Show him the "King's Messenger", Nadine.'
'No, Guy - never! It's ours, ours!'
Von Praeger's mild animation at the mention of it made him look slightly less inhuman.
'Ours? Ours?'
'Rankin gave it to us.'
'No, Guy! No!'
'Rankin did, eh?'
'We saw what you did to him, you bastard!'
'Then you know what to expect. You can make it easy for the girl and yourself. Come clean, and I'll be quick.' He gestured with the pistol.
'Show him, Nadine. We don't know any more.'
She still hesitated but when he aimed the gun at my head she pulled the great bead from her pocket and held it out to him.
He looked at it and us contemptuously. 'Don't try and bluff me that that's The Great Star of Africa! It isn't even a diamond!'
'Damn your great diamond, Praeger! And blast your bloody stupid crazy notion!'
'Get up forward out of the way, Bowker, and stay there. We'll soon see if you won't talk!' He rounded on Nadine. '
Come here! Get your clothes off! Schnell!' I was already on the foredeck and he was too far away for me to jump him.
'Praeger!'
'Guy – please!'
'It always works,' he sneered. 'You've given yourself away. There's more to come, that's clear. Get it out ! '
I sketched our discovery of the isifuba board and my belief that the 'King's Messenger' was a key in a kind of primitive combination lock.
He still looked wary and unconvinced.
I pointed. 'It's all up there at the top. It's not far if you want to check up. You can't get anything more out of us by torture or shooting or anything else because there simply isn't anything else to tell.'
Nadine was tense and her voice shaky. 'Guy's right. That's all. We didn't have time to see if the "King's Messenger" worked.'
'We'll soon find out,' he retorted. 'If you're lying, you'll pay for it, both of you. If you aren't, I'll make the end quick once I have The Great Star. You can't buy your way out. All you can do is make it easy for yourselves.'
The hulls of the two boats rasped together and the current gurgled past. Nadine turned from von Praeger and looked up into my face. I saw in her eyes everything I'd ever wanted to know.
'Let's go, then. It's scarcely a climb any more.'
Nadine led the way up the easy gradient of sloping rock and outdistanced von Praeger and myself to the top.
'Guy – it's him!'
Even Praeger, I think, discounted the possibility of a doublecross from her genuine astonishment. She gestured through the gaping roof of the underground chamber to its interior. I thought at first that the copper-coloured face lying in a grave hewn in the solid floor was a mummy's but when I went nearer I saw that it was a perfect replica of a human countenance made of gold. The likeness to a living face was uncanny: it was mature, strong and sensitive, the lips full, the nostrils slightly flared, the eyes big under full brows. There was no doubt, it was the king.
We had been right in our guess that the isifuba board was a slab of removable rock. It had been thrown aside by the upheaval and the slotted ivory and gold combination groups were visible on its reverse side. The 'King's Messenger' was the masterkey but where Rankin had got that curious name, smacking of a court chamberlain whose function was to open doors to a throne room, we would never know. The slab had, in fact, formed a kind of solid window above the king's head and chest.
It was also clear from the outline of debris that he had lain in a narrow wooden boat before it had crumbled to dust. We knew when we went close that it was not a coffin because a miniature replica of this craft carved out of soapstone had been placed by the head - the king's phantom or spirit boat which ancients believed carried the souls of the dead to the next world. At its tiny tiller was an eighteen-inch high carving of a man in a golden toga and its likeness to the features of the golden mask was unmistakable. The tiller-head proper was a fish-eagle, pilot for the spectral voyage.
It wasn't only these superb examples of the goldsmith's art which took our breath away. The king's chest was encased in a short jacket of golden chain-mail and laced to it through rings at each corner was the most extraordinary and beautiful object I have ever seen. It resembled a second breastplate over the chain-mail, but it was made of ivory, like the ceremonial fou which ancient Chinese courtiers held before the heart for an audience with their emperor. In its centre was a chased socket, also of gold, with ornate clasps.
Where the code of the hyena's blanket had originated was plain after a glance at what the clasps held, without having to refer to Dika for comparison.
It was a huge uncut diamond with the characteristic oily look and it was mottled like a hyena's hide with a number of small whitish blotches. One side seemed to have been chipped a lot and it gleamed, unlike the dull appearance of the rest of the stone.
It did not occupy the whole container and the size of the unfilled space, that of a man's clenched fist, matched the Cullinan. The corresponding cleavage face which had caused so much speculation was clear on The Great Star. , Mounted cross-wise below it was a hexagonally-shaped gold tube which was clearly meant to house the old diamond pencil. The sight left us speechless. Not all of the body was there: the grave had been damaged by a minor fissure in the rock and the lower half was missing. An outline of thousands of tiny gold beads round the head and shoulders could have fallen from a decayed shroud.
Our wonderment, however, evaporated at von Praeger's harsh voice as he waved his pistol at us.
'Stand back! Don't touch it! I understand now what your grandfather was up to. He could have financed half a dozen exiled governments with that!'
I realized that he must also have spun Asscher some yarn about where the diamond pencil came from because I didn't see a man of Asscher's reputation being involved in such a setup. Moreover, how the original Great Star of Africa had been crudely cleaved was beyond my confused senses at that moment.
I tried to get my breath back. 'Praeger,' I began. His retort was high-pitched and jarring. 'Shut up! No wonder Kettler held out on me even with the rope round his neck!'
'You've got everything now you want and more, Doctor von Praeger.' Nadine's voice was fluttery and strained. His eyes had that sightless, killer look.
'I'm going to keep my side -of our bargain – right away!
Get down on your knees, both of you, by that crack in the rock. It's a nice ready-made grave and will save me the trouble of disposing of your bodies. The shot'll be through the back of the head. You won't know it's coming.'
We looked at the stony face and then at one another and we came together and kissed each other full on the lips. We turned away to do as he said and Nadine interlocked her fingers in mine. Then I saw a fragile ray of hope and disengaged mine to have my hands free. I held my voice as steady as I could. 'You've seen a lot of men bound for the gallows granted a last-minute wish, von Praeger. I'd like to make one.'
'What is it?'
'To see the king as my father did first – complete, with the diamond pencil in position.'
'It makes no difference to me,' he answered in the same tone of voice. 'In fact, you can crawl to me as your last gesture.' He pulled out the instrument and dropped it at his feet. 'Come and get it and put it in position yourself : Get down, you swine!
' I prayed he wouldn't see the purpose in my eyes and I went on hands and knees to him. He laughed when I got close.
'Very good, Bowker! You can crawl here, Dika too!'
I pretended to obey but snatched up the diamond pencil instead, palmed it into a throwing position and flicked it like a dart at him and screwed my body aside from the pistol all in one movement.
It was meant for his throat and found its target and stuck out like a barb. His gun hand seemed to freeze but he kept the weapon aimed at me and with the other he plucked the pencil out and the blood gushed over his front.
As it spurted, I felt the hyena stiffen and leap.
'Shoot
, Praeger! For Christ's sake, man, shoot it!'
But he didn't, although he had time. Perhaps the gurgle he gave was an order which was choked by the blood in his windpipe. The brute's jaws clamped round his throat and he dropped the automatic and staggered backwards under the impact though he remained on his feet. He clutched and clutched at the animal's head and the place was full of dreadful sounds from both of them as they went farther backwards towards where the excavation shaft had been broken off short by the crevasse. I picked up the pistol with the idea of attempting a shot even at the risk of wounding von Praeger but before I could do so the two of them lurched a few more paces and disappeared over the cliff and we heard the splash of their bodies in the water far below.
I don't know how long we stood there while I held her. We didn't look over the edge because we knew that the current racing through would have done its work.
The sun was out and the clouds were breaking up and everything was bright and clean-looking.
'We can't leave him for someone else, can we, Guy?'
She scarcely had need to say it for we felt the same way. '
No, my darling. He belongs to the queen.'
'She started him on his voyage . . . do you think she's waiting for him?'
'I would have waited for you.'
'And I for you'
And so we knew what we had to do, but before we moved the king I washed the diamond pencil clean and put it back in the socket where it belonged. There were some small diamond chips lying next to The Great Star and I collected them as evidence for myself. Nadine gathered up the king's phantom boat and I picked up the king and cradled him in my arms. He was lighter than I thought because there was nothing underneath and all that remained was a little pile of dust in the middle of the outline of golden beads.
We made a little procession down the slope, Nadine in the lead carrying the phantom boat. When I laid the king on the cockpit gratings of our boat she stood on the rock to which it was moored and fingered the fish-eagle tiller of the king's phantom boat, her eyes full of unknowable thoughts. When I had made him secure with a rock at his head and his waist she came aboard and laid her ring against his lips for a moment. She took his phantom boat back ashore with her and I fired a couple of shots through the buoyancy tanks and opened the stopcocks, started the engine and locked the rudder so that the boat would head straight out into the lake. I jumped ashore and we stood together, watching.
'Guy, didn't Charlie Furstenberg have a special way of saying goodbye?'
'Yes. It was meant for diamonds, but I can't remember the words. Something about good luck and prosperity.'
I'll say that now.
'I'll say it too.'
The boat ran true on the current and-where it met the main stream in the lake at the entrance to the crevasse it was caught in an eddy and swung round so that the king looked back at us and The Hill. It hung on the eddy as if it couldn't let go but then the main current caught it and we watched it go farther out and lower and lower among the brown waves until we couldn't see it any more.
A Cleft Of Stars Page 21