man of my years should have but two women who are old for work and the
bearing of children. I have purchased two younger wives.'
'I see,' said Sean, and kept the grin off his face. Mbejane had
invested a large percentage of his capital. 'And what do YOU propose
doing with all your wives, you know we must soon return again to
fight?'
'When the time comes they will go to the kraals of their fathers and
wait for me there. ' Mbejane hesitated delicately. 'I bring them with
me until I am certain that I have trodden on the moon of each of them.
' Treading on a woman's moon was the Zulu expression for interrupting
her menstrual cycle. Mbejane was making sure his investment bore
interest.
'There is a farm upon the hills up there.' Sean seemed to be changing
the subject.
'Many times, Nkosi, you and I have spoken of it. ' But Mbejane
understood and there was an anticipatory gleam in his eyes.
'It is a good farm? ' Sean held him a little longer in suspense.
'It is truly an excellent and beautiful farm. The water is sweeter
than the juice of the sugar-cane, the earth is richer than the flesh of
a young ox, the grass upon it as thick and as full of promise as the
hair on a woman's pudendum. ' Now Mbejane's eyes were shining with
happiness. In his book a farm was a place where a man sat in the sun
with a pot of millet beer beside him and listened to his wives singing
in the fields. It meant cattle, the only true wealth, and many small
sons to herd them.
It meant the end of a long weary road.
'Take your wives with you and select the place where you wish to build
your kraal. ' 'Nkosi. ' There is no Zulu equivalent of thank you. He
could say I praise you, but that was not what Mbejane felt.
At last he found the word. 'Bayete! Nkosi, Bayete! ' The salute to a
King.
Dirk's pony was tethered to the hitching-post in front of the
homestead. Using a charred stick Dirk was writing his name in crude
capitals on the wall of the front veranda.
Although the entire house would be replastered and painted Sean found
himself quivering with anger. He jumped from his horse roaring and
brandishing his sjambok and Dirk disappeared round the corner of the
house. By the time Sean had regained self-control and was sitting on
the veranda wall revelling in the pride of ownership, Mbejane
arrived.
They chatted a while and then Mbejane led his women away. Sean could
trust him to build the beehive huts of his kraal on the richest earth
of Lion Kop.
The last girl in the line was Mbejane's youngest and prettiest wife.
Balancing the large bundle on her head, her back straight, her buttocks
bare except for the strip of cloth that covered the cleft, she walked
away with such unconsciously regal grace that Sean was instantly and
forcibly reminded of Ruth.
His elation subsided. He stood up and walked away from the old
building. Without Ruth in it, this house would not be a home.
