'But they did not try very hard, and now what will I do withou you. What will the child I am carrying do without a father?" 'You are a daughter of Zulu, you will be strong." 'I will try, Moses my husband,' she whispered. 'But what of you: people? They are also children without a father. What will becom of them?" She saw the old fierce fire burn in his eyes. She had feared it hoc been for ever extinguished, and she felt a brief and bitter joy tr know it was still alight.
'The others will seek to take your place now. Those of the Congres who hate and envy you. When you die they will use your sacrifice t( serve their own ambitions." She saw that she had reached him again, and that he was angry She sought to inflame his anger to give him reason and strength tr go on living.
'If you die, your enemies will use your dead body as a stepping.
stone to climb to the place you have left empty." 'Why do you torment me, woman?" he asked.
'Because I do not want you to die, because I want you to live - lo me, for our child, and for your people." 'That cannot be,' he said.
'The hard Boers will not yield, not even to the demands of the great powers. Unless you can find wings fol me to fly over these walls, then I must go to my fate. There is nc other way." 'There is a way,' Vicky told him. 'There is a way for you to survive - and for you to put down the enemy who seek to usurp your place as the leader of the black nations." He stared at her as she went on.
'When the day comes that we sweep the Boers into the sea, and open the doors of the prisons, you will emerge to take your rightful place at the head of the revolution." 'What is this way, woman? What is this hope that you hold out to me?" He listened without expression as she propounded it to him, and when she had finished, he said gravely, 'It is true that the lioness is fiercer and crueller than the lion." 'Will you do it, my lord - not for your own sake, but for all us weak ones who need you so?" 'I will think on it,' he conceded.
There is so little time,' she warned The black ministerial Cadillac was delayed only briefly at the gates to the prison for they were expecting Manfred De La Rey. As the steel gates swung open, the driver accelerated through into the main courtyard and turned into the parking slot that had been kept free.
The prison commissioner and two of his senior staff were waiting, and they hurried forward as soon as Manfred climbed out of the rear door.
Briefly Manfred shook hands with the commissioner and said, 'I wish to see the prisoner immediately." Of course, Minister, it has been arranged. He is waiting for you." 'Lead the way." Manfred's heavy footfalls echoed along the dreary green-painted corridors, while the senior warders scurried ahead to unlock the interleading doors of each section and relock them as Manfred and the prison commissioner passed through. It was a long walk, but they came at last to the condemned block.
'How many awaiting execution?" Manfred demanded.
'Eleven,' the commissioner replied. The figure was not unusually high, Manfred reflected. Africa is a violent land and the gallows play a central role in the administration of justice.
'I do not want to be overheard, even by those soon to die." et has been arranged,' the commissioner assured him. 'Gama is being kept separate from the others." The warders opened one last steel door and at the end of a short passage was a barred cell. Manfred went through but when the commissioner would have followed, Manfred stopped him.
'Wait here!" he ordered. 'Lock the door after me and open it again only when I ring." As the door clanged shut Manfred walked on to the end of the passage.
The cell was small, seven foot by seven, and almost bare. There was a toilet bowl against the side wall and a single iron bunk fixed to the opposite wall. Moses Gama sat on the edge of the bunk and he looked up at Manfred. Then slowly he came to his feet and crossed the cell to face him through the green-painted bars.
Neither man spoke. They stared at each other. Though only the bars separated them, they were a universe and an eternity apart.
Though their gazes locked, there was no contact between their minds, and the hostility was a barrier between them more obdurate and irreconcilable than the steel bars.
'Yes?" Manfred asked at last. The temptation to gloat over a vanquished adversary was strong, but he withstood it. 'You asked to see me?" q have a proposal to put to you,' Moses Gama said.
'You wish to bargain for your life?" Manfred corrected him, and when Moses was silent, he smiled. 'So it seems that you are no different from other men, Moses Gama. You are neither a saint nor even the noble martyr that some say you are. You are no better than other men, no better than any of us. In the end your loyalty is to yourself alone. You are weak as other men are weak, and like them, you are afraid." 'Do you wish to listen to my proposal?" Moses asked, without a sign of having heard the taunts.
'I will hear what you have to say,' Manfred agreed. 'That is why I came here." 'I will deliver them to you,' Moses said, and Manfred understood immediately.
'By "them" you mean those who also claim to be the leaders of your people? The ones who compete with your own claim to that position?" Moses nodded and Manfred chuckled and shook his head with admiration.
'I will give you the names and the evidence. I will give you the times and the places." Moses was still expressionless. 'You have underestimated the threat that they are to you, you have underestimated the support they can muster, here and abroad. I will give you that knowledge." 'And in return?" Manfred asked.
'My freedom,' said Moses simply.
'Magtig!" The blasphemy was a measure of Manfred's astonishment. 'You have the effrontery of a white man." He turned away so that Moses could not see his face while he considered the magnitude of the offer.
Moses Gama was wrong. Manfred was fully aware of the threat, and he had a broad knowledge of the extent and the ramifications of the conspiracy. He understood that the world he knew was under terrible siege. The Englishman had spoken of the winds of changethey were blowing not only upon the African continent, but across the world. Everything he held dear, from the existence of his family to that of his Volk and the safety of the land that God had delivered unto them, was under attack by the forces of darkness.
Here he was being offered the opportunity to deal those forces a telling blow. He knew then what his duty was.
'I cannot give you your freedom,' he said quietly. 'That "is too much - but you knew that when you demanded it, didn't you?" Moses did not answer him, and Manfred went on, 'This is the bargain I will offer you. I will give you your life. A reprieve, but you will never leave prison again. That is the best I can do." The silence went on so long that Manfred thought he had refused and he began to turn away when Moses spoke again. 'I accept." Manfred turned back to him, not allowing his triumph to show.
'I will want all the names, all the evidence,' he insisted.
'You will have it all,' Moses assured him. 'When I have my reprieve." 'No,' Manfred said quietly. 'I set the terms. You will have your reprieve when you have earned it. Until then you will get only a stay of execution. Even for that I will need you to name a name so that I can convince my compatriots of the wisdom of our bargain." Moses was silent, glowering at him through the bars.
'Give me a name,' Manfred insisted. 'Give me something to take to the prime minister." 'I will do better than that,' Moses agreed. 'I will give you two names. Heed them well. They are - Mandela and Rivonia." Michael Courtney was in the city room of the Mail when the news that the Appellate Division had denied Moses Gama's appeal and confirmed the date of his execution, came clattering out on the tape.
He let the paper strip run through his fingers, reading it with total concentration, and when the message ended, he went to his desk and sat in front of his typewriter.
He lit a cigarette and sat quietly, staring out of the window over the tops of the scraggly trees in Joubert Park. He had a pile of work in his basket and a dozen reference books on his desk. Desmond Blake had slipped out of the office to go down to the George to top up his gin tank and left Michael to finish the article on the American elections. Eisenhower was nearing the end of his final term and the editor wanted a pen portrait of the presidential candidates. Michael was working on his biographical notes of John Kennedy, but having difficulty choosing the salient facts from the vast amount that had been written about the young Democratic candidate, apart from those that everybody knew, that he was a Catholic and a New Dealer and that he had been born in 1917.