Chapter Nineteen, verse nineteen: ‘And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.’ ” This seemed pretty nebulous to Sally until he pulled from his leather bag a small photograph of Haile Selassie perched on a white horse. This led him immediately to Chapter 20, verse II: “ ‘And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away …’ ”

She did not scream, but she did try to push him away. However, he was too powerful, and forced her to keep her hand inside his baggy trousers until he gained partial satisfaction.

It was frightening but not repulsive, for his entire being—his deportment, his narcotic words, his sense of dedication—bespoke a world she had not known before, and his wild vitality gave substance to that pretty word she and her friends had discussed so glibly: negritude. Exhausted and bewildered as the effects of the ganja subsided, pressed into her corner of the car, she prayed that it might soon reach Bristol Town. When Laura stopped her car at the home of Commissioner Wrentham, Sally jumped out and ran inside as if she sought sanctuary, for here, in the persons of her able father and her sane brother, black Africa and white England did meet in a decent and agreed-upon harmony.

Sally was so shaken by her experience with the Rastafarian and his ganja that next day at noon she went to the small, neat rectory attached to the Church of England building and asked if she could speak with Canon Tarleton, and his white-haired wife said brightly: “That’s what he’s here for, my dear,” and off she went to fetch him.

“And what brings you to my little room?” he asked Sally as he bustled in, offering her a glass of sherry.

She said she would like some, then explained that she was bewildered by Rastafarianism, and as soon as she said the word, he stopped pouring and said: “Yes, I know he’s been doing a lot of talking, that fellow from Jamaica.”

“He’s certainly been talking to me, quite persuasively.”

“Now, now, Sally! You’re much too sensible to be taken in by that nonsense.”

“But he quotes the Bible with such telling effect. Tell me, Canon, are the words of Revelation meaningful?”

Canon Tarleton sipped his sherry, then broke into robust laughter: “Sally, I’m going to answer your question with what might be called terrible frankness, but for God’s sake, listen to me. The religious kooks and weirdos of this world, and I’m borrowing a wonderfully appropriate pair of words I picked up from a recent issue of Time, have used two books of the Bible for the last two thousand years to prove any confounded thing they wished. Daniel and Revelation! They do as much harm in the world as Jamaica rum and Holland gin.”

“How do you mean?”

“They’re apocalyptic. Inspired rantings. You and I this morning could dip into those two books and prove almost anything we wanted to.” He reached for his Bible, showed her that he was opening it to Revelation, and read a farrago of words and symbols and sheer obfuscation: “Now tell me, pray what does that mean?” And very cleverly he began to assign arbitrary meanings to each of the words and symbols, until in the end he had proved, by juggling Revelation, that in the year 2007 Canada was going to invade both the United States and Mexico.

“Then what the Rastafarians say is all junk?”

“You used the word, I didn’t. But without answering you, because it’s never right for one religion to knock another, I’m going to look out the window and nod my head.”

Sally, much relieved to hear her suspicions confirmed, changed the subject: “Would you please look at Numbers—Chapter Five, verse six. I memorized the place because when he read the passage, it did seem to me to justify the strange way he wears his hair. Tell me, Canon, have you ever seen this Rastafarian?”

“I have. The other night at dusk, and he scared me half to death.” He was trying to find the passage, and when he did he said: “I’m afraid there’s nothing here that says anything about hair.”

“Try Chapter Six, verse five,” she said. “I may have gotten it backward.”

“Ah ha!” he chuckled. “This is the famous passage that rebellious young men in London used to convince their parents that long hair for men was ordered by the Bible: ‘The vow … there shall no razor come upon his head … he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow.’ ” Closing the Bible, he turned to Sally and smiled: “That certainly justifies … What is it they call that infamous hair? Dreadlocks?”

“It seems to.”

“Ah, but my dear young woman. You can go terribly wrong if you settle upon one short passage of our Bible for your sole instruction on anything. When the young mods, as they were called back home, threw that notorious passage at their elders, scholars in our church combed through their Bible to see what other firm instructions were given about men’s hair, and in Leviticus, the great book of law, they found in Chapter Fourteen, verses eight and nine, these words: ‘And he that is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that he may be clean … he shall shave all his hair off his head and his beard and his eyebrows, even all his hair he shall shave off: and he shall wash his clothes …’ Your Rastafarian could profit from those admonitions, especially the part about washing.”

After Sally had had an opportunity to study that passage, the old clergyman said compassionately: “A minister my age has seen a dozen sects rise and fall, and those that rely on selected passages from Daniel and Revelation are the most pernicious. But their error is understandable. Men and women grow restless when faced by tough, tested teachings of Roman Catholics or American Baptists. People aren’t ready to discipline themselves according to the truth that has been distilled over twenty centuries. So they construct their own apocalyptic religions, all fire and hell and golden chariots and a hundred and forty-four thousand of this and that, and I suppose that in the long run, they do no great harm. But in the short span, dear God, can they be destructive!”

As she was about to leave, he said: “I heard about his predictions on Ethiopia, and you can find passages which support his wild dreams, but in Zephaniah, a little-known book tucked away near the end of the Old Testament, the prophet takes care of your Rastafarian’s Ethiopia: ‘The Lord will be terrible unto them: for he will famish all the gods of the earth … Ye Ethiopians also, ye shall be slain by my sword.’ ”

When he led her to the door he said amiably: “Sally, you and I, using our scissors and paste, could construct a wonderful new religion, but we’d use only the noble parts, Deuteronomy, Psalms, St. Luke, the letters of St. Paul. But of course, such a religion has already been compiled for us. It’s called Christianity.”

The incident caused an uproar, for everyone appreciated instantly the damage it might do their principal industry; and when news was rushed to Keeler’s office, he jumped to the conclusion that the black offender must have been the Rastafarian. But the most casual interrogations proved that to be untrue; the assailant had been identified by several disgusted islanders, and he denied having any association with the Rastafarian.

Keeler swung into action immediately, and without seeking approval from anyone he hurried to the cruise ship, Tropic Sands, out of Oslo, to make profuse apologies to the captain, the cruise director and any of the other officials he could find: “This sort of thing does not happen on All Saints. It was a shameful aberration and will not be tolerated. Assure your people of that.”

When an officer took him to the ship’s infirmary, where the New York tourist was resting under mild sedation, he accomplished a great deal of good by making an on-the-spot decision. “Madam, I know how frightened you must have been. Yelled at and pushed by a strange man. I sympathize with you and I’m mortified, because we don’t allow things like that on our island. Here’s what I’m going to do to try to win your forgiveness. The people of this island will pay the entire cost of your boat trip, and since the Tropic Sands doesn’t sail until eleven tonight, the governor general invites you to have dinner with him, you and a friend of your choosing, at Government House, seven sharp. I’ll be here to fetch you in a taxi.” Having made peace with the offended woman, he then doubled back to the captain, invited him to the dinner also, and hurried ashore to phone the governor general to advise him of what he had done, and to ask his apology for having made what Keeler called a “unilateral decision.”

The dinner was a huge success. The woman turned out to be a Mrs. Gottwald who served as entertainment officer for a large synagogue in Brooklyn, and it had been she who had organized the Caribbean cruise aboard the Tropic Sands that had brought forty-seven passengers to the ship. Suddenly she became a person of great importance not only to the ship but also to the island, and she proved a well-informed talker.

Captain Bergstrom said: “It’s becoming profitable for our shipping companies to buy or lease an unpopulated island, or a remote stretch of a troubled island like Haiti or Jamaica, and build our own little vacation dreamland. Walled in behind a palisade, you see only those blacks who are allowed in as part of the work force …”

The way he described this new development in tourism betrayed his low assessment of it, but it remained for Mrs. Gottwald to dismiss it as a solution to the problems of tourism: “I would never take my people to an isolated place like that. And my people wouldn’t want to go. They want to see a marvelous mix like your fine main street. They want to meet black people and brown. Otherwise they’ll stay home.”

This occasioned favorable comment, especially from the black governor general, but then she added the warning that had to be attended to on any island that hoped to maintain its tourist trade: “I shall never forget what happened on St. Croix in the American Virgins some years ago. I had my group, sixty or seventy at that time, in St. Thomas that day and we were terrified when the news flashed along the waterfront and into the cruise ships docked there: Black hoodlums with machine guns attacked guests at the posh Rockefeller golf club on St. Croix. Dead bodies all over the place. It killed the Virgins for that season, and even now we can’t sell day excursions to St. Croix.”

Now the governor spoke: “I do hope, Mrs. Gottwald and Captain Bergstrom, that you can help us avoid inflammatory publicity.” He had been a scholarship student at Oxford and spoke with one of the world’s loveliest accents: pure Oxford softened by Caribbean sunshine. “Of course, if incidents like today’s should be repeated, news would have to circulate, and we would be honor-bound to let that happen, even though we knew it would be damaging our island. But I give you my word that we’re not going to let it happen again …”

As the party broke up, the governor said: “Mr. Keeler, you did me a signal honor in bringing these two experts to dinner. I’ve learned a great deal. And I trust that you, as our expert, listened and will take steps to protect our visitors and our island’s good name.”

Next morning at seven, Keeler was in the office of Commissioner of Police Thomas Wrentham: “Have you arrested the culprit?”

“Easily.”

“Anybody interrogated him?”

“I did.”

“Results?”

“I suppose you want to know whether he had been in any way influenced by the Rastafarian.”

“Exactly.”

“If we can believe him, and I’m inclined to, he’s never even seen the stranger.”

“Was he high on marijuana?”

“Smoking it is not a big problem on this island, as you know.”

“But with the Rastafarian preaching his doctrines, it’s going to be.”

“I agree, but in this case, probably no.”

“Then why in the world would he attack a white woman and say the provocative things he did?”

Wrentham leaned back and reflected on this: “Sometimes it’s in the air. Word from other islands, radio broadcasts about terrorism, an article in Time or Newsweek …”

“Or the visit of a Rastafarian,” Keeler suggested, and the commissioner said: “Today, on an island like this, that’s usually the case,” and he took from a desk drawer a report forwarded to him by his opposite number in Jamaica: “Take a look,” and Keeler read:

When Keeler passed the papers back, Wrentham asked: “How does that strike you?” and the Englishman replied: “I’m scared on two counts. That incident yesterday with Mrs. Gottwald could have proved devastating to our tourism, and will if it’s repeated. And I’m beginning to see intimations that the Rastafarian’s evil hand is surfacing in many surprising areas.”

“What should we do?”

“Deport him.”

“Then let’s see if we can establish any kind of relationship between the man yesterday and the Rastafarian. If we can, you go into court and ask for a deportation order, and have the judge summon me to confirm that our tourist industry might be shot to hell if he’s allowed to run loose any longer. Or, if we find him connected in any way with ganja …”

Three months passed, during which neither Colonel Wrentham nor Harry Keeler was able to devise a tactic for handling the difficult Rastafarian they had on their hands. In the meantime, the problem had taken a dramatic turn into wholly new channels, and now both Canon Tarleton and his wife were involved. One Thursday morning in late March they were seated in their rectory trying in vain to comfort a young woman member of their church who was totally distraught. She was Laura Shaughnessy, the fine-looking granddaughter of an adventurous young Irishman who had come to the island in the last century, had quarreled with the Catholic priest and joined the Church of England, and had taken a black wife, producing a large brood of children and grandchildren who brought honor to his name.

A trusted employee in the governor’s office, she had her pick of suitors, and the Tarletons sometimes discussed whom she might marry. Mrs. Tarleton felt that Laura was a bit too bold in accepting dates with the young officers from the cruise ships, on the logical grounds that “such affairs never lead to anything,” but the canon defended her: “She’s a lass, and a bonny one, who’s trying to find her way. Watch, she’ll marry the best young man in these parts,” and when it became obvious that Harry Keeler might very well stay on the island, Tarleton predicted: “Don’t be surprised if Laura grabs him. Perfect pair.”

It hadn’t happened, and now Laura sat before them in tears. She was pregnant, had no desire to marry the man involved, whoever he was, and was desolated by the options that faced her. But she had come to the right pair of people for counsel, because Mrs. Tarleton assured her: “First thing to remember above all else, God has always wanted you to have children, perhaps not in this way, but you are now engaged in a holy process, one of the most magnificent in the world, and you must find joy and fulfillment in it.”

“But …”

Joining hands with his wife and Laura, he prayed that God would bless the child in the womb and bring it to a productive life. He spoke of the joys of motherhood despite temporary difficulties, and he assured Laura that God, the Tarletons and all sensible people supported her at this moment. Then, still holding on to the young woman’s hand, he said reassuringly: “You must understand, Laura, that my wife and I have held meetings like this many times in the past. This is not the end of the world. It’s a problem to be faced, and like all such problems, there are reasonable solutions.”

Together the Tarletons explained that she had several specific options. She could have the baby here in All Saints and let the scandal expire, as it would in a short time, but that might make it difficult for her to find a husband locally; in such cases the girls almost always had to marry down in the color hierarchy. “But they always find husbands if they’re basically good girls,” Mrs. Tarleton said, and her husband added: “And you are.”

Or she could do what many had done in the past—leave All Saints right now, take a job, any job she could find, in Trinidad or Barbados or Jamaica, keep a very low profile, have her baby, put it up for adoption, and about two years thereafter come back home, marry and settle down. Mrs. Tarleton said: “You would not believe how many have done that, and three of them right now are leaders in our church. And do you know why? Because God blessed them from the start, just as He blesses you.”

They explored other possibilities, but in the end the canon returned to the one that lay closest to his religious belief: “Beyond all doubt, Laura, the best route, the one that God has always wanted you to take, is to marry the young man and start a Christian …”

She cut him off: “Impossible.”

“Why?” both Tarletons asked, and she said grimly: “Because he wouldn’t marry me, and I would never marry him.”

“Who is he? I’ll talk to him.”

“The Rastafarian.”

“Oh my God!” Reverend Tarleton cried, for he had only yesterday received from the church in Jamaica a report on Ras-Negus Grimble, and the information still burned in his mind:

Turning to his wife, he asked, “Should we show her the letter?” and she replied: “I do believe we must,” so without comment he handed it to Laura and watched her handsome face as she read it, observing that her expression passed from shock to anger.

Then Laura slowly folded the letter neatly, used one corner to tap her front teeth, and very quietly asked: “As a man of God, where can you send me to have an abortion?”

Neither of the Tarletons drew back from the responsibility implied in this terrible question. Instead, the clergyman took Laura’s hand and said: “It would be better, my beloved daughter, if you had the child. But twice in my ministry I have been forced to advise otherwise. Once when a girl was pregnant by her father, again when a child of fourteen was pregnant by her idiot brother. Today you are pregnant by the devil, and you must go to this address in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and now, let us pray.”

This time they knelt, and he said simply: “God in heaven, who has watched this meeting from the start, forgive the three of us for departing from Thy teachings, but we are faced by wholly new problems and are honestly striving to do our best. Bless Thy servant Laura, who is a good woman and who has ahead of her a life of great potential contribution, and please bless my wife and me, for we did not seek this problem, nor did we resolve it carelessly.”

The presence of the Rastafarian posed a dilemma to another person—Lincoln Wrentham, eight years older than his sister Sally and proprietor of the Waterloo. During the first month of Grimble’s stay in All Saints, Lincoln had been only vaguely aware of his presence. He had seen his tall and distinctive figure once or twice moving rather furtively about the back streets, and after the incident with the American tourist woman from the Tropic Sands, he heard that it might have been the Rastafarian’s preaching that had triggered the affair. As a man whose business now depended in large part on a constant new supply of American travelers, he was so concerned that he sought a meeting with Harry Keeler, at which he demanded action: “You’ve got to do something about this fellow.”

Harry nodded, but then pointed out: “Isn’t that more your father’s job than mine?” and Lincoln had to agree, so he went along to his father’s office, and there he was pleased to learn that the police were keeping a sharp eye on the Jamaican. “Any agitation, troublemaking, off this island he goes,” Commissioner Wrentham assured his son, and there the matter rested. But sometime later, while Lincoln was tending bar at his café, he overheard two patrons talking about the Rastafarian, and one said, “I think he’s dating Sally from the prime minister’s office,” and Lincoln drew closer to eavesdrop, but the men did not refer to his sister again.

He was sufficiently disturbed to stop by his father’s office to ask if he knew anything about Sally’s possible involvement, and was told: “No, Sally’s been going to different affairs, cricket matches and the like, with young Harry Keeler, and I’m very pleased about it. The Rastafarian? Sally’s not the type to fool around with him.”

And there Lincoln’s investigation ended, but the confidence that he and his father expressed about Sally’s level-headedness was ill placed, because at the very time they were talking she was deeply involved with Ras-Negus, not like her friend Laura Shaughnessy as a bed partner, but rather as one interested in probing the depth and significance of his vision about the future of the world’s black people, and especially those in the Caribbean.

She had been reared without racial or social prejudices. After all, her grandfather, Black Bart, had been knighted for his exceptional leadership during World War II and it was rumored that her father, the commissioner, was being touted as the next governor general, so she watched in her own family the liberation and acceptance of blacks and browns. But what they would do with their freedom was another matter, and of late she had often wondered whether a minute island such as All Saints with only a hundred and ten thousand people, fewer than a small American or British city, could exist for long unless it associated itself with eight or nine islands of similar size to form a federation. And if they did, which seemed highly unlikely, on what would they subsist? What industry could thrive in such a small arena, except perhaps tourism, and was that a viable base for a society?

These were heady questions, and one might have thought that she would have gone to her friend Harry Keeler for answers, but she did not for good reason: she had already talked with him about these matters, and whatever he said was strongly colored by England’s empire experience, so that all she would be getting from him was standard white-man’s thinking. Nor could she talk seriously with her father or brother, because they had been conscripted into a subtle continuance of the white man’s rule, her father through his appointment to high office with a promise perhaps of a higher one and her brother through his reliance on tourists to keep his café profitable.

So without ever making a conscious choice, she began engaging in a tricky game, though she wasn’t devious. During normal encounters at the office and in the ordinary social events that came along each week, she encouraged Harry Keeler, in whom she was so interested that she was seriously considering marriage, but late at night or on evenings when Harry was engaged in government business, she sought out the Rastafarian for more discussions. Repelling easily the sexual advances he kept making and letting him know exactly what her interests were, she found his reactions to island problems sensible and refreshing so long as they did not involve religion or sex.

One morning as she dressed she thought it would be profitable if she and Laura Shaughnessy invited Ras-Negus to tour the southern end of the island with them as he had the northern, but when she went to ask Laura to join her in extending the invitation, she learned that her friend had left the island on an extended visit to relatives in either Jamaica or Barbados.

When she drove around to pick up Grimble from the tiny house in which he was living with the family of one of his girl friends, she was astonished to discover that he did not know how to drive. To explain this deficiency he reverted to Jamaican street talk, and Sally thought: This touches him deeply. He’s a child again.

“That time, long time, me no have nuttin’. Mudder, she work all time, no earn nuttin’. Me never get job drive car, never learn.”

“What do you think will happen to the Caribbean, Grimble?” When he started his reply by citing certain obscure passages in Revelation, she cut him short: “None of that nonsense! You and I both know that two hundred years from now America will be where it is and functioning one way or another, and some pope will be in place in Rome with more or less power. And our islands will still be here, populated mostly by blacks and untold numbers of Indians imported from Asia. What I want to know, Grimble, is what kind of world we blacks will have here?”

He protested almost petulantly: “I don’t like Grimble. My name Ras-Negus.”

She apologized: “I’m sorry, dear friend. A man is entitled to be called by what he prefers. But your predictions, please?”

“In old days lots of blacks from all islands go to work in Cuba cane fields, help build Panama Canal, go live in Central American jungles, cut logwood for dye, mahogany for build things. Most never come back. Later, same kind of men go New York, London, work strong, send much money home. But like others, they too never come back. Things in island stay in balance. Babies born, man go away, room for everyone. But now …”

Sally asked: “Ras-Negus, how old are you?” and he replied: “Twenty-five,” to which she said: “You’re a bright, able fellow. I could see that from the first. In the times you were talking about, you’d have left Jamaica for the adventure in Panama or headed for London.”

He agreed: “If they start something big in Brazil, I go tomorrow,” but she would not accept this evasion: “There isn’t going to be anything big in Brazil, or Cuba or America. And if there was, people from Central America would rush to grab the jobs.”

“I think maybe you’re right. London closed, too many out of work. Can’t go Trinidad, they won’t let.”

“So what?”

“Bob Marley … Jesus Christ of the Caribbean. Great, great man. He go Africa …” and apparently memories of Marley seduced him back into a Jamaican street vocabulary which she could not follow, so after she protested, he said: “Very impressed. Great place, Africa. He tell me when he get back: ‘Maybe better we all go Africa. Like Marcus Garvey say. I mean everybody in Jamaica. Just up and go.’ I beginnin’ to think same way.”

“Atom power, maybe nuclear power, it could be done.”

When they reached the airport at the southern extremity of the island, she interrupted the dialogue with a suggestion he appreciated: “Let’s go into the canteen and have something to eat,” but when they sat down at the counter she was amazed when he ordered not only a meat sandwich, but a large bowl of chili, a helping of French fries and a slab of chocolate cake with a large glass of milk. “I thought you ate only natural foods,” she chided, and he explained: “Festival with beautiful girl,” but she noticed that he did move all the food into his coconut bowl before he ate. He made no effort to pay for what he called his festival, for as usual he had no money, but he ate as if famished, and when Sally could not finish her generous sandwich, he wolfed that down too.