I wish I had your skin.
The black people believe the Devil is white.
The leopard has risen.
The leopard takes his seat.
Dada, breathe for me! Dada, steal from me. Dada, break my bones.
Take me! My head is yours. My body is yours. Take me.
It's yours. I'm all yours. Dada! Please!
The bush king takes his seat.
What does that mean?
That is the bush king. He doesn't exist.
That is, he only exists in the king's imagination.
But the two kings rule together.
The leopard speaks!
For the annual ceremony all dogs must be slaughtered -
the preceding night at the Gate of Tears.
The dogs assemble in the streets, and try to talk like humans.
But if they succeed, it will bring a plague upon the people.
We must conquer the Egbas!
We shall break Abeokuta!
My house needs thatching!
I'll thatch my roof with the skulls of my enemies.
How are my brethren? Answer, white man before I kill you!
How is the health of the King of Prussia?
How is my brother, the Tsar of Russia?
And how is Queen Victoria, whose heart is a big calabash...
overflowing with palm wine for the thirsty man?
I can't hear what you said...
I can't hear you.
Prepare for your death, stranger. Time doesn't occur to the king.
The Devil is white. Death is white! All whites are half dead.
That's what they always do before they behead a white man.
They have painted your face black...
because they are not allowed to kill a white man.
I'm not afraid of you.
In this place, the dead are more alive than the living.
No one may see the leopard while he drinks.
Hey, white man. One day I will drink from your skull!
This was the King of the Mahis.
The dead eat so... The dead drink so.
I have sworn, in my swearinghouse... to conquer the Egbas.
I fear nobody. I have only one fear.
And that is that one day...
there may be anyone left to be conquered.
But tell me, white man... why have the Portuguese...
brought three hundred and thirty-five thousand warships to my shore?
And why did you poison my greyhound?
The snow... the... snow.
Quickly! Quickly! Kill the guards!
I am Bakoko, the confidant of the prince.
Prince Kankpe is waiting for you. Quickly, stranger, come with me!
Where is Taparica! You must take Taparica along!
Why did you free us?
Prince Kankpe has decided to revolt against his uncle Ahadee.
He is the rightful heir to the throne.
Yesterday, King Bossa Ahadee went up north with his entire army.
Out there live many hills.
We must overcome Bossa Ahadee. But we'll need your help to do it.
Our rebel warriors have all disappointed us.
The women are much more brave.
My father.
The traitor must die.
He has opened up the graves of our ancestors!
We will go down to the fortress on the coast...
and there we will establish an army of Amazons.
The prince would like to make a pact of blood brotherhood with you.
Blood brothers do not kill each other.
lf the new king will turn over the slave trade to me...
...then I am his man.
Does he have the vaguest notion what we're talking about?
He is in agreement. He has no choice.
He says yes to anything. You see, he is quite insane.
All right! Over there! What a wretched mess.
Listen to me! I said over there! All of you!
You'll have to get up quicker, if you don't want to get killed.
I've got four hundred new recruits. Where do you want them?
Not over here. Take them down to the shore.
They all want to fight! They want to kill all the men.
Don't bother me now.
I've got to get this herd of women organized first.
- Shields up! - Watch what you do with that spear!
All right! Now, fight!
No, you've got it all wrong!
You've got to hold your spear like this...
and keep your feet moving. Like this!
Here, you take it.
Attack, damn you!
Let's have that cutlass! Come on, attack! Attack!
Keep your spear up! Defend yourself.
Cover your body with the shield!
lf you trip and fall, it's the end of you! Haaa! Haaa!
Come on! Get a move on!
One! Two!
Three! Four!
Five! And take the enemy!
Not bad... All right, now get back in your starting positions.
Come on, quicker, keep moving!
And now... ready!?
Attack position. No, no, no, no!... At ease!
The whole thing again faster! In position!
One! Two! Three!
Who told them they could take a rest?
On your feet now, come on.
- Keep on moving! - Come on, come on!
Get up!
We don't want to practice anymore. We want to fight!
I swear I will bring back Bossa Ahadee's head - single-handed!
No, you're not yet ready.
You've got to keep on practicing. You've got to obey my orders.
Come on. I don't want to hear any more from you.
I want you to hear what I have to say. I command here.
No one else! And we're going to continue practicing.
No more arguments from you. Only that way can we succeed.
We will storm the palace soon enough.
I've made my decision! We attack!
We march out tomorrow. Fight, fight, fight, fight...
Off to Abomey!
They have taken the sacred python from the temple.
We must turn back - nobody gets past it alive!
In my country, I was a snake myself!
Out of the way! Attack! Attack!
The dead kings have deposed you.
So, now I will go and sleep.
Wall up the doors to the women's quarters.
No! Don't let him get away! Stop him! Hold Him!
Stay back. His wives will strangle him now.
The new king takes his seat!
Shall I ask him to approach?
He has given you the name Adjinakou -
that means ''green snake''.
He has appointed you Viceroy of Dahomey.
Our King Kankpe gives you Fort Elmina as your official residence.
We have to remove the glass windows from the main house.
The servants sprinkled them with water...
because they believed the rising sun set them on fire.
You'd do better to see to it...
the ventilation in the slave quarters is improved.
- Too many are dying. - Yes, Adjinakou.
We'll have to get them shipped faster.
The captain of the Flor de Bahia has the best quarters in town -
I gave him the east wing.
And the relays are all prepared.
Tomorrow they will all be in position.
The distance is twenty-three thousand five hundred bamboo poles.
That will be a great surprise for our king.
They're offering you a place in the syndicate back in Bahia.
I don't need that crap!
And why haven't I received the ships that I asked for?
I don't know, Don Francisco.
But I will bring it to the governor's attention...
- as soon as I return. - This is an outrage!
This is the second shipment of slaves you've received without payment.
I'm not sure I can trust your word.
Sometimes I get a bit tired.
Tonight I won't take any of them.
Which one would you like to have?
That one.
You there - come on up!
Yes, you!
lf they get pregnant, they aren't taken aboard.
Then they get their own hut out here.
We've already got a whole village full of them.
- Who are these women? - Our future murderers.
Send the signals! I want to write a letter for you...
to take back to my partners in Brazil.
It's going to take about an hour and a half...
before I get an answering signal anyway.
I cannot begin to describe this cretinous existence of mine.
Nor how lonely it is to be without family or friends.
The only white man in this country...
perhaps on this whole continent.
Meanwhile I have become the father of sixty-two children...
but this gives me no satisfaction.
Perhaps next year I shall come back and marry.
I would live in the lands of ice and snow...
anywhere to be away from here...
The heat here is mean and inescapable.
It courses through the bodies of the people like a fever -
and yet my heart grows colder and colder.
Adjinakou... there's an answer coming back.
The king sends his brother the Royal Leopard Salute.
This one's about nineteen - looks strong and healthy.
He must be about twenty-five - a good, hard boy.
This one's about the same age. And he's a very strong boy also.
- You obviously like my nuns' choir. - Nun's choir. Not bad.
Do you know Pedro Vincente, the captain of the Flor de Bahia?
Yes, I do.
How much would some interesting news be worth to you?
I won't cheat you.
Pedro Vincente took a large consignment of slaves off your hands.
He never paid.
Then let me tell you what I saw with my own eyes.
The Flor de Bahia was brimming over with cargo.
He cheated you.
He's gone and dumped all his weapons and goods to the British -
made a double profit on the deal.
And guess what happened to the Flor de Bahia!
She's drifting off shore near Lagos... unseaworthy.
And on top of that, the crew has mutinied...
which means now you've got him trapped.
You take a cutter and deliver a message to Captain Vincente.
''Come here. I'll re-equip you. Nobody cheats me twice.''
Come on, move on... and take everything.
Hey! What is the meaning of this?
Our King Kankpe was never insane. He only pretended to be.
He thanks his brother, who was once the viceroy.
The blood brother of the king was a big tree...
... and that's what he wants you to know.
Why does the king speak of me only in the past tense?
Adjinakou, things look very bad...
but as long as Kankpe is king you're fairly safe.
He would never kill a blood brother.
There are still some rifles in there.
Where's his money? Come on, hurry up!
- Do you really want to help me? - I keep my word.
But that won't help me anymore...
and it won't help you either!
Brazil's joined the rest of the world...
and abolished the slave trade.
Any shipments currently under way...
will be seized on the high seas.
In the eyes of the law...
Fort Elmina and our lives have ceased to exist.
And while I'm at it, there's something else.
I know that for at least one year...
you've been slandered and cheated by your partners in Bahia.
Your assets have all been confiscated by the state bank.
And in addition, the English have put a price on your head.
Finally something's happened.
To slavery...
the greatest misunderstanding in the history of mankind!
It was no misunderstanding. It was a crime.
Slavery is an element of the human heart... To our ruin!
The slaves will sell their masters and grow wings.