The covenant - James A. Michener [74]
Van Doorn suggested, 'Sir, they could help us raise cattle.'
'Tell them we wish only to deal with them for the beasts.'
But when the officers proposed to start the bartering, they found that Jack and his little people refused to trade: 'We come. Live with you. Help you. We give you these cattle. Many more. But no more trade.'
This was incomprehensible, that a band of primitives should be laying down terms, and the officers would tolerate no such nonsense. At Banda Island east of Java when the sultan opposed them over the matter of cloves, the entire population of fifteen thousand had been slaughtered. When the Lords XVII heard of this they demurred, but old Jan Pieterszoon Coen had explained firmly, in letters which reached Amsterdam four years after the event: 'In Holland you suggest what we should do. In Java we do what's necessary.' When the sultan on another island refused to cooperate, he and ten thousand of his people were forcibly resettled on Amboyna. If the Compagnie did not tolerate opposition from Spice Islanders, who, after all, were semi-civilized even if they did follow Muhammad, it was certainly not going to allow these primitives to dictate trading terms.
'Take the cattle,' the officers said, but at this, young Van Doorn had to protest: 'In the villages beyond the hills are many Hottentots. If we start trouble . . .'
'He's starting the trouble. Tell him to take his damned cattle, and if he ever comes back here, he'll be shot. Get out!'
The officers would permit no further negotiation, and the Hottentots were dismissed. Slowly, sadly, they herded their fat cattle and started back across the flats, unable to comprehend why their sensible proposal had been rejected.
Willem saw Jack again under pitiful conditions. A group of six sailors applied for permission to hunt the area well north of the fort for eight or nine days, and since barter with the Hottentots was no longer possible and meat was needed, they were encouraged to see if they could find a hippopotamus or a rhinoceros, both of which provided excellent eating. Because the land they were exploring was more arid than that to the south and east, they had to go far, so that they were absent much longer than intended, and when they returned, there were only five.
'We were attacked by Hottentots, and Van Loon was killed by a poisoned arrow.' They had the arrow, a remarkable thing made in three sections bound together by tight collars of sinew, and so made that when the poisoned tip entered the body, the rest broke away, making it impossible to pull out the projectile.
'We cut it out,' the men explained. 'And he lived for three days, always getting weaker till he died.'
The officers were outraged and swore revenge on the Hottentots, but Van Doorn recalled something Jack had told him during his stay at the village: 'We don't ever hunt north. The San . . . that's their land.' That's all he could remember; it had been a warning which he had overlooked, and now his companion was dead.
He suggested that he go east to discuss this tragedy with Jack, and although the officers ridiculed the idea at first, upon reflection they saw that it would be unwise to engage in open warfare with the little brown men if the latter enjoyed superior numbers and a weapon so frightening. So they gave consent, and with two armed companions Van Doorn set out to talk with Jack, taking the arrow with him.
As soon as the Hottentots saw it they showed their fear: 'San. The little ones who live in bush. You must never go their land.' They showed how the arrow worked and explained that they themselves were terrified of these little men who had no cattle, no sheep, no kraals: 'They are terrible enemies if we go their land. If we stay our land, they let us alone.'
It was amusing to Willem to hear the Hottentots speak of this vague enemy as 'the little ones,' but Jack convinced him