The covenant - James A. Michener [354]
That night Retief told Tjaart, 'Tomorrow we talk.'
This time he was right. They talked, but not about the grant of land. Dingane, listening attentively to every word the interpreter said, asked, 'What happened when your people met with Mzilikazi?'
Delighted at this opportunity to instruct a pagan king, Retief expounded enthusiastically on the Boer triumphs: 'A handful of us . . . Van Doorn here was one of them. He'll tell you'
'Tell me what?' the king interrupted.
Tjaart knew instinctively that he must not boast of his victories over the Great Bull Elephant, even though Mzilikazi was Dingane's enemy, for to do so would raise questions in the king's mind, so he replied modestly, 'We fought him twice, and he was powerful.'
'That's not the story!' Retief protested, and while Dingane kept his pudgy fingers pressed against his lips, the Boer leader cried, 'Forty of our men held off five thousand of his. Wave after wave of his soldiers came at our men, and we shot them down till they lay like ripe pumpkins in the veld.'
'So few of you, so many of them?'
'Yes, Mighty King, because when a ruler disobeys the commands of our God, he is struck down. Remember that.'
Dingane did not change his expression, but Tjaart noticed that he kept his fingertips pressed hard against his lips, as if he were controlling himself lest he say too much, and when the two Voortrekkers took their seats for this day's entertainment, Tjaart said, 'I wish you had not been so bold,' but Retief, in some exhilaration, replied, 'From time to time you must teach these pagan kings a lesson.' When Tjaart tried to remonstrate, Retief said, 'Look!'
More than two thousand Zulu warriors in full battle dress, with distinctive ox tails tied about their upper arms and knees, had run onto the parade ground, taken position and stamped their feet, shouting 'Bayete!' Then came a stylized battle show replete with cries, stabbing exercises and mock attacks. Tjaart, who had experienced the real thing, was repelled by the display, but Retief was riveted by the performance, and told the king, 'Your men are mighty warriors.' Dingane nodded, then replied, 'They live at my command. They kill at my command.'
On the fourth day the king finally consented to talk seriously with the Boers, and assured them that he was viewing favorably their application for a large grant of land south of his own domains. He asked Retief to prove his responsibility as a possible settler by recovering some cattle stolen from him by a distant chief, and more or less assured him that once this mission was accomplished, the land grant would be quickly arranged during Retief's next visit. After a long speech of farewell, with foot-stomping and a graceful exit of his sixteen favorite wives, the king nodded and departed, leaving Retief and Van Doorn free to return to their company of waiting Voortrekkers. But before the men left the area, an English missionary, who had been living near Dingane's kraal for some months, hurried up to them and said, 'Friends, your lives are my concern.'
'Ours too,' Retief said lightly, for he was pleased by the promising results of his first official visit with the king.
'Did he invite you back for another visit?'
'Yes, in January, if we could complete a small matter for him. If not, in February.'
'Friends, in the name of God, do not come back.'
'Foolishness. He's going to give us the grant we seek.'
'Friends, believe me. I live with these people. Every sign I saw proved to me that he intends killing you.'
'We Boers do not hold much with missionaries,' Retief said, and Tjaart nodded. Neither of the men could tolerate the philanthropists, and they saw in this meddling man one more troublemaker.
'Friends, regardless of what you think of me as a missionary, I warn you as a guide. Dingane means to kill you. If you return to his kraal, you will never leave.'
Retief had grown impatient with the intrusion.