Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner
page 45 of 80 (56%)
page 45 of 80 (56%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
him, the darkness stood out.
"All earth is ours. And the day shall come, when the stars, looking down on this little world, shall see no spot where the soil is moist and dark with the blood of man shed by his fellow man; the sun shall rise in the East and set in the West and shed his light across this little globe; and nowhere shall he see man crushed by his fellows. And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. And instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree; and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and man shall nowhere crush man on all the holy earth. Tomorrow's sun shall rise," said the stranger, "and it shall flood these dark kopjes with light, and the rocks shall glint in it. Not more certain is that rising than the coming of that day. And I say to you that even here, in the land where now we stand, where today the cries of the wounded and the curses of revenge ring in the air; even here, in this land where man creeps on his belly to wound his fellow in the dark, and where an acre of gold is worth a thousand souls, and a reef of shining dirt is worth half a people, and the vultures are heavy with man's flesh-- even here that day shall come. I tell you, Peter Simon Halket, that here on the spot where now we stand shall be raised a temple. Man shall not gather in it to worship that which divides; but they shall stand in it shoulder to shoulder, white man with black, and the stranger with the inhabitant of the land; and the place shall be holy; for men shall say, 'Are we not brethren and the sons of one Father?'" Peter Halket looked upward silently. And the stranger said: "Certain men slept upon a plain, and the night was chill and dark. And, as they slept, at that hour when night is darkest, one stirred. Far off to the eastward, through his half-closed eyelids, he saw, as it were, one faint line, thin |
|