My Name Is Not Angelica by Scott O’Dell Read Free Book Online Page B

grasped my shoulder. "Listen," he said, "therewill never be enough food at Mary Point. The runaways only get what they steal and what the slaves give them. That will end with the new laws and the guards that will scour every hill and valley on the island, starting this very day."
    I wanted to be angry with him but, though I stopped breathing at the awful thought, I knew that he spoke the truth.
    As if he were a prophet speaking from the Bible, he said, "Unless Konje and his runaways give up, they shall be slain, man, woman, girl, and boy."
    "Perhaps the Lord will think of a miracle, like the miracle when he parted the sea in the middle and walls of water were on both sides of the children of Israel and they went through on dry land and were saved from the Egyptians."
    "The children of Israel slaved in Egypt for four hundred and thirty years before they were saved. The slaves of St. John have slaved on this island for scarcely ten years."
    "Do we have to slave hundreds of years before the sea parts in the middle and we can go free?"
    "I pray day and night that the sea will part much sooner. You must pray too, and ask the others to pray."
    "I do pray. All the slaves pray."
    "The Lord will hear us," said Isaak Gronnewold.
    We came to the bottom of the gully. There was a hollow place to one side of the trail where a poolof water had collected. Grass had started to grow around the edges. The donkey veered from the trail and began to graze.
    Preacher Gronnewold pulled on the halter, but the donkey went on eating. He spoke to it, saying gentle words from the Bible. He sometimes spoke to the birds and animals as if they were people.
    The beast went on cropping the grass. Preacher Gronnewold explained that they had miles to go and work to do. The beast pricked up its ears and listened but went on eating. I also had work to do.
    "My friend," Preacher Gronnewold said to the donkey, "if you move on, I'll read from Exodus, your favorite part of the Bible. You can eat the rest of the grass when we return."
    I searched around, as he kept up this conversation, and found a branch from a dead tree. With it I gave the beast a good whack, which sent them on their way.
    "Give my love to Konje," I shouted again.
    He didn't answer, but raised the Bible and waved. His legs were flying. It looked like a six-legged donkey plunging up the trail.
    When I got back, running because I was late, Governor Gardelin and his red-coated guards, nearly fifty of them, were in front of the mill. He was telling the guards what he wanted that day. They were to divide into four squads, one squad going to the north, one to the south, one to the east, and one to the west.

    "Stay on the regular trails, do not wander," he said. "Visit every plantation. I am giving the officer of each squad a list of my laws. Plantation owners will gather their slaves. The officer is to read to them every one of the new laws, slighting none."
    The noonday sun seemed not to move in the sky. Drops of sweat formed on the governor's forehead. He stopped to rub them off.
    "You are not to use your guns," he went on, "unless you are attacked, which is not likely. And you're to return to this plantation not later than Wednesday morning, this being Monday."
    The guards rode off on their fine horses, straight in the saddle, laughing among themselves. They were happy, it seemed, to be leaving Governor Gardelin.

15

    After I bathed Mistress Jenna, I brought her breakfast in from the cookhouse and food for Master van Prok's and Governor Gardelin's noonday meal. The governor had six guards standing watch outside the house. He worked on a paper as Dondo fanned him and swatted sand flies. Then he went back to his ship.
    Master van Prok worked outside in the hot sun. He called the slaves down from the fields and had them gather bundles of pinguin. Pinguin has hundreds of crooked thorns that don't stick like cactus but tear your flesh. The slaves made pinguin ropes and tied them over the six windows of the