Rage - Smith Wilbur (читать книги онлайн без сокращений .TXT) 📗
'Drink that, you Xhosa dog,' he laughed. It was hot and ammoniacal and burned like acid in the open wound on his scalp - and Raleigh's rage and humiliation and hatred filled all his soul.
'My brother, it is only very seldom that I try to dissuade you from something on which you have set your mind." Hendrick Tabaka sat on the leopard-skin covering of his chair, leaning forward earnestly with his elbows on his knees. 'It is not the marriage in itself, you know how I have always urged you to take a wife, many wives, and get yourself sons - it is not the idea of a wife I disapprove of, it is this Zulu baggage that makes me lie awake at night. There are ten million other nubile young women in this land - why must you choose a Zulu? I would rather you took a black mamba into your bed." Moses Gama chuckled softly. 'Your concern for me proves your love." Then he became serious. 'Zulu is the largest tribe in southern Africa. Numbers alone would make them important, but add to that their aggressive and warlike spirit, and you will see that nothing will change in this land without Zulu. If I can form an alliance with that tribe, then all the dreams I have dreamed need not be in vain." Hendrick sighed, and grunted and shook his head.
'Come Hendrick, you have spoken with them. Have you not?" Moses insisted, and reluctantly Hendrick nodded.
'I sat four days at the kraal of Sangane Dinizulu, son of Mbejane who was the son of Gubi, who was the son of Dingaan, who was the brother of Chaka Zulu himself. He deems himself a prince of Zulu, which he is at pains to point out means "The Heavens" and he lives in grand style on the land that his old master, General Sean Courtney, left him on the hills above Ladyburg, where he keeps many wives and three hundred head of fat cattle." 'All this I know, my brother,' Moses interrupted. 'Tell me about the girl." Hendrick frowned. He liked to begin a story at the beginning and work through it, sparing no detail, until he reached the end.
'The girl,' he repeated. 'That old Zulu rogue whines that she is the moon of his night and the sun of his day, no daughter has ever been loved as he loves her - and he could never allow her to marry any man but a Zulu chief." Hendrick sighed. 'Day after day I heard the virtues of this Zulu she-jackal recounted, how beautiful she is, how talented, how she is a nurse at the government hospital, how she comes from a long line of son-bearing wives --' Hendrick broke off and spat with disgust. 'It took three days before he mentioned what had been on his mind from the first minute - the lobola, the bride price,' and Hendrick threw up his hands in a gesture of exasperation.
'All Zulus are thieves and dung-eaters." 'How much?" Moses asked with a smile. 'How much did he need to compensate him for a marriage outside the tribe?" 'Five hundred head of prime cattle, all cows in calf, none older than three years,' Hendrick scowled with outrage. 'All Zulus are thieves and he claims to be a prince, which makes him a prince of thieves." 'Naturally you agreed to his first price?" Moses asked.
'Naturally I argued for two more days." 'The final price?" 'Two hundred head,' Hendrick sighed. 'Forgive me, my brother. I tried, but the old dog of a Zulu was like a rock. It was his very lowest price for the moon of his night." Moses Gama leaned back in his chair, and thought about it. It was an enormous price. Prime cattle were worth ?50 the head, but unlike his brother, Moses Gama had no yen for money other than as a means to procure an end.
'Ten thousand pounds?" he asked softly. 'Do we have that much?" 'It will hurt. I will ache for a year as though I have been whipped with a sjambok,' Hendrick grumbled. 'Do you realize just how much else a man could buy with ten thousand pounds, my brother? I could get you at least ten Xhosa maidens, pretty as sugar birds and plump as guinea fowl, each with her maidenhead attested by the most reliable midwife --' 'Ten Xhosa maidens would not bring the Zulu people within my reach,' Moses cut him off. 'I need Victoria Dinizulu." 'The lobola is not the only price demanded,' Hendrick told him.
'There is more." 'What else?" 'The girl is a Christian. If you take her, there will be no others.
She will be your only wife, my brother, and listen to a man who has paid for wisdom in the heavy coin of experience. Three wives are the very minimum a man needs for contentment. Three wives are so busy competing with one another for their husband's favour, that a man can relax. Two wives are better than one. However, a single wife, a one and only wife, can sour the food in your belly and frost your hair with silver. Let this Zulu wench go to someone who deserves her, another Zulu." 'Tell her father that we will pay the price he asks and that we agree to his terms. Tell him also that if he is a prince, then we expect him to provide a marriage feast that befits a princess. We expect a marriage that will be the talk of Zululand from the Drakensberg Mountains to the ocean. I want every chieftain and elder of the tribe there to see me wed, I want every counseller and induna, I want the king of the Zulus himself to come and when they are all assembled, I will speak to them." 'You might as well talk to a troop of baboons. A Zulu is too proud and too full of hatred to listen to sense." 'You are wrong, Hendrick Tabaka." Moses laid his hand on his brother's arm. 'We are not proud enough, nor do we hate enough.
What pride we do have, the little hatred that we do have, is misspent and ill-directed. We waste it on each other, on other black men. If all the tribes of this land took all their pride and all their hatred and turned it on the white oppressor - then how could he resist us? This is what I will talk about when I speak at my wedding feast. This is what I have to teach the people. It is for this that we are forging Umkhonto we Sizwe, the Spear of the Nation'.
They were silent awhile. The depth of his brother's vision, the terrible power of his commitment, always awed Hendrick.
'It will be as you wish,' he agreed at last. 'When do you wish the wedding to take place?" 'On the full moon of mid-winter." Moses did not hesitate. 'That will be the week before our campaign of defiance begins." Again they were silent, until Moses roused himself. 'It is settled then. Is there anything else we should discuss before we take the evening meal?" 'Nothing." Hendrick rose to his feet and was about to call his women to bring their food, when he remembered. 'Ah. There is one other thing. The white woman, the woman who was with you at Rivonia - do you know the one?" Moses nodded. 'Yes, the Courtney woman." 'That is the one. She has sent a message. She wishes to see you again." 'Where is she?" 'She is close by, at a place called Sundi Caves. She has left a telephone number for you. She says it is an important matter." Moses Gama was clearly annoyed. 'I told her not to try and contact me,' he said. 'I warned her of the dangers." He stood up and paced the floor. 'Unless she learns discipline and self-control, she will be of no value to the struggle: White women are like that, spoiled and disobedient and self-indulgent. She must be trained --' Moses broke off and went to the window. Something in the yard had caught his attention, and he called out sharply. 'Wellington!
Raleigh! Come here, both of you." A few seconds later the two boys shuffled self-consciously into the room, and stood just inside the door, hanging their heads guiltily.
'Raleigh, what has happened to you?" Hendrick demanded angrily.
The twins had changed their furs and loincloths for their ordinary clothing, but the gash in Raleigh's forehead was still weeping through the wad of grubby rags he had strapped on it. There were speckles of blood on his shirt, and the swelling had closed one eye.
