The covenant - James A. Michener [242]
This was the telling blow. Lodevicus, who had hammered the Kaffirs, took a great step down the road to treason: 'The enemy that matters is the enemy of today. He is white and English.'
'I know where we can meet with the Xhosa generals,' the messenger whispered, and without conceding that he would actually unleash these fearsome warriors against the English, Lodevicus did agree to talk with them.
Through the dark night the two conspirators rode east to the Great Fish, forded it upstream from a rude fort, and sought the dwelling of Guzaka, son of Sotopo. When at last Lodevicus faced the warrior, the two adversaries glared at each other in silence. Guzaka had slain three members of the Van Doorn family; the Hammer had captained the destruction of more than three thousand Xhosa. Finally Guzaka rose, extended his two hands, and said, 'It is time.'
They sat outside Guzaka's hut, two grizzled warriors licking their wounds like old tomcats, their claws blunted by the years. 'Ja, Kaffir,' Van Doorn said slowly, 'here stands a Van Doorn asking your help. God knows it's not right, but what else is there?'
'The Redcoats will destroy both of us,' the white-haired Xhosa said.
'We must kick them out.'
'Killings, too many killings,' Guzaka said.
'Settle with them, then we'll settle peace between us.'
'But you Boers steal our lands, too.'
'Did we ever drive twenty thousand across the Big Fish? It was the English who did that.'
'It's still our land,' Guzaka said, confused by the drift of the conversation.
'Old man, you and I don't have too many years. Let us solve the land question now. We drive out the English, then you and I make peace. We each herd cattle. We share the land.'
'Can we defeat the Redcoats?' the old warrior asked.
'Together we can do anything,' Lodevicus said with fervor, and impulsively he clasped his enemy's hand, for at that moment he truly believed those words.
Inspired by this show of friendship, Guzaka said, 'Tonight I shall discuss this with my headmen. Tomorrow we make the treaty.' It was a word he knew well, for along this contested border there had been more than fifteen treaties, none with prospects more hopeful than this: Boer and Xhosa against the enemy.
But during this parley, which might have meant so much to the frontier, a young Xhosa warrior with wild and shifting eyes who claimed to see visions and exercise prophecya thin man with a ridged scar across his foreheadhad sat off to one side, carefully watching, his heart smoldering with hatred for Van Doorn. He remembered that years ago this huge Boer had scattered tobacco on the ground as a trap; his father had stooped to retrieve itand fifty warriors had perished.
So after Lodevicus and the messenger withdrew, the trembling prophet harangued his tribesmen: 'Jackals! Cowards! Men without skins! Who is this Van Doorn who comes begging? Is he not the sorcerer who uses tobacco to slay his enemies? The blood of my people is on his hands.'
'The blood of his people is on our hands,' Guzaka replied. 'This is the time to halt the bloodshed.'
'What can this monster do for us?' the prophet demanded.
'He will help us fight the English,' Guzaka argued. 'With the Boers we can live in peace. With the English, never.'
'If we help these Boers today,' the scarred prophet warned, 'they will steal our land when the battle is over. I say kill them tonight.'
But Guzaka saw a chance to gain that lasting peace without which his people would suffer unbroken travail, and he tried vainly to support the concept of a combined attack on the English; he achieved nothing, for the prophet, inflamed by an apocalyptic vision of long-dead Xhosa generals rising mysteriously to launch an attack on both the English and the Boers, expelling them from the land, cried, 'He is old and frightened!' And three young warriors struck Guzaka, leader of many battles, to the ground and killed him.
They then raged