The covenant - James A. Michener [371]
'There is room,' he said. In the days before King Shaka had run wild he had seen many tribes living side by side, and it could be done again.
But Tjaart, whose ten wagons represented just about the same population power as Nxumalo's accumulation, felt it necessary to demonstrate that the white men had certain advantages which the blacks would be wise to respect. Turning to Paulus, he told the boy, 'Shoot us a bird. Or an antelope.'
At that moment the sables elected to move on, and in doing so, came into range of the little fellow, who took careful aim, fired, and dropped the last in line. Nxumalo was dutifully impressed by two things: that the white man could kill at such a distance and that he would want to kill an animal as splendid as the sable antelope.
When the hartebeest huts were finished, identical with the rude sheds occupied by Hendrik van Doorn one hundred and forty-nine years earlier, a most fortunate thing occurred, one which Balthazar Bronk was able to utilize to the general advantage of the white community.
Relations with Nxumalo's tribe had prospered, and it was apparent that whites and blacks could share Vrymeer in harmony. There was no trouble about land, nor hunting rights, nor anything else; Nxumalo tried to make it clear, as he learned bits of Dutch, that his Zulu would in no way become vassals of the white men, nor would they work for them on any regular basis like their Coloured servants; they, too, were free and proud of that. But when during the building of the huts the blacks volunteered much labor and showed the newcomers how best to utilize the terrain for drainage, Tjaart said confidently, 'They'll soon be working for us.' It was a happy, prosperous relationship, with the Voortrekkers providing an occasional antelope for Nxumalo's pots and with certain women of the tribe volunteering to care for the white babies while their mothers worked at other tasks.
The situation did not exactly please Bronk and his group; they wanted the blacks to become slaves, as the Bible directed, and there was even some talk of eliminating Nxumalo's tribe altogether, in obedience to the precepts of Joshua, which Balthazar was skilled in quoting:
'And they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them: and there was not any left to breathe: and he burnt Hazor with fire . . . And all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took.'
To the surprise of all, Tjaart opposed this draconian solution, whereupon Bronk countered with the suggestion that the blacks be converted into servants, as the Bible ordered in so many places, but this, too, Tjaart rejected, saying, 'We have searched so long for a place in which we can live in peace, let us do so here.' And since he was the acknowledged leader of the group, this counsel was accepted.
But then the fortunate stroke came, and the whole problem was neatly settled. One night cattle thieves broke into the Van Doorn kraal and made away with some twenty oxen, half of them belonging to Balthazar, who threatened to annihilate the black settlement, but when Tjaart and Paulus went to investigate, they found that none of Nxumalo's people had touched the cattle: 'It's the village far over the hill. They steal our cattle, too.'
So a retaliatory commando was enlisted, and under the leadership of Balthazar Bronk it ranged far, following the spoor of the stolen cattle and coming at last upon a meager village of some forty people. There, in the kraals, stood the Van Doorn cattle, so with a mighty shout the horsemen burst into the heart of the village, massacring everyone.
'Not the children!' Bronk shouted. 'Save the children!'
In obedience to his command, eleven black children were saved, and these were driven back to the white camp, where they were distributed among the families to work for the rest of their lives. They were not slaves; the law forbade any further slavery and every Voortrekker constitution for a new