The covenant - James A. Michener [374]
Mhlakaza interrogated the child at length, but found her answers confused and vague. She recited a rambling account of her walk to the pool and kept referring to a hornbill that had flown near her'certain omen of disaster, for it brings droughts'but he did not interrupt her until she said something startling: 'They were strangers, my Uncle. Some with black skins like Xhosa. But others in the mists ... I am frightened!'
'What others?' he asked reassuringly.
'White men rising from the mists, my Uncle.'
Mhlakaza did not press her. Placing his hand gently on her shoulder, he said, 'Go to your hut, Nongqause, and tell no one of this.' He watched until she disappeared through the low entrance of her parents' place; then he stole from the village to inspect this pool.
It was four hours before he returned, and his slightest movement was watched, especially by older men and women who concerned themselves in such matters. For months he had been promising that the Xhosa would hear words of importance from his lips, and now his secretive behavior indicated that the prophet was ready.
When he stalked silently to his hut, word spread that no one was to approach him for two days and nights: the spirits had ordered him to do certain things. No questions were to be asked of the diviners, and young people were not to speculate on what his forthcoming revelation might be. If they did, their chatter might interrupt his communication with those who dwelt in the sky.
Alone, within his hut, Mhlakaza burned herbs and medicines to thwart witchcraft, then sat naked as the acrid smoke fumed about his body, causing his eyes to stream. He swallowed powerful emetics to purge himself, daubed his skin with red ocher and white clay, and entered into long incantations, begging the spirits to unleash forces that would prepare him for the great role he was about to play.
On the third day he came out from his seclusion, and with the entire village at his heels, strode to the cattle kraal, where he chose the plumpest beast from his own herd. Prodding it with an assegai, he pierced the skin until the animal bellowed with rage. He loved that sound; it meant the spirits were speaking to him. Then, with a vicious thrust, he drove the iron tip deep into the neck of the ox. Next he cut out the stomach and bladder, anointing his body with their contents, and to the delight of the witnesses, ordered the ox to be roasted and eaten. He was purified.
On the fourth day Mhlakaza returned alone to the stream long before first light, and his vigil ended when he uttered a mighty cry, as if things deep within him were released. There in the gray dawn stood an older brother who had died in the 1835 war against the English. 'Draw near, Mhlakaza, my good brother who is chosen for great deeds' came the voice. 'Our child Nongqause is chosen with you to lead our people to victory. To you, members of my family, will be shown the Xhosa strength.'
And then, just as Nongqause had seen the strangers in the pool, so did he! Regiment upon regiment of Xhosa heroes, risen from the dead, marched triumphantly through a great valley where no English or Boer face was to be seen. But with the black legions rode the white strangers who had come from overseas to help the Xhosa.
A dazed, wild-eyed Mhlakaza staggered back to the village, where his followers were not disappointed, for he told them that he, too, had seen the strangers who had first shown themselves to Nongqause. They had, he said, ordered him to purify himself before talking with them, and had not everyone seen him do this?
'We saw! We saw! The nights of smoke. The days of prayer.'
'Those that wait by the pool say this: "There is a valley of desolation, with the bones of many animals, with baskets empty of grain." '
A frightful cry rose from the listeners, wails and groans at so grim a vision.
'But look further, my friends. Open your eyes. And this land of death begins to blossom like a paradise.