Part 62 (1/2)

”Look around you.” Atiba turned and gestured. Out of the palms emerged a menacing line of black men, all carrying cane machetes. ”My men are here. We could kill all of you now, senhor, and simply take your muskets. But you once treated me as a brother, so I will barter with you fairly, as though today were market day in Ife. I and my men will seize this branco fortress and make it an offering of friends.h.i.+p to you--rather than watch you be killed trying to take it yourself--in trade for these guns.” He smiled grimly. ”A life for a life, do you recall?”

”The revolt you started is as good as finished, just like I warned you would happen.” Winston peered through the rain. ”You won't be needing any muskets now.”

”Perhaps it is over. But we will not die as slaves. We will die as Yoruba. And many branco will die with us.”

”Not with my flintlocks, they won't.” Winston examined him and noticed a dark stain of blood down his shoulder.

Atiba drew out his machete again and motioned the other men forward.

”Then see what happens when we use these instead.” He turned the machete in his hand. ”It may change your mind.”

Before Winston could reply, he turned and whispered a few brisk phrases to the waiting men. They slipped their machetes into their waistwraps and in an instant were against the breastwork, scaling it.

As the seamen watched in disbelief, a host of dark figures moved surely, silently up the sloping stone wall of the breastwork. Their fingers and toes caught the crevices and joints in the stone with catlike agility as they moved toward the top.

”G.o.d's blood, Cap'n, what in h.e.l.l's this about?” d.i.c.k Hawkins moved next to Winston, still holding a grapple and line. ”Are these savages .

”I'm d.a.m.ned if I know for sure. But I don't like it.” His eyes were riveted on the line of black figures now blended against the stone of the breastwork. They had merged with the rain, all but invisible.

In what seemed only moments, Atiba had reached the parapet along the top of the breastwork, followed by his men. For an instant Winston caught the glint of machetes, reflecting the glow of the lighted linstocks, and then nothing.

”By G.o.d, no. There'll be no unnecessary killing.” He flung his grapple upward, then gestured at the men. ”Let's go topside, quick!”

The light clank of the grapple against the parapet was lost in the strangled cries of surprise from atop the breastwork. Then a few muted screams drifted down through the rain. The sounds died away almost as soon as they had begun, leaving only the gentle pounding of rain.

”It is yours, senhor.” The Portuguese words came down as Atiba looked back over the side. ”But come quickly. One of them escaped us. I fear he will sound a warning. There will surely be more _branco_, soon.”

”d.a.m.n your eyes.” Winston seized the line of his grapple, tested it, and began pulling himself up the face of the stone wall. There was the clank of grapples as the other men followed.

The scene atop the breastwork momentarily took his breath away. All the infantrymen on gunnery duty had had their throats cut, their bodies now sprawled haphazardly across the stonework. One gunner was even slumped across the breech of a demi-culverin, still clasping one of the lighted linstocks, its oil-soaked tip smoldering inconclusively in the rain.

The Yoruba warriors stood among them, wiping blood from their machetes.

”Good Christ!” Winston exploded and turned on Atiba. ”There was no need to kill all these men. You just had to disarm them.”

”It is better.” Atiba met his gaze. ”They were _branco _warriors. Is it not a warrior's duty to be ready to die?”

”You bloodthirsty savage.”

Atiba smiled. ”So tell me, what are these great Ingles guns sitting all around us here meant to do? Save lives? Or kill men by the hundreds, men whose face you never have to see? My people do not make these. So who is the savage, my Ingles friend?”

”d.a.m.n you, there are rules of war.”

”Ah yes. You are civilized.” He slipped the machete into his waistwrap.

”Someday you must explain to me these rules you have for civilized killing. Perhaps they are something like the 'rules' your Christians have devised to justify making my people slaves.”

Winston looked at him a moment longer, then at the bodies lying around them. There was nothing to be done now. Best to get on with disabling the guns. ”d.i.c.k, haul up that sack with the spikes and let's make quick work of this.”

”Aye.” Hawkins seized the line attached to his waist and walked to the edge of the parapet. At the other end, resting in the mud below, was the brown canvas bag containing the hammers and the spikes.

Moments later the air rang with the sound of metal against metal, as the seamen began hammering small, nail-like spikes into the touch-holes of each cannon. That was the signal for the Barbados militiamen to advance from the landward side of the breastwork, to provide defensive cover.