The covenant - James A. Michener [100]
But Jango had the weakness of every man of merit: he wanted to be free. And when Willem recommended that the chains be struck off his slave, 'so that he can move more freely about the vineyard,' Van Riebeeck reluctantly agreed.
'You may be courting trouble,' he warned Willem, but the latter said he felt sure Jango would appreciate this opportunity of working outside the fort and could be trusted.
He was partly right. Without chains, Jango worked diligently, but as soon as the new vines were pruned, he escaped into the wilderness. Two days passed before Willem reported his absence to the fort, where the news caused great agitation. Van Riebeeck was furious with Willem for having delayed the alarm, and in anger dispatched a field force to track down the escapee, but when a muster was taken he found that three other slaves had joined Jango, and their tracks indicated that they were heading directly into Bushmen country, where they would probably be slain. 'And that's the end of Compagnie property,' Van Riebeeck groaned.
But after a three-day search, Jango and the others were discovered huddled at the foot of a small cliff, cold and hungry. When they were roped together and on the march back to the fort, the soldiers began to speculate on how Commissioner van Doorn's draconian laws governing runaways would be enforced. 'You're going to lose your ears,' they told the slaves. 'You know that.' One Dutchman grabbed Jango's left ear and sliced at it with his hand: 'Off it comes!'
But when the lookout at the fort spotted the returning prisoners, and everyone gathered to see the mutilations, they were disappointed, for Van Riebeeck refused to lop off ears: 'I do not disfigure my slaves.' Two assistants argued with him, citing both the new law and the necessity for drastic punishment, but the stubborn little man rejected their counsel. The slaves were moderately whipped, thrown into a corner of the fortress that served as a jail, and kept without food for three days.
Five days after they were released, Jango ran away again, and Willem was summoned to the fort: 'We have reason to believe that the slaves have again made union with the Hottentots. Go find Jack and warn him that this must not continue.'
'And Jango?'
'We'll take care of Jango.'
So Willem went eastward to confer with Jack, while the usual troop of hunters went after Jango, who this time had taken only two others with him. Willem found Jack at a distant site, unwilling to admit that he was in league with the slaves, unwilling to cooperate in any way.
'What do you want?' Willem, exasperated, asked his old friend.
'What I said at the fort. Work together.'
'You heard my brother. That can never happen.'
'More ships will come,' Jack persisted. 'More cattle will be needed.'
Willem's frown ended the conversation. There was no hope that the kind of union Jack was proposing could ever be effected; white men and brown were destined to live their different lives, one the master, one the outcast, and any attempt to bridge the gap would forever be doomed by the characters of the persons involved. The white men would be stolid and stubborn like Willem, or vain and arrogant like Karel; the brown men would be proud and recalcitrant like Jack . . .
A visible shudder raced over Willem's face, for he had been accorded a glimpse of the future. Staring down the long corridor of Cape history beyond the fortress and the branding of slaveshe saw with tragic clarity the total disappearance of Jack and his Hottentots. They were destined to be engulfed, overswarmed by ships and horses. Tears of compassion came to his eyes and he wanted to embrace this little man with whom he had shared so many strange adventures,