In Johannesburg Long Walk Original Manuscript (Image #48)

that he was expecting Jdustice for whom a clerical job was avaiable, but that he knew nothing about me. Pressed by Justice to take me on, I was eventually employed as a policeman with a promise that in about three months I would also be given a clerical post. We were supplied with free rations and sleeping quarters but for the first few days we stayed with Pilisco. The miners, especially those from Thembuland, greeted Justice with gifts, mainly in the form of cash, in accordance with the practice of those days when a chief visited the mines. He never failed to give me a bonus and I collected a few pounds quite apart from what I expected in the form of wages. It was a good start and I was beginning to feel that I was a child of fortune, that if I had not wasted precious time at College I would have been fairly rich by now. I had no idea whatsoever that fate was busy setting snares around me. We had not disclosed to the mine authorities that we had fled from home, but we confided to an old friend we had known from home. Unknown to us, he passed on the information and we were kicked out of the mine. Shortly after this incident we were introduced to Dr. A.B. Xuma, then the president of the African National Congress. His friend, Wellbeloved, was then predident of the Chamber of Mines which controlled almost all the gold mines in the country. We told the doctor half truths which he accepted and conveyed to his friend. The latter, who knew nothing of our short history in the city, sent us back to the manager of Crown Mines with instructions that we both be employed as clerks. We were happy about this sudden turn of events. For one thing it offered us a chance of putting Pilisco in his place, so we thought, and of avenging the humiliation we had suffered a few days before. We were back at Crown Mines and, while the white manager was attending to us Pilisco