day, at the meeting of the wizards.
Stephanus Erasmus knew who Mosiko was, of course. But I wasn’t sure if Mosiko knew Stephanus. So I introduced them. On another day people would have laughed at the way I did it. But at that moment it didn’t seem so funny, somehow.
“Mosiko,” I said, “this is Baas Prophet Stephanus Erasmus.”
“And, Oom Stephanus,” I said, “this is Witch-doctor Mosiko.”
Mosiko raised his eyes slightly and glanced at Erasmus. Erasmus looked straight back at Mosiko and tried to stare him out of coun-tenance. I knew the power with which Stephanus Erasmus could look at you. So I wondered what was going to happen. But Mosiko looked down again, and kept his eyes down on the sand.
Now, I remembered how I felt that day when Stephanus Erasmus had looked at me and I was ready to believe that I was a cut-open springbok. So I was not surprised at Mosiko’s turning away his eyes. But in the same moment I realised that Mosiko looked down in the way that seemed to mean that he didn’t think that Stephanus was a man of enough importance for him to want to stare out of countenance. It was as though he thought there were other things for him to do but look at Stephanus.
Then Mosiko spoke.
“Tell me what you want to know, Baas Stephanus,” he said, “and I’ll prophesy for you.”
I saw the grass and the veld and the stones. I saw a long splash of sunlight on Mosiko’s naked back. But for a little while I neither saw nor heard anything else. For it was a deadly thing that the kaffir had said to the white man. And I knew that the others also felt it was a deadly thing. We stood there, waiting. I was not sure whether to be glad or sorry that I had come. The time seemed so very long in passing.
“Kaffir,” Stephanus said at last, “you have no right to be here on a white man’s outspan. We have come to throw you off it. I am going to kick you, kaffir. Right now I am going to kick you. You’ll see what a white man’s boot is like.”
Mosiko did not move. It did not seem as though he had heard anything Stephanus had said to him. He appeared to be thinking of something else – something very old and very far away.
Then Stephanus took a step forward. He paused for a moment. We all looked down.
Frans Steyn was the first to laugh. It was strange and unnatural at first to hear Frans Steyn’s laughter. Everything up till then had been so tense and even frightening. But immediately afterwards we all burst out laughing together. We laughed loudly and uproariously. You could have heard us right at the other side of the bult.
I have told you about Stephanus Erasmus’s veldskoens, and that they were broken on top. Well, now, in walking to the outspan, the last riem had burst loose, and Stephanus Erasmus stood there with his right foot raised from the ground and a broken shoe dangling from his instep.
Stephanus never kicked Mosiko. When we had finished laughing we got him to come back home. Stephanus walked slowly, carrying the broken shoe in his hand and picking the soft places to walk on, where the burnt grass wouldn’t stick into his bare foot.
Stephanus Erasmus had lost his power.
But I knew that even if his shoe hadn’t broken, Stephanus would never have kicked Mosiko. I could see by that look in his eyes that, when he took the step forward and Mosiko didn’t move, Stephanus had been beaten for always.
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