Men of Men b-2

by Wilbur Smith

  "This was the prophecy of the second day."

  Again they were silent as they pondered the words then, mystified, they looked to Kamuza for the meaning of the prophecy.

  "Lobengula, the Black Elephant, alone understands the meaning of the prophecy of the second day. Is he not versed in the mysteries of the wizards? Did he not pass his childhood in the caves and secret places of the wizards? Thus says Lobengula. "This is not yet the time to explain the words of the Umlimo to my children, for they are momentous words indeed, and there will be a time for the nation to understand." Bazo nodded and passed his snuff-horn. Kamuza took it and drew the red powder up into his nostrils with two sharp inhalations of breath and, watching him, Bazo did not dare to voice his own suspicion that perhaps Lobengula, the mighty thunder of the skies, was as mystified by the prophecy of the second day as was the little group around the fire.

  "Was this all the oracle?" Bazo asked instead, and Kamuza shook his head.

  "On the third day the Umlimo prophesied for the last time: "Sting the mamba with his own venom, pull down the lion with his own claws, deceive the clever chacma baboon with his own trickery."

  "This was the prophecy of the third and final day."

  "Does the king intend that we, his humble cattle, should know the meaning of the prophecy of the third day?"

  "Thus spoke Lobengula: "We the Matabele cannot prevail until we arm ourselves as our adversary is armed, until we gather to ourselves the strength that is found only in the yellow coins and shining stones.

  For it is these things which have made the white man strong.,"," Nobody interrupted the silence that followed, for they all sensed that there was more to come.

  "Thus the king summoned me to the royal kraal and bid me carry his word to all the Matabele who live beyond the borders of the king's domains. For thus spoke the king: "Bring me guns to answer the smoke of the white man's guns. Bring me diamonds and bring me the yellow coins that I may grow as strong as the white Queen who lives beyond the sea. For then her soldiers will not dare to come against me." Bazo replied for them all. "Let Lobengula know that what he requires of us he shall have. Guns he shall have, for it is part of our contract with the white man. Each of us will carry a gun when we return to Matabeleland, some of us who have worked out two Isitupa will carry two guns when we return. Some of us will bring three guns."

  "That is known," Kamusa nodded.

  "Lobengula will have gold coins, for we are paid in coin, and what we bring home to Thabas Indunas belongs to the king."

  "That is right and proper."

  "But diamonds?" Bazo asked. "The diamonds belong to the white man. They are fierce for them as a lioness is fierce for her cubs. How are we to bring diamonds to the king?"

  "Listen to me," whispered Kamuza. "There will be no more "pick-ups". When one of you turns up the shine of a diamond in the yellow gravel, then that diamond belongs to Lobengula."

  "It is against the law."

  "Against the white man's law only, not against the law of Lobengula, who is your king."

  "To hear is to obey," Bazo grunted, but he thought of Bakela, the Fist, who was his father, and Henshaw, the Hawk, who was his brother, and he did not relish stealing the stones for which they laboured as hard as Bazo did himself.

  "Not only in the pit," Kamuza went on. "Each of you will watch for the chance on the sorting-tables, you, Donsela. -" He picked out a Matabele across the fire from him, a young man with a deep intelligent brow and strong jaw. "You have been chosen to work in the new grease house."

  "The tables are guarded," Donsela. replied. "They are covered with a steel screen."

  They had all of them heard Donsela. speak of the marvel of the new grease house.

  Once again the ingenuity of the white men had put the diamond's unique qualities to his own advantage.

  The diamond was unwetable, shedding moisture like the body feathers of a goose. So while wet gravel would roll across a steel table smeared with thick yellow grease, the dry diamond would stick fast.

  The pipeline from the Vaal river had at last reached Kimberley, and this water supply was augmented by the subterranean water pumped up from the depths of the vast excavation. There was water enough now to wash the gravel, instead of laboriously dry-sorting it, water enough to wash the sieved gravel over the slanting grease tables. The diamonds stuck like fat little blisters, half embedded in the grease, ready to be scraped off with a steel spatula at the end of each shift.

  "There is a steel screen over the tables," Donsela repeated, and Kamuza smiled and passed him a thin reed, cut from the riverbank. On the tip of the reed was a little lump of beeswax.

  "The reed will pass through the mesh of the screen," Kamuza told him. "The diamond will stick more firmly to the wax than to the grease."

  Donsela examined the reed cautiously. "Last week a Basuto was found with a stone. That same day he fell from the skip as they were bringing him out of the pit.

  Men who steal stones have accidents. Those accidents always kill them."

  "A warrior's duty is to die for his king," Kamusa told him drily.

  "Do not let the overseer catch you, and pick out only the biggest and brightest stones."

  In the three years between Kamusa's departure from Kimberley and his abrupt return, Ralph had reached his full growth. Only months short of his twenty-first birthday, he stood as tall as Zouga; but unlike his father, he was cleanshaven except for the thick dark moustache which he allowed to curl down at the corners of his mouth.

  At rare intervals he was still able to gather together the ten gold sovereigns necessary to keep his surreptitious friendship with Diamond Lil alive. Then suddenly that was no longer relevant, for Ralph fell in love.

  It happened in the street outside that exclusive institution, already the most famous in Africa south of the equator, membership of which conferred enormous prestige and a semi-mystical entre to the elite band of men who wielded the growing wealth and burgeoning power of the diamond fields.

  Yet the Kimberley Club was merely a single-storeyed wood-and-iron building as drab as any on the diggings.

  True it boasted a billiard room with a full-sized table, a picket fence of ornate cast iron and a stained-glass front door, but it was situated in the noisiest street just off Market Square, and it enjoyed its fair share of the flies and the all-pervading red dust.

  It was midmorning and Ralph was bringing one of the gravel carts back from the blacksmith who had replaced the iron tyres on the wooden-spoked wheels.

  There was a stir in the street ahead of him. He saw men run from the canteens and kopje-wallopers" offices, most of them bareheaded and in shirtsleeves.

  A vehicle came bowling out of the Square, an extraordinary vehicle, light and fast, with high narrow wheels, so cunningly sprung that it seemed to float behind the pair that drew it. They were matched, a strange pale.

  brazen colour, softer than the colour of honey, and their manes were white blond.

  Both horses were martingaled to force them to arch their necks, and the long-combed platinum maines flew like the battle colours of a famous regiment.

  The driver, either by chance, but more probably by skill, had them leading with their off fores in perfect unison, and their gait was an exaggerated trot in which they threw their forehooves so high that they seemed almost to touch the shining heads as they nodded to the rhythm of their run.

  Ralph was stabbed by such a pang of envy that it was a physical pain. He had never seen anything so beautiful as those pale glistening animals and the vehicle that they drew, until he raised his eyes to the driver.

  She wore a tricom hat of midnight blue, set at a jaunty angle over one eyebrow. Her eyebrows were jet black, narrow and exquisitely arched over huge drop-shaped eyes.

  As she came up to the plodding gravel cart she barely lifted the gloved hand that held the reins, and the plunging pair of pale horses swerved neatly and the elegant vehicle flashed past so close that, had he dared, Ralph might have reached up
and touched one of those slim ankles in its high-buttoned patent leather boot which just showed under the tailored skirt of moire taffeta.

  Then she dropped her hand again, and the matched pair swung the carriage in neatly before the wrought-iron gate of the Kimberley Club and stopped, shaking out their manes fretfully and stamping their forefeet.

  "Bazo, take them," Ralph called urgently. "Go on to the stagings.

  I'll follow you."

  Then he darted across the street and reached up to seize the head of the nearest thoroughbred.

  He was only just in time, for half a dozen other loiterers had raced him to it. Ralph removed his cap and looked up at the woman on the buttoned leather seat of the carriage. She glanced down at him and fleetingly smiled her thanks, and Ralph saw that her eyes were the same midnight blue as the hat on her head. Those eyes touched him for only an instant and then went back to the stained-glass front door of the club, but Ralph felt a physical shock from her gaze like a blow in the chest, so that he could not catch his breath.

  Ralph was aware of voices, men's voices, from the direction of the club, but he could not tear his eyes from that lovely face. He was absorbing each fine detail, the braid of her hair, the colour of freshly-washed coal, thick as the tail of a lioness, which dropped from under the hat over her shoulder and hung to her waist. The fine peppering of dark freckles high on her cheekbones seemed to emphasize the purity of the rest of her skin.

  Her small pointed ears were set at an alert listening angle which gave a peculiar vivacity to her face. The dark !"of the widow's peak below the brim of her hat Pointed up the depth of forehead. Her nose was narrow and straight with elegantly flared nostrils that gave her expression an hauteur that was instantly belied when she smiled, as she was smiling now, but not at Ralph.

  She was smiling at the group of men who came out onto the porch of the club, chatting animatedly as they adjusted their hats.

  "A splendid lunch, sir." The only stranger to Ralph in the group thanked his host and then led them down the short walk to the street.

  He was a tall, well-proportioned man. His dress was sober. The cut was not English but he wore it with a dash that made the dark colours appear flamboyant.

  He wore a dark patch over one eye, and it gave him a piratical air. His beard was trimmed to a point, and touched with silver.

  "He is at least forty years old," Ralph thought, bitterly, as he realized that the woman was smiling directly at this man.

  At his right hand was a small neat figure, a man with an unremarkable face and thin receding hair, a small moustache of indeterminate colour, but eyes so intelligent and humorous that they altered the man's appearance, made it striking and interesting.

  "Ah, Ralph," this man murmured, as he noticed the young man standing at the horse's head; but Ralph could not meet his eyes.

  Doctor Leander Starr Jameson was an intimate friend of his father's, and privy to Ralph's shame and disgrace.

  It was he who had administered the mercury tablets, and washed them down with a stern admonition to avoid in future the snares of harlotry. For a moment Ralph wondered if the doctor would impart his vile secret to the lovely lady on the seat of the carriage, and the thought burned his soul like hoar frost.

  On the bearded man's other hand was mister Rhodes, big and serious, his dress untidy, the knot of his tie slipping and his breeches baggy, but with that sense of determination and certainty about him that always awed Ralph.

  Behind them all followed the stooped scholarly figure of Alfred Beit, like mister Rhodes, shadow.

  The four men paused in a group beside the carriage, and the tall stranger reached up and took the woman's hand.

  He touched her fingers to his lips.

  "Gentlemen, may I present my wife, missis Sint John. "The big man's accent was unmistakable, even Ralph recognized the soft drawl that emanated from the Southern States of America.

  However, it was the title the man used and not the accent which struck like a fiery dart into Ralph's breast.

  @- missis Sint John, my wife, missis Sint John."

  While Ralph stood rigid at the horse's head, destroyed by his adoration which he now knew was hopeless, the group ignored him and the men made their bows.

  "Louise, my dear, this is mister Rhodes of whom you have heard so much, " The formal phrases might have been spoken in a foreign language as far as Ralph was affected by them.

  Her name was Louise, and she was married. That is all that he understood.

  General Sint John climbed up beside his wife. He moved lithely for such a big man, and one so old, Ralph conceded reluctantly, and hated him anew for that. Sint John took the reins from Louise's gloved hand, lifted his hat to the three men and started the horses. Ralph had to jump back to avoid being knocked down, and Louise was talking animatedly to the General. Neither of them glanced at Ralph again, and the carriage whirled away, down the street.

  Ralph stared after it wistfully.

  Jordan decorated the borders of the menus with romanticized scenes of the diggings: the stagings soaring above the gaping pit, heroic figures working on the walls of yellow earth, a sorter at his table, and at the head of the sheet a man's cupped hands overflowing with uncut diamonds, and he coloured the illustrations with water paints.

  "What's Veloute de la Nouvelle Ruee?" Ralph asked.

  "Soup New Rush," Jordie told him without looking up from his artistic labours.

  "What's going to be in it?

  "Marrow bones and pearl barley."

  "- And what's Quartier de Chevreuil Diamant Bleu?"

  "Haunch of springbuck in the style of a blue diamond."

  "I don't know why we can't just speak English," Ralph complained. "What's the style of a blue diamond, anyway?"

  Tart with bacon fat, marinade it in olive oil and cognac with wild garlic, and then bake it in a pie crust."

  Ralph swallowed his saliva. Jordan's culinary skills were always a source of delight to him.

  "All right, I'll eat it."

  Jordan licked his brush, leaving a streak of Prussian blue on his tongue, and then looked up at his brother.

  "You are going to serve it, not eat it -" Jordan paused portentously, "mister Rhodes is coming to lunch," as though that explained it all.

  "Well, if I'm not good enough to sit at the same table as your famous mister Rhodes, I'll be damned if I'll play waiter. You can get Donsela. For a shilling Donsela will spill soup on mister Rhodes, for a shilling Donsela would throw soup on King Lobengula himself. I'm going to bribe him."

  However, in the end curiosity and Jordan's promise of the leftovers prevailed and Ralph dressed himself in the ridiculous monkey-jacket that Jordan had designed and tailored for him and carried the tray of Veloute out on the wide verandah of Zouga's camp, and there nearly dropped it.

  "Madame, you remind me of the heroine from mister Longfellow's poem," Neville Pickering complimented Louise Sint John, and she smiled back at him from her seat at the centre of the luncheon table.

  "Thank you, sir."

  Her jacket was in pale creamy buckskin with tasselled sleeves, and the bodice was crusted with bright-coloured beads in bold geometrical patterns. Louise had parted her thick black hair in the centre, braided a blue ribbon into each of the thick tresses, bound them with a band about her forehead, and then let them hang onto her bosom.

  The soft tanned buckskin was divided into ankle-length culottes, and her boots were also of soft beaded leather.

  Louise was the only woman at the long trestle table on the open verandah of Zouga's camp. The men seated on each side of her were already emerging as the most influential subjects on this continent of an omnipotent queen. Like the men that another English queen had sent out to the corners of the earth, these were the new Elizabethans, most of them already rich, all of them restless and consumed with their lust for power, for wealth, for land. Each with a separate dream that he would follow relentlessly all his life, every one of them driving, ruthless men.

&nbs
p; Ballantyne. Beit. Jameson. Rhodes. Robinson. The list of names read like a roll-call for a regiment of filibusters, and yet here they were listening to a discourse on women's fashion as though it were a company report on tonnage treated and cartage recovered.

  Only Zouga Ballantyne was not smiling. The woman offended Zouga. Her beauty was too flamboyant, her colouring too vivid. Zouga preferred the pale gold blond hair and the complexion of sugared cream and strawberries. An Englishman's idea of beauty.

  This woman's dress was outrageous, the styling of her hair pretentious. Her gaze was too direct, her eyes too blue, her conversation too easy and her style of address too familiar. Of course American women had the reputation of affecting masculine manners, but Zouga found himself wishing that Louise Sint John had kept those manners on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean where they belonged.

  it was enough that she had galloped into his camp ahead of her husband, riding astride, and dismounted by freeing both of her narrow booted feet from the stirrups and vaulting lightly to the ground; but then she had come up onto the stoep with an assured stride and smile, her right hand out like a man, and without waiting for her husband to introduce them had said: "You must be Zouga Ballantyne. I'd recognize you anywhere by Mungo's description of you."

  Her hand was narrow, the skin warm but dry, but the grip of her fingers was unfemininely firm, the grip of a skilled horsewoman.

  These leisurely Sunday luncheons at Zouga's camp were his one extravagance, and they had become one of the traditions of Kimberley, when excellent fare and good liquor and the company of intelligent men made for memorable afternoons.

  Women were very seldom invited to these gatherings, and Louise Sint John would not have been there if Zouga had been able to have her husband come alone, but Mungo Sint John had replied pointedly to the invitation, "General and missis Sint John have pleasure in accepting. The friendship between Sint John and Zouga had begun many years previously, and he was the kind of man whom Zouga could admire: a man like himself, hard and determined, one who lived by his own code without compromise. One who expected no preference nor favour, but whose triumphs were of his own engineering and whose disasters were met with fortitude, without plea or excuse, even when occasioned by cruel circumstances beyond his control.