• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 3430 0

composed of handsome interlocking planes, so that when she smiled, showing her white teeth, it broke into lovely patches of light and shadow. When she was six and living on the farm from which Lodevicus had purchased her parents, she had been instructed sketchily in Christianity by Simon Keer and had from him acquired a vision of a world somewhat different from the one the slaves knew. Now, as the Van Doorns took their baptized grandson out in the yard to resume play with his puppy, she lingered to ask Reverend Saltwood, 'Can I come to your mission?'

'You are a slave, my child,' he said softly. 'You belong to Baas.'

'Baas, he follow me, cut off my nose?'

'You know he wouldn't do that. But you also know what happened to your father when he ran away. If you run away, you'll be punished.' As he spoke he recalled the words of Jesus: 'Suffer the little children to come unto me'and he knew that he was being less than heroic in failing to support this child. But his reflections were broken by a shout from one of Van Doorn's Hottentots: 'Riders! Riders! From north!'

A bailiff from the Black Circuit sitting at Graaff-Reinet had come to inform Lodevicus that he must appear before that court. 'For what?' the old man blustered, whereupon the nervous little Dutchman who had joined the English service puffed out his chest and in faltering voice recited the charges: 'Enforced slavery of Hottentots. Abuse of slaves. Murder of a slave.'

'By God, I will destroy that judge,' the old Boer cried, but the bailiff whispered in rapid Dutch, 'Lodevicus Hammer, you have friends at Graaff-Reinet. Many Boers owe their farms to you. You'll never hang.'

'But I'm to be dragged into a Kaffir court . . .'

'Please, Lodevicus, I'm just starting in my job. Don't make trouble.'

It was humiliating, but the old fighter realized he must comply, so after giving orders to his son and bidding Wilhelmina farewell, he came to Saltwood and said humbly, 'Dominee, you must ride with me.'

Despite his earlier resolution, Saltwood now faltered, and asked weakly, 'Why?'

'To testify. You've seen me. You've seen my slaves.' 'But the charge of murder'

'Ask the slaves.' And Lodevicus was so obviously shaken by his arrest that Hilary wanted to help in some way. Certainly he could testify that by Boer standards, the De Kraal slaves and Hottentots were reasonably treated, and he was willing to say so to the court, but he was not willing to be called on to aid any man charged with murder. Van Doorn, seeing his hesitation and guessing as to its cause, said again, 'Ask them.'

So Hilary took the girl Emma aside. 'Do you know who God is?'

'I do,' she said in a childish voice.

'And do you know what hell is?'

'Master Keer, he tell me.'

'And do you know that if you don't tell the truth, you will go to hell?'

'Master Keer tell me.'

'The old baas, has he ever killed a slave?'

The little girl's dark face froze into a scowl, her soot-black features betraying her agitation. Finally she said, moving nervously from foot to foot, 'He beat my father. Sometimes he thrash my mother. But he never kill nobody.'

'Do the slaves ever talk at night, Emma?' 'All the time.'

'Do they ever speak of a killing? Long time ago? When the old baas angry?'

'No killing.'

Saltwood was impressed by the girl's willingness to speak but also by her obvious fear, so he asked abruptly if she would fetch her parents, and when they appeared, as nervous as their daughter, he asked them in their dialect, 'Has Baas ever killed a slave?'

They looked at each other, then at their daughter, after which the husband said, 'He beat me too much. He beat my wife sometimes.' He showed Saltwood the scars that he had shown before. They were gruesome and deep.

'But has he ever killed a slave?'

'No.' When he said this, his wife tugged at his shirt sleeve and they whispered for a while.

'What's she saying?' Hilary asked Emma.

'About the other time.'

'What other time?'

And the father told in broken, agitated words that on another farm, where they had lived prior to being purchased by Van Doorn, the master had killed