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slave, every whore
in her bright jollyboat, stopped to stare at Luis Quinn. Slowly he
lowered his arms and stepped toward the twitching, foaming beast,
clicking and shushing under his breath all the words for horses he
knew in both his natal tongues, Portuguese and Irish.
    "I advise you not to approach the creature, Father," the
Teniente called, a pale, European face among the caboclo faces of the
Salvador Auxiliaries. "We will shoot the beast and burn its
body; that way the rage will not spread."
    "Hush, hush there," Luis Quinn said as reached out for the
rope halter. He could see the infantry forming a line, taking aim.
His fingers closed around the rope. With a cry more like a human
scream than any right sound of a beast the mule reared, flashing out
with its steel-shod hooves. Quinn twisted out of the path of the
killing hoof; then the mule leaped. For a moment it seemed suspended;
then mule and wagon plunged into the green water of rhe bay.
Whore-boats scattered. Luis Quinn saw the mule's head fight out of
the chop, eyes wild with the knowledge of its certain destruction,
the cream foam at its mouth now bloodstained. The weight of the cart
pulled it under. Luis Quinn saw its knees kicking against the
dragging green water; then it was lost. Empty sugar sacks rose to the
surface one by one as their contents dissolved like white,
night-blooming water flowers.
    "Ah, the creature the creature." It had been but an animal,
but Luis Quinn nevertheless murmured a prayer. The Teniente, now at
Quinn's side, crossed himself.
    "You are all right, Father."
    "I am unharmed." Quinn noticed all across the dock the
soldiers, the slaves, even the strumpets, make the same blessing. He
did not doubt it was as much for his habit as the sudden fatal
madness of the mule. Thus had it been on the slow, calm-bound,
scurvy-racked voyage of Cristo Redentor from the bar of the
Tagus: mutterings, scratchings, charms, and prayers. A priest, a
black Jesuit, aboard. No luck upon this ship. "I heard mention
of a rage."
    "A madness of horses first, latterly of all beasts of burden,
God between us and evil." The Teniente signaled for one of his
troopers to bear the father's trunk. As the young officer escorted
him toward the Custom House, Quinn opened his senses to this place in
which he had so freshly landed. He noted with a start that there was
not one horse. No animal at all on this great stone apron beneath the
sheer bluff of the Cidade Alta. No beast on the steep ladeira that
wound up the steep cliff between low and high Salvador. Human muscle
alone powered this city. The cobbled paths and quays teemed with
slaves pushing laden barrows and gurneys on iron rails, bent under
sacks slung from brow straps, carefully negotiating sedan chairs
through the thronging black and red bodies and fat white sacks of
king sugar. "As with all afflictions, rumors run wild," the
Teniente continued. The soldier, a ragged mameluco in half uniform of
frock coat and loose duck breeches, unshod like a slave, followed six
paces behind. "The rage is a thing of the indios from out of the
deep forest; it is the work of the Dutch or the Spanish; it is a
punishment from God. Not last week angels were seen in Pelourinho,
battling with knives of light, three nights in succession. It is
attested to by some of the best in Salvador."
    "We have not heard of this in Coimbra."
    "There is much in Brazil never reaches the ears of Portugal."
The Teniente halted short of the bustling portico of the Custom
House. "Ah. As I feared. It is always so when a ship's arrival
corresponds with the sailing of the sugar fleet. The Custom House is
the most hopeless jam; I cannot see you getting clear for hours. As a
crown officer, I am empowered to authorize your permissions of entry
to the colony."
    "For a small consideration," said Luis Quinn,
    "A trifling impost, that's all."
    "I am under the direct authority of the Provincial of Brazil."
Luis Quinn retained the bones of his birth-accent; a linguist,