Janine needed no urging and, squatting on the floor, she began to devour the unusual dish. The ackee, she knew, was a yellowish fruit found nowhere in the world but Jamaica; she had often heard her father praise this strange, waxen delicacy, which could under no circumstances be picked until ripe and which would cause violent illness if eaten raw. Prepared with heavily salted codfish, she found that its bland flavor was a perfect balance for the pungent fish, and she concentrated on the meal in unconscious defiance of all her past training. No lady, she had always been taught, pretended that food was anything but a bore. But no lady had ever been quite so hungry. Finishing in a remarkably short time, she lifted the coconut to her lips and drank the sweet, pale milk. Never had a dinner in London or Paris been half so satisfying.
So completely had her attention been riveted on appeasing her hunger that only now did she realize that Bella had departed, then returned with two buckets of water. The half-breed stood waiting, a handful of soft, mossy twigs clutched in her right fist. The desire to be clean was stronger than Janine's modesty, and after a swift debate with herself she decided there was no harm in appearing unclothed before a member of her own sex.
The conclusion reached, she unbuttoned her shirt and peeled off the ripped, filthy garments. Then, before she quite knew what was happening, Bella stooped down, emptied half of one of the buckets of water over her, and began to scrub her energetically with the twig. Janine tried to protest, but the half-breed girl paid no heed and continued to apply water and the twig brush vigorously. At last she was finished, and Janine, skin tingling, felt truly refreshed for the first time. The bath water had already soaked into the ground, and she herself was drying quickly. Apparently towels were unknown here, and she shivered slightly in the late afternoon breeze.
From within the folds of her skirt Bella produced a long tortoise-shell comb and a small square of highly burnished metal, which she handed to the white girl. Janine took them eagerly, and after several minutes of untangling snarls her long red curls began to fall into place. At last she was satisfied with her work.
Bella was pleased, too, and looked at the cascading tresses with interest. "Only one other in town of Maroons have hair that color," she volunteered. "Myra, woman of Arnold Rifle-Shoot, have red hair." Without waiting for a reply, she scooped up the sodden rags that had been Janine's clothes and whisked them out of the hut before the startled girl could object.
In a moment she was back, carrying one of the Maroon skirts of thin, unbleached wool. She moved quickly to Janine and wrapped it around her waist three times, then tied it with two strips of cloth that had been sewn to the skirt top. From a pocket in her own skirt Bella then produced a long strip of thin but strong white silk. This she wound three times around Janine, knotted the ends in back, and critically surveyed her handiwork. Janine's breasts, though covered, were displayed with a prominence shocking to her more civilized standards. "Now you good Maroon woman too. Come to meet Commander, mistress."
Janine felt as though she had received a heavy blow on the top of her head, and her bare toes curled and dug into the ground. "You—you want me to go out—like this?" she cried, aghast. "I can't set foot out of this room without my clothes!"
"Old clothes no good any more," Bella replied calmly. "Now you have good Maroon dress. Come now. Commander waiting to make talk with you."
"I couldn't consider seeing anyone unless you supply me with a dress—or at the very least—with a shirt." Humihated and frightened, Janine fought to stem a flood of tears. "You surely can't expect me to—to expose myself like a savage!" The words were out before she could stop them.
But Bella took no offense, if indeed she was aware of the slight. "Commander let you wear much more clothes than other Maroon women," she said stolidly. "Commander say you dress like this. All here do as Commander say. Him wait for you now, and none in Land of Maroon keep Commander for to wait. So you come."
"I will do no such thing!" Janine was growing panicky, and her voice rose hysterically. "Just because you people are without decency is no reason why I must reduce myself to your gutter level. You can tell your commander for me that I absolutely "
She had no opportunity to say what it was that she wished repeated to the leader of the Maroons, for Bella swept around behind her, strong young hands took hold of her waist, and Janine was propelled bodily out of the hut. She staggered into the open and stood for a moment as in a trance, mortified and fearful. Then ineffectually she tried to cover the narrow breast-band with her hands and arms, but Bella did not allow her even that small comfort. Appearing at her side, the half-breed took hold of her elbow and led her firmly toward the open area at the center of the village.
Scores of children ran about noisily, and men and women were everywhere, moving purposefully about various chores. Some were carrying baskets laden with freshly picked vegetables and fruits, others were driving swine or sheep before them. The atmosphere was one of a community where no one was idle. But Janine was completely unaware of the spirit of the people; her consciousness of her own situation was so enormous that she could think of nothing else. Her sole desire was to run into the jungles and hide, but that was out of the question, so she knew that her best course was to cause as little commotion as possible and to appear as unconcerned as she could in order not to draw attention to herself.
It required great will power to drop her arms to her sides and to walk as naturally as she would have done had she been fully clothed. She made the effort, however, and though her head was spinning and she could feel her face flaming, she held her head high. Bella led her past the long buildings she had seen that morning, and she realized dimly that both were empty.
*This house for men who have no women," the half-breed said, pomting to the closer barracks. "Other for women who no have men."
Janine nodded dumbly, totally disinterested. Never again would she be the same person who less than twenty-four hours before had been a conventional and proper young woman. It was slightly heartening to discover that the men she passed paid virtually no attention to her, though a few of them, white and black, Arawak and cross-breed, smiled an impersonal and friendly greeting. They were, it seemed, far less conscious of her near nudity than she herself was, and they favored her with no more than a casual glance. Perversely, she was somewhat annoyed, for she was secretly proud of her figure and knew it to be far superior to that of the brawny women whom she could see going about their tasks.
At last Bella stopped before a cottage somewhat larger than most, an edifice made of heavy logs and boasting a conventional wooden door. The half-breed girl knocked, and a male voice called out something in a foreign tongue. She entered at once and beckoned to Janine to follow. The interior was startling, a strange contradictory hodgepodge in which the civilized warred with the barbaric.
Animal skins thrown across the dirt floor served as rugs, and in the center of what was apparently the living room of the dwelling was a highly polished, handsomely carved mahogany table that would not have been out of place at King's House. On it stood two ornate gold candelabra, each of which held nine blazing tapers. On the walls were hung grotesque masks that reminded Janine of some of the paraphernalia her father had long ago brought home to her from his slave-raiding expeditions into the African interior. And on the far wall stood two sharp-tipped spears, beneath which was hung a modem long rifle similar to those she had seen in New York.
Most amazing of all was a gilded chair placed on a raised platform beneath the spears and rifle. A long, silver-fringed velvet cloth of scarlet was thrown across the back of the chair, and beside it stood a rack holding a rapier and a curved, two-edged cutlass. On the other side was a small table on which rested a delicately filigreed decanter partly filled with wine and three or four exquisite glasses that could have been made only by master artisans in Venice or Prague. This, then, was the state chamber of the chief of the Maroons.