The covenant - James A. Michener [129]
'Of course,' the sick-comforter said, but since he spoke not a word of French, he nodded to Paul, indicating that he must do the praying. 'It will ease her,' he said, even though he knew that she would never again hear human speech.
'Great God in heaven,' Paul prayed, 'we have come so far in obedience to Thy commands. Save Thy daughter Marie that she may see the new home to which Thou hast brought us.' When he finished, the sick-comforter clasped the two boys and prayed with them in his language, after which he said in a low voice, 'We can call the sailors now. She's dead.'
'No!' Paul shouted, and the fury with which he embraced his wife, who had accompanied him so far and with so gentle a compliance, made those about him weep.
'Call the sailors,' the sick-comforter said forcefully. 'Boys, you must kiss your mother goodbye,' and he edged them toward the pitiful bier.
In due time two German sailors shoved their way through the passengers, took the corpse away, and holding it aloft, pitched it into the sea, after which the sick-comforter indicated that he would lead public prayers for those who were still ambulatory. A stout Dutch merchant who had once served as deacon at Old Church pushed him contemptuously aside as unworthy; he would do the praying, and all on deck bowed their heads.
When the Java finally anchored in the lee of Table Mountain, Paul de Pre, thirty pounds lighter than when he sailed, reported to the captain, asking for his final payment for acquiring the grapevines, but instead of handing over any money, the captain informed Paul that Mijnheer van Doorn had arranged for the delivery of some one hundred and twenty acres of land toward the eastern mountains, and he produced a document affirming this: 'The Compagnie Commander at De Kaap is directed to give the French emigrant Paul de Pre sixty morgen of the best land, contiguous to the farm of Willem van Doorn in the settlement of Stellenbosch, there to raise grapes and make wine.'
By paying De Pre in Compagnie land rather than his own money, Van Doorn had saved himself ninety florins.
Paulbrooding over the loss of his wifewas halfway across the desolate flats before the immensity of Africa struck him, and he was suddenly overcome with dread lest this enormous continent reject him, tossing him back into the sea. The land was so bleak, the vast emptiness so foreboding that he began to shiver, feeling himself rebuked for his insolence. Clasping his sons to protect them from the loneliness he felt, he muttered in French, 'Our grapes will never grow in this godforsaken soil.'
That night the Dutchman in whose wagon he was riding pitched camp on the loneliest stretch of the flatlands, and Paul stayed awake, listening to the howling wind and testing the harsh, sterile earth with his fingers. Driven with fear, he rose to inspect his grape cuttings, to see if they were still moist, and as he replaced their wrappings he thought: They are doomed.
But toward the end of the second day, when the laden wagon completed its traverse of the badlands, he was allowed a gentler view of Africa, for they now traveled along the bank of a lovely river edged by broad meadows and protected by encompassing hills. He thought: This is finer than anything I knew in France or Holland! A man could make his home here!
Begging the driver to halt, he lifted his sons down so that they could feel the good earth that was to be their home, and when he had filtered it through his fingers he looked up at the Dutchman and shouted in French, 'We shall build a vineyard so great . . .' When the driver looked at him in stolid unconcern, for he understood not a word De Pre was saying, Paul cried in Dutch, 'Good, eh?' and the driver pointed ahead with his whip: 'Ahead, even better.'
They camped that night beside the river, and by noon next morning they saw something that sealed Paul's love of his new home. It was a farmhouse, low and wide, built of mud bricks and wattles, and so set down against the hills rising behind it that it seemed always to have been there. He noticed that it stood north to