My Name Is Not Angelica Read Online Free PDF

him in vain.
    A half moon shone in the west. I passed the mimosa tree where I always met him. I did not look.
    Drums were talking. Waves broke on the rocks below. Voices drifted down from the slave huts. Yet suddenly I heard soft steps in the dust. It could be a spirit following me. I did not turn around and walked faster.
    The night wind was behind me. On it I heard my name called, called twice before I could stop.He was there, tall and shining in the moonlight under the mimosa tree. My heart was a bird. It beat against my breast.
    "You went by haughty," he said, "and did not even look."
    "I was afraid to look for fear you were not there," I told him, quickly, in what little voice I had.
    He felt the sleeve of my dress. "I was afraid to speak to you when you went by. I didn't know you in a dress. I thought you were somebody else. Where did it come from?"
    "From Jenna Prok. She gave it to me."
    "Another gift."
    He took out a necklace of blue stones, the kind the sea polishes and leaves on the beach, and put it over my head and around my neck. He lifted me high. He enclosed me like a storm cloud.
    When he set me down, I said, "You promised to take me with you the next time you came."
    "Food's scarce at the camp," he said. "We have more people than we can feed. In another month it will be different. I will come for you then."
    "That is a long time off," I said.
    "It may be sooner," Konje said. "We heard from St. Thomas this morning that the governor is on his way to Hawks Nest. He'll be here tomorrow and stay for a few days, talking to planters, spying on things. He'll bring powder and bullets from the fort, like the last time. Tell Dondo that we needboth. Tell him to steal what he can. Tell Dondo to hide them here behind me in the cactus."
    "I will tell him tomorrow morning," I said, "when he is through with Master van Prok."
    The drums at Mary Point had stopped talking. No waves broke on the shore below. In the silence there was a sound I often had heard.
    It was Master van Prok and his whip, the tschickefell. He was walking up the path that led to the huts. He did this every night, now that runaways were camped at Mary Point. He wanted to scare any of his slaves who might be tempted to join them.
    The whip was long, woven of strips of goatskin, and had a piece of metal at its tip. From twenty feet away he could flick a bird from a branch. The tschickefell cracked like a pistol shot.
    The sounds came closer. Konje lifted me again and set me down. "Tell Dondo," he whispered. "Do not forget." Quickly, he was gone.
    I went to my hut and took off the dress and stretched out on my mat. Master van Prok circled the huts, cracking his whip.
    Before dawn, at four o'clock when the field slaves went to work, I hid the necklace under my mat. I put on the dress and went down to the house to give Dondo Konje's message, afraid I might miss him.
    The van Prok toilet was outside the house. Thesun rose over the ridge and Master van Prok came out naked and stretched himself. After he was through with the toilet, he bent over and Dondo whisked him clean with a horsetail brush. This was the custom of the planters on the island of St. John and the island of St. Thomas. They would not think of starting the day otherwise. Dondo did this task with his jaws set tight.
    I waited until Master van Prok had gone down to the distillery, where the mules were going around, turning the grinding stones that crushed the sugar cane. Then I gave Dondo the message Konje had given me.
    He shook his head. "I stole powder when Governor Gardelin was here two months ago. Remember?"
    "I remember. You almost got caught."
    "Almost. I had a bagful, all I could carry. I hid in the cave under the hill. The guards searched the house. They searched the beach. They were about to search the cave when the tide came in. The tide kept them out but it soaked the powder. Since that time van Prok hides it in a closet near his hammock. Sometimes, when he's asleep, when I am waving the