by Wilbur Smith
In the fresh pink light of sunrise, as they rode down to the De Beers offices, mister Rhodes had said, suddenly: ` I have had a thought, Jordan, one which I'd like to share with you. While I was studying that statue, it came to me that the north is the gateway, the north is the hinterland of this continent of ours." That is how it had begun, in the shadow of the bird.
When the architect, Herbert Baker, had consulted mister Rhodes on the decoration and furnishings of the mansion that they were building on his Cape Estate, "Groote Schuur", "The Great Barn", Jordan had sat aside from the two men. As always in the presence of others he was unobtrusive and self-effacing, taking the notes that mister Rhodes dictated, supplying a figure or a fact only when it was demanded, and then with his voice kept low, the natural lilt and music of his rich tenor subdued.
mister Rhodes had jumped up from his seat on the box against the wall of the cottage and begun to pace, with that sudden excitable and voluble mood upon him.
"I have had a thought, Baker. I want there to be a theme for the place, something which is essentially me, which will be my motif long after I am gone, something that when men look at it, even in a thousand years" time, they will immediately recall the name Cecil John Rhodes."
"A diamond, perhaps?" Baker had hazarded, sketching a stylized stone on his pad.
"No, no, Baker. Do be original, man! First I have to scold you for being stingy, for trying to build me a mean little hovel and now that I have prevailed on you for magnificently barbaric size and space, you want to spoil it., "The bird," said Jordan. He had spoken despite himself, and both men looked at him with surprise.
"What did you say, Jordan?"
"The bird, mister Rhodes. The stone bird. I think that should be your motif."
Rhodes stared at him for a moment, and then punched his big fist into the palm of his left hand.
"That's it, Baker. The bird, sketch it for me. Sketch it now."
So the bird had become the spirit of Groote Schuur.
There was barely one of the huge cavernous rooms without its frieze or carved door jambs depicting it, even the bath, eleven tons of chiselled and polished granite was adorned at its four corners with the image of the falcon.
The original statue had been shipped down from Kimberley, and a special niche prepared for it high above the baronial entrance hall, from where it stared down blindly upon everyone who came through the massive teak front doors of the mansion.
On this morning they had ridden out even earlier than usual, for mister Rhodes had slept badly and had summoned Jordan from his small bedroom down the corridor.
It was cold. A vindictive wind came down off the mountains of the Hottentots Holland and as they took the path up towards the private zoo, Jordan looked back.
Across the wide Cape flats he saw the snow on the distant peaks turning pink and gold in the early light.
mister Rhodes was in a morose mood, silent and heavy in the saddle, his collar pulled up over his ears, and the broad hat jammed down to meet it. Jordan surreptitiously pushed his own mount level and studied his face.
Rhodes was still in his thirties, and yet this morning he looked fifteen years older. He took no notice of the first unseasonal flush of blue plumbago blooms beside the path, though on another morning he would have exclaimed with delight, for they were his favourite flowers.
He did not stop at the zoo to watch the lions fed, but turned up into the forest; and on the prow of land that led to the steeper cliffs of the flat-topped massif they dismounted.
At this distance the thatched roof of Groote Schuur with its twirling barley-corn turrets looked like a fairy castle, but Rhodes looked beyond it.
"I feel like a racehorse," he said suddenly. "Like a thoroughbred Arab with the heart and the will and the need to run, but there is a dark horseman upon my back that checks me with a harsh curb of iron or pricks me with a cruel spur." He rubbed his closed eyes with thumb and forefinger, and then massaged his cheeks as though to set the blood coursing in them again. "He was with me again last night, Jordan. Long ago I fled from England to this land and I thought I had eluded him, but he is back in the saddle. His name is Death, Jordan, and he will give me so little time." He pressed his hand to his chest, fingers spread as though to slow the racing of his damaged heart. "There is so little time, Jordan. I must hurry." He turned and took the hand from his heart and placed it on Jordan's shoulder. His expression became tender, a small sad smile touched his white lips. "How I envy you, my boy, for you will see it all and I shall not."
At that moment Jordan thought his own heart might break and, seeing his expression, Rhodes lifted his hand and touched his cheek.
"It's all too short, Jordan, life and glory, even love it's all too short. "He turned back to his horse. "Come, there is work to do."
As they rode out of the forest, the course of that mercurial mind had changed again. Death had been pushed aside and he said suddenly: "We shall have to square him, Jordan. I know he is your father, but we shall have to square him. Think about it and let me have your thoughts, but remember time is running short and we cannot move without him."
The road over the neck between the main massif of Table Mountain and Signal Hill was well travelled and Jordan passed twenty coaches or more before he reached the top, but it was another two miles and the road became steadily less populous, until at last it was a lonely deserted track which led into one of the ravines in the Mountainside.
In this winter season the protea bushes on the slopes beyond the sprawling thatched building were drab and their blooms had withered and browned on the branches.
The waterfall that smoked down off the mountain polished the rocks black and cold, and the spray dripped from the clustering trees about the pool.
However, the cottage had a neat cared-for look. The thatch had recently been renewed. It was still bright gold, and the thick walls had been whitewashed. With relief Jordan saw smoke curling from the chimney stack.
His father was at home.
He knew that the property had once belonged to the old hunter and explorer Tom Harkness, and that his father had purchased it with 150 pounds of his royalties from A Hunter's Odyssey. A sentimental gesture perhaps for old Tom had been the one who had encouraged and counselled Zouga Ballantyne on his first expedition to Zambezia.
Jordan dismounted and hitched the big glossy hunter from the stables of Groote Schuur to the rail below the verandah, and he walked to the front steps.
He glanced at the pillar of blue marbled stone that stood at the head of the steps like a sentinel, and a little shadow flitted over his face as he remembered the fateful day that Ralph had hacked it out of the Devil's Own claims and brought it to the surface.
It was the only thing that remained to any of them from all those years of labour and travail. He wondered not only that his father had transported it so far with so much effort, but that he had placed it so prominently to rebuke him.
For a moment he laid his hand upon the stone, and he felt the faint satiny bloom that other hands had made on the same spot on the surface, like the marks of worshippers" hands on a holy relic. Perhaps Zouga also touched it every time he passed. Jordan dropped his hand and called towards the shuttered cottage.
"Is anybody there?"
There was a commotion in the front room, and the front door burst open.
"Jordan, my Jordie!"howled Jan Cheroot, and came bounding down the steps. His cap of peppercorn hair was pure white at last, but his eyes were bright and the web of wrinkles around them had not deepened.
He embraced Jordan with the wiry strength of brown arms; but even from the advantage of the verandah step he did not reach to Jordan's chin.
"So tall, jordie," he chuckled. "Whoever thought you'd grow so tall, my little jordie."
He hopped back and stared up into Jordan's face. "Look at you, I bet a guinea to a baboon turd that you've broken a few hearts already."
"Not as many as you have." Jordan pulled him close again, and hugged him.
"I was afraid that you and Papa might still be away."
"We got home three days ago."
"Where is Papa?"
jordan!"
The familiar, beloved voice made him start and he broke from Jan Cheroot's embrace and looked beyond him to Zouga Ballantyne standing in the doorway of the cottage.
He had never seen his father looking- so well. It was not merely that he was lean and hard and sun-browned.
He seemed to stand taller and straighter with an easy set to his shoulders, so different from the defeated slump with which he had left the diamond fields.
"Jordan!" he said again, and they came together and shook hands, and Jordan studied his father's face at closer range.
The pride and the purpose that had been burnt away in the diamond pit had returned, but with their quality subtly changed. Now he had the look of a man who had worked out the terms on which he was prepared to live.
There were the shadows of a new thoughtfulness in his green eyes, the weight of understanding and compassion in his gaze. Here was a man who had tested himself almost to the point of destruction, had explored the frontiers of his soul and found them secure.
"Jordan," he said again quietly for the third time, and then he did something that demonstrated the profound change he had undergone. He leaned forward and briefly he pressed the soft golden curls of his beard to Jordan's cheek.
"I have thought of you often," he said without embarrassment. Thank you for coming." Then with his Arm about his shoulders he ushered Jordan into the front room.
This room always pleased Jordan, and he moved across to the log fire in the walk-in hearth and held out his hands to the blaze while he looked about him. It was a man's room, shelves filled with men's books, encyclopaedias and almanacs and thick leatherbound volumes of travel and exploration.
Weapons hung upon the walls, bows and quivers of poisoned Bushman arrows, shields and assegais of Matabele and Zulu, and, of course, the tools of the trade to which Zouga had reverted, firearms, heavy calibre sporting rifles by famous gunsmiths, Gibbs, Holland and Holland, Westley Richards. They were racked on the wall facing the fireplace, blued steel and lovingly carved wood.
With them were the souvenirs and trophies of Zouga's work, horns of antelope and buffalo, twisting or curved or straight as a lance, the zig-zag stripes of a zebra hide, the tawny gold bushed mane of the Kalahari lion, and ivory, great yellow arcs reaching higher than a man's head, yellow as fresh butter and translucent as candlewax in the cold winter light from the doorway.
"You had a good trip?" Jordan asked, and Zouga shrugged.
"It gets more difficult each season to find good specimens for my clients."
His clients were rich and aristocratic sportsmen, come out to Africa for the chase.
"But at least the Americans seem to have discovered Africa at last. I have a good party booked for next season young fellow called Roosevelt, Secretary of the Navy."
He broke off. "Yes, we are managing to keep body and soul together, old Jan Cheroot and I, but I don't have to ask about you."
He glanced down at the expensive English cloth of Jordan's suit, the soft leather of his riding boots which creased perfectly around his ankles like the bellows of a concertina, the solid silver spurs and the gold watch chain in his fob pocket, and then his eye paused on the white sparkle of the diamond in his cravat.
"You made the right choice when you decided to go with Rhodes. My God, how that man's star rises higher and brighter with. each passing day."
"He is a great man, Papa."
"Or a great rogue." Then Zouga smiled apologetically.
"I am sorry, I know how highly you think of him. Let's have a glass of sherry, Jordie, while Jan Cheroot makes lunch for us." He smiled again. "We miss your cooking.
You will find it poor fare, I'm afraid."
While he poured sweet Cape sherry into long glasses, he asked over his shoulder: "And Ralph, what do you hear of Ralph?"
"We meet often in Kimberley or at the railhead. He always asks after you."
"How is he?"
"He will be a big man, Papa. Already his wagons run to Pilgrims" Rest and those new goldfields on the Witwatersrand. He has just won the fast coach contract from Algoa Bay. He has trading posts at Tati and on the Shashi river."
They ate in front of the fire, sour bread and cheese, a cold joint of mutton and a black bottle of Constantia wine, and Jan Cheroot hovered over Jordan, scolding him fondly for his appetite and recharging his glass when it was barely a quarter empty.
At last they finished and stretched out their legs towards the fire, while Jan Cheroot brought a burning taper to light the cigars which Jordan pro from a gold pocket case.
Jordan spoke through the perfumed wreaths of smoke.
"Papa, the concession, "And for the first time an angry arrowhead creased the skin between Zouga's eyes.
"I had hoped that you came to see us," he said coldly.
"I keep forgetting that you are Rhodes" man, ahead of being my son."
"I am both," Jordan contradicted him evenly. "That's why I can talk to you like this."
"What message has the famous mister Rhodes for me this time?" Zouga demanded.
"Maund and Selous have both accepted his offers. They have sold their concessions to mister Rhodes, and both are ten thousand pounds richer."
Maund was a soldier and an adventurer. Fred Selous, like Zouga, a hunter and explorer. Also, like Zouga, Selous had written a well-received book on the African chase A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa. Both of these men had at different times prevailed on Lobengula to grant them concessions to ivory and minerals in his eastern dominions.
"mister Rhodes wants me to point out to you that both the Maund and Selous concessions are over the same territory as the concession that Mzilikazi granted to you.
He owns both of them now, the validity of all the treaties is hopelessly confused and hazy."
"The Ballantyne concession was granted first, by Mzilikazi; the ones that followed have no force," snapped zouga.
"mister Rhodes" lawyers have advised "Damn mister Rhodes and his lawyers. Damn them all to hell."
Jordan dropped his eyes and was silent, and after a long pause Zouga sighed and stood up. He went to the yellow wood cupboard and took out a stained and dog-eared document, so ragged that it had been pasted onto a backing to prevent it falling to pieces.
The ink had faded to brown, but the script was bold and spiky, the hand of an arrogant and cocksure young man.
The document was headed: EXCLUSIVE CONCESSION TO MINE GOLD AND HUNT IVORY IN THE SOVEREIGN TERRITORY OF MATABELELAND And at its foot was a crude wax seal with the image of a bull elephant, and the words:
KKOSI NKHULU, GREAT KING Below it a shaky cross in the same faded ink:
MZILIKAZI, his mark Zouga laid the document on the table between them, and they both stared at it.
"All right," Zouga capitulated. "What do mister Rhodes' lawyers advise?"
"That this concession could be set aside on separate points of law."
"I would fight him."
"Papa. He is a determined man. His influence is enormous. He will be Prime Minister of the Cape Parliament at the next session, there is little doubt of that." Jordan touched the red wax seal. "His fortune is vast, perhaps ten million pounds, "
"Still I will fight him," Zouga said, and then stopped Jordan speaking with a hand on his arm. "Jordan, don't you understand. A man must have Something, a dream, a light to follow in the darkness. I can never sell this, it has been all of my life for too long. Without it I shall have nothing."
"Papa "I know what you will say, that I can never make this into reality. I do not have the money it would need. You might even say that I no longer even have the strength of purpose. But, Jordan, while I have this piece of paper I can still hope, I still have my dream to follow. I can !
" never sell it."
"I told him that, and he understood immediately. He wants you to be a part of it."
Zouga lifted his head and stared at his son.
"A seat on the Board of Governors of the company for which mister Rhodes will petition a Royal Charter from Her Majesty. Then you will have grants of farm land, gold claims, and an active command in the field. Don't you see, Papa, he is not taking your dream away from you, he is making it come true at last."
The silence drew out, a log crumbled and crashed softly in the hearth; sparks shot up and the flare lit Zouga's face.
"When will he see me?" he asked.
"We can be at Groote Schuur in four hours" ride."
"It will be dark by then."
"There are fifteen bedrooms for you to choose from," Jordan smiled, and Zouga laughed like a man who has been given back all the excitement and eagerness of youth.
"Then why are we sitting here?" he asked. "Jan Cheroot, bring my heavy coat."
Zouga strode out onto the verandah of the cottage, and on the top step he checked and reached out with his right hand to the pillar of blue stone. He touched it with a strangely formal caress, and with the same hand touched his own lips and forehead, the gesture with which an Arab greets an old friend.
Then Zouga glanced at Jordan, and smiled.
"Superstition," he explained. "Good luck."
"Good luck?" Jan Cheroot snorted from below the steps where he held Zouga's horse. "Damn stone, all the way from Kimberley, trip over the thundering rubbish." He went on muttering to himself as Zouga mounted.
Jan Cheroot would pine away if he didn't have something to complain about." Zouga winked at Jordan, and they trotted out from under the milkwood trees onto the track.
"I often think back to that day when we hit the blue," Jordan said. "If we had only known!"
"How could we know?"
"It was I, I feel sure of that. It was I who convinced you that the blue ground was barren."