Free The Covenant by James A. Michener

for with Constantinople in Muslim hands and the profitable trade routes to the East permanently cut, it was imperative that Africa be saved for Christianity so that ships could sail around it directly to India and China. Then the soldiers of Jesus Christ could capture Ophir from the Muslims and turn its gold to civilized purposes. But where was Ophir?
    •  •  •
    While Prince Henry brooded and plotted at Sagres, constantly goading his reluctant captains to seek the cape which he knew must mark the southern tip of Africa, events at a small lake in that region were taking an interesting turn. To the undistinguished village of mud-and-thatch rondavels that huddled along the southern edge of this lake, a gang of noisy children came shouting, “He comes! Old Seeker comes again!” And all the black inhabitants came out to greet the old man who dreamed.
    When the file of newcomers reached the edge of the village it stopped to allow the Old Seeker time to arrange his clothing and take from a bag carried by one of his servants an iron staff topped by a handsome spread of ostrich feathers. Bearing this nobly in his left hand, he moved two steps forward, then prostrated himself, and from this position called, “Great Chief, I bid you good morning!”
    From the mass of villagers a man in his fifties stepped forward and nodded: “Old Seeker, I bid you good morning.”
    “Great Chief, did you sleep well?”
    “If you slept well, I slept well.”
    “I slept well, Great Chief.” Both the chief and his villagers must have sensed the irony in those words, for he was by no accounting a great chief, but protocol demanded that he be called such, especially when the man coming into the village sought advantages.
    “You may rise,” the chief said, whereupon the Old Seeker stood erect, grasped his iron staff with one hand, placed his other upon the wrist, and rested his powder-gray head on both.
    “What do you come seeking this time?” the chief asked, and evasively the old fellow replied, “The goodness of the soil, the secrets of the earth.”
    The chief nodded ceremoniously, and the formal greetings ended. “How was the journey south?” he asked.
    The old man handed his staff to a servant and said in a whisper, “Each year, more difficult. I am tired. This is my last trip to your territories.”
    Chief Ngalo burst into laughter, for the old man had made this threat three years ago and four years before that. He was a genial, conniving old rascal who had once served as overseer of mines in a great kingdom to the north and who now traveled far beyond his ruler’s lands searching for additional mines, observing remote settlements, and probing always for new trade links. He was an ambassador-at-large, an explorer, a seeker.
    “Why do you come to my poor village?” Chief Ngalo asked. “You know we have no mines.”
    “I come on a much different mission, dear friend. Salt.”
    “If we had salt,” Ngalo said, “we could trade with the world.”
    The old man sighed. He had expected to be disappointed, but his people did need salt. However, they had other needs, some of them mysterious. “What I could use,” he said confidentially, “is rhinoceros horns. Not less than sixteen.” They were required, he explained, by older men who wished to marry young wives: “They need assurance that they will not disappoint in bed.”
    “But your king is a young man,” the chief said. “Why does he need the horn?”
    “Not he! For the rich old men with slanted eyes who live in a far country.”
    From the tree under which they took their rest, the two men looked down at the lake, and Ngalo said, “Tonight you will see many animals come to that water. Buffalo, lions, hippos, giraffes and antelope like the stars.” The Old Seeker nodded, and Ngalo added, “But you will never see a rhino. Where can we possibly find sixteen horns?”
    The old fellow reflected on this question and replied, “In this life man is assigned difficult