A Grain of Wheat Read Online Free PDF

power in the land. Years later a woman became a leader and ruled over a large section in Muranga. She was beautiful. At dances, she swung her round hips this way, that way; her plaited hair rose and fell behind her in rhythm with her steps. This together with a flash of her milk-white teeth made men smack their lips and roll their tongues with desire. Young and old, they shamelessly hung around her court, and hoped. The woman chose for herself young warriors who became the target of the jealousy and envy of others less favoured. Still more men paid homage to her; they never missed a dance in which she was to appear, many desperately longed to glimpse at her thighs. Came a night when, no doubt goaded by the admiration she aroused, or maybe wanting to gratify their shameless longing, she overreached herself. Removing all her clothes, she danced naked in the moonlight. For a moment, men were moved by the power of a woman’s naked body. The moon played on her: an ecstasy, a mixture of agony and joy hovered on the woman’s face. Perhaps she, too, knew this was the end: a woman never walked or danced naked in public. She was removed from the throne.
    About Jesus, they could not at first understand, for how could it be that God would let himself be nailed to a tree? The whiteman spoke of that Love that passeth all understanding. Greater Love hath no man than this, he read from the little black book, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
    The few who were converted, started speaking a faith foreign to the ways of the land. They trod on sacred places to show that no harm could reach those protected by the hand of the Lord. Soon people saw the whiteman had imperceptibly acquired more land to meet the growing needs of his position. He had already pulled down the grass-thatched hut and erected a more permanent building. Elders of the land protested. They looked beyond the laughing face of thewhiteman and suddenly saw a long line of other red strangers who carried, not the Bible, but the sword.
    Waiyaki and other warrior-leaders took arms. The iron snake spoken of by Mugo wa Kibiro was quickly wriggling towards Nairobi for a thorough exploitation of the hinterland. Could they move it? The snake held on to the ground, laughing their efforts to scorn. The whiteman with bamboo poles that vomited fire and smoke, hit back; his menacing laughter remained echoing in the hearts of the people, long after Waiyaki had been arrested and taken to the coast, bound hands and feet. Later, so it is said, Waiyaki was buried alive at Kibwezi with his head facing into the centre of the earth, a living warning to those, who, in after years, might challenge the hand of the Christian woman whose protecting shadow now bestrode both land and sea.
    Then nobody noticed it; but looking back we can see that Waiyaki’s blood contained within it a seed, a grain, which gave birth to a movement whose main strength thereafter sprang from a bond with the soil.
    Meanwhile, the missionary centres hatched new leaders; they refused to eat the good things of Pharaoh: instead, they chose to cut grass and make bricks with the other children.
    So in Harry Thuku, people saw a man with God’s message: Go unto Pharaoh and say unto him: let my people go, let my people go. And people swore they would follow Harry through the desert. They would tighten their belts around the waist, ready to endure thirst and hunger, tears and blood until they set foot on Canaan’s shore. They flocked to his meetings, waiting for him to give the sign. Harry denounced the whiteman and cursed that benevolence and protection which denied people land and freedom. He amazed them by reading aloud letters to the whiteman, letters in which he set out in clear terms people’s discontent with taxation, forced labour on white settler’s land, and with the soldier settlement scheme which after the first big war, left many black people without homes or land around Tigoni and other places.
    Harry asked