The covenant - James A. Michener [43]
When his porters took up their burdens next morning, passers-by confirmed that Sofala would be reached by noon, and they quickened their pace; and when salt could be smelled in the air, they began to run until the man in the lead shouted, 'Sofala! Sofala!' and all clustered about him to stare at the port and the great sea beyond. In awe one man whispered, 'That is a river no man can cross.'
The bustling seaport did not disappoint, for it contained features which astonished; the sheds in which the Arabs conducted their business were of a size the Zimbabwe men had never imagined, and the dhows that rolled in the tides of the Indian Ocean were an amazement. The men were delighted with the orderliness of the shore, where casuarina trees intermingled with palms and where the waves ran up to touch the feet and then ran back. How immense the sea was! When the men saw children swimming they were enchanted and sought to run into the water themselves, except that Nxumalo, himself perplexed by this multitude of new experiences, forbade it. He felt that he must face one problem at a time, and the first that he encountered proved how correct he was in moving prudently, for when he inquired about a market for his goods, and traders heard that he had twoscore elephant tusks, everyone doing business with China, where ivory was appreciated, wanted to acquire them, and he was made some dazzling offers, but since he had not intended selling immediately, he resisted. He did allow himself to be taken to an Arab ship, which, however, he refused to board; from the wharf he could see inside, and there, chained to benches, sat a dozen men of varied ages, doing nothing, making hardly a movement.
'Who are they?' he asked, and the trader explained that these men helped move the ship.
'How long do they wait like that?'
'Until they die,' the trader said, and when Nxumalo winced, he added, 'They were captured in war. This is their fate.' They were, Nxumalo reflected, much like the small brown men who were thrown down mines to work until they died. They, too, were captured in war; that, too, was their fate.
Wherever he moved in Sofala he saw things that bewildered, but constantly he was enticed by the dhows, those floating rondavels whose passage across the sea he could not comprehend but whose magic was apparent. One afternoon as he stared at a three-masted vessel with tall sails he saw to his delight that the white man who seemed to be in charge was the same tall Arab who had traded at Zimbabwe.
'Ho!' he shouted, and when the Arab turned slowly to identify the disturbance, Nxumalo shouted in Zimbabwe language, 'It's me. The one you gave the disk.' The Arab moved to the railing, peered at the young black, and said finally, 'Of course! The man with the gold mines.'
For some hours they stood on the wharf, talking, and the Arab said, 'You should carry your goods to my brother at Kilwa. He'll appreciate them.'
'Where is the trail to this Kilwa?'
The Arab laughed, the first time Nxumalo had seen him do so. 'There is no trail. It couldn't cross the rivers and swamps. To walk would require more than a year.'
'Then why tell me to go?'
'You don't march your men along a trail. You sail ... in a dhow.' Nxumalo instantly recognized this as a trick to enslave him, but he also knew that he yearned achingly to know what a dhow was like, and where China lay, and who wove silk. So after a night's tormented judging he sought the Arab and said simply, 'I shall deposit all my goods here, with my servants. I'll sail with you to Kilwa, and if your brother really wants my gold . . .'
'He'll be hungry for your ivory.'
'He can have it, if he brings me back here to get it.'
It was arranged, but when his men heard of his daring they protested. They, too, had seen the slaves chained to the benches and they predicted that this would be his fate, but he wanted to believe the Arab trader; even more, he wanted to see Kilwa and discover the nature of shipping.
Toward the end of 1458 he boarded the dhow at Sofala for the eleven-hundred-mile