The Covenant Part 49

In the flickering shadows the sick-comforter said, 'If we had with us a learned dominee, we'd put all the burdens on him, let him tell us what G.o.d intended. This way, it's simple people like you and me. And when we work out our solutions, they will come from the heart of the Voortrekker, not from outside.' Rising and striding about the tent, if a man so slight could be said to stride, he told Tjaart, 'You will gain victory. You will slay the Canaanites. You will lead us across Jordan into our inheritance.'

And these two unhappy menthe stronger torn apart by sin and confusion, the weaker desolated by the misconduct of his wifeknelt and prayed.

In these years Mzilikazi commanded fifty-six regiments of highly trained infantry, so that had he wished, he might have sent twenty thousand men against the Voortrekkers, but despite his losses at the Van Doorn laager, he still could not believe that white men with guns and horses and interlocked wagons could prevail against his power. So he sent south only some six thousand men, not all of whom would be in position to attack the main laager when the battle joined.

A resolute body of Voortrekkers, consisting of some forty men, an equal number of women, about sixty-five children and the normal proportion of Coloureds, had moved to inst.i.tute a ma.s.sive laager of fifty-one wagons securely tied together and protected by solid interweavings of heavy thorn. Peculiar to this laager, where all partic.i.p.ants knew that they must triumph or they would perish in hideous mutilation, was a block of four wagons kept at the center and covered with boards and heavy canvas: in these the women and children would take refuge during the battle, but it was foreseen that steadfast women like Jakoba van Doorn and Minna Nel would stay outside to help in the fighting, while many boys like Paulus de Groot would be at the barricades, firing guns at times and running powder to their mothers.

The leaders had chosen a flattish area at the base of a small hill, which meant that Mzilikazi's regiments would have to attack up a slight slope or down a steep one; at either point they would be at a disadvantage. To the surprise of the Voortrekkers, the enemy chose the steep southwest slope, and there they established an enormous camp, preparing methodically for the a.s.sault that must destroy the laager and all within it.

For two days the regiments sharpened their a.s.segais and perfected their signals for the big thrust. During this time the Voortrekkers could see the enemy and hear him attending his duties; at night the Matabele campfires flared, and men wondered: Will the attack come at dawn?

On 16 October 1836 the Matabele were ready, and started slowly toward a position opposite the laager, whereupon Tjaart asked Theunis to lead the defenders in prayer, but once again Balthazar Bronk objected on the grounds that the defense might be imperiled if an improper clergyman was allowed to utter his own prayers. To this Tjaart responded, 'The enemy is ten minutes from us and we need G.o.d's help,' but Bronk was insistent: 'G.o.d is perfect. His church is perfect. Neither can tolerate a blemished man.' So Theunis was silenced, but Tjaart himself was encouraged to lead a prayer, which was short, impa.s.sioned, and a mighty solace to those who kept one eye open to watch the remorseless approach of some six thousand battle-hardened Matabele.

The leaders resolved to approach the Matabele in a startling way. A fearless patriarch named Hendrik Potgieter, famed for having had five wives in rapid succession, proposed that a sortie of twenty to thirty menmore than half the entire forceride out into the middle of the black commanders and try to reason with them. It was this kind of action only an idiot would devise, or a man who felt the touch of G.o.d upon his shoulder.

'I'll go!' Tjaart said.

'I'll go!' Theunis Nel echoed.

Soon Potgieter had twenty-four volunteers besides himself, and then a twenty-fifth. It was Balthazar Bronk, whom Jakoba had shamed into joining: 'Are you afraid to die?' Reluctantly accepting the gun she thrust at him, he joined the suicide patrol.

On signal from Potgieter, these daring men left the safety of their laager, spurred their horses, and rode at breakneck speed directly at the heart of the enemy. One of the Coloureds in the laager had served with a hunter in Matabele lands, and through him, Potgieter addressed the warriors: 'Why do you wish to attack us? We come in friends.h.i.+p.'

'You come to steal our lands,' a commander shouted.

'No! We come to live in peace.'

'Mzilikazi, the Great Bull Elephant, is angry. His word is that you must die.' One commander raised his a.s.segai and shouted the war cry 'Mzilikazi!'

At this signal the regiments started running toward the Voortrekkers, who sped back to the safety of their laager. That they made it could only be attributed to G.o.d's providence, for the odds against them were crus.h.i.+ng. But they succeeded, firing from the saddle at the advancing Matabele.

Not all entered the laager. Five men, totally demoralized by the hordes of black warriors and withered by fear as a.s.segais flew about them, reached the entrance with the others, but then ahead of them they saw an escape route which would carry them all the way to Thaba Nchu and safety. Without consciously intending to be cowards, they accepted this invitation so enticingly put before them. They took flight.

Young Paulus de Groot, standing by the entrance to welcome the returning Voortrekkers, saw with amazement that they were quitting the fight, and cried, 'They're running away.' And these five became known in Voortrekker history as the Fear Commando. In their lead as they fled was Balthazar Bronk, his face ashen with awful dread.

'May G.o.d have mercy upon our children,' Jakoba muttered, and then no further prayers were said, for with a single, terrifying scream the black soldiers fell upon the laager.

At every moment for more than a hour it seemed that the chain of wagons must crumble, and so many a.s.segais fell upon the four wagons in the middle that Paulus ran out and collected more than twenty. Selecting the one that seemed strongest, he took position at a point where the wagons seemed most likely to collapse and stabbed at any Matabele who tried to penetrate.

The laager held. The barrels of the guns were burning hot from over-firing, but those courageous women who were helping in the fight kept on exhausted, sweating, fearful. And the wagons held. One group of six was pushed back two feet, so powerful were the attacking Matabele, but in the end even those wagons held, their disselbooms shattered, their sides peppered with a.s.segais, their canvas torn.

Veg Kop, they called this fight, Battle Hill, where less than fifty determined Voortrekkers, aided by their remarkable women and their loyal Coloured servants, defeated more than six thousand attackers. When Tjaart rode over the battlefield he counted four hundred and thirty-one dead Matabele, and he knew that only two Voortrekkers had been killed. But he also knew that there was hardly a member of the laager that did not have some wound to show; Paulus de Groot had been cut twice by flas.h.i.+ng a.s.segais, and he was proud of this, but he had to agree when a girl pointed out that he had given himself one of the wounds by his awkward handling of an enemy spear which he was trying to wrench free from the wagon it had pierced.

Jakoba had a painful cut in the left hand, but this had not impeded her handling of ammunition, and Minna had a gash in her leg which required bandaging. Tjaart was untouched, but he found to his dismay that during the attack Theunis Nel had taken two serious stabs. The man who comforted the sick was himself put to bed, and during the waiting period, when the Matabele had quit the fight but not the battlefield, he was visited by many who told him that as a man of courage and devotion he ought to be proclaimed the Voortrekkers' dominee; but there were just as many, and more obstinate, who refused to countenance such a move, for as they repeated: 'G.o.d Himself forbade such an ordination.'

The Voortrekkers had won the Battle of Veg Kop, but when the cost was counted, they found that the Matabele had slain every Coloured herdsman and had driven off every animal they possessed. For eighteen hungry days they were unable to move from their laager, and their plight might have grown even more perilous had not help arrived from an unexpected quarter: the black chief at Thaba Nchu, hearing of their predicament, decided that he must help the brave people who had smitten his enemy. He sent trek oxen north with food for the Boers, oxen for their wagons, and an invitation to return to the safety of Thaba Nchu, which they accepted.

Despite the loss of their livestock, they felt such joyousness of spirit that there was celebration for many days, with the somberness that marked the aftermath of battle giving way to drinking and raucous singing. When Tjaart growled, 'What I want is to find Balthazar Bronk and those others who fled,' he was told to forget them: 'They galloped in here telling us what heroes they had been. Then scuttled across the mountains, where they can still be heroes.' The smous, relieved that he had escaped the Matabele, produced a French accordion, which he hoped to sell to some wandering family, and on it played a series of old Cape ballads, and while the others danced, Tjaart took from the peddler's wagon a random supply of sugar, raisins, dried fruits and spices, to which he added such odds and ends as Jakoba could supply. In his brown-gold pot he baked a bread pudding which, with some pride, he contributed to the festivities.

Among those who took a cupful was Aletta Naude. Carefully adding a little milk, she dusted her portion with sugar, then, keeping the mug close to her lips but not eating, and with a spoon clutched in her right hand, she looked over the rim at Tjaart and smiled. Slowly, provocatively she lowered the mug, dug out a spoonful of the pudding and took it to her lips; she delicately tasted the stuff and smiled again.

Tjaart was so entranced by Aletta, so held by the spell of her smile, that when he finally reached for his share of the pudding, there was none, but he could taste it whenever Aletta took a spoonful, and as she neared the end of her portion he moved toward her, and without speaking, indicated that she must accompany him.

Once clear of the celebration, he guided her behind a set of wagons, and while the accordion filled the night with revelry, pulled her to the ground and hungrily tore aside her clothes. Never before had he known what an overwhelming thing s.e.x could be, and he was so preoccupied with his own violent experience that he failed to notice that Aletta was merely smiling at his ridiculous performance.

When it ended, and he lay back watching her impa.s.sive dressing, he made no attempt to reconcile his adulterous action in taking another man's wife with his profound grat.i.tude to G.o.d for having protected the Voortrekkers in their laager. These were two unrelated things, and he was not obligated to harmonize them, for as he said to himself: King David had the same problem.

In April 1837 Tjaart encountered once again the man who was to become the memorable figure of the trek, Piet Retief, the frontier farmer with whom he had ridden so often on commando, and they talked of those heroic days: 'Remember how we did it, Tjaart? Fifty of us, two hundred Xhosa, a skirmish, a retreat. I understand that with the Matabele, it was different.'

Tjaart s.h.i.+vered. 'Five thousand coming at once. Six thousand. And every man prepared to die. For hours we fired point-blank into their faces.'

'That's finished,' Retief said. 'You're to come down into Natal with me. The Zulu will leave us alone. They have a sensible king, Dingane by name. We can deal with him.'

'I would hate to leave the plateau. Mzilikazi remains a threat, but I still want to go north.'

'The ones who did, they didn't fare too well. I think they're all dead.'

Retief was right. The toll had been heavy, and he advanced so many other sound reasons in support of Natal that Tjaart wavered, but Jakoba stiffened his determination to cross the Vaal: 'You've always wanted to search out that lake your grandfather spoke of. Do it. Natal is for weaklings like Bronk and Naude.' It was the first time she referred to the family with which her own was so sorely enmeshed, and she said no more.

He accepted her counsel and informed Retief that the Van Doorn party would not go down into Natal, but that evening as he was heading back to his own tent, Aletta Naude appeared mysteriously from behind a row of transport wagons, and almost before he knew what was happening, he was clutching at her, rolling with her in the stubble. When he lay exhausted, she ran her fingers through his beard and whispered, 'We're crossing over the mountains. Come down into Natal with us.'

That night he informed Jakoba that Retief had convinced him; they were moving east. She said, 'It's a mistake,' and in the morning she learned that Ryk Naude and his wife were going, too.

It was a journey into springtime and into some of the most difficult land the Van Doorns would traverse. In their slow migration from De Kraal they had climbed unnoticed from near sea level to well over five thousand feet, so that for some time now they had been operating on what the men called 'the plateau.' It was high land, dipping to lower levels where rivers pa.s.sed through. But now they were required to climb toward eight thousand feet, then drop precipitously down to sea level. The upward climb would be easy, the downward plunge frightful.

Eleven wagons gathered to make the attempt, and as they climbed the gentle western face of the Drakensberg they could not foresee the problems that awaited them, because Ryk Naude a.s.sured them: 'Retief has gone ahead to scout a safe pa.s.s down. It can be done.'

But when they reached the summit and saw for the first time what lay ahead, even Tjaart blanched. To take a Voortrekker wagon down those steep slopes would be impossible, regardless of how many oxen a man had to help hold the wagons back. And when the beasts saw the cliffs they refused to go down them even without the wagons. On this route, Tjaart had to agree, descent was hopeless.

So he and Theunis searched for other trails. They found them, plenty of them. They descended easily, ran along relatively flat ground, then boom! boom! A sheer cliff two hundred feet high. A sheer cliff two hundred feet high.

Try the next trail. Fine descent, a rea.s.suring spread of land sloping easily down, then a fairly sharp but negotiable stretch ending in another cliff.

For three weeks, as spring continued to blossoma wild a.s.sortment of mountain flowers and baby animals and birds all around themthe Voortrekkers tried fruitlessly to locate that one pa.s.s through the mountains that would allow them to reach the lush pastures they knew existed below. Always the enticing avenue, always the sheer cliff.

In the fourth week Tjaart saw a lesser trail leading well to the north, and its conspicuous difference rea.s.sured him, for at no point was it inviting or easy; it was cruelly difficult, but as he descended, sc.r.a.ping s.h.i.+ns, he gave a shout of triumph when he saw that the pa.s.s continued right down to level land. But could wagons traverse it? He thought so.

Accordingly, he hurried back to his beleaguered group and told them, 'We can go much of the distance in our present condition. But for about two miles we'll have to take the wagons apart and carry them, piece by piece.' Ryk Naude thought this impossible, whereupon, with disgust, Jakoba pointed back over the route they had come: 'Then go back.' After much hemming and hawing, he decided to trust his luck with the others.

For two difficult days eleven wagons slipped and slid down gra.s.sy inclines, then rattled over stony ones. Theunis Nel conceived the good idea of reversing wheels, so that the big ones were in front of the wagon, where they could be better controlled on the really steep slopes, and another man devised a trick for replacing the big aft wheels altogether, and subst.i.tuting heavy timbers which would drag along the ground under the axletree, providing an effective brake: the oxen did not like this, and when they saw the heavy branches being moved into place, grew restless; the Coloureds talked to them by name, treating them as pampered individuals, each with its own catalogue of complaints. It was remarkable how a few soothing words gave the hard-worked beasts the encouragement they needed.

But every yard that was successfully traversed brought the Voortrekkers closer to the low cliffs that could never be negotiated by any wagon. There the procession halted while Tjaart pointed out the grand and easy path that awaited them, once they cleared these cliffs, and when he had consoled them with his a.s.surances, he led them off to the north to a prominence below which lay the rolling pasture lands that reached to the Indian Ocean. It was an introduction to a homeland that would never be excelled, a promise of grandeur and fruition: 'There lies Natal. There rests your home.' He did not, Jakoba noted, refer to it as their home, and for this she was grateful, for she remembered the cleaner, harder land of the Transvaal.

It was a h.e.l.lish nineteen days. Theunis discovered a footpath by which he could lead the oxen down to the pastures, where they flourished. Every man, woman and child, Boer and servant alike, strained and sweated on the horrendous descent of the berg.

It was murderous work. Unpacking a heavy wagon and then disa.s.sembling it was difficult enough, but back-packing all items down the steep inclines where feet slipped on pebbles was exhausting, and rea.s.sembling the wagons and then repacking them was exhausting. The Voortrekkers accepted the challenge; even Paulus de Groot, hardly as tall as a wheel, sought responsibility for guiding one of Tjaart's wheels down the grade, but did not listen when Van Doorn warned him not to let it get going too fast. Before long Tjaart saw with dismay his precious wheel thundering down the grade and about to break to pieces. Fortunately, it stopped itself in bushes, and Tjaart had to laugh as he watched the lad wrestling with it to get it back on the path.

Ryk Naude was less energetic. He complained of the route Tjaart had chosen, arguing that one farther south would have been better, and when he grudgingly carried an item down the cliff, he was most tardy in returning for another, and on one of his own trips Tjaart spotted Ryk and Minna kissing behind some rocks. He was turning out to be what Jakoba had predicted, a selfish, inconsiderate young man, and the older Voortrekkers were disgusted with him.

Jakoba was indefatigable, slipping and sliding as she descended with baskets, puffing with determination as she climbed back. For all those days she worked harder than any of the oxen, supervising the pa.s.sage not only of her own wagon but also those of her neighbors. When she saw Aletta s.h.i.+rking, she spoke harshly: 'You needn't linger so long down there. Work's to be done.' But Aletta only smiled at her with the knowing grin of a younger woman who has captivated an older woman's man.

When this part of the descent was accomplished, the Voortrekkers were so exhausted they rested for five days, during which Tjaart made a fortunate discovery. While checking the last portion of the trail, to satisfy himself that it would be as easy as he had judged at first, he came upon a place so majestic that he had to conclude that G.o.d Himself had set this aside for his weary travelers. Because of its cathedral shape, he named it Kerkenberg (Church-in-the-Mountain), and to it he led his people.

It was a series of shallow caves and beautiful flat areas rimmed by towering granite boulders. From the outside it appeared to be a collection of mighty rocks a.s.sembled in accordance with some plan; from the inside it was a cathedral with the boulders inclining slightly toward the center and open to the sky; from every aperture the wors.h.i.+pper could look down to see the beautiful plains of Natal.

When the Voortrekkers entered this sanctified place, they were overawed by its rough majesty and almost simultaneously they knelt in prayer, thanking G.o.d for His many deliverances, and while they were on their knees, Tjaart summoned Theunis Nel and uttered the words the little man had waited so long to hear: 'Theunis, by your valor and devotion you have earned the t.i.tle predikant. predikant. You are now our dominee, and you are to lead us in prayer.' And this time no one tried to deny him. You are now our dominee, and you are to lead us in prayer.' And this time no one tried to deny him.

Nel, fifty-two years old, rose and stood with his blemished face looking upward; this was a church beyond his greatest hope, an ordination n.o.bler than any he had dreamed of, for it came from the people in the heat of their travail. His prayer was short, an acknowledgment that these Boers could not have survived the regiments of Mzilikazi, the dangers of the veld, the descent of these hills without G.o.d's a.s.sistance. The joy they felt at their deliverance was attributable to Him, and they thanked Him in advance for leading them into this land of peace and prosperity.

'Amen!' Tjaart cried, and when the people rose, he said, 'We have missed many Sundays. Theunis, you shall preach to us.' The crookbackt man looked apprehensively at the congregation and became unnerved for a moment when two older men led their families from the church in the rocks, for it was against their belief that a man so marked should serve as dominee. But when the noise of their departure subsided, Tjaart nodded quietly toward his little friend, and Theunis, set free at last, entered upon a sermon of transcendant power, and when he finished he left the wors.h.i.+ppers and walked to where the dissident families stood beside tall rocks.

'Please join us now,' he said. 'The preaching part has ended.'

In November, Van Doorn terminated theological discussion; he was required to leave Kerkenberg and go alone to the lower levels, where he hoped to find a permanent home for his people. He was not happy about leaving, for Balthazar Bronk, the craven hero of the Fear Commando, had returned, and in Tjaart's absence, would a.s.sume charge, and he was a man not to be trusted. But Tjaart had work to do, so he descended to the Tugela River, along whose banks Shaka had conducted so many of his battles, and there he met again with Piet Retief: 'What a fearful descent we made over the mountains.'

'Once down, never up,' Retief said.

'Has the king agreed to give us the land?'

'No. And that's why I am so pleased to see you here with me, because soon we shall go to see Dingane.'

Retief was now fifty-seven years old, whip-thin, bearded, and eager to put a capstone to his life's work: he would establish the Voortrekkers in a solid, fruitful home, then send to the Cape for predikants and watch the founding of a new nation obedient to G.o.d's instructions. To accomplish this, he needed only the final approval of the King of the Zulu, who had already agreed in principle to the proposal which Retief had offered.

The two men, accompanied by a.s.sistants, rode north from the Tugela River toward the Umfolozi, the historic river of the Zulu, and near its southern banks they came upon Dingane's Kraal, the established capital town of the Zulu.

Dingane was no black Napoleon like his half brother Shaka; he was a Nero, a tyrannical despot caring more for entertainment and intrigue than solid governance. His town was big, a dwelling place for forty thousand people. It contained row upon row of beehive huts, large parade grounds, a royal hut with ceilings twenty feet high and a reception hall with a vast dome roof supported by more than twenty pillars, each completely covered with intricate beadwork.

Retief and Van Doorn were led to the cattle kraal, the center of Zulu life, but before they could enter it and stand in the presence of the king, they had to divest themselves of all arms and come as humble supplicants. They were astounded by the extent of the place and the obvious desire of the king to impress any visitors. 'When the king appears, you must fall on your bellies and crawl like snakes to his feet,' an attendant explained in good English, acquired from a mission station.

'That we will not do,' Retief said.

'Then you will be killed.'

'No. Because you will explain to the king that Boers do not crawl.' 'But I could never address the king, unless he spoke first. He would kill me.'

'And if you don't, we will kill you.'

The man began to sweat so copiously that Tjaart realized he could never bring himself to tell the king anything, so he was dismissed, and the two Boers remained standing.

In a flurry of excitement, a score of lesser attendants rushed about the far end of the kraal, whereupon all the Zulu present fell to their knees while King Dingane entered, smiled at the Boers, whom he had expected to remain standing, and took his seat in a remarkable throne. It was an armchair ornately carved in Grahamstown and presented to the Zulu king by an English trader.

It was now nine years since Dingane had murdered his half brother Shaka, and then his fellow conspirator and full brother, Mhlangana, and then his uncle, and his other full brother Ngwadi, and nineteen other relatives and counselors. The years had been good to him; he weighed some two hundred and sixty pounds, had over three hundred wives, and an insight and a sense of what might happen next, which compensated somewhat for his treacherous ways, and it fell to him to confront the white men who kept coming over the Drakensberg.

He had already mastered the art of dealing with the Englishmen who cl.u.s.tered at the seaside; since they had s.h.i.+ps which kept them in contact with London and Cape Town, they had to be treated with respect on the one hand and harsh indifference on the other. As he explained to one of the head councillors, Dambuza, with whom he often shared responsibilities: 'With the English it's all right to kick them, so long as you salute their flag and speak well of their new queen.'

The Boers were a much different problem. They owed no allegiance to any ruler in Europe, and apparently none to the government in Cape Town. They were self-ruled and obstinate. They did not wear badges like the English, and they did not summon s.h.i.+ps from across the ocean to a.s.sist them in time of trouble. As he told Dambuza, 'They are like their oxen, patient and pressing. I can live with the English, for I know what they will do next. But I am afraid of these Boers, who come at me from across the mountains that you told me could not be pa.s.sed.'

When Dingane was seated in his great chair he signaled, and sixteen of his brides were brought in to arrange themselves at his feet. A dozen of the women were beautiful, dressed in silky garments which the king had personally designed, but the other four were tremendous women, weighing almost as much as their king; on them the garments seemed ridiculous.

The king indicated that he was now ready to open his bargaining session, whereupon six older men were summoned to flank him, and while he smiled at the Voortrekkers these official flatterers, as they were called, poured forth their praises: 'Oh, Great and Mighty Slayer of the Matabele, Wise Master Elephant of the Deepest Jungles, He whose Footfall Causes the Earth to Tremble, Wisest of the Planners, He Who Orders the Wizards to be Impaled . . .' The interpreter, in bored monotone rattled off an additional dozen descriptions, after which Dingane silenced the flatterers, who were prepared to go on all day if necessary; they knew how to keep a ruler happy.

When Dingane finally spoke, Retief learned with disappointment that no real negotiation would occur that day; what the king had in mind was a series of displays calculated to impress the visitors with his power and their own insignificance, and to launch this exhibition, he used a device that had awed earlier visitors. In a compelling voice he cried, 'Tell the warriors to appear.' And then he raised his left hand to his mouth and spit upon his wrist. 'And all is to be done before the spit dries on my wrist.'

'What happens if the spit dries?' Tjaart asked the interpreter.

'The messenger who received the order is strangled.'

The warriors were ready. From numerous openings more than two thousand Zulu fighting men rushed into the cattle kraal bearing tall white s.h.i.+elds, which they flashed this way and that in a dazzling display. Then, with three mighty stompings of their right feet, they shouted 'Bayete!' and the earth reverberated. They then began a warriors' dance, swaying gently at times, leaping into the air at others; it was an awesome performance, kept in such perfect synchronization that Retief whispered, 'I doubt if any European army could do the same.'

The first day was spent in this manner, and when it ended Retief said, through the interpreter, 'Tomorrow we shall talk.'

That was not Dingane's plan, for on the morrow he sat with his guests in the royal cattle kraal, where, like an Oriental ruler showing his jewels to impress a visitor, or a European his collection of paintings, he prepared to display his conspicuous wealth. Again he spit on his wrist, whereupon servants led enormous herds of cattle past in silent defile. One herd of more than two thousand consisted of alternate rows of black and red; another of somewhat smaller size was all brown.

When the handsome beasts departed and a scurry of men cleaned up the droppings, Dingane signaled once more, and now came an incredible performance. Filing through the entrance to the kraal came two hundred snow-white oxen garbed majestically in garlands and caparisons and all without horns. Each was attended by an ebony warrior who stayed at the beast's head but never touched it.

Tjaart a.s.sumed that this was another march-past, and he was sufficiently impressed by the beauty of these matched animals to nod approvingly to the king, who held up one hand to indicate that the real performance would now begin.

Slowly, to the Boers' amazement, the two hundred oxen began to dance with the warriors, following a set of rather intricate steps, forming large patterns and then regrouping, without ever a command that Tjaart could hear. Gradually, as Dingane had intended, the effect became hypnotic and wonderfully African: these huge beasts delicately stepping off their patterns, turning majestically and coming back, hesitating, twisting, and then moving forward at their slow purposeful pace. Each animal looked as if he alone were performing the dance, as if the eyes of all spectators were following him, and each displayed obvious satisfaction in dancing so well.

That night Retief told Tjaart, 'Tomorrow we talk.'

This time he was right. They talked, but not about the grant of land. Dingane, listening attentively to every word the interpreter said, asked, 'What happened when your people met with Mzilikazi?'

Delighted at this opportunity to instruct a pagan king, Retief expounded enthusiastically on the Boer triumphs: 'A handful of us . . . Van Doorn here was one of them. He'll tell you'

'Tell me what?' the king interrupted.

Tjaart knew instinctively that he must not boast of his victories over the Great Bull Elephant, even though Mzilikazi was Dingane's enemy, for to do so would raise questions in the king's mind, so he replied modestly, 'We fought him twice, and he was powerful.'

'That's not the story!' Retief protested, and while Dingane kept his pudgy fingers pressed against his lips, the Boer leader cried, 'Forty of our men held off five thousand of his. Wave after wave of his soldiers came at our men, and we shot them down till they lay like ripe pumpkins in the veld.'

'So few of you, so many of them?'

'Yes, Mighty King, because when a ruler disobeys the commands of our G.o.d, he is struck down. Remember that.'

Dingane did not change his expression, but Tjaart noticed that he kept his fingertips pressed hard against his lips, as if he were controlling himself lest he say too much, and when the two Voortrekkers took their seats for this day's entertainment, Tjaart said, 'I wish you had not been so bold,' but Retief, in some exhilaration, replied, 'From time to time you must teach these pagan kings a lesson.' When Tjaart tried to remonstrate, Retief said, 'Look!'

More than two thousand Zulu warriors in full battle dress, with distinctive ox tails tied about their upper arms and knees, had run onto the parade ground, taken position and stamped their feet, shouting 'Bayete!' Then came a stylized battle show replete with cries, stabbing exercises and mock attacks. Tjaart, who had experienced the real thing, was repelled by the display, but Retief was riveted by the performance, and told the king, 'Your men are mighty warriors.' Dingane nodded, then replied, 'They live at my command. They kill at my command.'

On the fourth day the king finally consented to talk seriously with the Boers, and a.s.sured them that he was viewing favorably their application for a large grant of land south of his own domains. He asked Retief to prove his responsibility as a possible settler by recovering some cattle stolen from him by a distant chief, and more or less a.s.sured him that once this mission was accomplished, the land grant would be quickly arranged during Retief's next visit. After a long speech of farewell, with foot-stomping and a graceful exit of his sixteen favorite wives, the king nodded and departed, leaving Retief and Van Doorn free to return to their company of waiting Voortrekkers. But before the men left the area, an English missionary, who had been living near Dingane's kraal for some months, hurried up to them and said, 'Friends, your lives are my concern.'

'Ours too,' Retief said lightly, for he was pleased by the promising results of his first official visit with the king.

'Did he invite you back for another visit?'

'Yes, in January, if we could complete a small matter for him. If not, in February.'

'Friends, in the name of G.o.d, do not come back.'