Free The Covenant by James A. Michener Page B

trees.” He placed his hand on Nxumalo’s arm and said, “Until you’ve seen Zimbabwe, you live in darkness.”
    Whenever he spoke like this, telling the boy of the grandness of the city from which he came, he reverted to the problem of the rhinoceros horns and the necessity of bringing them to the city, but one morning as he spoke with Nxumalo and his father he said abruptly, “Ngalo, dear friend of many searchings, today I leave you to look for the Ridge-of-White-Waters, and I want Nxumalo to lead me.”
    “He knows the way,” Ngalo said, pointing directly west to where the prominent ridge lay. It was a four-day journey which entailed some dangers, but the path was a pleasant one. “Why do you wish to go?”
    “In my day, Ngalo, I have sought many things. Women, high office, the path to Sofala, the king’s good wishes. But the best thing I ever sought was gold. And I am convinced that in your terrain, there must be gold somewhere.” Contemptuously he dismissed the iron ingots that remained under the tree. Addressing only Nxumalo, he said, “Iron gives temporary power. It can be made into spearheads and clubs. But gold gives permanent power. It can be fashioned into dreams, and men will come a long way to satisfy their dreams.”
    On the third day of their journey west, after they had passed many small villages which the old man seemed to know, it became apparent to Nxumalo that the Seeker knew very well where the Ridge-of-White-Waters lay and that he had insisted on having companionship only because he wanted to convince Nxumalo of something. That night, as they were resting at the edge of a miserable kraal, the old man spied the boy standing alone, in his eyes a mixture of sadness and anticipation as he stared toward the empty lands to the south.
    “What is it, young friend?”
    “It is my brother, mfundisi,” he said, using a term of respect. “Last year he left for the south, and I must go too, when it is time.” It was a custom that he must honor: the oldest brother always succeeded to the chieftainship, while the younger brothers moved to thefrontier and started their own villages. And this had been done since these blacks came down from the north, centuries ago.
    “No, no!” the Old Seeker protested. “Find me the rhinoceros horn. Bring it to me in Zimbabwe.”
    “Why should I do so?”
    The old man took the boy’s hands and said, “If one like you, a boy of deep promise, does not test himself in the city, he spends his life where? In some wretched village like this.”
    On the fourth day such discussions halted temporarily, for the Old Seeker’s troop was attacked by a band of little brown men who swarmed like pestilential flies determined to repel an invader. When their slim arrows began buzzing, Nxumalo shouted, “Beware! Poison!” and he led the Old Seeker to safety inside a ring of porters whose shields repelled the arrows.
    The fight continued for about an hour, with the little men shouting battle orders in a preposterous series of clicking sounds, but gradually the taller, more powerful blacks herded them away, and they retreated into the savanna, still uttering their clicks.
    “Aiee!” Nxumalo shouted with exasperation as the little fellows disappeared. “Why do they attack us like jackals?”
    Old Seeker, who had worked with the small people in the north, said calmly, “Because we’re crossing hunting grounds they claim as their own.”
    “Jackals!” the boy snorted, but he knew the old man was right.
    On the morning of the fifth day, as planned, the file of men reached the Ridge-of-White-Waters, which later settlers would call Witwatersrand, where the Old Seeker hoped to find evidence that gold existed, but the more carefully he explored the region—a handsome one, with prominent hillocks from which Nxumalo could see for miles—the more disappointed he became. Here the telltale signs, which in the lands about Zimbabwe indicated gold, were missing; there was no gold, and it