The Covenant Part 9

The officers could not believe that these savages were actually proposing that they move into the fort, and when Willem insisted that this was precisely what Jack was suggesting, they broke into laughter. 'We can't have wild men living with us. You tell them to leave the cattle and go.'

But Jack had a broader vision, which he tried to explain to the Dutchmen: 'You need us. We work. We grow cattle for you. We make vegetables. You give us cloth . . . bra.s.s ... all we need. We work together.'

It was the first proposal, seriously made, that natives and whites work together to develop this marvelous tip of the continent; Jack knew how this might be accomplished, but was brusquely repelled: 'Tell him to leave those d.a.m.ned cattle and begone!'

Van Doorn alone, among the white men, understood what was being suggested, and he had the courage to argue with his officers: 'He says we could work together.'

'Together?' the officers exploded, as if with one voice they spoke for all of Holland. 'What could they do to help us?' And one of them pointed grandiloquently to the Dutch guns, the ladders, the wooden boxes and other accouterments of a superior culture.

Van Doorn suggested, 'Sir, they could help us raise cattle.'

'Tell them we wish only to deal with them for the beasts.'

But when the officers proposed to start the bartering, they found that Jack and his little people refused to trade: 'We come. Live with you. Help you. We give you these cattle. Many more. But no more trade.'

This was incomprehensible, that a band of primitives should be laying down terms, and the officers would tolerate no such nonsense. At Banda Island east of Java when the sultan opposed them over the matter of cloves, the entire population of fifteen thousand had been slaughtered. When the Lords XVII heard of this they demurred, but old Jan Pieterszoon Coen had explained firmly, in letters which reached Amsterdam four years after the event: 'In Holland you suggest what we should do. In Java we do what's necessary.' When the sultan on another island refused to cooperate, he and ten thousand of his people were forcibly resettled on Amboyna. If the Compagnie did not tolerate opposition from Spice Islanders, who, after all, were semi-civilized even if they did follow Muhammad, it was certainly not going to allow these primitives to dictate trading terms.

'Take the cattle,' the officers said, but at this, young Van Doorn had to protest: 'In the villages beyond the hills are many Hottentots. If we start trouble . . .'

'He's starting the trouble. Tell him to take his d.a.m.ned cattle, and if he ever comes back here, he'll be shot. Get out!'

The officers would permit no further negotiation, and the Hottentots were dismissed. Slowly, sadly, they herded their fat cattle and started back across the flats, unable to comprehend why their sensible proposal had been rejected.

Willem saw Jack again under pitiful conditions. A group of six sailors applied for permission to hunt the area well north of the fort for eight or nine days, and since barter with the Hottentots was no longer possible and meat was needed, they were encouraged to see if they could find a hippopotamus or a rhinoceros, both of which provided excellent eating. Because the land they were exploring was more arid than that to the south and east, they had to go far, so that they were absent much longer than intended, and when they returned, there were only five.

'We were attacked by Hottentots, and Van Loon was killed by a poisoned arrow.' They had the arrow, a remarkable thing made in three sections bound together by tight collars of sinew, and so made that when the poisoned tip entered the body, the rest broke away, making it impossible to pull out the projectile.

'We cut it out,' the men explained. 'And he lived for three days, always getting weaker till he died.'

The officers were outraged and swore revenge on the Hottentots, but Van Doorn recalled something Jack had told him during his stay at the village: 'We don't ever hunt north. The San . . . that's their land.' That's all he could remember; it had been a warning which he had overlooked, and now his companion was dead.

He suggested that he go east to discuss this tragedy with Jack, and although the officers ridiculed the idea at first, upon reflection they saw that it would be unwise to engage in open warfare with the little brown men if the latter enjoyed superior numbers and a weapon so frightening. So they gave consent, and with two armed companions Van Doorn set out to talk with Jack, taking the arrow with him.

As soon as the Hottentots saw it they showed their fear: 'San. The little ones who live in bush. You must never go their land.' They showed how the arrow worked and explained that they themselves were terrified of these little men who had no cattle, no sheep, no kraals: 'They are terrible enemies if we go their land. If we stay our land, they let us alone.'

It was amusing to Willem to hear the Hottentots speak of this vague enemy as 'the little ones,' but Jack convinced him that the San were truly much smaller: 'We keep our cattle toward the ocean. More difficult for little ones to creep in.'

And so open warfare between the Hottentots and the Dutch was a-voided. One of the men drafted a report to Amsterdam, explaining that the Cape was uninhabitable, worth positively nothing and incapable of providing the supplies the Compagnie fleets required: Much better we continue to provision at St. Helena. There is no reason why any future Compagnie s.h.i.+p should enter this dangerous Bay, especially since three separate enemies threaten any establishment, the Strandloopers, the Hottentots and these little savages who live in the bush with their poisoned arrows.

At the moment this man was composing such a report, an officer was walking through the fortress gardens and noticing that with the seeds rescued from the wreck of the Haerlem Haerlem his special group of gardening men had been able to grow pumpkins, watermelons, cabbages, carrots, radishes, turnips, onions, garlic, while his butchers were pa.s.sing along to the cooks good supplies of eland, steenbok, hippopotamus, penguins from Robben Island and sheep they had stolen from the Hottentot meadows. his special group of gardening men had been able to grow pumpkins, watermelons, cabbages, carrots, radishes, turnips, onions, garlic, while his butchers were pa.s.sing along to the cooks good supplies of eland, steenbok, hippopotamus, penguins from Robben Island and sheep they had stolen from the Hottentot meadows.

In January the sailors at the fort observed one of the great mysteries of the sea. On 16 September 1647, two splendid Compagnie s.h.i.+ps had set sail from Holland, intending to make the long journey to Java and back. This could require as much as two years, counting the time that might be spent on side trips to the Spice Islands or j.a.pan. The White Dove White Dove was a small, swift flute, economically handled by a crew of only forty-eight and captained by a man who believed that cleanliness and the avoidance of scurvy were just as important as good navigation. When he arrived at the Cape for provisioning, all his men were healthy, thanks to lemon juice and pickled cabbage, and he was eager to continue his pa.s.sage to Java. was a small, swift flute, economically handled by a crew of only forty-eight and captained by a man who believed that cleanliness and the avoidance of scurvy were just as important as good navigation. When he arrived at the Cape for provisioning, all his men were healthy, thanks to lemon juice and pickled cabbage, and he was eager to continue his pa.s.sage to Java.

He told the personnel at the fort that the Lords XVII had them in mind and thanked them especially for their rescue of the peppercorns, which would be of immense value when they finally reached Amsterdam.

'Thanks are appreciated,' the fortress officer growled, 'but when do we get away from here?'

'The Christmas fleet out of Batavia,' the captain said. 'It's sure to pick you up.' He asked if any sailors wished to return with him to Java; none did, but his invitation rankled in Willem's mind.

It was not like before. He did not oscillate between Holland and Java. His whole attention was directed to a more specific question: What could he do now to best ensure his return to this Cape? He was finding that it contained all the attraction of Java, all the responsibility of Holland, plus the solid reality of a new continent to be mastered. It was a challenge of such magnitude that his heart beat like a drum when he visualized what it would be like to establish a post here, to organize a working agreement with the Hottentots, to explore the world of the murderous little San, and most of all, to move eastward beyond the dark blue hills he had seen from the top of Table Mountain. Nowhere could he serve Amsterdam and Batavia more effectively than here.

He found no solution to his problem and was in deep confusion when the White Dove White Dove prepared to sail, for he could not judge whether he ought to go with her or not. His attention was diverted when that s.h.i.+p's sister, the towering East Indiaman prepared to sail, for he could not judge whether he ought to go with her or not. His attention was diverted when that s.h.i.+p's sister, the towering East Indiaman Princesse Royale, Princesse Royale, limped into the bay. She was a new s.h.i.+p, grand and imposing, with a p.o.o.p deck like a castle, and instead of the limped into the bay. She was a new s.h.i.+p, grand and imposing, with a p.o.o.p deck like a castle, and instead of the White Dove's White Dove's complement of forty-nine, she carried three hundred and sixty-eight. Her captain was a no-nonsense veteran who scorned lemon juice and kegs of sauerkraut: 'I captain a great s.h.i.+p and see her through the storms.' As a consequence, twenty-six of his people were already dead, another seventy were deathly ill, and the tropical half of the voyage still loomed. complement of forty-nine, she carried three hundred and sixty-eight. Her captain was a no-nonsense veteran who scorned lemon juice and kegs of sauerkraut: 'I captain a great s.h.i.+p and see her through the storms.' As a consequence, twenty-six of his people were already dead, another seventy were deathly ill, and the tropical half of the voyage still loomed.

When the two captains met with the fortress officers, Willem could see clearly how dissimilar they were: A man who runs a big, pompous s.h.i.+p has to be big and pompous. A man who captains a swift little flute can afford to be alert and eager. He was not surprised next morning when the White Dove White Dove hauled anchor early, as if it wished to avoid further contact with the poorly run hauled anchor early, as if it wished to avoid further contact with the poorly run Princesse Royale, Princesse Royale, nor was he surprised when he found that the nor was he surprised when he found that the White Dove White Dove had taken with it a healthy portion of the available fresh vegetables and fresh meat. After sixty-eight steaming-hot days the flute would land in Java without having lost a man. had taken with it a healthy portion of the available fresh vegetables and fresh meat. After sixty-eight steaming-hot days the flute would land in Java without having lost a man.

When Willem loaded provisions aboard the Princesse Royale Princesse Royale he was appalled to find that more than ninety pa.s.sengers lay in their filthy beds, too weak to walk ash.o.r.e. Many were obviously close to death, and he saw for himself the difference between the management of the two s.h.i.+ps. They had sailed from the same port, on the same day, staffed by officers of comparable background, and they had traversed the same seas in the same temperature. Yet one was healthful, the other a charnel house whose major deaths lay ahead. But when he asked the men at the fort about this, they said, 'It's G.o.d's will.' he was appalled to find that more than ninety pa.s.sengers lay in their filthy beds, too weak to walk ash.o.r.e. Many were obviously close to death, and he saw for himself the difference between the management of the two s.h.i.+ps. They had sailed from the same port, on the same day, staffed by officers of comparable background, and they had traversed the same seas in the same temperature. Yet one was healthful, the other a charnel house whose major deaths lay ahead. But when he asked the men at the fort about this, they said, 'It's G.o.d's will.'

He thought much about G.o.d in these days of perplexity, and secretly went to the bra.s.sbound Bible, trying like his forefathers to ascertain what G.o.d wished him to do. And one night by a flickering candle he read a pa.s.sage which electrified him, for in it G.o.d ordered his chosen people to undertake a specific mission: And I will establish my covenant between me and thee . . . And I will give unto thee, and unto thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession . . .

G.o.d was offering this new land in covenant to his chosen people, and the manner in which a few ardent Dutchmen had been able to withstand for generations the whole power of Spain proved that they were chosen. Willem was convinced that soon the Lords XVII in Amsterdam must recognize the obligation that G.o.d was placing upon them. Then they would manfully occupy the Cape, as He intendedand where would they find the cadres to do the job? In Java, of course, where men who understood these waters worked. He would hurry back to Java on the Princesse Royale Princesse Royale to be ready when the call came. to be ready when the call came.

When he informed his officers of this decision, the man from Groningen applauded: 'Just what I'd do,' but he would have been incredulous had he known why Willem was doing it.

On the night before sailing, Van Doorn sat in his quarters, wondering how to safeguard his large Bible. If he took it aboard s.h.i.+p, it would be recognized as Compagnie property and confiscated; this he would not tolerate, for he felt in some mystical way that he had saved the Bible for some grand purpose and that it was dictating his present behavior. So toward morning, when the fort was quiet, he carried it away, and as he walked through the fading darkness he remembered the post-office stones, where messages of grave importance were deposited, but a moment's reflection warned him that whereas tightly wrapped and sealed letters might survive in such dampness, a book like this Bible would not. Then he recalled that on one of his climbs of Table Mountain he had come upon a series of caves, not deep, and although the mountain was distant, he set out briskly for it, carrying his treasure, and before midnight, with the moon as guide, he found the cave and hid the canvas-wrapped Bible well in the rear, under a cairn of stones. He was convinced that it would be his lodestone, drawing him back. At noon, when the Princesse Royale Princesse Royale sailed, he was a pa.s.senger. sailed, he was a pa.s.senger.

It was a voyage into the bowels of h.e.l.l. Before the Cape was cleared, sailors were tossing dead bodies overboard, and not a day pa.s.sed without the quaking death of someone suddenly attacked by fever. When Willem first saw the mouth of a woman struck down by scurvyher gums swollen so grossly that no teeth could be seenhe was aghast; he had crossed this sea in the Haerlem Haerlem without such affliction and he did not yet fully understand why this s.h.i.+p should be so stricken. without such affliction and he did not yet fully understand why this s.h.i.+p should be so stricken.

As it limped down the Straits of Malacca, two and three bodies each day were thrown overboard, and when Van Doorn wanted, in his exuberance, to explain how the Dutch had captured the Portuguese fort that had once blocked these waters, he found no one well enough to listen; the great Indiaman creaked and wallowed in the sea, with more than a hundred and thirty dead and many of the survivors so afflicted that the sweats of Java would kill them within a few months.

When the charnel s.h.i.+p reached the roadstead at Batavia, there waited the little White Dove, White Dove, washed and ready for a further trip to Formosa. The two captains met briefly: 'How was it?' washed and ready for a further trip to Formosa. The two captains met briefly: 'How was it?'

'As always.'

'When do you return to Holland?'

'Whenever they say.' On the return trip the Princesse Royale Princesse Royale would lose one hundred and fifteen. would lose one hundred and fifteen.

Mevrouw van Doorn was not pleased to learn that her younger son had returned to Java. She suspected that some deficiency in character had driven him to scurry back to an easy land he knew rather than risk his chances in the wintry intellectual climate of Holland, and she feared that this might be the first fatal step in his ultimate degeneration.

Willem had antic.i.p.ated his mother's apprehensions but feared he might sound fatuous if he spread before her his real motivations: a vision from a mountaintop; a friends.h.i.+p with a little savage; a dictate from a buried Bible. Keeping his counsel to himself, he plunged into the solitary job of drafting a long report to his superiors in Batavia, in hopes that they would forward it to the Lords XVII.

In it he made his sober estimation of what the Dutch might achieve if they were to establish a base at the Cape of Good Hope. A Cautious Calculation A Cautious Calculation he t.i.tled it, and in it he reconstructed all he had witnessed during his months as a castaway, informing the merchants in charge of the Compagnie of the potential riches in this new land: he t.i.tled it, and in it he reconstructed all he had witnessed during his months as a castaway, informing the merchants in charge of the Compagnie of the potential riches in this new land: Three separate vessels gave us seeds, two from Holland, one from England, and every seed we planted produced good vegetables, some bigger than those we see from home. Sailors who know many countries said, 'This is the sweetest food I have ever eaten.' On my trip to the native village I saw melons, grapelike climbers and other fruits.

He compiled meticulous lists of what had flourished in the Compagnie gardens, how many cattle the Hottentots had, and what kinds of birds could be shot on Robben Island. It was a catalogue of value and should have been an encouragement to anyone contemplating the establishment of a provisioning base, but suspicious readers were apt to linger most carefully over those pa.s.sages in which he detailed the life of the Hottentots: They go quite naked with a little piece of skin about their privities. To gain protection for their bodies they smear themselves with a mixture of cow dung and sand, increasing it month after month until they can be smelled for great distances. Men dress their hair with sheep dung, allowing it to harden stiff as a board. The women commonly put the guts of wild beasts when dry around their legs and these serve as an adornment.

He provided the Compagnie with a careful distinction between the Strandloopers, a degenerate group of scavenging outcasts, the Hottentots, who were herders, and the Bushmen, who lived without cattle in the interior.

He calculated how many s.h.i.+ps could take on fresh vegetables if the Compagnie established a place to grow them at the Cape, and then showed that if they could stabilize relations with the Hottentots, they might also obtain almost unlimited supplies of fresh meat. He advised abandoning the stop at St. Helena, with the sensible caution that if the Dutch did not peaceably withdraw, the English would in time throw them out.

It was a masterful calculation, prudent in all important matters, and it accomplished nothing. Officials at Batavia felt that a spot so distant was no concern of theirs, while the Lords XVII deemed it impudent for a man little more than a sailor to involve himself in such matters. So far as he could see, nothing happened.

But a word once written will often accidentally find a life that no one antic.i.p.ates; it lies folded in a drawer and is forgotten, except that sometimes at moments unexpected someone will ask, during a discussion, 'Isn't that what Van Doorn said some years ago?' The pa.s.sage from A Cautious Calculation A Cautious Calculation which kept reviving in two cities half a world apart concerned s.h.i.+ps: which kept reviving in two cities half a world apart concerned s.h.i.+ps: How is it that two s.h.i.+ps of comparable quality throughout, manned by men of equal health and training, can sail from Amsterdam to Batavia and one arrives with all men ready for work in Java while the other comes into port with one-third of its crew so stricken that they must die within a year from our fevers and another third already buried at sea? There are no such things as good-luck s.h.i.+ps and bad-luck s.h.i.+ps. There are only fresh food, rest, clean quarters and whatever it is that fights scurvy. A halt of three weeks at the Cape of Good Hope, with fresh vegetables, lemon trees, and meat from the Hottentots would save the Compagnie a thousand lives a year.

Many of the Lords XVII felt that it was not their duty to worry about the health of sailors, and one said, 'When the baker bakes a pie, some crust falls to the floor.' He was applauded by those other Lords who had rebuked a subordinate in Java for sending two s.h.i.+ps of Compagnie food to starving field hands in Ceylon: 'It is not our responsibility to feed the weaklings of the world.'

But to other members of the ruling body, Van Doorn's comments on the Cape reverberated, and from time to time these men brought the matter of excessive death to the attention of their fellows. One estimated that it cost the Compagnie a goodly three hundred guilders to land a man at Batavia, and that if he did not work at least five years, that cost could never be recovered, and there the debate ended, with no action taken.

Mevrouw van Doorn watched with dismay as her younger son slipped into the dull routine of a lesser clerk at the disposal of less able young men who had been trained in Holland. Willem's brightness dimmed and his shoulders began to droop. He often wore a girlish chain about his neck with an ivory circle dangling from it, and what was most painful of all, he was beginning to drift into the orbit of the few Dutch widows who stayed on at Batavia, but without the family fortunes that Mevrouw had when she decided to remain. They were a fat, sorry lot, 'sea elephants ridden by any bull that wished,' and it would not be long before Willem would be coming to inform her that he proposed taking one or the other to wife. After that, nothing could be salvaged.

And then one day in 1652 as Mevrouw van Doorn, white-haired and plump, arranged for her New Year's celebration, the startling news reached Batavia that a refreshment station had been started at the Cape of Good Hope under the command of Jan van Riebeeck. It was a matter of debate as to which part of this news was more sensational, the station itself or its proposed manager, but as Hendrickje said loudly, to the delight of her audience, 'If a man isn't clever enough to steal from the Compagnie, he won't be clever enough to steal for it.'

Willem van Doorn was in the garden when his mother said this, but he caught the name Van Riebeeck and asked as he came through the doors, 'Van Riebeeck? I met him. What about him?'

'He's been chosen to head a new settlement at Good Hope.'

Willem, twenty-seven and already flaccid, just stood in the doorway, framed in spring flowers, and his hands began to tremble, for the long dry period of his life was over. After he gained control he began to ask many questions regarding how he might win an a.s.signment to the Cape, when an aide to the governor-general called him aside: 'Van Doorn, we've been asked to send the new settlement a few of our experienced men. To help them get started.' And Willem was about to volunteer when the aide said, 'Younger men, of course, and the council wondered if you could recommend some men for the lower echelons. For the higher, we'll do the choosing.'

And so Willem van Doorn, no longer considered young enough for an adventurous post, busied himself with selecting the first contingent of Batavia men to serve at the Cape, and it was a sorry task because none of the men wanted to leave the luxury of Java for that windblown wilderness.

The fleet sailed and Willem was left behind; his essay was kept in chests, both in Amsterdam and Batavia; and the man who as much as any had spurred the establishment of this new station was barred from joining it. The months pa.s.sed, and Willem ran down to each incoming fleet to inquire as to affairs at the Cape, and then one day a message reached the council that Commander van Riebeeck was wondering if he might have permission to obtain a few slaves from Java for his personal use in growing vegetables, and the same aide who had dashed Willem's hopes previously now offered a dazzling proposal: 'Van Riebeeck's buying a few slaves for the Cape. And since you drafted that report ... I mean, since you know the land there, we thought you might be the man to handle this courtesy.'

Willem bowed, then bowed again. 'I would be honored to have such confidence placed in me.' And when the aide was gone, he dashed to see his mother, shouting, 'I'm going to the Cape.'

'When?' she asked quietly.

'With the Christmas fleet.'

'So soon!' She had longed for the day when her son would announce that he was returning to Holland, 'to save himself,' as she put it, and was distraught that he was sentencing himself to a place even more demeaning than Java. Now he would never attain a Compagnie position, and only G.o.d knew what might happen to him. But even the Cape was better than lingering here in Java and marrying some local s.l.u.t. So be it.

On the eve of departure she sat with him in her s.p.a.cious reception room and said, 'When you think of me, I'll be here in this house. I'll never sell it. If I went back to Holland, I'd be tormented by memories of my musicians playing in the garden.'

She seemed so completely the epitome of those Dutch stalwarts who controlled the worldJava, Brazil, Manhattan Island, Formosathat Willem knew she needed no cosseting from him, but when she took down her Dutch Bible and said, 'I memorized pa.s.sages at night when it was death at Spanish hands to own a Bible,' he was overcome with love and confided: 'When our s.h.i.+p was breaking apart I crept back and found this great Bible abandoned to the sea. And when I saw that it was the same as yours, I knew I had been sent to save it, and that if I showed it to anyone, it would be taken from me. So I buried it in a cave, and it calls me to return.'

'I've never heard a better reason to sail, anywhere,' his mother said, and when the Christmas fleet departed, on December 20, she was at the wharf to bid him farewell. That night, back in her big house, she began her preparations for what she termed 'the feast of the dying year.' She borrowed the musicians, supervised the roasting of the pigs, and nodded approvingly when servants dragged in the liquor. As the year ebbed she and her Dutch equals roared old songs and wa.s.sailed and fell in stupors and slept them off. Java would always be Queen of the East and Batavia her golden capital.

The council had agreed that Van Riebeeck's slaves must come not from Java, whose natives were intractable, but from Malacca, where the gentler Malayans adjusted more easily to servitude, so when the fleet transited the Straits, Willem's s.h.i.+p put in to that fine harbor and he went ash.o.r.e to inform the commandant of the fort that four slaves were to be delivered, whereupon a sergeant and three men went off to the forests back of town, returning shortly with two brown-skinned men and two women. Before nightfall Willem's s.h.i.+p had overtaken the fleet, and the long journey to the Cape was under way.

One of the slaves was a girl named Ateh, seventeen years old and beautiful in the tawny manner of most Malayan women. She pouted when the sailors confined her and the others in a caged-off section belowdecks, and she protested when food was thrown at them. She demanded water for was.h.i.+ng, and the sailors heard her commanding the others to behave. And at some point in each day, no matter how dismal it had been, she broke into song, whispering words she had learned as a child in her sunlit village. They were songs of little consequence, the ramblings of children and young women in love, but she made the dark hold more acceptable when she sang.

By the time the journey was half over, this girl Ateh was so well known that even the captain had to take notice of her, and it was he who gave her the name by which she would later be known: 'Ateh is pagan. If you're going to sing in a Christian church, you've got to have a Christian name.' Thumbing through his Bible, and keeping to the Old Testament, as the Dutch usually did, he came upon that lyrical pa.s.sage in Judges which seemed predestined for this singing girl: 'Awake, awake, Deborah: awake, awake, utter a song . . .'

'Prophetic!' he said, closing the book reverently. 'That shall be her name Deborah,' and henceforth she was so called.

Since it was Willem's responsibility to deliver the slaves, and since he wished to keep them alive if possible, it being usual in these waters that thirty percent died on any pa.s.sage, he was often belowdecks to satisfy himself that they were properly cared for, and this threw him always into consultation with Deborah. Before he came down the ladder, she would be huddled in a corner reviling the ill fortune that had brought her there, but when she saw him coming she would move forward to the bars of the cage and begin to sing. She would feign surprise at his arrival and halt her song in mid-note, looking at him shyly, with her face hidden.

Since the fleet had now entered that part of the Indian Ocean where temperatures were highest, the penned slaves were beginning to suffer. Food, water and air were all lacking, and one midday, when the heat was greatest, Willem saw that Deborah was lying on the deck, near to prostration, and on his own recognizance he unlocked the gate that enclosed the slaves and carried the girl out to where the air was freer, kneeling over her as she slowly revived.

He was amazed at how slight her body was; and as she lay in shadows her wonderfully placid face with its high cheekbones and softly molded eyelids captivated him, and he stayed with her for a long time. When she revived he found that she could speak the native language of Java, with its curious tradition of forming plurals by speaking the singular twice. If sate sate was the word for the bamboo-skewered bits of lamb roasted and served with peanut sauce, then two of the delicacies were not was the word for the bamboo-skewered bits of lamb roasted and served with peanut sauce, then two of the delicacies were not sates, sates, as in many languages, but as in many languages, but sate-sate; sate-sate; to hear natives speaking rapidly gave the impression of lovely soft voices stuttering, and Willem began to cherish the sound of Deborah's voice, whether she sang or spoke. to hear natives speaking rapidly gave the impression of lovely soft voices stuttering, and Willem began to cherish the sound of Deborah's voice, whether she sang or spoke.

On most days he arranged some excuse for releasing her from the cage, a partiality which angered both the Dutch seamen and the other slaves. One evening, when the time came for her freedom to end, he suggested that she not go back into the cage but remain with him, and through the long, humid night, when stars danced at the tip of the mast, they stayed together, and after that adventure everyone knew they had become lovers.

This posed no great problem, for scores of Dutchmen working in Java had mistresses; there was even a ritual for handling their b.a.s.t.a.r.d offspring, and no great harm was done. But the captain had been commissioned by Mevrouw van Doorn to look after her son, and when he saw the young Dutchman becoming serious about the little slave girl he felt obligated to warn him as a father might, and one morning when sailors reported: 'Mijn-heer van Doorn kept the little Malaccan in his quarters again,' the older man summoned Willem to his cabin, where he sat in a large wicker chair behind a table on which rested another of those large Dutch Bibles bound in bra.s.s.

'Mister Willem, I've been informed that your head has been twisted by the little Malaccan!'

'Not twisted, sir, I hope.'

'And you've been acting toward her as if she were your wife.'

'I trust not, sir.'

'Your mother put your safekeeping in my hands, Mister Willem, and as your father, I deem it proper to ask if you've been reading the Book of Genesis?'

'I know the Book, sir.'

'But have you read it recently?' the captain asked, and with this he threw open the heavy book to a page marked with a spray of palm leaf, and from the twenty-fourth chapter he read the thundering oath which Abraham imposed when his son Isaac hungered for a wife: 'And I will make thee swear by the Lord, the G.o.d of heaven, and the G.o.d of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife ... of the daughters of the Canaanites . . . but thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife . . .'

Slowly the captain turned the pages till he came to the next pa.s.sage marked by a frond. Placing his two hands over the pages, he said ominously, 'And when Isaac was an old man, having obeyed his father Abraham, what did he say when his son Jacob wanted a wife?' Dramatically he lifted his hands and with a stubby finger pointed to the revealing verse: And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Neemt geene vrowe van de dochteren Canaans.

Willem, seeing the words spelled out so strictly, felt constrained to a.s.sure the captain that he meant nothing serious with the Malaccan girl, but the older man was not to be diverted: 'It's always been the problem in Java and it will soon become the problem at the Cape. Where can a Dutch gentleman find himself a wife?'

'Where?' Willem echoed.

'G.o.d has foreseen this problem, as He foresees everything.' With a flourish he swung the parchment pages back to the first text, indicating it with his left forefinger. 'Go back to your own country and be patient. Don't throw yourself away on local women, the way those idiots in Java do.' Pointing to the deck below, he added, 'Nor on slaves.'

'Am I to wait perpetually?'

'No, because when you debark with your slaves at the Cape, this fleet continues to Holland. And when we reach Amsterdam, I'll speak to your brother Karel and commission him to find you a wife from among the women of Holland, the way Isaac and Jacob found their wives in their native country. I'll bring her back to you.'

When Willem drew back in obvious distaste over having his life arranged by others, the captain closed the great book and rested his open hands upon it. 'It tells you what to do right here. Obey the word of the Lord.'

The visit to the captain changed nothing. Willem continued to keep his slave girl in his quarters, and it was she who obeyed the Bible, for like the original Deborah, she continued to sing, twisting herself ever more tightly about his heart.

Then abruptly everything changed. One afternoon as the east coast of Africa neared, Deborah sat on the lower deck whispering an old song to herself, but as Willem approached she stopped midway and told him, 'I shall have a baby.'

With great tenderness he drew her to her feet, embraced her, and asked in Javanese, 'Are you sure?'

'Not sure,' she said softly, 'but I think.'

She was correct. Early one morning, as she rose from Willem's bed, she felt faint and dropped to the deck, sitting there with her arms clasped about her ankles. She was about to inform Willem that she was certain of her pregnancy, when the mast-top lookout started shouting, 'Table Mountain!' and all hands turned out to see the marvelous sight.

Willem was overcome when he saw the great flat mountain standing clear in the sunlight, for it symbolized his longing. Years had elapsed since he left it, and he could imagine the vast changes that must have occurred at its base, and he was thinking of them when Deborah came to stand beside him.

Aware of the hold this mountain had on him, she said nothing, just hummed softly, whispering the words now and then, and when he took notice of her she placed her left hand, very small and brown, on his right arm and said, 'We will have a baby.' The mountain, the waiting cave and the indiscernible future blended into a kind of golden haze, and he could not even begin to guess what he must do.

When he was rowed ash.o.r.e, leaving Deborah behind, for she must wait till an owner was a.s.signed, he found a settlement much smaller than expected; only a hundred and twenty-two people inhabited the place. There was a small fort with sod walls threatening to dissolve on rainy days, and a huddle of rude buildings within. But the site! Back in 1647 when the s.h.i.+pwrecked sailors lived ash.o.r.e, their beach headquarters had been nine miles to the north, and Willem had seen only from a distance the delectable valley at the foot of Table Mountain; now he stood at the edge of that good land, protected by mountains on three sides, and he believed that when sufficient settlers arrived this would be one of the finest towns in the world.

He was greeted by the commander, a small, energetic man in his late thirties of such swarthy complexion that blond Dutchmen suspected him of Italian parentage. He wore a rather full mustache and dressed as fastidiously as frontier conditions would allow. He spoke in a voice higher than usual in a mature man, but with such speed and force that he gained attention and respect.

He was Jan van Riebeeck, s.h.i.+p's chirurgeon, who had served in most of the spice ports, winding up in j.a.pan after abandoning medicine to become a merchant-trader, a skill he mastered so thoroughly that he was making profits for both the Compagnie and himself. For each hour he spent in the former's interests, he spent an equal time on his own, until his profits grew to such dimension that the Compagnie had to take notice. Accused of private trading, he was recalled to Batavia, where he was dealt with leniently and s.h.i.+pped back to Holland for discipline. Forced into premature retirement, he might well have finished his life in obscurity had not a peculiar circ.u.mstance thrust him back into the mainstream and an honored place in history.

When the Lords XVII decided to establish a recuperation spot at the Cape, they selected as their manager one of the men who had guarded the trade goods following the wreck of the Haerlem. Haerlem. He had been chosen because of his familiarity with the area, but when he declined, a wise old director said, 'Wait! What we really need is a merchant of proved ability.' He had been chosen because of his familiarity with the area, but when he declined, a wise old director said, 'Wait! What we really need is a merchant of proved ability.'

'Who?'

'Van Riebeeck.'

'Can we trust him?' several of the Lords asked.