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'Aieee, Mhlakaza! How wonderful!'

'Say the ones at the pool, "All this is yours if you obey us." I saw a million Xhosa ready for battle. And with them came a regiment of strangers who fight alongside us as brothers.' Flecks of spittle hung at the corners of his mouth as he revealed his startling visions: 'They will slay the English! They will trample the Boers!'

When the roar of approval died, he added, 'The Xhosa will inherit everything. All the farms in this land will be yours. You will never again know a cattle shortage. Your grain baskets will overflow forever.'

Now, it so happened that Mhlakaza had recently traveled through the frontier districts, moving along the fringe of settlement as on that morning at De Kraal when Van Doorn wanted to shoot him. And as he moved about he listened: 'In lands beyond the sea there is a body of warriors called Russians. They are like the Xhosa, except they have white skins, but like us, they fight the English.'

'They're afraid of these Russians,' a servant whispered. 'In one battle they struck down the best commando of the English. Killed six hundred when the English ran at them on horses, with stabbing sticks.'

He picked up what additional information he could about the disastrous charge of the English brigade at Balaklava, and one fact began to burn in his mind: his enemy England had another enemy, the Russians.

Mhlakaza took Nongqause aside and explained the mystery of her visions: 'The Xhosa will be reinforced by the white strangers you saw, the Russians. We must hurry to the pool to get further instructions.' And when these words were locked in her childish mind, he took her to the kraal of the great chief, Kreli, where she stood before the councillors of the area: 'To prove your faith in the ancestors who spoke with me, you must do two things. Kill all your cattle. Burn all your mealies. Only when you are purified in this way will the ghosts march to help us.'

Chief Kreli, bewildered by such instructions, said, 'Step forward, child, and let us see who it is our ancestors speak with.'

Nudged by her uncle, Nongqause moved timidly toward Kreli, her large hazel eyes meeting those of the great chief.

'Tell them the white soldiers are ready to march with us,' Mhlakaza said.

'It is so, my Chief.'

'They have come across the sea to fight for us?' Kreli asked.

'They have,' she said quietly, going on to describe in detail the heroics of the Russians in their battle against the English. As she spoke, a chatter ran through the crowd, for if Mhlakaza vouched for her as a true Mother of Greatness, she must be listened to.

'The cattle are to be killed,' she said again. 'The baskets empty. The land bare. When that is done, the Russians and the Xhosa will drive the English and the Boers into the sea.'

The idea of slaughtering all cattle was so infamous, threatening as it did the very existence of the Xhosa, that older councillors scorned both Nongqause and her prophecy. One white-haired advisor protested: 'Where was this nonsense seen?'

'At the pool,' Mhlakaza said. 'She saw it first. Then I did.'

'This talk of a day when all people, dead and alive, shall come together. Isn't that what they say at the Christian mission at Golan?' the old man asked. 'Isn't that where you heard it?'

'It is the word of our ancestors,' Mhlakaza insisted.

'You bring us missionary ideas,' the old councillor persisted. 'The tribes of the dead coming back to earth, bringing paradise with them.'

'Our ancestors told me. At the pool.'

Chief Kreli, an artful, determined leader, had long sought some tactic that would unite his Xhosa, and he surmised that this young girl's visions might be the answer. Organizing a pilgrimage to the pool, he allowed his councillors to see Nongqause talking with the departed leaders and hear her speaking with the waiting Russians. When she reiterated the ghostly commands, that all foodstuffs be destroyed, he began to believe that if this were done, the Russians would arrive by ship and unite with the long-dead