somewhere on the coast where father and son have agreed to meet,' Koots finished, and again they were silent.
Kadem thought about what Koots had told him. He turned it over and back and forth in his mind, the way a jeweller examines a precious stone for impurities. He could detect no false notes in Koots's version of events. 'What do you want of me?' he asked, at last.
'We share the same purpose,' Koots answered. 'I propose a pact, an alliance. Let us take the oath together in the sight of God and his Prophet. Let us dedicate ourselves to the total destruction of our mutual enemies.'
'I agree to that,' said Kadem, and the mad glitter he had so carefully masked returned to his eyes. Koots found it unsettling, more menacing than the cutlass and dagger in the Arab's hands when they had fought that morning.
They took the oath beneath the towering branches of a camel-thorn tree, in which new growth had already burgeoned to replace that which had been devoured by the locust swarms. They swore on the blade and the haft of Kadem's Damascus-steel dagger. Each placed a pinch of coarse salt on the other's tongue. They shared a slice of venison, swallowing a morsel each. With the razor-sharp Damascus blade they opened a vein in their right wrists, then massaged the arm until the blood was flowing bright and warm down into their cupped palms. Then they clasped hands so that their blood mingled, and maintained the grip while Kadem recited the wondrous names of God. At last they embraced.
'You are my brother in blood,' said Kadem, and his voice trembled in awe at the binding power of the oath.
'You are my brother in blood,' Koots said. Though his voice was firm and clear and his gaze into Kadem's eyes was steady, the oath sat lightly upon his conscience. Koots recognized no God, especially not the foreign deity of a dark-skinned, inferior race. The profit in the bargain was all his for he could turn away from it when the time came, even kill his new blood-brother with impunity if it were called for. He knew that Kadem was bound by his hope of salvation and the wrath of his God.
Deep in his heart Kadem recognized the fragility of the bond between them. That evening as they shared the campfire and ate meat together, he showed how astute he was. He gave Koots an undertaking more
poignant than any religious oath. 'I have told you that I am the favourite of my uncle, the Caliph. You know also the power and riches of the Omani empire. Its realm encompasses a great ocean and the Red and Persian Seas. My uncle has promised me great reward if I carry his fat wa to a successful conclusion. You and I have sworn, as brothers in blood, to dedicate ourselves to that end. Once it is done we will return together to the Caliph's palace on Lamu island, and to his gratitude. You will embrace Islam. I will request my uncle to place you in command of all his armies on the African mainland. I will ask him to make you governor of the provinces of Monamatapa, the land from which come the gold and slaves of Opet. You will become a man of power and wealth uncountable.'
The spring tides of Herminius Koots's life were beginning to flow strongly.
Now they moved along the wagon trail with renewed determination. Even Xhia was infected with this enhanced sense of purpose. Twice they cut the trail of herds of elephant coming down out of the north lands. Perhaps in some mysterious way the elephant were aware of the bounty the rains had brought upon the land. From afar Koots surveyed the massed herds of these grey giants through the lens of his telescope, but he showed only a passing interest in them. He would not let a hunt for a few ivory tusks deter him from his main quest.
He ordered Xhia to detour round the herds and they went onwards, leaving them unmolested. Both Koots and Kadem grudged every hour of delay and they drove horses and men hard along the tracks of their quarry.
They passed out of the wide swath that the locusts had cut through the land and left the great plains behind them. They entered a lovely land of rivers and lush forests, and the air tasted as sweet as the perfume of wild flowers. Scenes of great beauty and grandeur surrounded them, and the promise of riches and glory led them onwards.
'We are not far behind the wagons now,' Xhia promised them, 'and each day we draw closer.'
Then they came to a confluence of two rivers, a wide, deep flow and a smaller tributary. Xhia was amazed by what he found there. He led K-oots and Kadem through the field of rotting, sun-dried human remains, which had been chewed and scattered by the hyena and other scavengers. He did not have to point out to them the discarded spears and
assegais and the rawhide shields, most of them shot through by musket fire. 'There was great battle here,' Xhia told them. These shields and weapons are those of the fierce Nguni tribes.'
Koots nodded. No man who had lived and travelled in Africa as he had could have been ignorant of the legend of the warrior tribes of the Nguni. 'Good, so!' he said. 'Tell us what else you see here.'
'The Nguni attacked the wagons Somoya had drawn up here, across the neck between the two rivers. That was a good place for him, his back and both his sides protected by the water. The Nguni had to come at him from the front. He killed them like chickens.' Xhia giggled and shook his head with admiration.
Koots walked across to the crater in the middle of the area of devastated ground in front of which the wagons had stood. 'What is this?' he asked. 'What happened here?'
Xhia picked a short length of charred slow-match out of the dirt, and brandished it. Even though he had seen fuse and explosives used before, he did not have the vocabulary to describe it. Instead he mimed the act of lighting the slow-match and made a sizzling sound as he ran along the path the flame must have taken. When he reached the crater he shouted, 'Ba-poof!' and leaped high into the air to illustrate the explosion. Then he fell on his back and kicked both legs, shrieking with laughter. It was so expressive that even Koots had to laugh.
'By the pox-ridden vagina of the great whore,' he guffawed, 'the Courtney puppy let off a mine under the imp is as they stormed the wagons. We will have to take care when we catch up with him. He has grown as crafty as his father.'
It took Xhia the rest of the day to unravel all the secrets of the battlefield, spread out as it was over such a vast stretch of the veld. He showed Koots the path the routed imp is had taken, and how Jim Courtney and his men had chased them on horseback and shot them down as they ran.
They came at last to the abandoned Nguni encampment, and Xhia became almost incoherent as he realized the extent of the cattle herds Jim had captured. 'Like the grass! Like the locusts!' he squeaked, as he pointed out the spoor the herds had trodden as they were driven away eastwards.
'A thousand?' Koots wondered. 'Five thousand, or maybe more?'
He tried to form a rough estimate of the value of these cattle if he could get them to Good Hope.
There are not enough guilders in the Bank of Batavia, he concluded. One thing is certain. When I catch up with them, Oudeman and these stinking Hottentots will not see a single centime. I will kill them first,
before I hand over a guilder. By the time I am finished here I will make Governor van de Witten look like a pauper in comparison.
That was not the end of it. When they entered the camp Xhia led him to the far side of the encampment where a stockade stood, made of stout timber poles lashed together with strips of bark.
Koots had never seen such a sturdy construction, even in the permanent villages of the tribes. Is it a grain store? he wondered, as he dismounted and entered. He was further puzzled when he found that it contained what seemed to be drying or smoking racks. However, there was no sign of ash or scorched areas beneath them. As with the construction of the walls, the timber used seemed too massive for such a simple purpose. It was clear that the racks had been designed to support a much greater weight than strips of meat.
Xhia was trying to tell him something. He jumped up on the racks and repeated the word 'chicken'. Koots frowned irritably. This was no hen coop, nor even an ostrich coop. Koots shook his head. Xhia began another mime, holding one arm in front of his face like a long nose, and flapping his other hand from the side of his head like an ear. Koots puzzled over the meaning, then remembered that the San words for 'chicken' and 'elephant' were almost identical.
'Elephant?' he asked, and touched the elephant-hide belt at his waist.
'Yes! Yes! You stupid man.' Xhia nodded vigorously.
'Are you mad?' Koots asked in Dutch. 'An elephant would never fit through that doorway.'
Xhia leaped down from the rack and ferreted around under it. Then he crawled out again. He showed Koots what he had found. It was an immature tusk, taken from an elephant calf. It was only as long as Xhia's forearm and so slim that he could encircle it at the thickest point with thumb and finger. It must have been overlooked when the storeroom was emptied. Xhia waved it in Koots's face.
'Ivory?' Koots began to understand. Five years previously, when he was acting as aide-de-camp to the governor of Batavia, the governor had made an official visit to the Sultan of Zanzibar. The Sultan was proud of his collection of ivory tusks. He had invited the governor and his staff to tour his treasury and view the contents. The ivory had been laid out on racks much like these, to keep it off the damp floor.
'Ivory!' Koots breathed hard. These are ivory racks!' He
