The covenant - James A. Michener [38]
He remained in the mine for a long time, endeavoring to visualize the lives of these seven little people. Because the mine was so cramped, only they could work it, forced one time into the narrow opening, condemned thereafter to live underground for as long as they survived, eating whatever was thrown down to them, burying their dead in a pile beside the rock, living and dying in perpetual darkness.
Nxumalo remembered what Old Seeker had said about the wandering bands of small brown people with their poisoned darts. 'Jackals,' he himself had termed them. Prior to visiting this mine he had never before seen them rounded up and enslaved, and certainly the councillors at Zimbabwe would not have sanctioned it, but on this far frontier, out of all touch with the capital, any mine overseer could act as a law unto himself.
'How long do they survive?' Nxumalo asked when he climbed out.
'Four, five years.'
'The children?'
'If the old folk live long enough, the children learn to mine. One family, maybe fifteen, eighteen years.'
'And if the old ones die too soon?'
'The children die with them.'
'What do you propose doing about the mine?'
'Our men are out hunting for some new brown workers. If they find any, we'll be able to mine again.'
'Will you find them?'
'Hunting them is dangerous. They use poisoned arrows, you know.'
'Put your own women to work down there. That's how we do it at other mines.'
'Our women prefer the sun and the fields,' the overseer replied, and in conspiratorial whispers he added, 'You're a man, Nxumalo. You know what fat beauties are for.'
'You opened the entrance for me to go down. A little more, and they can squeeze in.'
'What use could we men have of them if they came home exhausted from laboring underground? Tell me that.'
'When you have the hunger for them, let them rest a day or two.'
'I tell you, sir, our women would refuse to work as miners. You must bring me people from outside.'
Sternly Nxumalo said, 'I shall return next season, and I will expect to see this mine operating at capacity. We must have gold.'
This ultimatum would be met, for as Nxumalo marched back toward Zimbabwe, the mine overseer, who loved his five fat wives, was relieved to see a band of his warriors returning from the desert with nine small brown people. They would fit nicely into the mine; they would eat what was tossed down to them; and never again would they see daylight.
As Nxumalo visited the distant mines he often recalled that moment when he first saw the Limpopo and when he first climbed down into a mine: It was a premonition. I spend my life crossing rivers and descending shafts. Wherever he traveled through the vast domains of Zimbabwe he came upon the old treasured mines, and in time learned how to predict where new ones might be found, and although nine out of his ten guesses proved barren, that tenth repaid all efforts. Each new find, each old mine that increased its output enhanced his reputation.
Although he had made himself familiar with thousands of square miles of the kingdom, there remained one place he had not visited: the citadel atop the Hill of Spirits at Zimbabwe itself, but now as he returned from his latest trip he was summoned to the king's residence to deliver his report in person to the ruler and his councillors. He was guarded about what he said concerning the enslavement of the small brown people at that frontier mine, but he spoke boldly of the problems in the north, and when he finished, the senior councillor indicated that the king wished to speak with him alone.
After the assembly left, this councillor led Nxumalo through a maze of passages to the inner court, where, in a small roofless enclosure, he waited for his private audience. Soon the king