And so it is that we have been here ten days now, in which time we have enjoyed peaceful occupation of the town. Eight days after we took the town, a man approached and called out at the top of his voice that he came alone. He crawled on his stomach before Amoda and asked for peace.
“We have taken our dead and buried them. We ask for your mercy. It was all the fault of the bad son of our Chief, who brought all this upon us.”
We were great wizards, he had heard, for we carried not only the power of the gun, but also a powerful medicine in the form of the body of a white man.
Amoda said, “That is true, we will show you the body that we carry.”
The man was absolutely petrified at the thought and said they would leave us in peace, but we were pleased to leave the town whole. For now, they would seek far and wide medicine men who would perform cleansing rituals after we left. If a man of sufficient power could not be found they would have to abandon the whole town.
Amoda’s deception was a wise one, though it pains me to admit it. By owning up to the witchcraft and aligning it to great power, he had bought for us a truce, and some rest. As I tried to find sleep that night, it came to me that from every perspective possible, our whole enterprise was so desperate, so foolhardy, that it had accumulated its own stock of determination. I could only hope that this was the last provocation that we would meet.
12
27 July 1873
Twelfth Entry from the Journal of Jacob Wainwright; in which the Expedition remains at Chawende’s, and in that Palace Beautiful, Wainwright is sidetracked by the Pleasantness of By-Path Meadow.
We have been at Chawende’s for an entire fortnight. Certain that we will enjoy undisturbed occupation of the town, we have resolved to remain here while the weak and injured recover. The Doctor’s body rests in an empty granary, and indeed, without its mournful presence ever before us as we march, I sometimes forget that he is among us at all.
It has been a period of great peace, the only peace any of us have known since we began traveling with the Doctor. We have access to a flowing stream, and are able to wash ourselves, and our clothing. There is plenty of food and grain, the women cook, the chickens are in a flutter as they run from the pot. And I am most especially pleased to report that a small Congregation of the Faithful is now flourishing in this wilderness.
Even without being ordained, I find that I am doing better than the Doctor, who thought it a great joke that he had only ever turned one soul to God. “It was a chief in Bechuanaland, Jacob,” he said, “a man called Sechele. He promised to turn his face to Christ. Send away all your wives but one, I told him, for Our Gracious Lord can only receive you if you have but the one. And this Sechele did, for he sent them away, but I cannot say it was much of a success, Jacob, because when I visited him again some years later, the wives were all present, and one more besides, all showing most troubling signs of their expecting.”
I marveled at the opportunity that had so lamentably been lost. Had the seed of the Lamb only taken root in his heart, what a reaping would there have been! The Doctor also talked of meeting a great chief he called Sebituane, who was the Sultan of a people called the Makololo. He called him a great friend and talked of many conversations they had had after he cured his son of malaria.
Here again, another lost chance to win a soul to God!
In my mind I saw it, the light shining from the center of Bechuanaland, the light blazing from all Makolololand, across the entire continent, as heathen after heathen was washed in the blood of the Lamb, removing Sin and Darkness, and above all, Slavery, the Dark Stain that has blighted many a life. I wondered that the Doctor did not see how costly was Sechele’s return to his heathen ways, how grave an error to let the other heathen chief, Sebituane, live his life without so much as an attempt to say to him, “Look out, Heathen Chief, you are in Lamentable Peril; for the burden that you carry upon your back shall surely sink you into Tophet, where a Great Fire waits to consume you.”
I pray every night for the Influence of the Holy Spirit over these Heathen Chiefs, that they might come back to the Flock of the Lamb. And I prayed for all heathens, and most especially for my own father and mother and sister, wherever they may be, and that I might one day be in the position of great influence, an adviser to a chief or sultan, to a king loved by his people, that I might, through such an office, bring all his people to the redeeming love of Christ.
I am certain that as long as Christ is my Champion, I will succeed where the Doctor failed, and win lives to God, as I am doing now. In addition to Chirango, here in Chawende I now have eleven other adherents who are interested in the new faith. Chirango, whom I hold dear in my heart as my First Convert, has been a most able and obliging assistant. I baptized them in the river all on one day, in the old way of the Baptist John. It is true that I have not yet the power to deliver the sacraments, but I am certain that when I get to England, they will overlook that and rejoice over the Lost Sheep I have regained for the Shepherd.
I renewed my prayer that before our time together was over, I would have converted many in the party, and most particularly, that I would win for my Lord the soul of the Mohammedan Abdullah Susi.
I find that those of no real faith are more likely to convert, while the more stubborn among the Mohammedans are harder to sway. The battle we endured and the fear of what awaits us outside have been most conducive to turning minds to Christ.
I initially made the mistake of rather emphasizing more than I should have God’s Mercy, and the gift of His Grace. This unfortunately gave my congregants the lamentable idea that it is perfectly possible for them to sin, then confess to the evil of their sin, pray for the forgiveness of their sin, then sin again, confess the sin, and pray for the forgiveness of sin in an endless cycle of sin, confession, repentance, forgiveness, and sin. It is a Papist idea, and one that I am not keen to encourage.
I have found that it is when they are in the most terror that their minds are most receptive. And so it is that in our services, I emphasize less the teachings on forgiveness and lay stress on those readings where the Mighty God shows His wrath and not His Loving-Kindness. They will come to love my Lord Jehovah as I do, but first, they must earn their own salvation with fear and trembling.
“Fear God,” I tell them, “and keep His commandments, for this is the Whole Duty of Man. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.”
And I speak to them of the Wars of God. I thunder to them of the Lord of War who smote the Ammonites and Hittites, who brought fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah and turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt.
I tell them of how He smote the men of Bethshemesh, even as He smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men, and the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten them with a great slaughter. For as it is written in the Psalms of King Solomon, He makes wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and cuts the spear; he burns chariots in the fire.
When I preach thus, they get into a fever pitch of ecstasy, shaking their bodies all while their voices tremble. Such is the power of my words when the Spirit moves me. It is as though I speak words of Lightning with the conviction of Thunder.
Away from my small congregation, things are not as peaceful. I had anticipated that the women would create many a difficulty, and I have been proved correct. Halima and Ntaoéka in particular are always coming to blows, for without the poor dead Misozi between them, they have been going over some long-remembered grievances. It is also a frequent bone of contention between them that Halima believes that Ntaoéka is frequently unkind to her child, Losi. As if a creature of Ntaoéka’s gentleness could ever be unjust to any person.
Chirango was so troubled by the situation that he interceded with me. In his respectful voice, he said, “Mwalimu, you must do what you can.”
This is what he calls me now, Mwalimu, meaning “Teacher,” and I must say it is a word that falls pleasantly on the e
ar. He continued, “I thought the best thing would be for her to come to you, that she spend time praying with us and coming to know the Lord.”
I thought he meant Halima, for certainly, she was the cause of the quarrel, but it was not her of whom he spoke. “It is Ntaoéka that you should talk to,” he said. “You may have influence over her that her own husband does not.”
I looked at him sharply.
He blinked his eye, licked his lips, and said, “You could find a way to talk to her, Mwalimu, to comfort her, for she is sorely troubled by the harsh words Halima has directed at her. I can, if you wish, talk to her for you, and will ask her to join us at our service tonight.”
Chirango was true to his word, for Ntaoéka came to the next service. My heart rejoiced to see her listening closely, and it seemed to drop to my feet when, on opening one eye, I saw that hers were fully open, and were on me. I thought again of all the names she could take if she converted, Elizabeth perhaps, the mother of the Baptist, or Eunice, the mother of Timothy.
We were to meet again for morning prayers.
We were now so secure in our possession of the town that we could wander in and out of the gates without fear. The nearby stream had many trees overhanging it that created a pleasant and shaded place, and it was there that I met with my congregants, far from the derision of the others.
To this place we walked on the first morning that Ntaoéka joined us. But it was to find that someone had got there ahead of us, for there was a small bundle of clothes gathered in the water, next to a rock that was halfway into the water, and on which the women frequently washed clothes. Ntaoéka had the same thought, for she said: “I wonder who it is who washes clothes at this hour.”
We looked around to see who had risen at this early hour but there was no other person to be seen. Ntaoéka walked over to the pile of clothes, and as she did so, I felt a terrible foreboding. I called out for her to stop just at the moment she leaned over to inspect the clothes.
She rose with a fearful scream. She rushed back to where we stood. I instinctively held out my arms to her as she said, trembling, “It is a child. I think it is a child.”
I left her and went to look for myself. It was indeed a child. The clean heels of small feet that were turned toward me in the water told me that. The body was facedown. I turned it over to find to my horror that it was not a local child, as I had thought.
It was Losi. It was Halima’s little girl.
I have said before that I prayed for something to still Halima’s tongue, but not for anything would I have had that it be the death of that child. Her grief was dreadful to behold. Her instinct was to attack the person who had brought the news. Ntaoéka had killed her child, she screamed. When her mind was more settled, I explained to her how it had come to be that we discovered the child, but it was some days before Halima could see Ntaoéka without wanting to attack her.
We none of us could understand how a child that small had passed through the gate, but it would appear that the gate had perhaps been left open the night before. Certainly, we had found the latch had not been pulled through when we left.
The hardest thing was to persuade Halima that we had to bury Losi in Chawende, close to the stream where she died. Amoda particularly pushed this point: he could not understand, he said, what woman would mourn a child who is not hers.
The others were gentler with her. She had always liked Farjallah Christie, who is the only man here who cooks. He explained to her that drowning was like falling asleep, and recruited Carus Farrar to say the same to her. I have heard it said that drowning is a horribly painful death, but I am sure that the Lord was able to forgive this lie, for it was one that came from kindness.
It was Carus Farrar who persuaded her to let them bury Losi. She could have been from anywhere, and it was better that she be buried here, close to her people, than that she be marched all the way to Bagamoio. She had been a light in her life, he said. She should not be a burden in death. Halima agreed, and so the child was buried. We agreed to wait another week before we moved.
13
6 August 1873
Thirteenth Entry from the Journal of Jacob Wainwright; in which the Expedition Remains at Chawende’s, the Congregation of the Saved continues to Grow, and Wainwright enters the Land of Beulah.
The world has now stopped spinning and spinning, though I am still spinning with it. I had thought to name her Judith or Esther or even Martha or Elizabeth, but she is Beulah, for in her arms I was in the Land of Beulah, a place of sweetness and beauty, light and great delight. In that land of wonder, birds sing continually and flowers bloom, the sun shines day and night, far from Doubting Castle and Giant Despair and as far as it is possible to be from the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
In the distance gleams the Celestial City, for the Land of Beulah is on the border of Heaven, where the Shining Ones proclaim: “Behold, your Salvation comes, behold his Reward is with her, take your Bride.”
And she will be a beautiful bride.
I have just this minute returned from a walk down to the water to bathe myself, the same water where Losi drowned just a week ago.
It is this same water that I have been using in my baptism rituals. My heart sang when Chirango brought Ntaoéka to me to baptize.
“She is ready for you, Mwalimu,” he said. “She has heard all that you have said about the Mercy of the Father and like me and the others that I brought you, she wants to be Saved.”
I asked her earnestly and seriously if she accepted Jesus. There was no time for catechism, but filled with the rightness of my actions, I baptized her in the way of the Baptist John. I dipped her fully in the deepest part of the river. Her clothes clung to her form as I prayed over her. The same jolt I had felt when I held her hand came over me, but it was soon replaced by a fervor of gratitude that it was I who had been chosen to lead this Child of God to the arms of the Lamb.
Truly, the Lord is with me. First, I had ensured that the Doctor went to his peace at one with his Maker. Then, I had converted Chirango, and eleven other men. Now, here was this beautiful creature, the first woman that I had won for Christ.
The grass seems greener, the sky more blue than it has ever been, and for the first time, it strikes me how wonderful it is that God has chosen to make not one bird, but several varieties of bird, not one tree, but several varieties of tree, not one flower, but several varieties of flower. And the grass, even the grass. Who would have thought there were so many types of grass, so much variation in the shades of green? Truly the gift of Creation is a joyful thing.
I begin to understand at last what the Doctor meant when he said, “I see Him in His creations.” I begin to understand why it was that he could sit for hours on end doing nothing but study a group of ants, lying on his stomach in the dirt as the creatures moved in and out of his vision. The Doctor’s preoccupation with such things has been an eternal puzzlement to me.
I asked him once, “Is Christ’s concern with the ants, or that we seek the Kingdom of God here on earth, that we turn heathen souls to Paradise, that we instill in the hearts of all men the Fear of His Holy Name?”
“I understand Him through navigating His rivers and seeing His greatest creations,” the Doctor replied.
He talked to me then about seeing the great waterfall on the river Zambesi, about hearing from a distance a sound as though of a thousand million falling rocks, of being covered in a mist of rain as he approached finally to behold a sight like he had never seen before.
“Scenes as lovely as that,” he said, “are surely proof of the workings of His Great Majesty.”
The memory had brought tears to his eyes; actual tears shone in his eyes. I have tears in my eyes now. Of all God’s creation, is the wonder of Woman. How magnanimous is the All-Seeing, All-Knowing Lord who created Woman that she be the Helpmeet and comfort of man for all his days? How wondrous is it that he found Adam sleeping and from his side took a rib, then closed the place up with flesh. And from that rib, God cr
eated woman. How wonderful is Woman, how magnanimous is God?
On the night of the day that I baptized her, she came to be my sleeping mate. The men had drunk the pombe that was presented in supplication by the placating villagers and were sleeping soundly. I was half-asleep in the hut I shared with Chirango, with my thoughts drifting off, when I felt a soft body next to me whisper, “It’s me.” Her breath was warm in my ear.
“Mind, Chirango,” I said.
“He is not here,” she said.
And without being told, I knew why she was there and what it was that I had to do. Like Adam and Eve before us, we were naked but knew no shame. Ntaoéka, so beautiful, beautiful beyond comprehension, Bone of my Bones and Flesh of my Flesh. A rush of gratitude gushed out of me. And in an instant, vistas were opened up for me as to how I should lead my life.
Afterward, I said to her, “We must kneel, we must.”
And there, in our nakedness, we knelt in fervent prayer. In the morning, she was gone. But when I saw her again, and she looked at me, smiled, and looked away, I knew that it had been no fever dream, that she was real and she was mine. All that morning’s reveries passed before my mind as I saw the life we would have as we overcame the many hazards in our path. She would be my Helpmeet and with her at my side, I would have all the strength I needed to dare and more.
I went over again the many names I had thought of for her. No, she would not be Esther or Ruth. She would be Rachel. Most certainly Rachel, the best-beloved wife of Jacob and the mother of his beloved sons. Our first child shall be called Joseph and our second Benjamin, and between us, we shall create a new tribe in faith and piety.
She brought food to the expedition leaders, and when she served Mabruki, he barely looked at her. Mabruki. I had forgotten about him, that he had—but no, I would not think of that. After all, Ruth had lain with another man before she met Jesse, the father of David. And Bathsheba had lain with Uriah the Hittite and David had loved her still. It mattered not that Ntaoéka had known another man. That was a thing of sin. With me she would be reborn, with a new name. Her sins would be washed away and together we would start our lives. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, said Our Lord of the woman taken in adultery.
Out of Darkness, Shining Light Page 17
