The covenant - James A. Michener [297]
By now a set of daring British traders had settled on the coast well to the south of Zululand, and among them was a tough, ingratiating Irish-Englishman named Henry Francis Fynn, a man whose personal courage equaled his brazen ingenuity. He introduced Shaka to Western ways, instructed him regarding the powers of the English king, and doctored his sick followers in the kraals. The extraordinary details of Shaka's final years might never have been known to the world at large had it not been for the recollections of Fynn, and the colorful journal of an imaginative eighteen-year-old, Nathaniel Isaacs, who had also made his way into the area.
No one will ever know what really went on in the minds of these traders as they observed customs and ancient traditions so utterly alien; their remembered response was clear, though, and in their writings they created the portrait of Shaka, the monster, driven by an unconquerable lust for slaughter
His eyes evinced his pleasure, his iron heart exulted, his whole frame seemed as if it felt a joyous impulse at seeing the blood of innocent creatures flowing at his feet; his hands grasped, his herculean and muscular limbs exhibiting by their motion a desire to aid in the execution of the victims of his vengeance; in short, he seemed a being in human form with more than the physical capabilities of a man; a giant without reason, a monster created with more than ordinary power and disposition for doing mischief, and from whom we recoil as we would at the serpent's hiss or the lion's growl.
Confronted by such a horror, Fynn, Isaacs and the other Europeans who joined them were nevertheless to stay in Shaka's domain up to four years, unharmed, desperately trying to make money, and conniving constantly to have the British Colonial Office bail them out.
If Fynn and Isaacs were horrified by Shaka's killings, he was appalled to learn that the British imprisoned their offenders: 'Nothing could be more cruel than to keep a man lingering, when one swift blow would free him forever.'
But Fynn was a clever man, seeking any chance to gain the approval of the Zulu ruler, and after studying the man, he came up with a brilliant approach: a promise of liquid which prevented hair from turning gray.
'Yes,' said Fynn, 'you rub this magic liquid in your hair, and it never becomes white.'
'Immortality!' Shaka cried, demanding to know what this elixir was called.
'Rowland's Macassar Oil,' Fynn said. 'Have you any?'
'No, but a year from now, when the trading ship comes in . . .'
It was a year of anxiety. To all parts of his realm Shaka sent messengers seeking to learn if anyone had Rowland's Macassar Oil, and his tragic countenance when none was produced alerted Nxumalo to the king's confused state of mind: 'If I could live another twenty years . . . forty ... I could have all the land ever seen under my control. Nxumalo, we must find the oil that prevents a man from growing old.'
'Do you really think there is such a thing?'
'Yes. The white men know of it. That's why they have guns and horses. The oil!'
When the oil did not arrive and gray hairs multiplied, Shaka had to face the problem of a successor. He was only forty, with death far off, but as he said to Nxumalo, 'Look at my mother, how she fades. I don't want the magic oil for myself. I want it to save her life.'
'She's old' Nxumalo started to say, hoping to prepare the king for his mother's eventual death, but Shaka would hear no such words.
In terrible rage he shouted at his aide, 'Goleave me! You spoke against the Female Elephant! I'll kill