Afterwards he lay on his own bed, naked in the balmy night. As he drifted off he listened to the weird sobbing and laughter of the hyena patrolling the outskirts of the camp, attracted by the scent of the raw elephant meat curing on the smoking racks. His last thought was to wonder if Smallboy and the other drivers had placed the leather ropes and tackle of the wagon harness out of reach of those scavengers. With their formidable jaws the hyena could chew and swallow the toughest tanned leather as easily as he could devour a luscious oyster. But he knew that the safety and condition of the wagon harness was always Smallboy's first concern, and let himself drop into a sound sleep.



He woke suddenly, aware that the wagon had rocked lightly under him. His first thought was a continuation of the last: perhaps a hyena was raiding the camp. He sat up and reached for the loaded musket that always lay beside his bed, but before his hand could fall upon the stock he froze and stared towards the afterclap.



The moon still lacked two nights of full, and he could tell by its angle that it must be after midnight. Its light threw a soft glow through the canvas curtain of the afterclap. Louisa was silhouetted against it, an ethereal fairy figure. He could not see her face, for it was in shadow, but her hair came down in a pale cascade around her shoulders.



She took a hesitant pace towards his bed. Then she stopped again. He could see by the way in which she held her head that she was shy or afraid, maybe both. "Louisa? What ails you?"



"I could not sleep," she whispered.



"Is there anything I can do?"



She did not reply at once, but instead she came forward slowly and lay down at his side. "Please, Jim, be kind to me. Be patient with me."



They lay in silence, without touching, their bodies rigid. Neither knew what to do next.



Louisa broke the silence. "Speak to me, Jim. Do you want me to go back to my own wagon?" It irked her that he who was usually so bold was timid now.



"No. Oh, please, no," he blurted out.



"Then speak to me."



I'm not sure what you want me to say, but I will tell you all that is in my mind and heart," he said. He thought for a while, and his voice sank to a whisper. "When first I saw you on the deck of the ship, it seemed that I had been waiting all my life for that moment."



She sighed softly, and he felt her relax beside him, like a cat spreading herself out in the warmth of the sun. Encouraged, he went on, "I have often thought when I watch my father and mother together that for every man born God fashions a woman."



"Adam's rib," she murmured.



"I believe that you are my rib," he said. "I cannot find happiness and fulfilment without you."



"Go on, Jim. Please don't stop."



"I believe that all the terrible things that happened to you before we met, and all the hardships and dangers we have endured since then, have had but one purpose. That is to test and temper us, like steel in the furnace."



"I had not thought of that," she said, 'but now I see it is true."



He reached out and touched her hand. It seemed to him that a spark passed between their fingertips like the crackling discharge of gunpowder in the pan. She jerked away her hand. He sensed that their moment, although close, had not yet arrived. He took back his own hand and she relaxed again.



His uncle Dorian had once given him a filly that no one else could break to the bit and saddle. It had been very much like this, weeks and months of slow progress, of advance and retreat, but in the end she had become his, as beautiful and wondrous a creature as it was possible to imagine. He had called her Windsong and had held her head as she died of the horse-sickness.



On an inspiration he told Louisa about Windsong, how he had loved her and how she had died. She lay beside him in the darkness and listened, captivated. When he came to the end of the story she wept



like a child, but they were good tears, not the bitter hurting tears that had so often gone before.



Then she slept at last, still lying beside him, still not quite touching. He listened to her gentle breathing, and at last slept also.



They followed the elephant herds northwards for almost another month. It was as his father had warned him: when disturbed by man the great beasts moved hundreds of leagues to new country. They travelled at that long, striding walk that even a good horse could not match over a long distance. The entire southern continent was their domain, and the old matriarchs of the herds knew every mountain pass and every lake, river and water-hole along the way; they knew how to avoid the deserts and the desolate lands. They knew the forests that were rich in fruits and luxuriant growth, and they knew the fastness where they were safe from attack.



However, they left tracks that were clear to Bakkat's eye, and he followed them into wilderness where even he had never ventured. The tracks led them to good water, and to the easy passes through the mountains.



Thus, they came at last to a river set in a strath of grassy veld, and the waters were sweet and clear. Jim took his sights of the noon passage of the sun on five consecutive days until he was certain he had accurately fixed their position on his father's chart. Both he and Louisa were amazed at the great distance the leisurely turning wheels of the wagons had covered to bring them here.



They left the camp on the river bank each day and rode out to explore the country in all directions. On the sixth day they climbed to the top of a tall, rounded hill that overlooked the plains beyond the river.



"Since we left the frontier of the colony we have seen no sign of our fellow men," Louisa remarked, 'just that one wagon track almost three months ago, and the paintings of Bakkat's tribe in the caves of the mountains."



"It is an empty land," Jim agreed, 'and I love it so, for it and everything in it belongs to me. It makes me feel like a god."



She smiled as she watched his enthusiasm. To her he looked indeed like a young god. The sun had burned him brown, and his arms and legs were carved from granite muscle. Despite her frequent clipping with the sheep shears, his hair had grown down to his shoulders. Accustomed to staring at far horizons, his gaze was calm and steady. His bearing displayed his confidence and authority.



She could not much longer try to deceive herself, or deny how her feelings had changed towards him in these last months. He had proved his worth a hundred times. He now stood at the centre of her existence. However, she must first throw off the brake and burden of her past even now when she closed her eyes she could see the sinister head in the black leather mask, and the cold eyes behind the slits. Van Ritters, the master of Huis Brabant, was with her still.



Jim turned back to face her, and she averted her eyes: surely her dark thoughts must be clear for him to see in them. "Look!" she cried, and pointed across the river. "There is a field of wild daisies growing there."



He shaded his eyes and followed the direction of her out-thrust hand. "I doubt that they are flowers." He shook his head. "They shine too bright. I think what you see is a bed of chalk stone or white quartz pebbles."



"I am sure they are daisies, like those that grew beside the Gariep river." Louisa pushed Trueheart forward. "Come, let's cross to look at them. I wish to draw them." She was already well down the hill, leaving him little choice but to follow her, although he had no great interest in flowers.



A well-trodden game path led them through a grove of wild willows to a shallow ford. They splashed through the green waters belly deep and rode up the steep cut of the far bank. They saw the mysterious white field not far ahead, glaring in the sunlight, and raced each other to it.



Louisa was a few lengths ahead, but suddenly she reined in and the laughter died on her lips. She stared down at the ground, speechless with horror. Jim stepped down from the stirrup and, leading Drumfire, walked forward slowly. The ground beneath his feet was thickly strewn with human bones. He stooped and picked up a skull from the macabre display. "A child," he said, and turned the tiny relic in his hands. "Its head was staved in."



"What has happened here, Jim?"



"There has been a massacre," he answered, 'and not too long ago, for although the birds have picked the skeletons clean, the hyena have not yet devoured them."



How did it happen?" The tragic remains had moved her, and her eyes swam with tears.



He brought the child's skull to her, and held it up so she might examine it more closely. "The imprint of a war club. A single blow to the back of the head. Tis how the Nguni despatch their enemies."



"Children also?"



"It is said that they kill for the thrill and prestige."



"How many have died here?" Louisa averted her gaze from the tiny skull, and looked instead to the piled skeletons, which lay in snowdrifts and windrows. "How many?"



"We shall never know, but it seems that this was an entire tribe." Jim laid the little skull down on the spot where he had found it.



"No wonder we found no living man on all our long journey," she whispered. "These monsters have slain every one, and laid waste to the land."



Jim fetched Bakkat from the wagons and he confirmed Jim's first estimate. He picked out from among the bones evidence to paint a broader picture of the slaughter. He found the broken head and the shaft of a war club, which he called a kerrie. It had been skilfully carved from a shoot of a knob thorn bush: the bulbous root section formed a natural head for the vicious club. The weapon must have snapped in the hand of the warrior who had wielded it. He also found a handful of glass trade beads scattered in the grass. They might once have been part of a necklace. They were cylindrical in shape, red and white.



Jim knew them well: identical beads were among the goods they carried in their own wagons. He showed them to Louisa. "Beads like these have been common currency in Africa for a hundred years or more. Originally they were probably traded by the Portuguese to the northern tribes."



Bakkat rubbed one between his fingers. "They are highly prized by the Nguni. One of the warriors might have had a string of these torn from his neck, perhaps by the dying fingers of one of his victims."



"Who were the victims?" Louisa asked, and spread her hands to indicate the bones that lay so thickly around them.



Bakkat shrugged. "In this land men come from nowhere and depart again leaving no trace of their passing." He tucked the beads into the pouch on his belt, which was made from the scrotum of a bull buffalo. "Except my people. We leave our pictures on the rocks so that the spirits will remember us."



"I would like to know who they were," Louisa said. "It is so tragic to think of the little ones who were snuffed out here, with no one to bury them or mourn their passing."



She did not have to wait long to find out who the victims were.



The next day as the wagon train rolled northwards they saw, at a distance, the herds of wild antelope parting like the bow wave of an ocean-going vessel. Jim recognized that this was how animals reacted to the presence of human beings. He had no way of knowing what lay ahead, so he ordered Smallboy to form the wagons into a defensive square and issue a musket to each man. Then, taking Bakkat and Zama with them, he and Louisa rode out to scout the land ahead.



The grassy plain undulated like the swells of the ocean, and when they reached the next crest of higher ground and could see ahead, they reined in spontaneously and stared in silence at the strange sight that was revealed to them.



Tiny with distance a column of forlorn human figures toiled across the plain, moving so painfully slowly that they raised almost no dust. They had no domestic animals with them, and as they drew closer Jim could see through the telescope that they were carrying their meagre possessions on their heads: clay pots and calabashes, or bundles wrapped in animal skins. There was nothing hostile in their appearance, and Jim rode to meet them. As the distance narrowed more details became apparent.



The straggling file was made up almost entirely of women and their children. The infants were being carried in leather pouches slung on the backs or across the hips of their mothers. They were all wasted and thin, with legs like dried sticks. They walked with the slack, dragging gait of exhaustion. As Jim and Louisa watched, one of the skeletal women sagged to the ground. The bundle and the two small children she carried on her back were too great a burden. Her companions stopped to help her back to her feet. One held a water gourd to her mouth to allow her to drink.



It was a touching gesture. "These people are dying on their feet," Louisa said softly. As they rode closer she counted their heads: There are sixty-eight of them, but I may have missed some of the children."



When they were within hail of the head of this sorry file, they stopped the horses and Jim rose in the stirrups. "Who are you, and where do you come from?"



It seemed that they were so far gone they had not seen the party until then, for Jim's voice caused confusion and despair among them. Many of the women threw down their bundles and seized their children. They scattered back the way they had come, but their efforts at escape were Pathetic, and one after another they staggered to a halt and collapsed in



the grass, unable to run further. They tried to escape attention by lying flat and pulling their leather capes over their heads.



Only one had not run, an old man. He, too, was stick-thin and frail, but he straightened and stood with dignity. He let the shawl drop from his shoulders, let out a shrill, quavering war-cry and charged straight at Jim, brandishing a throwing spear. From fifty paces, out of range of his old arm, he hurled the spear, which pegged into the earth halfway between him and Jim. Then he sagged to his knees. Jim rode warily closer, alert for another warlike attack from the silver-headed ancient.



"Who are you, old father?" he repeated. He had to ask the same question in three different dialects before the man started with recognition, and answered: "I know who you are, you who ride upon the back of wild animals and speak in tongues. I know you are one of the white crocodile wizards that come out of the great waters to devour men. How else would you know the language of my people? Yet I fear you not, foul demon, for I am old and ready to die. But I will die fighting against you who would devour my daughters and my grandchildren." He staggered to his feet and drew the axe from his belt. "Come, and we will see if you have blood in your veins like other men."



The dialect he spoke was of the northern Lozi, which old Aboli had taught Jim. "You terrify me, bold warrior," he told the old man gravely, 'but let us put aside our weapons and talk for a while before we do battle."



"He looks confused and terrified," Louisa said. "The poor old man."



"It may be that he is not accustomed to discourse with wizards and demons," Bakkat remarked drily, 'but one thing I know, if he is not fed soon the wind will blow him away."



The old man was swaying on his bony legs. "When did you last eat, great chieftain?" Jim asked.



"I do not parley with wizards or crocodile spirits," announced the old man, with disdain.



"If you are not hungry, then tell me, chieftain, when did your daughters and your grandchildren last eat?"



The old man's defiance wavered. He looked back at his people, and his voice was low as he replied with simple dignity, "They are starving."



"I can see that," Jim said grimly.



"Jim, we must fetch food for them from the wagons," Louisa burst out.



"It will need more than our few fish and loaves to feed this multitude. Then, when they have eaten our pantry bare, we will starve with them," Jim answered, and turned in the saddle to survey the herds of game that were scattered across the plains in every direction. "They are starving in



the midst of plenty. Their hunting skills and crude weapons will not bring down a single head of game from all this multitude," he said, then looked back at the old man. "I will use my witchcraft not to destroy your people but to feed them."



They left him standing and rode out across the plain. Jim picked out a herd of cow-like wildebeest, strange-looking creatures with fringes of dark mane and lunate horns, their legs too thin for their robust bodies. These were the fools of the veld, and they gambolled ahead of Bakkat and Zama as they rode in a wide circle to surround them and drive them back towards Jim and Louisa. When the herd leaders were almost within gunshot, they sensed the danger and put down their ugly heads. Snorting and kicking up their heels they ran in earnest. Drumfire and Trueheart came up on them easily. Riding in close and shooting from the saddle Jim dropped a beast with a shot from each of his guns, and Louisa brought down another with the little French rifle. They roped the carcasses by the heels and dragged them behind the horses to where the old man was squatting in the grass.



He rose to his feet. When he realized what they had brought him, he cried out to his followers, in a quavering voice, "Meat! The devils have brought us meat! Come quickly, and bring the children."



Timidly one old woman crept forward, while the others hung back. The two old people started work on the carcasses, using the blade of the throwing spear as a butcher's knife. When the rest of the band saw that they were not being molested by the white devils they came swarming forward to the feast.



Louisa laughed aloud to see mothers hacking off lumps of raw meat, and chewing it to a pulp before spitting it into the mouths of their children, like mother birds feeding their chicks. When their first hunger was appeased, they built fires to roast and smoke the rest of the kill. Jim and Louisa hunted again, bringing in more prime game to provide enough smoked meat to feed even this number of mouths for some months.



Very soon the little tribe lost all fear and became so trusting that they no longer skittered away when Louisa walked among them. They even allowed her to pick up and dandle the little ones. Then the women clustered around her, touched her hair and stroked her pale skin with awe.



Jim and Bakkat sat with the old man and questioned him. "What People are you?"



"We are of the Lozi, but our totem is the Bakwato."



"How are you called, great chieftain of the Bakwato?" Jim asked.



"Tegwane, and in truth I am but a very small chief," he replied. The



tegwane was the little fish-eating brown stork with a feathered topknot that frequented every stream and river pool.



"Where do you come from?" The old man pointed to the north. "Where are the young warriors of your tribe?"



"Slain by the Nguni," Tegwane said, 'fighting to save their families. Now I am trying to find a place where the women and children will be safe, but I fear the killers are not far behind us."



"Tell me about these Nguni," Jim invited. "I have heard the name spoken with fear and awe, but I have never seen them, nor met any man who has."



"They are killer devils," Tegwane replied. "They come swiftly as cloud shadows the plain, and they slaughter every living soul in their path."



Tell me all you know of them. What do they look like?"



"The warriors are big men built like ironwood trees. They wear black vulture feathers in their headdress. They have rattles on their wrists and ankles so their legions make the sound of the wind when they come."



"What of their weapons?"



They carry black shields of dried ox-hide, and they scorn the throwing spear. They like to come close with the short stabbing assegai. The wound from that blade is so wide and deep that it sucks the blood from the victim like a river as they pluck out the steel."



"Where do they come from?"



"No man knows, but some say from a land far to the north. They travel with great herds of plundered cattle, and they send their cohorts ahead to slaughter all in their path."



"Who is their king?"



"They have no king, but a queen. Her name is Manatasee. I have never seen her, but they say she is crueller and more warlike than any of her warriors." He looked fearfully to the horizon. "I must take my people on to escape her. Her warriors cannot be far behind us now. Perhaps if we cross the river they may not follow us."



They left Tegwane and his women working over the fires to smoke the rest of the meat, and rode back to the wagons. That night, as they ate their dinner by the glow of the campfire under a canopy of glittering stars, they discussed the predicament of the little tribe of refugees. Louisa proposed to return next morning with their meagre chest of medicines, and bags of flour and salt.



"If you give them all we have, what will happen to us?" Jim asked reasonably.



"Just for the children?" she tried again, although she knew he was right and it was a forlorn hope that he might agree.



"Child or grown, we cannot take an entire tribe under our wing. We have provided them with food sufficient to see them to the river and beyond. This is a cruel land. Like us, they have to fend for themselves or perish."



She did not come to his wagon that night, and he missed her. Although they were still as chaste as brother and sister, he had become accustomed to her presence in the night. When he woke she was already working at the campfire. During this hiatus on the river bank, their hens had been allowed out of their coop on the back of the wagon to forage. In gratitude they had produced half a dozen eggs. Louisa made an omelette for his breakfast, and served it without a smile, making her disapproval obvious.



"I had a dream last night," she told him.



He suppressed a sigh. He was learning to make room in his life for her dreams. Tell me."



"I dreamed that something terrible happened to our friends, the Bakwato."



"You do not yield without a fight, do you?" he asked. She only smiled at him once they were riding back towards where they had left the small group of fugitives. During the ride he tried to think of other good reasons to dissuade her from taking on the role of benefactor and protector of the seventy starvelings, but he bided his time before he returned to the contest of wills.



The drifting smoke from the fires on which the meat was curing guided them the last league. As they crested the rise they reined in with surprise. Tegwane's encampment was not as they had last seen it. Dust mingled with the smoke of the fires to veil the scene, but many tiny figures were scurrying in and out of the low cloud. Jim pulled his telescope out of its case. After one glance through the lens he exclaimed, "Sweet Jesus, the Nguni have found them already!"



"I knew it!" Louisa cried. "I told you something terrible had happened, didn't I?"



She spurred forward and he had to ride hard to catch her. He grabbed Trueheart's rein and brought them to a halt. "Wait! We must have a care. We don't know what we are riding into."



"They are killing our friends!"



"The old man and his tribe are probably dead already and we do not want to join them." Quickly he explained to Bakkat and Zama what he planned.



Fortunately the wagons were not far behind them. He gave orders to Zama to ride back and warn Smallboy and his men to stand on guard,



and to bring all the oxen, spare horses and other animals into the centre of the laager.



"When they have secured the camp bring Smallboy and two of the other drivers back here, fast as you like! Bring two muskets for each man. Fill the bullet bags with goose-shot, and bring extra powder flasks."



The smooth bores were quicker to reload than the rifles. A handful of goose-shot fired at close range would spread widely and might bring down more than one enemy with each discharge.



Although Louisa fretted and argued to go immediately to the rescue of the little band of refugees, he made her wait until Zama brought up the reinforcements of men and weapons. "They will be here within the hour," he assured her.



"By then the Bakwato will all be wiped out."



She wanted to take the telescope from his hand, but he would not give it to her. "It's better that you do not watch this."



Through the lens he could see the sparkle of steel blades in the sunlight, waving war-shields and dancing feathered headdresses. Even his flesh crawled with horror as he saw a naked Bakwato woman run out of the dust clouds clutching an infant to her breast. She was pursued by a tall plumed warrior. He came up behind her and stabbed her in the back. The point of the assegai came out between her breasts. Jim saw the steel flash pink with her blood, like the shine of a salmon's flank turning below the surface. She fell forward into the grass. The warrior stooped over her, then straightened up with her infant dangling from one hand. He threw the child high into the air, and as it fell he caught it, neatly skewered on the point of the assegai. Then, brandishing the little corpse like a standard, he rushed back into the dust and smoke.



At last, but not too soon for Louisa, Zama galloped back with Smallboy, Klaas and Muntu, the other drivers. Swiftly Jim checked to see that their muskets were primed and loaded. They were all well versed in the use of the guns, but Jim had never seen their temper tested in a hard fight. He formed them into an extended line, and then, keeping the horses to a walk to save their strength, they rode towards the embattled encampment. Jim kept Louisa close to him. He would have preferred to send her back to the safety of the wagons, but he knew better than to suggest it.



As they closed in they could hear the outcry coming from the encampment, the screams and the wailing, the wild, triumphant ululations of the Nguni as they plied the assegai and the kerrie. Under the cloud of dust and smoke the grassland was littered with the broken bodies of the dead women and children, like flotsam thrown on a storm swept beach.



They are all killed, Jim thought, and his anger became murderous. He glanced across at Louisa. Her face was blanched with horror as she looked upon the carnage. Then, incredibly, he saw that one, at least, of the Bakwato was still alive.



In the centre of the encampment there was a low outcrop of granite. It formed a natural strongpoint, a zareeba walled with rock. Here stood the gaunt figure of Tegwane, a club in one hand and a spear in the other. His body was painted with his own blood and that of his enemies. He was surrounded by Nguni warriors. They seemed to be toying with the old man, amused by his courage. Cats with a doomed mouse, they danced about him, mocking him and laughing at his warlike antics. Tegwane had regained a little of the strength and ferocity of his lost youth. His shrill war-cry and his shouts of defiance rang out, and Jim saw one of his attackers stagger back from a spear thrust into his face. He clutched the wound and blood spurted out between his fingers. This success sealed Tegwane's fate, and the Nguni moved in with purpose.



By now the thin line of horsemen was within a hundred paces of the periphery of the camp. So immersed were the Nguni in the joy of killing that none was aware as yet of their approach.



"How many of them are there?" Jim called to Louisa.



"I see not more than twenty or so," she answered.



"A small scouting party," Jim guessed. Then he shouted to his men, "Have at them! Take them! Shoot them down like rabid jackals."



They pushed the horses into a canter and charged down on the camp. Just ahead of the line a Nguni was prodding one of the younger women with his assegai, goading her into position for a thrust to her belly, but she was rolling and writhing on the ground like an eel, avoiding the bright steel point. He was so preoccupied with his cruel game that Louisa was almost on him before he looked up. Jim was not sure what she intended, but it took him by surprise when she raised the musket and fired. The charge of goose-shot slammed into the Nguni's sweat glazed chest, and he was flung backwards by the force of it.



Louisa pulled the second musket from its sheath and kept her station at Jim's side, as they charged the knot of warriors that surrounded Tegwane. She fired again and another man dropped. Even in the exigency of the moment, Jim felt awed by her ruthlessness. This was not the girl he had thought he knew. She had just killed two men, coldly and efficiently, allowing none of the emotions that raged within her to show.



The warriors attacking Tegwane heard the gunfire behind them. The heavy reports were sounds alien to them, and when they turned to face the line of horsemen their astonishment and bewilderment showed



clearly on their faces, which were speckled with the blood of their victims. Jim fired only seconds after Louisa. The heavy lead goose-shot tore into one naked belly, felling the man instantly, and shattered the arm of the warrior beside him. His assegai dropped from his grip and the arm hung uselessly at his side, half severed above the elbow.



The wounded man looked down at his dangling arm, then reached down and picked up his fallen assegai with his left hand and ran straight at Jim, who was astonished by his courage. Both his muskets were empty, and he was forced to draw the pistol from the holster on the front of his saddle. The ball hit the charging Nguni full in the throat. He made a gargling noise and blood sprayed from his severed windpipe, but his example was an inspiration to his comrades. They recovered from their surprise, left Tegwane and launched themselves at the horsemen, keening with eagerness, their faces alight with bloodlust, the rattles at their ankles buzzing with every stamp of their bare feet and thrust of their stabbing arms.



Zama and Bakkat fired together and each killed one. Two more were struck by the volley from Smallboy and the other drivers, but their aim was wild, and even the wounded Nguni came on strongly, almost closing within range of their short assegais.



"Back! Back to reload!" Jim shouted. The line of horsemen broke and wheeled away, galloping out of the encampment. The charge of the Nguni faltered and halted when they could not overtake the horses. Well out in the veld, Jim stopped his men and brought them under control again. "Dismount and reload!" he ordered. "Keep your mounts on the rein. You don't want to lose them now!"



They obeyed with alacrity. With the reins secured round their shoulders they poured powder and shot into the muzzles, and rodded a handful of goose-shot down on top.



"Smallboy and his lads may shoot like rabbits," Jim muttered to Louisa, as he primed the pan of his second musket, 'but at least they are still under control."



Louisa worked almost as quickly and neatly as he did and she finished loading both her weapons only a little after him. The Nguni were encouraged to see them halted. With savage shouts they broke into a run again, swiftly covering the open grassland towards the group of dismounted riders.



"At least we have drawn them away from their victims," Louisa said, as she stepped into the saddle. Jim went up on Drumfire, but the rest of the men were still busy reloading. Jim saw that Louisa was right. All of the remaining enemy warriors had joined in the chase, and were



streaming towards them across the grassland. At the granite outcrop old Xegwane stood alone, obviously badly hurt but still alive.



Bakkat finished priming the pan of his musket and, with the agility of a monkey, leaped into the saddle. He fell in beside Jim, but the others were still busy.



"Follow us when you're loaded," Jim shouted, 'but hurry!" Then, to Louisa and Bakkat, "Come on! We will give them a whiff of gunsmoke to blunt their appetite." The three trotted out to meet the advancing band of warriors.



They show no fear!" Louisa said, with reluctant admiration, as the Nguni bayed like a pack of hunting dogs and burst into a headlong charge, straight at them.



When only a hundred paces separated them, Jim halted. From the saddle they fired deliberately. Two of the attackers collapsed; a third fell to his knees and clutched his belly. They changed muskets and fired again. Both Jim and Bakkat brought down another man each, but the strain was telling on Louisa. The muskets were far too heavy for her, and she flinched instinctively at the painful recoil. Her second shot flew high. The other Nguni closed in howling savagely. Only a few were still on their feet, but their faces were lit with battle fever, and they held their black war-shields high.



"Back!" Jim ordered, and they turned away, almost under the shadow of the shields, and galloped towards where Zama, Smallboy and the rest of the company were at last reloaded and mounting. As they passed each other Jim shouted across at Smallboy, "Don't let them get too close. Stand off and shoot them down. We'll reload and come after you."



While Jim's party reloaded, he saw that Smallboy was obeying his orders. He and his men were keeping their horses just ahead of the charge of the Nguni, baiting them on, stopping to fire when they were in killing range, then spurring ahead again. They were doing better now: two more of the warriors were lying lifeless in the grass. When their muskets were empty Smallboy broke off his attack and led his men back.



By this time Jim's party had reloaded and were in the saddle again. The ranks of horsemen passed through each other as one retreated and the other went forward.



"Pretty shooting!" Jim encouraged Smallboy. "Now it's our turn."



The Nguni warriors saw them coming and stopped. For a moment, they stood in a small, uncertain group. By now, they had realized the futility of charging to meet these strangers mounted on the back of fleet, alien animals whose speed no man on foot could match. They had



swiftly learned the menace of the weapons that boomed out smoke and struck men down from afar with the force of witchcraft. One broke away and fled. However, Jim noted that he did not discard his shield and assegai. It was clear he meant not to yield but to fight again. His companions seemed infected by his example. They turned and ran.



"Steady!" Jim cautioned his own men. "Don't let them draw you in." Tegwane had warned him that it was a favoured tactic of the Nguni to pretend flight, or even to feign death, to lure their enemy on.



One of them, the slowest runner, had fallen far behind the others. Jim went after him and caught him up swiftly. As he raised the musket the warrior turned at bay. Jim saw that he was no stripling: there were silver strands in his short, curling beard, and he wore a headdress of ostrich feathers and the cow tails of honour and courage around his spear arm. He displayed a sudden burst of speed and darted towards Jim. He might have driven his assegai blade into Drumfire's flank but Jim hit him full in the face with a load of goose-shot.



When he looked round he saw that Louisa had obeyed his order. She had not taken up the pursuit, and Bakkat and Zama had also turned back. Jim was pleased with this show of discipline and good sense: it might have been fatal to have his small force scattered across the veld. He rode back to where Louisa waited.



As he reached her side Jim saw from her face that her rage had vanished as swiftly as it had arisen. She was looking down at one of the dead Nguni with sadness and remorse in her eyes.



"We have driven them off, but they will return, I'm sure of that," Jim told her, and she watched the distant figures of the surviving Nguni dwindle into the golden grassland, and disappear at last over the fold of the ground.



"It was enough," she said. "I'm glad you let them go."



"Where did you learn to fight?" he asked.



"If you had spent a year on the gundeck of the Meeuu, you would understand."



At that moment Smallboy and the other drivers rode up with their muskets recharged. "We will follow them, Somoya," he cried eagerly. It was clear that he was still gripped by the ecstasy of battle.



"No! Leave them!" Jim ordered sharply. "Manatasee and all her army are probably waiting for you over the next hill. Your place is back at the wagons. Go there now, protect the cattle, and make ready to meet another attack."



While Smallboy and the drivers rode off, Jim led the others back to the grisly encampment. Old Tegwane was sitting on a lump of granite, nursing his injuries and crooning a soft lament for his family and the



other women and children of his tribe, whose corpses were scattered around him.



While Louisa gave him water from her flask, then washed his wounds and bound them up to staunch the bleeding, Jim went through the encampment. He approached the bodies of the fallen Nguni warily, loaded pistol at the ready. But all of them were dead: the goose-shot had inflicted terrible wounds. They were mostly big, handsome men, young and powerfully built. Their weapons were the work of skilled blacksmiths. Jim picked up one of the assegais. It had a marvelous balance in his hand and both edges were sharp enough to shave the hair from his forearm. The dead warriors all wore necklaces and bangles of carved ivory. Jim took one of these ornaments from the neck of the Nguni elder he had killed with his last shot. By the ostrich feathers in his headdress, and the white cow tails round his upper arms Jim judged that he must have been senior in the band. The ivory necklace was beautifully carved, tiny human figures threaded on to a leather thong.



"Each figure represents a man he has killed in battle," Jim guessed. It was obvious that the Nguni placed a high value on ivory. This intrigued Jim, and he slipped the necklace into his pocket.



As he went on through the camp he found that the Nguni had done their gruesome work thoroughly. The children had all been despatched with merciless efficiency. For most a single blow with a war club was all it had taken. Apart from Tegwane, they found only one other Bakwato still alive, the girl Louisa had saved with her first shot. She had a deep spear wound in her shoulder, but she was able to walk when Zama lifted her to her feet. Louisa saw that she was too young to have given birth to her first child, for her belly was flat and smooth, her breasts like unripe fruit. Tegwane let out a joyous cry when he saw she was still alive, and hobbled to embrace her.



"This is Intepe, the lily of my heart, my granddaughter," he cried.



Louisa had noticed her at their first meeting with the tribe, for she was the prettiest of all the women. Intepe came to her trustingly and sat patiently as Louisa washed and dressed her wound. When Louisa had finished tending Tegwane and his granddaughter, she looked around at the dead who lay half hidden in the grass.



"What must we do with all these others?" she called to Jim. We have finished here," Jim replied, then glanced up at the cloudless sky where, high above, the vultures were gathering. "We will leave the rest of the work to them. Now we must hurry back to the wagons. We have much to do there before the Nguni return."



Jim picked out the best defensive position along the river bank. Here a small tributary stream flowed down from the hills to join the main flow. It came in at an acute angle, forming a narrow wedge of ground bounded on one side by a pool of the main river. Jim plumbed the depth of the pool and found that it was deeper than a man was tall.



The Nguni will never swim," Tegwane assured him. "Water is perhaps the only thing they fear. They will eat neither fish nor hippopotamus, for they have an abhorrence of anything that comes from water."



"So the pool will protect our flank and rear." Jim was relieved. Tegwane was proving a useful source of information. He boasted that he could speak the Nguni language fluently, and that he knew their customs. If this was true, he was well worth his keep.



Jim walked along the top of the steep bank of the tributary stream. The drop was over ten feet, a wall of greasy clay that would be difficult to scale without a ladder.



This will protect the other flank. We have only to draw up the wagons across the neck between river and stream."



They rolled them into position, and roped the wheels together with rawhide ri ems to prevent the Nguni pushing them aside and forcing a breach. In the gaps between the wagon bodies, and under the wagon beds they packed thorn-branches, leaving no space for the warriors to crawl through. In the centre of the wagon line they left a narrow gate.



Jim ordered that the horses and the other domestic animals were to be herded and grazed close by, so that within minutes they could be driven into the protection of the laager and the gateway sealed off against attack with faggots of thornbush placed ready to hand.



"Do you truly believe that the Nguni will return?" Louisa tried to hide her fear as she asked the question. "Don't you think they might have learned by hard experience and that they will pass us by?"



"Old Tegwane knows them well. He has no doubt that they will come if only because they dearly love a fight," Jim replied.



"How many more of them are there?" she asked. "Does Tegwane know?"



The old man cannot count. He says only that they are many."



Jim carefully measured and selected a spot well out in front of the wagons, where he made Smallboy and his drivers dig a shallow hole. In it he placed a fifty-pound keg of coarse black gunpowder, set a fuse of slow-match in the bung-hole and ran it back between the wheels of the



centre wagon. He covered the keg with sacks of pebbles from the river bed which he hoped would scatter like musket balls when the keg exploded.



He had the men cut firing loopholes into the wall of thorns through which they could lay down enfilading fire along the front of the defences. With the grindstone Smallboy sharpened the naval cutlasses and placed them ready to hand. Then the loaded muskets were stacked beside the cutlasses, with powder kegs and shot bags and spare ramrods close by. Louisa instructed and rehearsed the voorlopers and herd-boys in loading and priming the weapons. She had some difficulty in persuading them that if one handful of gunpowder resulted in such a satisfactory explosion, two would be no improvement; it might result in a burst gun barrel and even the decapitation of whoever pulled the trigger.



The water fagies were refilled from the river pool and made ready, either to slake the thirst of fighting men or to quench the flames if the Nguni latched on to the old trick of hurling lighted torches into the laager.



Two herd-boys were placed as lookouts on the crest of the low hill from which Louisa had first spied the charnel field. Jim gave them a clay fire-pot, and ordered them to light a fire of green leaves if they saw the main Nguni impi, or warrior band, approaching. The smoke would warn the camp and, when it was lit, they could race down the hill into the laager to spread the alarm. Jim made certain that the boys came down from the hilltop and were safely in the laager each evening before nightfall. It would have been heartless to leave them out there in the dark at the mercy of wild beasts and Nguni scouts.



The Nguni never attack at night," Tegwane told Jim. "They say that the darkness is for cowards. A true warrior should die only in the sunlight." Nevertheless Jim brought in his pickets and placed sentries around the periphery of the laager at nightfall, and inspected them regularly during the night to make certain that they stayed awake.



They will come singing and beating their shields," Tegwane said. They wish to warn their enemy. They know that their fame precedes them, and that the sound of their voices and sight of their black headdresses fills the bellies of their enemy with fear."



Then we must prepare a fitting greeting for them," Jim said.



They cleared the trees and underbrush for a hundred paces in front of the wagons, and the spans of trek oxen dragged away the felled trees. The ground was left open and bare. The attacking impi would have to cross this killing ground to reach the wagons. Then Jim paced out the distances in front of the defences, and laid a line of white river stones



to mark the most effective range and spread patterns of the goose-shot. He impressed on his men that they must not open fire until the first rank of the attackers crossed this line.



When he had completed all his preparations, they settled down to wait. This was the worst time, and the slow drag of the hours was corrosive to their spirits. Jim took advantage of this delay by spending time with Tegwane, learning more about the enemy from him.



"Where do they keep their women and children?"



"They do not bring them to war. Perhaps they leave them in their homeland."



"Do they have a great store of plunder and riches?"



"They have many cattle, and they love the ivory teeth of the elephant and the hippopotamus."



"Tell me of their cattle."



"They have huge herds. The Nguni love their cattle like their own children. They do not slaughter them to eat their meat. Instead they tap off their blood and mix it with the milk. This is their main food."



A calculating look came into Jim's eyes as he listened. A prime ox fetched a hundred guilders in the colony.



Tell me of their ivory."



"They love ivory very much," Tegwane replied. "Perhaps they need it for trade with the Arabs of the north or with the Bulamatari." The name meant Breakers of Rock, a reference to the Portuguese, whose prospectors chipped the reef for traces of gold. Jim was surprised that here, in the deep interior, Tegwane had heard of these nations. He questioned him on this, and Tegwane smiled. "My father's father knew of you crocodile wizards, and his father before him."



Jim nodded. It was naive of him. The Omani Arabs had been trading and slaving in Africa since the fifth century. It was a hundred and fifty years ago that Vasco da Gama landed at Mozambique island and the Portuguese had begun building their forts and trading stations on the mainland. Of course rumours of these events must have penetrated even to the most primitive tribes in the remotest corners of this vast land.



Jim showed the old man the tusks of the bull he had killed, and Tegwane was amazed. "I have never seen teeth of this size before."



"Where do the Nguni find the ivory? Do they hunt the elephant?"



Tegwane shook his head. "The elephant is a mighty beast, and even the Nguni cannot kill him with their assegais."



"Where, then, does the ivory come from?"



"I have heard that there are some tribes who dig pits to trap them, or hang a spear weighted with stones in a tree over the pathway they frequent. When the elephant touches the trip-rope the spear drops and



pierces him to the heart." Tegwane paused and glanced at Bakkat who was asleep under one of the wagons. "I have also heard that those little yellow monkeys of the San sometimes kill them with their poisoned arrows. But they can kill few by these methods."



Then where do the Nguni get their ivory?" Jim persisted.



"Each season, especially in the time of the rains, some of the great beasts die of age or sickness or they flounder in mud holes or fall from the mountain passes. The ivory tusks lie there for any man to gather up. During my lifetime my own tribe has gathered up many."



"What happened to the tusks of your tribe?" Jim leaned forward eagerly.



"When they slaughtered our young men, the Nguni stole them from us, as they steal them from every tribe they attack and massacre."



"They must have a great store of ivory," Jim said. "Where do they keep it?"



"They carry it with them," Tegwane replied. "When they move they load the tusks on to the backs of their cattle. They have as much ivory as they have cattle to carry it. They have many cattle."



Jim repeated the story to Louisa. "I should like to find one of these herds, each beast with a fortune in ivory strapped to its back."



"Would it belong to you?" she asked innocently.



"The spoils of war!" he said, with righteous indignation. "Of course it would be mine." He looked to the hills over which he expected the imp is of the Nguni to appear. "When will they come ?" he wondered.



The longer they had to wait, the more it played on all their nerves. Jim and Louisa passed much of the time over the chessboard, but when that palled she painted his portrait again. While he posed for her, he read aloud Robinson Crusoe. It was his favourite book. Secretly he saw himself as the resourceful hero. Although he had read it many times, he still chuckled and exclaimed at Crusoe's adventures, and bewailed his misfortunes.



Two or three times during the day they rode out to inspect the lookouts on the hilltop and make sure the herd-boys were awake and alert, and had not wandered off in search of honey or some other childish distraction. Then they scouted the lie of the land around the laager to make certain the Nguni pickets were not creeping up on them through the gullies and the light forests that were interspersed in the grassy veld.



On the twelfth day after the massacre of the Bakwato, Jim and Louisa rode out alone. The herd-boys on the hilltop were bored and disgruntled, and Jim had to speak to them sternly to make them stay at their posts.



They came back down the hill and crossed the river at the ford. They



rode out almost to the site of the massacre, but turned back before they reached it. Jim wanted to spare Louisa the harrowing memories associated with that place.



They returned to within sight of the laager, and Jim stopped to examine the defences through the lens of the telescope to see if he could pick out any weak spot he had overlooked. While he was preoccupied Louisa dismounted and looked around for some place where she could go about her private business. The ground was open here, and the grass had been grazed down by the game herds until it reached only half-way to her knees. However, she saw that close by ran a don ga a natural gully cut out by the rainwaters draining towards the river. She handed Trueheart's reins to Jim.



"I will not be gone long," she said, and started towards the gully. Jim opened his mouth to caution her, then thought better of it and looked away to preserve her modesty.



As Louisa approached the lip of the gully she became aware of a strange sound, a whisper, a susurration, that seemed to tremble in the air. She kept on walking, but more slowly, puzzled but not alarmed. The sound grew louder, like running water or the hum of insects. She was not certain from which direction it came.



She glanced back at Jim, but he was gazing through the lens, not looking in her direction. It was clear that he had not heard the sound. She hesitated then stepped to the lip of the don ga and looked down into it. As she did so, the sound rose to an angry buzz as though she had disturbed a nest of hornets.



The gully below her was closely packed with rank upon rank of Nguni warriors. They were sitting on their shields, but each man had his stabbing assegai in his right hand and they were pointing the blades at her, and at the same time shaking the weapons, a slight trembling movement that agitated the war rattles on each wrist. This gave off the buzzing sound that had troubled her. The small movement also set the glossy black feathers in their headdresses dancing. Their naked torsos were anointed with fat so that they shone like washed coal. The whites of their eyes staring up at her were the only contrast in this seething expanse of black. It seemed to Louisa that she was gazing down on an enormous dragon coiled in its lair, black scales glittering, angry and venomous, poised to strike.



She whirled and ran. "Jim! Beware! They are here!"



Jim looked back, startled by her cry. He saw no sign of danger, only Louisa racing towards him with her face working with terror.



"What is it?" he called, and at that moment the ground seemed to open behind the running girl and from it erupted a mass of warriors.



Their bare feet beat upon the hard earth and the war rattles on their ankles crashed in unison. They drummed on their black war-shields with the assegais, a deafening roar, and they shouted, "Bulala! Bulala. amathagatii Kill! Kill the wizards!"



Louisa fled before this rolling tide. She ran like a whippet, nimble and quick, but one of her pursuers was quicker still. He was tall and lean, made taller by the headdress. The muscle started proud in his belly and shoulders, as he bounded after her. He threw aside his shield to unburden himself. Although Louisa had a lead of twenty paces or more, he was overhauling her swiftly. The haft of his assegai rested lightly on his shoulder, but the long blade was pointed forward, poised for the thrust between her shoulder-blades. Jim had a fleeting memory of the Bakwato girl run through in this way, the blade appearing magically out of the middle of her breast, smeared pink with her heart's blood.



He sent Drumfire into full gallop and, dragging Trueheart on the rein behind him, raced to meet Louisa. But he saw that the leading warrior was already too close. She would not have time to mount before he was on her, his blade transfixed through her body. He did not slow or check Drumfire's charge. They brushed past Louisa so closely that her hair fluttered in the wind of their passing. Jim tossed her Trueheart's reins.



"Get up and away!" he shouted as he went by. He had only one musket with him, for he had not expected a fight. He could not afford to waste that single shot. The light ball of the pistol might only wound and not kill cleanly. There was no latitude for error here. He had seen the warrior throw aside his shield. He jerked the naval cutlass from its scabbard. Under the eye of Aboli and his father he had practised with this weapon until he mastered the Manual of Arms. He did not brandish the blade to warn his man. He charged Drumfire straight at the Nguni, and saw him check and change his grip on the assegai. His dark eyes locked on Jim's face. Jim knew by his haughty expression that he would not deign to wound the horse under him, but would take him on man to man. He watched for the assegai thrust, leaning forward to meet it. The Nguni struck, and Jim dropped the cutlass into the classic counter, sweeping aside the point of the assegai, then reversed and, as he passed, he swung the cutlass back-handed. Smallboy had put a fine edge on the steel and it was sharp as a butcher's cleaver. Jim swept it across the back of the warrior's neck, and felt the hilt jar in his hand as it sheared cleanly through his vertebrae. The man dropped as though a gal low trap had opened under him.



At the pressure of his knees Drumfire spun round like a weathercock in a fluke of wind. He saw that Louisa was having difficulty trying to mount Trueheart. The mare had smelt the Nguni and seen the ranks



racing towards them. She was skittering sideways and throwing her head wildly. Holding on to the reins Louisa was being pulled off her feet.



Jim sheathed the bloody cutlass, and turned Drumfire in behind her. Leaning from the saddle he grabbed a handful of the baggy seat of her breeches and boosted her up into the saddle. Then he steadied her with a hand on her arm as they galloped back knee to knee. As soon as they were clear he drew his pistol and fired a shot into the air, to alert the sentries at the laager. As soon as he saw that they had heard it, he told Louisa, "Ride back! Warn them to get the animals into the laager. Send Bakkat and Smallboy to help me delay them."



To his relief she had the good sense not to argue, and raced away, pushing Trueheart to the top of her speed. He turned back to face the charging warriors, drew the musket from its sheath and walked Drumfire towards them. He picked out the and una in the front rank who was leading them. Tegwane had told him how to recognize the captains. "They are always older men, and they wear ostrich plumes in their headdress and white cow tails on their arms."



He touched Drumfire with his toes and broke into a trot, heading directly for the and una By now the Nguni must have understood the terrible menace of the firearms, but the man showed no fear: he increased the speed of his charge, and lifted his shield to clear his spear arm, his face twisted with the ferocity of his war-cry.



"Bulalal Kill! Kill!" Behind him his men surged forward. Jim let him come in close, then fired. Still at full run the and una went down, the assegai flew from his hand and he rolled in the grass. The spread of shot caught the two men directly behind him, and sent them tumbling too.



An angry roar went up from the black mass of the impi to see their captain and their comrades shot down, but Jim had wheeled away and was already galloping back to reload. The Nguni could not keep up the pace, and they slowed to a trot. But still they came on.



With the musket reloaded, Jim mounted again and rode to meet them. He wondered how many there were in that dark mass, but it was impossible to guess. He crossed their front at less than twenty paces and fired into them. He saw men stumble and fall, but their comrades swept over them so their bodies were hidden almost immediately. This time there was no angry shout to acknowledge the damage he had inflicted.



The impi slowed to a smooth, swinging trot, and began to sing. The deep African voices were beautiful, but the sound made the hair rise on the back of Jim's neck, and seemed to reverberate deep in his guts. They moved inexorably towards the fortified walls of the laager.



As Jim finished reloading again, he heard the sound of hoofs and



looked up to see Bakkat and Louisa leading Zama and the other drivers out through the gateway between the wagons.



"Lord give me strength! I meant her to stay safely in the laager," he muttered, but then he made the best of it. As she rode up and handed him his second musket, he said, The same drill as before, Hedgehog. You take command of the second section, Zama, Bakkat and Muntu with you. Smallboy and Klaas with me."



He led his section in, right under the assegais of the front rank of warriors, and they fired the first guns, then changed, came back and fired the second volley before breaking off and galloping back with empty guns.



Tick out the indunas," Jim called, 'kill their captains," as Louisa led her section forward. Again and again the two sections changed places smoothly, and the steady volleys never faltered. Jim saw with grim satisfaction that most of the indunas at the front of the attack had fallen under the onslaught.



The Nguni wilted before this fearsome unrelenting attack. Their pace slowed, the singing sank away to an angry, frustrated hissing. At last they stopped only three hundred paces short of the laager. The horsemen kept up the steady attack.



Jim rode in once again at the head of his section, and saw the change. Some of the warriors in the front rank lowered their shields and glanced behind them. Jim and his men fired a volley with their first guns, then turned and rode back along the front with their second guns at the ready. The headdresses waved, the feathers fluttered like the wind in the grass. The next volley crashed into them, and the lead-shot clapped into living flesh. Men reeled and fell.



The echoes of the volley were still booming back from the hills when Louisa galloped forward with Zama, Bakkat and Muntu close behind her. The front rank of the Nguni saw them coming and broke. They turned back and shoved with their shields into the men behind them shouting, "Emuval Back, go back!" but those behind shouted, "Shikelelal Forward! Push forward!"



The entire impi wavered, swaying back and forth, men struggling, their shields tangling and blocking each other's spear arms. Louisa and her men charged in close and they fired a rolling volley into the struggling mass. A groan of despair went up and the rear rank gave way. They turned and streamed back across the grassland, leaving their dead and wounded lying where they had fallen, their shields, spears and kernes strewn about them. Louisa's party galloped after them, firing their second guns into the ruck.



Jim saw the danger of them being drawn into a trap, and raced after them. Drumfire swiftly overhauled them. "Stop! Break off the chase!" Louisa obeyed at once and called off her men. All of them rode back. As soon as they were safely into the laager, a span of oxen dragged the faggots of thornbush into the gap in the defences to seal it off.



It seemed impossible that such a mass of humanity could disappear so swiftly, but by the time the gate was secured the impi were gone, and the only signs of the fighting were the dead and the trampled, bloodstained grass in front of the laager.



"We hurt them grievously. Will they come back?" Louisa asked anxiously.



"As surely as the sun will set and rise again tomorrow," Jim said grimly, and nodded to where it was already sinking towards the horizon. "That was probably only the scouting party, sent by Manatasee to test our mettle."



He called for Tegwane, and the old man came at once, trying not to favour his wounds. "The impi were lying up close to the laager. If Welanga had not come across them, they would have waited for nightfall to attack us. You were wrong, old man. They do fight at night."



"Only the Kulu Kulu is never wrong," Tegwane answered, with an unconvincing attempt at nonchalance,



"You can redeem yourself," Jim told him sternly.



"I will do whatever you say." Tegwane nodded.



"Some of the Nguni are not dead. As we rode back, I saw at least one still moving. Go out with Bakkat to guard you. Find one of the Nguni who still lives. I want to know the whereabouts of their queen. I also want to know where their baggage train is camped, the cattle and the ivory."



Tegwane nodded, and loosened his skinning knife in its sheath. Jim was about to order him to leave his knife in the laager, but then he remembered the women and children of the old man's tribe, and the manner of their deaths.



"Go at once, great chief. Go before the coming of darkness and before the hyena find the wounded Nguni." Then he turned to Bakkat. "Have your musket ready. Never trust a Nguni, especially a dead one."



Three times Jim looked up from inspecting the defences of the laager at the sound of Bakkat's musket booming out across the battlefield. He knew that the little Bushman was finishing off the wounded enemy. Just as the light was fading, Bakkat and Tegwane returned to the laager. Both were carrying assegais and looted ivory ornaments. Tegwane had fresh blood on his hands.



"I spoke to a wounded and una before he died. You were right. This



was only a scouting party. However, Manatasee is very close, with the rest of her imp is and the cattle. She will be here within two days."



"What did you do with the man who told you this?"



"I recognized him," Tegwane replied. "He was the one who led the first attack on our village. Two of my sons died that day." Tegwane was silent for a while, then smiled thinly. "It would have been heartless to leave a fine warrior, such as he was, to the hyenas. I am a man of compassion."



A;r dinner, the drivers and other servants drifted across from their fires and gathered at a respectful distance around Jim and Louisa. The drivers smoked their long-stemmed clay pipes. The smell of the strong Turkish tobacco was rank on the sweet night air. This was one of the informal councils, which they called indaba, that had become a tradition of camp life over the months. Although most of them listened more than they spoke, every man present from Small boy, the head driver, to Izeze, the youngest herd-boy knew that he was entitled to state his views as strongly as he felt inclined.



They were all nervous. At even the most ordinary night sounds they started and peered out into the darkness beyond the walls of the laager. The yipping of a jackal might be the rallying call of the Nguni pickets. The whisper of the night wind in the thorn trees along the river bank might be the sound of their war rattles. The rumbling hoofs of a stampeding herd of wildebeest, frightened by a marauding pride of lions, might be the sound of assegais drumming on rawhide shields. Jim knew that his men had come to him to seek reassurance.



Though he was younger than any of the adults except Zama, he spoke to them like a father. He told them of the battles they had fought already, and singled them out one by one to praise their feats, their steadiness in the heat of the action, and the terrible losses they had inflicted on the enemy. He did not forget the part played by the herders and the voorlopers, and the boys grinned with pride. "You have proved to me, and yourselves, that the Nguni cannot prevail against our horses and muskets as long as we stand firm and hold hard."



When they drifted away at last from the campfire to their own mattresses their mood had changed. They chatted cheerfully among themselves, and their laughter was unfeigned.



"They trust you," Louisa said quietly. "They will follow where you lead them." She was silent a moment and then she said, so softly that he barely caught the words, "And so will I." She paused, then "Come!" she said, took his hand and pulled him to his feet. Her voice was firm and



decided. Before this she had always come to him surreptitiously once the rest of the camp was asleep. Now she went openly with him to his wagon. She could hear the murmur of other voices in the darkness and knew that the servants were watching them. It did not deter her.



"Hand me up," she said when they reached the rear steps of the wagon. He stooped and lifted her in his arms. She placed both her arms round his neck and pressed her face into its curve. He made her feel as small and light as a child as he carried her up the ladder and brushed through the curtain of the afterclap. "I am your woman," she told him.



"Yes." He laid her on the car dell bed. "And I am your man."



He stood over her and stripped off his clothing. His body was pale and strong in the lamplight. She saw that he was fully aroused, and felt no revulsion. She reached out unashamedly and took him in her hand, her thumb and fingers barely encompassing his girth. He was as hard as if he had been carved from a branch of ironwood. The tips of her breasts ached with wanting him. She sat up and unlaced the front of her tunic.



"I need you, Jim. Oh, how I need you," she said, still staring at him. He was rough with haste, his need surpassing hers. He pulled off her boots, then stripped off her breeches. Then he stopped and stared in awe at the pale golden cluster of curls in the fork of her thighs.



"Touch me," she said, her voice husky. For the first time he laid his hand upon the entry-port to her body and soul. She let her thighs fall apart, and he felt the heat almost scald his fingertips. Gently he parted the fleshy lips, and slippery beads of moisture anointed him.



"Hurry, Jim," she whispered, and clasped him again. "I can bear it no longer." She tugged at him insistently, and he fell forward on top of her.



"Oh, God, my little hedgehog, how I love you." His words were choked.



Clasping him in both her hands, she tried to guide him into herself, but there was a moment when she thought she was too small for him. "Help me!" she cried again, and placed both hands upon his buttocks. She pulled him towards her desperately, and felt the hard round muscles convulse under her hands as he thrust forward with his hips. She cried out incoherently, for he was cleaving her apart. It was pleasure driven to the frontiers of agony. Then, suddenly, he forced his way past all resistance, and she felt the full slithering length of him. She screamed, but when he tried to pull back she locked both legs over his back to hold him. "Don't leave me," she cried. "Don't ever leave. Stay with me for ever."



When he woke, the first light of dawn was pearling the canvas curtain of the afterclap. She was awake and watching him, lying quietly with



her head on his bare chest. When she saw his eyes open she traced with her forefinger the shape of his mouth. "When you sleep you look like a little boy," she whispered.



"I will prove to you that I am a big boy," he whispered back.



"I want you to know, James Archibald, that I am always open to proof." She smiled, then sat up and placed her hands on his shoulders to pin him down. In one lithe movement, as though she were mounting Trueheart, she straddled his lower body.



Their joy was so incandescent that it seemed to light the whole encampment, and changed the mood of all those around them. Even the herd-boys were aware that something monumental had taken place, and they giggled and nudged each other when they watched Jim and Louisa together. It gave them all something to gossip about, and even the threat of Manatasee and her imp is seemed to recede in the face of this new fascination.



Jim sensed the lackadaisical mood that was spreading through the laager, and did all he could to keep them alert and vigilant. He exercised the mounted musketeers every morning, honing the tactics of the fighting withdrawal they had struck upon almost by chance.



Then he reviewed the defence of the laager. Each of the musketeers was allotted his station on the perimeter, and given two boys to load for him. Jim and Louisa together drilled the voorlopers and herd' boys at reloading the muskets. Jim nailed a gold guilder coin to the tailboard of his wagon. "On Sunday, after Welanga reads to you from the Bible, we will hold a competition for the fastest gun team," he promised, and hauled from his pocket the big chiming watch on its gold chain that Tom and Sarah had given him on his last birthday. "I will time you with this, and the gold guilder goes to the champions."



A gold coin was a fortune beyond the imagining of the boys, and the promise spurred them on until soon they were almost as quick as Louisa. Although some were so small that they had to stand on tiptoe to rod the charge down the long barrels, they learned to cant the weapon so they could reach the muzzle more readily. They weighed the powder charge by scooping a handful from the kegs, rather than fumbling with the flask, and stuffed the shot into their mouths to spit it into the muzzle. Within days they were able to keep a ripple of gunfire running up and down the barricade, handing the recharged muskets to the front almost as fast as the men could fire them. Jim felt that the expenditure



of gunpowder and shot was worthwhile. The boys were inflamed with excitement as the day of the loading competition drew nearer, and the men gambled heavily on the outcome.



On Sunday Jim woke while it was still dark. He was immediately aware that something was amiss. He could not place it, but then he heard the horses moving restlessly in the lines, and the cattle milling about in the laager.



"Lions?" he wondered, and sat up. At that moment one of the dogs barked, and the others joined in. He jumped out of bed and reached for his breeches.



"What is it, Jim?" Louisa asked, and he could hear that she was still half asleep.



"The dogs. The horses. I'm not sure." He pulled on his boots, sprang down from the wagon, and saw that most of the camp was already astir. Smallboy was throwing wood on to the fire and Bakkat and Zama were in the horse lines trying to soothe the agitated animals with words and caresses. Jim strode to the barricade and spoke softly to the two boys who were crouched there, shivering in the dawn chill.



"Have you seen or heard anything out there?" They shook their heads and peered out into the darkness. It was still too dark to make out the tops of the thorn trees against the sky. He listened intently, but the only sound he heard was the dawn breeze in the grass. Nevertheless, he was as restless as the horses, and relieved that he had ordered all the livestock brought in from the veld at sunset the previous evening. The laager was sealed off and barricaded.



Louisa came to stand beside him. She was fully dressed with a shawl over her shoulders, and she had bound up her hair with a head cloth They stood close together, waiting and listening. Trueheart whickered and the other horses stamped and jingled the chains of their halters. Every person in the laager was awake now, but their voices were strained and subdued.



Suddenly Louisa seized Jim's hand and squeezed it hard. She heard the singing before he did. The voices were faint, but bass and deep on the soft dawn breeze.



Tegwane came from the fire, still limping from his wounds. He stood by Jim's other side and they listened to the singing. "It is the Death Song," Tegwane said softly. "The Nguni are asking the spirits of their fathers to prepare a feast to welcome them in the land of shades. They are singing that this day they will die in battle or bring great honour to the tribe." They listened in silence for a while.



"They are singing now that tonight their women will weep or rejoice for them, and their sons will be proud."



"When will they come?" Louisa asked softly.



"As soon as it is light," Tegwane told her.



Louisa was still clinging to Jim's hand. Now she lifted her face to his. "I have not said it before, but I must say it now. I love you, my man."



"I have said it many times before, but I say it again," he replied. "I love you, my little hedgehog."



"Kiss me," she said, and their embrace was long and fierce. Then they drew apart.



"Go to your places now," Jim called to the men. "Manatasee has come."



The herd' boys brought them their breakfast from the cooking fires, and they ate their salted porridge in darkness, standing by the guns. When daylight came, it came swiftly. First the tops of the trees showed against the brightening sky, then they could make out the vague shape of the hills beyond. Suddenly Jim drew breath sharply, and Louisa started next to him.



"The hills are dark," she whispered. The light strengthened and the singing grew with it, rising in majestic chorus. Now they could make out the mass of the regiments that lay like a deep shadow upon the pale grassland. Jim studied them through the lens of the telescope.



"How many are there?" Louisa asked softly.



"As Tegwane has said, they are many. It is not possible to count their numbers."



"And we are only eight." Her voice faltered.



"You have not counted the boys." He laughed. "Don't forget the boys."



Jim went back to where the boys waited beside the gun racks, and spoke to each of them. Their cheeks were stuffed with goose-shot, and they held the ramrods ready, but they grinned and bobbed their heads. Children make fine soldiers, he thought. They have no fear for they think it is a game, and they obey orders.



Then he walked along the line of men who stood behind the barricades. To Bakkat he said, "The Nguni will have seen you from afar, for you stand tall as a granite hill in their path and strike terror into their hearts."



"Have your long whips ready," he told Smallboy and the drivers. "After this little fight you will have a thousand head of cattle to drive down to the coast."



He clasped Zama's shoulder. "I am glad that you stand beside me as you have always done. You are my right hand, old friend."



As he returned to Louisa's side the singing of the imp is swelled to a crescendo, then ended with the stamp of hundreds of horny bare feet that rang out like a salvo of artillery. The silence after it was shocking.



"Now it begins," Jim said and lifted the telescope.



The black ranks stood like a petrified forest. The only movement was the rising dawn wind ruffling the vulture feathers in their headdresses. Then Jim saw that the centre of the line was opening like the petals of a night orchid, and a column of men came through, winding like a serpent down the grassy hillside towards the laager. In stark contrast to the massed imp is they wore kilts made of strips of white oxhide, and tall headdresses of snowy egret feathers. Twenty men led the column. On their hips were slung war drums made from hollowed-out logs. The rank behind them carried trumpets of kudu horn. In the centre of the column there was a massive litter whose interior was screened by leather curtains. Twenty men carried it on their shoulders, shuffling and swaying, dipping and turning.



One of the drummers began to tap out a tattoo, which throbbed like the pulse of all the world, and the imp is swayed to the rhythm. One by one the other drummers joined in and the music swelled. Then the trumpeters lifted their kudu horns, and blew a warlike fanfare. The column opened into a single file with the great litter in the centre, and halted just out of range of the barricade of the laager. The trumpets sounded a second blast that rang against the hills, then another eerie silence fell.



By now the first rays of the rising sun played over the massed regiments. It struck sparks of light from the blades of the assegais.



"We should strike now," Louisa said. "We should sortie on horseback, and attack them first."



"They are already too close. We would only get in two or three volleys before they drove us back into the laager," Jim told her gently. "Let them expend themselves on the barricades. I want to save the horses for what will come later."



Again the trumpets sang out and the bearers lowered the litter to the ground. There was another trumpet blast, and from the litter emerged a single dark shape like a hornet from its nest.



"Bayetel' thundered the regiments. "Bayetel' The royal salute drowned the drums and trumpets. Hurriedly Jim snatched up the telescope and stared at the macabre figure.



The woman was slim and sinuous, taller than her bodyguards in their egret headdresses. She was stark naked, but her entire body was painted in fantastic patterns. There were glaring white circles around her eyes. A straight white line ran up her throat, over her chin and nose, between her eyes and over her shaven scalp, dividing her head into hemispheres. One half was painted blue as the sky, the other half blood red. She



carried a small ceremonial assegai in her right hand, the haft covered with fine designs of beadwork and tassels of lion's mane hair.



Whorls and swirls of white paint highlighted her breasts and her mons Veneris. Diamond and arrowhead patterns enhanced the length of her slim arms and legs.



"Manatasee!" Tegwane said softly. The queen of death."



Manatasee began to dance, a slow, mesmeric movement like that of an erect cobra. She came down the hillside towards the laager, graceful and deadly. None of the men in the laager moved or spoke and stared in dread fascination.



The imp is moved forward behind her, as though she were the head of the dragon and they the monstrous body. Their weapons sparkled like reptilian scales in the low sun.



Manatasee stopped just short of the cut line that Jim had cleared in front of the wagons. She stood with her legs apart and her back arched, thrusting her hips towards them. Behind her the drums crashed out again and the kudu-horn trumpets shrilled.



"Now she will mark us for death." Tegwane spoke loud enough for them all to hear, but Jim was not certain what he meant until from between her long painted legs Manatasee sent a powerful gush of urine arcing towards them.



"She pisses upon us," Tegwane said.



Manatasee's stream dwindled and as the last yellow drops fell to earth she let out a wild scream and leaped high in the air. As she landed again she aimed the point of her assegai at the laager.



"Bulalal' she screeched. "Kill them all!" A deafening roar went up from the imp is and they surged forward.



Jim snatched up one of his London rifles, and tried to pick up the queen in the sights, but he had left it too late. As with all the others, Manatasee had held him enthralled. Before he could fire she was screened by the advancing wall of her warriors. A plumed and una had stepped in front of her, and in frustration Jim almost shot him down, but checked his trigger finger at the last instant. He knew that the sound of the shot would be echoed by his own men, and the first carefully aimed volley would be wasted before the enemy were in effective range. He lowered the rifle and strode down the barricades, calling to them: "Steady now! Let them come in close. Don't be greedy. I here will be enough for all of you." Only Smallboy laughed at his joke, The sound was raucous and forced.



Jim moved back to his place beside Louisa, nonchalant and unhurried, setting an example to the musketeers and to the boys. The front rank of



the impi was sweeping up to the line of white stones. They came dancing and singing, stamping their bare feet and shaking their war rattles, beating with the bright blades upon their shields. There were no gaps between the black shields.



I have let them come too close, Jim thought. To his fevered gaze, they seemed already within range with those deadly stabbing blades. Then he saw that they had not yet reached the stones. He steeled his nerve and shouted down the line, "Wait! Hold your fire!"



He picked out the and una who was still in the front rank. He was horribly scarred. An axe cut ran from his scalp through his eye and down his cheek. The healed cicatrice was smooth and shiny, and over the top edge of his black shield the empty eye socket seemed to glare straight at Jim.



"Wait!" Jim called. "Let them come." Now he could see the separate drops of sweat sliding down the and una cheeks like grey seed pearls. The man's bare feet kicked over one of the cairns of white river stones.



"Now, fire!" Jim shouted, and the first volley was a single clap of thunder. The gunsmoke spurted out in a grey cloud bank



From such close quarters the rawhide shields were no protection at all. The goose-shot cut through, and the destruction was terrible. The front rank seemed to dissolve in the wash of smoke. The heavy lead pellets drove clean through flesh and bone, going on to rattle against the shields and bodies of those behind. The second rank stumbled over the dead and dying. Those warriors coming up behind were impatient to get within assegai range. They shoved forward with their shields, knocking off-balance the stunned survivors in the front rank.



The smoking gun was snatched from Jim's grip and 9 loaded musket thrust into his hands by one of the herd-boys. The second volley bellowed out with almost the same precision as the first, but then each successive volley became more ragged as some of the musketeers fired faster, served more quickly by their boys.



Mounds of dead and wounded piled up in front of the barricades, and the warriors coming up from the rear ranks had to clamber over them. The limp corpses were treacherous footing, and slowed them down, while the muskets were changed swiftly and a continuous rolling fire thundered down the line of wagons.



When the most determined Nguni reached the barricades they tried to tear away the thorn branches with their bare hands, but the musket fire never slackened. They climbed over their own dead and tried to scale the sides of the wagons. The relentless fire from the redoubts caught them in enfilade, and they tumbled back on to those below them.



The narrow wedge of land between the pool of the river and the high clay bank of the stream compressed the impi as they advanced in a solid mass. Like the sweep of a scythe, every blast of shot from the muskets cut swathes through them.



The wind was blowing from the direction of the river, into the faces of the attackers, and the gunsmoke rolled over them in a dense fog, half blinding them and confusing their attack. The same wind cleared the range for the defenders.



One of the warriors used the spokes of a wagon wheel as a ladder and succeeded in clambering over the tailboard of the central wagon. Jim was occupied with the Nguni storming the barricade directly in front of him when Louisa's scream alerted him. As he turned, the warrior stabbed at Louisa over the side of the wagon. She jumped back but the steel point slit the front of her tunic.



Jim dropped his empty musket and grabbed the cutlass he had pegged into the wood of the wagon, ready to hand. He sent a thrust deep into the man's chest, under his raised right arm. As he fell back, Jim jerked his blade clear and pegged the point back into the wagon, then reached back to take the loaded musket from the boy behind him.



"Good lad!" he grunted, and shot down the next attacker as he tried to pull himself up the side of the wagon. Jim glanced to his right and saw that Louisa had returned to her place by his side. The front of her tunic flapped open where the assegai had ripped it and a flash of her tender white skin showed in the tear.



"You're not hurt?" He smiled encouragement at her. Her face and arms were already blackened with the soot of gunsmoke, and her eyes were misty blue in contrast. She nodded without smiling, and took the next gun her loader handed her. She paused, let the oncoming warrior reach up to start scaling the barricade and then she fired. The recoil rocked her back on her feet, but the man cried out as the shot whipped into his face and throat and he slumped back on to the man beneath him.



Jim lost track of the passage of time. It all became a blur of smoke, sweat and gunfire. The smoke choked them, the sweat ran into their eyes, and the gunfire deafened and dazed them. Then, abruptly, the warriors who, a moment before, had been swarming like hiving bees upon the barricades were gone.



The defenders gazed about them in astonishment, seeking another target to fire at. The bank of gunsmoke drifted away, and it came as a shock to see the shattered imp is running and staggering back up the hillside, dragging their wounded with them.



"To horse! We must mount and pursue them," Louisa called to Jim.



He was amazed by her aggressive spirit, and that her grasp of tactics



was so astute. "Wait! They are not beaten yet." He pointed beyond the retreating imp is "Look! Manatasee still has half her forces in reserve." Louisa shaded her eyes. Just below the crest of the high ground she saw the orderly ranks of warriors sitting on their shields, waiting for the order to attack.



The herd-boys ran up with the water bottles. They swallowed and gasped, and drank again, spluttering in their eagerness. Jim hurried down the line, anxiously questioning each of his men.



"Are you hurt? Are you all right?" It seemed impossible, but not one had been touched. Louisa had come closest, with the assegai thrust that had split open her tunic.



She scrambled through the afterclap of her own wagon and, within a short while, emerged again. Her face and arms were scrubbed pink. She wore a fresh tunic, and a starched, ironed head cloth bound about her hair. She hurried to help Zama relight the cooking fires and prepare a hasty meal for the defenders. She brought Jim a pewter plate piled with hunks of bread, and cuts of grilled venison and pickles.



"We have been fortunate," she said, as she watched him wolf down the food. "More than once I was certain they were going to overwhelm us."



Jim shook his head and replied, with his mouth half full, "Even the bravest men cannot prevail against firearms. Have no fear, Hedgehog, it's hard but in the end we will survive."



She saw that he spoke to encourage her rather than out of conviction, and smiled. "Whatever comes we will face it side by side."



As she spoke the singing started again on the hillside. The defenders, who had been stretched out in the shade of the wagons, pulled themselves to their feet, and went back to their places at the barricade. The fresh imp is were moving forward through the wounded and exhausted stragglers, who were scattered back from the battlefield. Manatasee danced ahead of the advancing cohorts, surrounded by her drummers.



Jim picked his best London rifle from the rack. He checked the priming. Louisa was watching him.



"If I can kill the she-wolf, her pack will lose heart," he told her.



He stepped to the side of the wagon, and measured the shot. The range was long even for the rifle. The wind had risen and was swirling and gusting it could blow even the heavy lead ball off its trajectory. Dust obscured the range, and Manatasee was dancing and twisting like a serpent. Jim handed the telescope to Louisa.



"Call the strike of my shot," he told her, and braced himself, holding the rifle at high port, waiting for the moment. The wind gusted coolly



against his sweaty cheek, then dropped. At the same time a gap opened in the curtain of dust, and Manatasee raised both arms above her head, and posed in this dramatic attitude. Jim swung up the rifle and picked up her tall shape in the notch of the rear sight. He did not try to hold the picture, but let the pip of the foresight ride smoothly up her painted body. At the same time his forefinger took up the slack of the trigger, and the shot crashed out as it came level with her eyes, aiming high to allow for the drop of the ball over the range.



For an instant Jim was unsighted by the recoil and the smoke, then he focused again. It took the heavy ball a heartbeat to cover the distance, and he saw Manatasee spin round and fall.



"You have struck her!" Louisa screamed with excitement. "She is down."



A growl went up from the imp is the voice of an angry beast.



That will break their spirit," Jim exulted. Then he grunted with surprise. "Sweet Jesus, I do not believe my eyes!"



Manatasee had risen to her feet again. Even at this range Jim could see the tint of crimson on her painted skin, a rose petal of blood that ran down her flank.



"It has grazed across her ribs." Louisa stared through the lens. "She is only lightly wounded."



Manatasee pirouetted before her imp is showing herself to them, proving that she was still alive. They responded with a joyous shout and lifted their shields to salute her.



"Bayetel' they bellowed.



"Zee!" the queen screeched. "Zee, Amadodal' and she began to ululate. The sound drove her imp is into frenzy.



"Zee!" they exhorted themselves and those about them, and they came down to the wagons like lava pouring from the mouth of the volcano. Manatasee still pranced at the head of the charge.



Jim snatched up the second rifle of the pair, and fired again, trying to pick out her slender weaving figure from the flowing tide of blackness. The plumed and una at her side threw up his arms and went down, struck squarely by the ball, but Manatasee danced on. Fortified by her rage, she seemed at every instant to grow stronger.



"Stand firm, and wait your chance," Jim called to his men.



The first ranks of the attackers poured across the open ground, and clambered over the mounds of the dead and wounded.



"Now!" Jim yelled. "Hit them! Hit them hard!"



The fusillade struck them as though they had run into a wall of stone, but those behind dragged the dead and wounded from the pile and scrambled up into the hell storm of shot. The barrels of the muskets



blistered the fingers of the musketeers when they touched them. The steel was so hot that it could have set off the gunpowder as it was poured into the muzzle. The gun barrels hissed and sizzled when the boys plunged them into the water kegs to quench them. Even in their haste they were careful not to immerse the locks and soak the flints.



The need to cool the guns slowed up the rate of reloading, the fire slackened as the defenders at the barricades shouted desperately for fresh muskets. Some of the smaller boys were almost exhausted by the gruelling work and were beginning to panic. Louisa left her place at the barricade and ran back to steady and encourage them. "Remember your drill! Steady now, don't try to hurry!"



Through the haze of gunsmoke and over the heads of the attackers Jim glimpsed Manatasee again. She was close behind her impi, waving them forward to the attack. Her wild screams and ululation goaded them to mightier efforts. Many more of the warriors were swarming over the piles of corpses and reaching the barricade below where Jim stood. The smell of blood was in their nostrils and their expressions were wolfish. Their baying chilled the soul and weakened the arms of the defenders.



Unable to climb the barricades in the face of the steady volleys, the warriors began to rock the central wagon on its wheels. Fifty of them heaved together, and the wagon swayed dangerously back and forth. Jim realized that soon it would reach the critical point of balance and capsize. The warriors would swarm through the breach it left. The assegais would drink deeply of blood, and the fight would be over in minutes.



Manatasee had seen the opportunity, and sensed victory almost within her grasp. She pranced in close behind the rear rank of the attackers and climbed on to a mound of rocks to see over their heads.



"Zee!" she screamed. "Zee!" Her warriors answered her and thrust with their shoulders against the wagon truck. It teetered at the limit of its balance, seemed at any moment to be going over, then fell back on to all four wheels.



"Shikelelal' shouted the indunas. "Again!" The warriors gathered themselves, and bent to take their grip on the axles and the chassis of the wagon.



Jim looked back at Manatasee. The mound of rocks on which she stood was the one Jim had built to cover the keg of gunpowder. He glanced under the front wheels of the wagon. The end of the slow match was still lashed to one of the spokes, and the rest of the long fuse ran back under the chassis, under the heaps of the Nguni corpses to the mound on which Manatasee stood. He had buried the fuse under only a light layer of earth. He could see that in places it had been trampled



and exposed by the feet of the attackers. Perhaps the other end of the fuse had been plucked from the bung-hole of the powder keg.



"Only one way to find out!" he told himself grimly. He snatched the next loaded musket that one of his gun boys handed him, and cocked the hammer, then ducked under the swaying body of the wagon.



If the wagon goes over now, I'll be crushed like a frog under the wheels, he thought, but he found the end of the fuse and laid it over the pan of the musket lock. He held it there with one hand and pulled the trigger. The falling flint struck a shower of sparks from the friz zen and the powder in the pan flared up in a puff of smoke. The musket jumped in his grip and the shot ploughed into the ground at his feet. The flash in the pan had ignited the fuse. It hissed and blackened, then the flame shot along its length, and disappeared into the earth, like a snake into its hole.



Jim sprang back on to the truck of the violently rocking wagon, and stared across at Manatasee. A fine slick of blood was running down her flank from the flesh wound his ball had inflicted. She saw him and pointed her assegai at his face. Her grotesquely painted features contorted with hatred, and spittle flew from her lips in a cloud and sparkled in the sunlight, as she screamed her death curses at him.



Then he saw the length of slow-match had been exposed across the last yard of trampled earth below the mound on which the queen stood. The swift flame shot along it, leaving the fuse blackened and twisted as it burned. Jim clenched his jaws and waited for the explosion. It hung fire for a terrible moment and in that pause the wagon finally toppled over, ripping a fatal gap in the barricade. Jim was thrown from his platform, and sprawled half under the wagon body. The attacking warriors shouted triumphantly and surged forward.



"Bulala!" they bellowed. "Kill!"



Then the powder keg exploded beneath Manatasee's feet. A mighty tower of dust and stones shot higher than the treetops. The explosion tore the queen's body into three separate parts. One of her legs cartwheeled high into the air. The other, still attached to her torso, was thrown back into the ranks of her oncoming warriors, splattering them with her blood. Her head sailed like a cannon ball over the barricade and rolled across the open ground within the laager.



The blast swept over the Nguni who had overturned the wagon, and who were crowded into the gap they had opened. It cut them down, killing and maiming them and piling their corpses on to those of their comrades who had already fallen.



Jim was protected from the full force of the explosion by the body of the overturned wagon. Half dazed he came to his feet; his first concern



for Louisa. She had been with the herd-boys, and the blast had knocked her to her knees, but she jumped up again and ran to him.



"Jim, you are hurt!" she cried, and he felt something warm and wet running down from his nose into his mouth. It tasted metallic and salty. A flying splinter of rock had sliced across the bridge of his nose.



"A scratch!" he said, and hugged her to his chest. "But thank God you are unhurt." Still clinging together they gazed through the gap in the barricade at the carnage the explosion had wrought. The Nguni dead were lying waist deep, piled upon each other. Manatasee's imp is were in full flight, back up the grassy hillside. Most had thrown aside their shields and weapons. Their terrified voices were filled with superstitious dread as they screamed to each other, "The wizards are immortal."



"Manatasee is dead."



"She is slain by the lightning of the wizards."



"The great black cow is devoured by witchcraft."



"Flee! We cannot prevail against them."



"They are ghosts, and the spirits of crocodiles."



Jim looked along the wall of the laager. Smallboy was leaning on the ramparts, staring after the routed enemy, in a stupor of exhaustion. The other men had slumped down, some in attitudes of prayer, still holding their hot, smoking muskets. Only Bakkat was indefatigable. He had climbed on to the top of one of the wagons, and was shrieking insults at the routed imp is as they fled.



"I defecate on your heads, I piss on your seed. May your sons be born with two heads. May your wives grow beards, and fire-ants eat your testicles."



"What is the little devil telling them?" Louisa asked.



"He wishes them a fond farewell and lifelong happiness," Jim said, and the sound of her laughter revived him.



"To horse!" he shouted at his men. "Mount! Our hour has come."



They stared at him dully, and he thought they might not have heard him, for his own ears still hummed with the memory of the guns.



"Come on!" he told Louisa. "We must lead them out." The two ran to the horse lines Bakkat jumped down from his perch and followed them. The horses were already saddled. They had been held ready for this moment. Jim and Louisa mounted, and the others came running.



Bakkat retrieved Manatasee's painted head, and spiked it on the point of a Nguni assegai. He carried it high as a Roman eagle standard. The queen's purple tongue lolled out of the corner of her mouth, and one eye was closed while the other glared white and malicious.



As the band of horsemen sallied forth through the gap the Nguni had torn in the laager wall, each carried two muskets, one in hand and the



other in the gun sheath. They had shot-belts slung over each shoulder and powder flasks tied to the pommel. Behind them came the boys, riding bareback, each leading a spare horse loaded with powder kegs, shot-bags and water bottles.



"Keep together!" Jim exhorted them. "Don't get cut off. Like cornered jackals the Nguni are still dangerous."



They trampled the corpses and the fallen shields under their hoofs before they reached the open grassland and spurred forward, but Jim called again: "Steady! Keep to a trot. There are still many hours of daylight ahead of us. Don't burn up the horses!"



In a wide line abreast they swept the veld, and the muskets began to boom out as they overtook the running warriors. Most of the Nguni had thrown away their weapons and lost their headdresses. When they heard the steady pounding of the hoofs coming up behind them, they ran until their legs gave way. Then they knelt in the grass and waited like dumb animals for the blast of goose-shot.



"I cannot do this," Louisa called desperately to Jim.



"Then tomorrow they will return and do it to you," he warned her.



Smallboy and his men revelled and rejoiced in the slaughter. The herd-boys had to replenish their powder flasks, and refill the shot-bags. Bakkat waved the head of Manatasee on high, and shrieked with excitement as he rode down on another isolated bunch of demoralized warriors.



"He's a bloodthirsty hobgoblin," Louisa muttered, as they followed him. But when the Nguni saw the head of their queen they wailed with despair and threw themselves down in attitudes of surrender.



Ahead of the line of avenging riders rose another series of low, rolling hills, and it was towards these that the remnants of the broken imp is were flying. Jim would not allow his men to increase their pace, and as they rode up towards the crest at a steady trot the musket fire had dwindled: the imp is were scattering away to the horizon, and offered few targets.



Jim and Louisa reined in on the crest and looked down into a wide strath, a gently sloping valley through which another river meandered. Its banks were forested with magnificent trees, and open grass meadows lay beneath them. The air was blue with smoke from the fires of a vast encampment. Hundreds of small thatched huts were laid out on the grassland with military precision. They were deserted. What remained of the imp is had fled: the tail end of the army disappearing over the far rise of the valley.



Manatasee's camp!" Louisa exclaimed. This is where she mustered her imp is before she attacked us."



"And, by the love of all that is holy, there are her herds!" Jim pointed. Beneath the trees, along both banks of the river and spread out widely over the grassy saucer, were the dappled herds of cattle.



"They are Manatasee's treasury. The wealth of her nation. We have only to ride down and gather them up." Jim's eyes sparkled as he surveyed them. Each herd was composed of animals of the same colour. The black cattle formed a dark stain on the golden veld, well separated from the red-brown herds and the dappled beasts.



"There are too many of them." Louisa shook her head. "We will not be able to manage such numbers."



"My sweet hedgehog, there are some things of which a man can never have too much: love, money and cattle to name just a few." He rose in his stirrups and ran the lens of his telescope over the multicoloured masses of animals, then over the last of the fleeing Nguni. He lowered the telescope. "The imp is are beaten and broken. We can call off the pursuit and count our winnings."



Although the Nguni dead littered the grassland, not a single one of Jim's men had been wounded, apart from little Izeze who had caught his finger in the lock of a musket he was reloading and lost the first joint. Louisa had dressed it and Jim told him it was a wound of honour. Izeze held the finger aloft proudly and showed off the turban of white bandage to anyone who would look.



With the eye of a stockman born and raised, Jim appraised the booty as he rode among the captured herds. These were tough, hardy animals, with massive shoulder humps and a wide rack of horns. They were tame and trusting and showed no alarm as Jim rode within arm's length. All were in prime condition, glossy hides and rumps bulging with fat. At this first inspection Jim saw no evidence of the maggot-infested wounds of screw-worm, or the wall eyes of fly-borne ophthalmia. But he did notice with satisfaction the healed scars of sweat sickness on the glands of the throat, which proclaimed their immunity from further infection. For them to have survived in such fine condition he was sure they must also be salted against the disease of the tsetse fly.



"These are more valuable than any cattle brought from Europe," he told Louisa. "They have immunity to the diseases of Africa, and have been lovingly raised by the Nguni. As Tegwane told us, they love their cattle more than their own children."



Zama had left the band of horsemen and disappeared into the



encampment of thatched huts. Suddenly he rode back, his face working with agitation. He was speechless with excitement, and gesticulated for Jim to follow him.



He led Jim to a stockade of freshly hewn tree-trunks. They lifted the logs out of the gateway and Jim went through, then stopped to stare in wonder. Before him lay Manatasee's treasure house. The ivory was piled in stacks as high as a man could reach. The tusks had been graded by length and thickness. The immature ivory, some of which was no thicker than a human wrist, had been bound with strips of bark rope into fascicles, each making up a load that an ox could carry comfortably. The larger tusks were also bound with bark rope so that they could be secured to a pack-saddle for transportation. Some of the tusks were huge, but Jim saw none to match the pair he had taken from his own great bull.



While Smallboy and the other driver unsaddled the horses and took them down to the river to drink, Jim and Louisa wandered around the ivory storeroom. She watched his face as he gloated on this mass of treasure. He is like a little boy at Christmas time, she thought, as he came back to her and took her hand.



"Louisa Leuven," he said, with solemn formality, "I am at last a rich man."



"Yes." She tried to wipe the smile from her lips. "I can see that you are. But, despite all your wealth, you are really quite a lovable lad."



"I am pleased you have noticed that. That being agreed between us, will you marry me, and share my riches and my abundant charms?"



The laughter died on her lips. "Oh, Jim!" she whispered, and then the strain of the battle and the pursuit of the imp is caught up with her, and she began to weep. Her tears cut runnels through the gun-soot and dust that coated her cheeks. "Oh, yes, Jim! I can think of nothing that would please me better than to become your wife."



He caught her up and hugged her. Then this is the happiest day of my life." He bussed her heartily. "Now, dry your tears, Hedgehog. I'm sure we will find a priest somewhere, if not this year then next."



With Louisa held in the crook of one arm, and his other hand laid possessively on one of the stacks of ivory, he looked over his newly acquired herds, which filled half of the valley with their abundance. Slowly his expression changed as he was struck by the age-old dilemma of the rich man.



How, in the name of Satan himself, do we keep our hands on what we have won, for every man and beast in Africa will be eager to take it from us? he wondered.



It was sunset before Jim could tear himself away from the captured encampment. Leaving Zama and half of his tiny force to guard the ivory and the herds, they set off back to the laager. The dazzling panoply of stars lit their way. As the group passed the corpses of the Nguni who had died that day, hyena and jackals scattered before the horses.



When they were almost within sight of the wagon laager they reined in their horses and stared at the night sky with awe. A mystic glow rose over the eastern horizon, and lit the world so clearly that they could see each other's startled faces turned upwards. It was as though the sun was rising from the wrong direction. They watched in awe as an enormous fireball climbed over the horizon and hurtled silently overhead. Some of the herd-boys whimpered and pulled their blankets over their heads.



"Tis nothing but a shooting star." Jim reached across to take Louisa's hand and reassure her. "They are common visitors in these African skies. This one is a little larger than most."



"It is the spirit of Manatasee," Smallboy cried. "She begins her journey to the land of shades."



"The death of kings," Bakkat whimpered. "The fall of tribes. War and death."



"An omen of the worst kind." Zama shook his head.



"I thought I had civilized you," Jim laughed, 'but you are still a crew of superstitious savages at heart."



The gigantic heavenly body swept down into the west, leaving its fiery trail clear across the sky behind it as it disappeared below the horizon. It lit the sky for the rest of that night, and the next, and for many nights thereafter.



By its ghostly light they reached the wagon laager. They found old Tegwane, spear in hand, his beautiful granddaughter at his side, guarding it like a pair of faithful watchdogs.



Although they were all nearly at the end of their tether, Jim roused the camp again before dawn. Using a span of oxen, and with much shouting and cracking of long whips, they heaved the overturned wagon back on to its wheels. The robust vehicle had suffered little damage, and within a few hours they had repacked its scattered load. Jim knew that they must leave the battlefield at once. In the heat of the sun the corpses would very soon putrefy, and with the stench of their rotting sickness and disease would come.



At his orders they in spanned every other wagon in the train. Then



Smallboy and the other drivers fired the long whips and the oxen trundled the vehicles out of the gruesome laager and into the open grassland.



They set up camp that evening among the deserted thatched huts of the Nguni town, surrounded by the vast herds of humpbacked cattle, with the piles of ivory securely enclosed within the wagon laager.



The next morning, after breakfast, Jim summoned all his men to the indaba. He wanted to explain to them his future plans, and to tell them where he would lead them next. First he asked Tegwane to explain how the Nguni used their cattle to carry the ivory when they were on the march.



Tell us how they place the loads, and secure them to the backs of the animals," Jim ordered.



"That I do not know," Tegwane admitted. "I have only watched their advance from afar."



"Smallboy will be able to work out the harness for himself," Jim decided, 'but it would have been better to use a method to which the cattle are accustomed." Then he turned to the small group of herd-boys and said, "Can you men' they liked to be called men and they had earned the right at the barricades 'can you men take care of so many?"



They considered the vast herds of cattle that were scattered down the full length of the valley.



They are not so very many," said the eldest, who was the spokesman.



"We can herd many more than that," said another.



"We have vanquished the Nguni in battle," squeaked Izeze, smallest and cheekiest of the boys, his voice not yet broken. "We can take care of their cattle, and their women also, when we capture them."



"It may be, Izeze," the name Jim had given him meant Little Flea, 'it may be that neither your whip nor your whistle are yet large enough for those tasks."



Izeze's companions shrieked with laughter. "Show it to us!" they cried, and tried to catch him, but like the insect that was his namesake he was quick and agile. "Show us the weapon that will terrify the women of the Nguni." Clinging to his loincloth to preserve his modesty and dignity Izeze fled, pursued by his peers.



"All of which brings us no closer to a solution of the problem," Jim remarked as he and Louisa made the final inspection of the laager's defences before turning in for the night.



Although it seemed apparent that the Nguni imp is had been shattered and would not return, Jim was taking no chances. He set his sentries at nightfall and the next morning they stood to their guns in the dawn.



Sweet heavens!" Jim exclaimed, as the light strengthened. They have



returned!" He seized Louisa's arm and pointed out to her the rows of shadowy figures squatting just out of musket shot beyond the barricades of the laager.



"Who are they?" she whispered, though in her heart she knew the answer well.



"Who else but the Nguni?" he told her grimly.



"I had thought it was over, the killing and the fighting. God grant that it was enough."



"We shall soon find out," he said, and called for Tegwane. "Hail them!" he ordered the old man. "Tell them that I will send our lightning down upon them as I did to Manatasee."



Tegwane climbed shakily on to the side of the wagon, and called across the open grassland. A voice answered him from among the gathered Nguni, and a long shouted exchange followed.



"What do they want?" Jim demanded impatiently. "Do they not know that their queen is dead and their imp is shattered?"



"They know it well," Tegwane said. "They have seen her head carried upon the assegai as they fled the battlefield, and her fiery spirit passing in the night sky as she travelled to meet her forefathers."



"Then what is it they want?"



"They want to speak with the wizard who struck down their queen with his lightning."



"A parley," Jim explained to Louisa. "It seems that these are some of the survivors of the battle."



"Talk to them, Jim," she urged. "Perhaps you can prevent any more bloodshed. Anything is better than that."



Jim turned back to Tegwane. "Tell their and una their leader, that he must come into the laager alone and unarmed. I will not harm him."



He came dressed in a simple kilt of leather strips, without headdress or weapons. He was a fine-looking man in his middle years, with the body and limbs of a warrior and a handsome moon face the chocolate colour of freshly hewn mabanga wood. As soon as he entered the laager he recognized Jim. He must have seen him upon the battlefield. He went down on one knee, an attitude of respect, clapping his hands and chanting praises: "Mightiest of warriors! Invincible wizard who comes out of the great waters! Devourer of imp is Slayer of Manatasee! Greater than all of her fathers!"



"Tell him that I see him, and that he may approach me," Jim ordered. He realized the significance and importance of this delegation, and assumed a dignified manner and haughty expression. The and una went down on all fours and crawled towards him. He took Jim's right foot and



maced it on his own bowed head. Jim was taken by surprise and almost lost his balance, but he recovered swiftly.



"Great white bull elephant," the md una chanted, 'young in years but mighty in power and wisdom, grant me mercy."



From his father and his uncle Jim had learned enough of African protocol to know how to conduct himself. "Your worthless life is mine," he said. "Mine to take or spare. Why should I not send you on the same road through the sky as the one on which I sent Manatasee?"



"I am a child without a father or mother. I am an orphan. You have taken my children from me."



"What is he talking about?" Jim demanded angrily of Tegwane. "We killed no children."



The and una heard his tone and realized he had given offence. He pressed his face into the dirt. When he answered Tegwane's questions his voice was hoarse with dust. Jim used the opportunity to remove his foot from the and una head: standing on one leg was uncomfortable and undignified.



At last Tegwane turned back to Jim. "He was Manatasee's keeper of the royal herds. He calls the cattle his children. He begs you either to kill him, or to allow him the honour of becoming your keeper of the herds."



Jim stared at the man in astonishment. "He wants to work for me as my chief herdsman?"



"He says he has lived with the herds since he was a child. He knows each animal by name, which bull covered their dams. He knows each one's age and temper. He knows the remedy and the treatment for every disease to which the herds are prone. With his own assegai he has killed five lions who were attacking the animals. What is more..." Tegwane paused to draw breath.



"Enough." Jim stopped him hastily. "I believe what he says, but what of these others?" He pointed at the other files of squatting figures outside the laager. "Who are they?"



"They are his herders. Like him they have been dedicated to the care of the royal cattle since childhood. Without the herds their lives are without purpose."



They, too, are offering themselves?" Jim was having difficulty grasping the extent of his good fortune.



Every one of them wishes to become your man."



What do they expect from me ?"



They expect you to kill them if they err or fail in their duties," egwane assured him. "Manatasee would have done so."



That is not exactly what I meant," Jim said in English, and Tegwane looked baffled. He went on quickly: "What do they expect in return for their work?"



"The sunshine of your pleasure," said Tegwane. "As I do."



Jim pulled his ear thoughtfully, and the and una rolled his head to watch his face, worried that their request would be denied and that the white wizard would strike him down as he had the queen. Jim was considering the expense of adding the and una and fifty or sixty of his comrades to the strength of his already numerous crew. However, there seemed to be no additional cost that he could fathom. From what Tegwane had told him he knew these herders would live on the blood and milk of the herds, and the venison that fell to his gun. He was sure he could expect a most extraordinary level of loyalty and dedication in return. These were skilled cattlemen and fearless spearmen. He would find himself at the head of his own tribe of warriors. With the Hottentot musketeers and the Nguni spearmen he need fear nothing in this wild and savage land. He would be a king. "What is this man's name?" he asked Tegwane.



"He is called Inkunzi, for he is the bull of all the royal herds."



"Tell Inkunzi that I look with favour on his request. He and his men are now my men. Their lives are in my hands."



"BayeteV Inkunzi shouted with joy when he heard this. "You are my master and my sun." Once again he placed Jim's right foot upon his head, and his men seeing this, knew they had been accepted.



They rose to their feet, drummed on their shields with their assegais, and shouted together, -Bayetel We are your men! You are our sun!"



"Tell them that the sun can warm a man, but it can also burn him to death," Jim warned them solemnly. Then he turned to Louisa and explained to her what had just taken place.



Louisa looked upon this fearsome band of warriors, and remembered how, only days before, they had come singing to the laager. "Can you trust them, Jim? Should you not disarm them?"



"I know the traditions of these people. Once they have sworn their allegiance I will trust them with my life."



"And mine," she pointed out softly.



The next day Jim made an observation of the noon passage of the sun, and plotted their position on his father's chart. "According to my reckoning we are only a few degrees south of the latitude of the Courtney trading post at Nativity Bay. By my calculations, it should be less than a thousand leagues to the east, three months' travel. It is possible that we might encounter one of our ships there, or at least find a message from my family under the mail stones."



"Is that where we are going next, Jim?" Louisa asked. He looked up from the parchment of the chart and raised an eyebrow. "Unless you have a better suggestion?"



"No." She shook her head. "That will suit me as well as any other."



The following morning they broke camp. Inkunzi and his herders brought in the captured royal herds, and Jim watched with interest as they loaded the ivory. The rawhide harness they used was simple, but had obviously been perfected by the Nguni to fit over the heavy hump and be secured behind the front legs. The loads of ivory were counterbalanced to hang comfortably but securely on each side of the beast's back, allowing it freedom of movement. Inkunzi and his men matched the weight of each load to the size and strength of the animal that would carry it. The cattle seemed unaware of their burden as they moved along at the leisurely pace set by the herders, grazing contentedly as they spread out like a river in flood across the veld. By the time the entire herd was on the move they covered several leagues.



Jim took a compass bearing along the line of march, and pointed out to Inkunzi a landmark on the horizon to head for. Inkunzi himself stalked along at the head of his herds, wrapped in his leather cloak with his assegai and his black war shield slung on his back. He played on a reed flute as he went, a sweet but monotonous tune, and the cattle followed him like faithful hounds. The wagon train brought up the rear guard



Each morning Jim and Louisa rode out with Bakkat to break trail and search ahead for any lurking danger or for fresh sign of the elephant nerds. They scouted far ahead of the slowly moving caravan, picking out the passes through the hills, the fords and drifts across the rivers. The herds of wild game astonished them, but they found that the Nguni had swept the land bare of human presence. Villages had been burnt to the ground, only the smoke-blackened patterns of the foundation stones still standing, and the veld around was strewn with the white fields of human bones. There was no living soul.



"The mefecane," Tegwane called this great slaughter. The pounding of the tribes, like corn between the grinding stones of the imp is



Once Inkunzi had proved his worth and established his place high in the hierarchy of the band, he joined quite naturally in the indabas around the campfire. He was able from his own life to paint for them a picture of these terrible events. He told them how his people had their origins far to the north, along some mythical valley, a place he called the Beginning of All Things.



Generations before, his tribe had been overtaken by some cataclysmic event, another mefecane, and the famine that naturally followed. They and their herds had begun the long migration southwards plundering and killing all the other tribes that stood in their path. As pastoralists and nomads they always moved on, seeking grazing for their herds, more plunder and women. It was a tragic saga.



"We will never know how many human souls have perished on these lovely wild fields," Louisa said softly.



Even Jim was subdued by the extent of the tragedy that had swept like the black plague across the continent. "This is a savage land. To flourish it needs to be watered by the blood of man and beast," he agreed with her.



When they scouted ahead of the wagons Jim was always on the lookout for signs of the rest of the Nguni, and drilled his small band in the defensive tactics they would adopt if they were attacked.



He was searching also for the elusive elephant herds, but as the weeks passed, and mile after mile of this grand and tract less land fell behind the turning wagon wheels, they discovered neither Nguni nor elephant.



Almost three months after they had turned east, they came abruptly upon a steep, broken escarpment where the land fell away before them into a sheer abyss.



"This seems to be the end of the world," Louisa breathed. They stood together and stared in wonder. In the clear air and bright sunshine it seemed they could indeed see to the ends of the earth. Staring through the lens of his telescope Jim saw that as it blended with the distant horizon the sky shaded to an unearthly blue, bright and translucent as polished lapis-lazuli.



It took him some time to realize what he was looking at. Then the angle of the sunlight changed subtly and he exclaimed, "In the name of all that is holy and beautiful, Hedgehog, 'tis the ocean at last." He handed her the telescope. "You shall now see what a famous navigator I am, for I shall lead you unerringly to the beach at Nativity Bay in the land of the elephants."



Tom and Dorian Courtney rode up to the main gates of the castle. They were expected and the sergeant of the guard saluted and waved them through into the courtyard. Grooms came running to take their horses as they dismounted.



The Courtney brothers were accustomed to such respect. As two of the leading burghers of the colony and its most prosperous merchants, they were often guests of Governor van de Witten. The governor's secretary, himself an important VOC official, came scurrying out of his office to greet them and usher them through into the governor's private quarters.



They were not kept waiting in the anteroom, but taken immediately into the spacious council chamber. The long central table and all the twenty chairs around it were of stinkwood, one of the most beautifully grained timbers of Africa, lovingly carved by the skilled Malay slave cabinet-makers. The floors were of lustrous yellow-wood planks polished with beeswax until they shone like glass. The panes of the bay windows at the far end of the room were of jewel-like stained glass shipped down the length of the Atlantic from Holland. They looked out over the vista of Table Bay, with the monumental bulk of Lion's Head mountain beyond. The bay was cluttered with shipping, and whipped by the southeaster into a froth of prancing white horses.



The panelled walls were hung with the seventeen portraits of the council members of the VOC in Amsterdam: serious bulldog-faced men in black hats with lace collars, paper white on their high-buttoned black coats.



Two men rose from their seats at the council table to greet the brothers. Colonel Keyser was in the dress uniform he had designed for himself. It was of scarlet brocade, with sashes over both shoulders, one blue, the other gold. His ample girth was encircled by a sword belt embossed with gold medallions, and the hilt of his rapier was inlaid with semi-precious stones. There were three large enamelled diam ante stars pinned on his chest. The largest of these was the Order of St. Nicholas. The tops of his glossy boots reached above his knees. His hat was wide brimmed, crowned with a large bunch of ostrich feathers.



In contrast, Governor van de Witten wore the sombre dress that was almost the uniform of the most senior officials of the VOC: a black velvet skull-cap, a Flemish lace collar, and a black high-buttoned jacket. His thin legs were clad in black silk hose, and his square-toed shoes were buckled with solid silver.



"Mijnheeren, you do us honour by your presence," he said, his face pale and lugubrious.



"The honour is ours alone. We came as soon as we received your invitation," Tom said, and the brothers bowed together. Tom was dressed in dark broadcloth, but of first quality and London cut. Dorian wore a green silk jacket and voluminous breeches. His sandals were camel-skin, and his turban matched his jacket and was secured with an emerald pin. His short red beard was neatly trimmed and curled. It was in sharp contrast to Tom's more luxuriant, silver-shot growth. Looking at them together nobody would have guessed they were brothers. Colonel Keyser came forward to greet them, and they bowed again.



"Your servant, Colonel, as ever," Tom said.



"Salaam akikum, Colonel," Dorian murmured. Although when he was at High Weald and in the bosom of his own family he often forgot it, when he went abroad, and especially in these formal surroundings, he liked to remind the world that he was the adopted son of Sultan Abd Muhammad al-Malik, the Caliph of Muscat. "Peace be unto you, Colonel." Then he added in Arabic, making it sound like part of the greeting, "I like not the fat one's expression. The tiger shark smiles in the same way." This was entirely for Tom's benefit: he knew that the others in the room understood not a word of what he had said.



Governor van de Witten indicated the chairs facing his own across the glistening expanse of the table. "Gentlemen, please be seated." He clapped his hands, and immediately a small procession of Malay slaves appeared carrying silver salvers of choice morsels of food, and decanters of wine and spirits.



While they were being served the governor and his guests continued the customary exchange of compliments and small talk. Both Tom and Dorian refrained from more than a single glance at the mysterious object that lay in the centre of the stinkwood table between them. It was covered with a velvet cloth, beaded around the edges. Tom pressed his knee lightly against Dorian's. Dorian did not look at him, but touched the side of his nose, a signal that he had also noticed the object. Over the years they had grown so close that they could read each other's minds with accuracy.



The slaves at last backed out of the council chamber, and the governor turned to Tom. "Mijnheer Courtney, you have already discussed with Colonel Keyser the distressing and reprehensible behaviour of your son, James Archibald Courtney."



Tom stiffened. Although he had been expecting this, he braced himself for what would follow. What new trick has Keyser come up with



now? he wondered. As Dorian had pointed out, Keyset's expression was smug and gloating. Aloud he said, "Indeed, Governor, I well recall our conversation."



"You assured me that you disapproved of your son's behaviour, his interference with the course of justice, the abduction of a female prisoner, the theft of VOC property."



"I remember it well," Tom assured him hastily, anxious to cut short the list of Jim's transgressions.



However, van de Witten went on remorselessly: "You gave me your assurance that you would keep me informed of your son's whereabouts as soon as you obtained knowledge of his movements. You promised that you would do all in your power to see to it that he and this female criminal, Louisa Leuven, were brought to the castle at the first opportunity to answer to me personally for their crimes. Did we not agree on this?"



"Yes, we did, Your Excellency. I also recall that, as an earnest of my good faith and intentions and to compensate the VOC for its losses, I made a payment to you of twenty thousand guilders in gold."



Van de Witten ignored this solecism. He had never issued an official receipt for that payment, ten per cent of which had gone to Colonel Keyset and the balance into his own purse. As he went on speaking his expression became increasingly sorrowful: "I have reason to believe, Mijnheer Courtney, that you have not kept your side of our bargain."



Tom threw up his hands, and made theatrical sounds of amazement and denial, but did not go so far as to deny the charge outright.



"You would like me to substantiate what I have just said?" van de Witten asked, and Tom nodded warily. "As Colonel Keyser is the officer responsible to me for the conduct of this case, I will ask him to explain what he has discovered." He looked at the colonel. "Would you please be kind enough to enlighten these gentlemen?"



"Certainly, Your Excellency, it will be my duty and privilege." Keyser leaned across the table and touched the mysterious object under the beaded velvet cloth. All their eyes went to it. Teasingly, Keyser removed his hand and leaned back in his chair again.



"Let me first ask you, Mijnheer Courtney, if at any time during the last three months any of the wagons belonging to you and your brother," he nodded at Dorian, 'left the colony."



Tom pondered a moment, then turned to his brother. "I don't remember that happening, do you, Dorry?"



None of our vehicles received VOC permission to leave the colony." Dorian begged the question neatly.



Once again Keyser leaned forward, but this time he whipped away the velvet cloth and they all stared at the broken stub of the wheel spoke. "Is that your company cypher branded into the wood?"



"Where did you find it?" Tom asked ingenuously.



"An officer of the VOC found it lying beside the tracks of four wagons that left the colony near the headwaters of the Gariep river and headed north into the wilderness."



Tom shook his head. "I cannot explain it." He tugged his beard. "Can you, Dorian?"



"In March last year we sold one of the old lumber wagons to that Hottentot hunter, what was his name? Oompie? He said he was going to find ivory in the desert lands."



"My sacred oath!" Tom exclaimed. "I had forgotten that."



"Did you get a receipt for the sale?" Keyser looked frustrated.



"Old Oompie cannot write," Dorian murmured.



"So, then, let us get this clear. You never travelled with four heavily laden wagons to the borders of the colony, and you did not hand these wagons over to the fugitive from justice, James Courtney. And you never encouraged and abetted this runaway to flee the borders of the colony without VOC sanction. Is that what you are telling me?"



That is correct." Tom looked him steadily in the eyes across the table. Keyser grinned with triumph and glanced at Governor van de Witten for permission to continue. He nodded his agreement, and Keyser clapped his hands again. The double doors swung open and two uniformed VOC corporals entered, dragging between them a human figure.



For a moment neither Tom nor Dorian recognized him. He wore only a pair of breeches that were filthy with dried blood and his own excrement. The nails had been plucked from his toes and fingers with blacksmith's tongs. His back had taken the lash until it was a bloody pulp. His face was swollen grotesquely. One eye was closed completely, and the other a mere slit in the bloated purple flesh.



"A pretty sight." Keyser smiled. Governor van de Witten held a small sachet of dried herbs and flower petals to his nose. "I beg your pardon, Your Excellency." Keyser noticed the gesture. "Animals must be treated as such." He turned back to Tom. "You know this man, of course. He is one of your wagon drivers."



"Sonnie!" Tom started up, then thought better of it and sank back into his chair. Dorian looked distressed. Sonnie was one of their best men, when he was sober. He had been missing from High Weald for over a week, and they had presumed that he had gone off on one of his periodic binges, from which he always returned reeking of bhang, cheap



brandy and even cheaper women, but chastened, apologetic and swearing on the grave of his father that it would not happen again.



"Ah, yes!" Keyser said. "You do know him. He has been telling us interesting details of your movements, and those of your family. He says that last September two of your wagons led by Mijnheer Dorian Courtney's son, Mansur, set off along the coastal road to the north. This I can substantiate, because I led a full troop of my own men to follow those wagons. I now know that this was a diversion to draw my attention away from the other matters of more consequence." Keyser looked at Dorian. "I am sad that a fine lad like Mansur should have become embroiled in this sordid affair. He also must face the consequence of his actions." It was said lightly, but the threat was undisguised.



Both Courtney brothers remained silent. Tom could not look at Sonnie, lest he lose his temper and self-control. Sonnie was a free spirit who, despite his multitudinous failings, stood high in his affections, and Tom felt paternally responsible for him.



Keyser turned his attention back to Tom. This man has also told us that soon after the two decoy wagons left High Weald, and when you were sure that my troops had followed them, you and Mevrouw Courtney slipped away with four other heavily loaded wagons, a large number of horses and other animals to the Gariep river. You waited there for some weeks, and eventually your son, James Courtney, and the escaped female prisoner came out of the mountains to join you. You handed over the wagons and the animals to them. They made good their escape into the wilderness, and you returned with assumed innocence to the colony."



Keyser leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands over the buckle of his sword belt. The room was silent, until Sonnie blurted out, "I am sorry, Klebe." His voice was indistinct for his lips were cut and crusted with half-healed scabs, and there were black holes in the front of his mouth where two of his front teeth had been knocked out. "I did not want to tell them, but they beat me. They said they would kill me, then do the same to my children."



"It is not your fault, Sonnie. You only did what any man would do."



Keyser smiled and inclined his head towards Tom. "You are magnanimous, Mijnheer. If I were in your place I would not be so understanding."



Governor van de Witten intervened: "Can we be rid of this fellow now, Colonel?" he asked irritably. "His stink is atrocious, and he is dripPing blood and other less salubrious fluids on to my floor."



(The 1 ;



I beg your pardon, Your Excellency. He has served his purpose." He nodded at the uniformed warders and waved them away. They dragged Sonnie out through the doors, and closed them as they left.



"If you set bail for him, I will pay it and take that poor wretch back to High Weald with me," Tom said.



"That presupposes that the two of you are going back to High Weald," Keyset pointed out. "But, alas, even if you were, I could not allow you to take the witness with you. He must remain in the castle dungeons until your son James and the escaped prisoner are brought to trial in front of the governor." He unclasped his fingers and leaned forward. The smile faded and his expression became hard, his eyes cold and fierce. "And until your own part in these matters has been made clear."



"Are you arresting us?" Tom asked. "On the unsubstantiated testimony of a Hottentot wagon driver?" Tom looked at Governor van de Witten. "Your Excellency, under article 152 of the Criminal Procedure Act, laid down by the governors in Amsterdam, no slave or native may give evidence against a free burgher of the colony."



"You have missed your vocation, Mijnheer. Your grasp of the law is impressive." Van de Witten nodded. "Thank you for bringing the Act to my attention.1 He stood up and walked on those thin black-hosed legs to the stained-glass windows. He folded his arms over his pigeon chest and stared out at the bay. "I see both your ships have returned to port."



Neither brother answered this remark. It was superfluous. The two Courtney vessels were clearly visible from where he stood, lying at anchor off the foreshore. They had come into the bay in convoy two days previously, and had not yet offloaded. The Maid of York and the Gift of Allah were lovely schooners. They had been built in the yards at Trincomalee to Tom's own design. They were fast and handy, with shallow draught and well armed, perfect for inshore work, trading into estuaries and the shallows of a dangerous and hostile coast.



Sarah had been born in York and Tom had named one vessel for her. Dorian and Yasmini had chosen the name for the other ship.



"A lucrative voyage?" van de Witten asked. "Or so I hear."



Tom smiled thinly. "We thank the Lord for what we have had, but for a little more we would be glad."



Van de Witten acknowledged the witticism with an acidic smile, and returned to his chair. "You ask if you are under arrest. The answer, Mijnheer Courtney, is no." He shook his head. "You are a pillar of our small society, a gentleman of the highest reputation, industrious and hard-working. You pay your taxes. Technically you are not a free Dutch burgher, but a citizen of a foreign nation. However, you pay your residence-licence fees and, as such, you are entitled to the equivalent rights of a burgher. I would not even think of arresting you." It was clear from Colonel Keyser's expression that in fact deep consideration had been given to the possibility.



"Thank you, Your Excellency." Tom rose to his feet, and Dorian followed his example. "Your good opinion means a great deal to us."



"Please, Mijn heeren!" Van de Witten held up his hand to delay them. "There are some other small matters that we should discuss before you go." They sat down again.



"I would not want either of you, or any member of your family, to leave the colony without my express permission until this matter is fully resolved. That includes your son, Mansur Courtney, who was responsible for deliberately drawing out a troop of the VOC cavalry on a fruitless expedition to the northern borders of the colony." He stared at Dorian. "Do I make myself clear?" Dorian nodded.



"Is that all, Your Excellency?" Tom asked, with exaggerated politeness.



"No, Mijnheer. Not quite all. I have determined that you should place with me a nominal surety to ensure that you and your family abide by the conditions I have imposed."



"Just how nominal?" Tom braced himself to hear the response.



"One hundred thousand guilders." Van de Witten picked up the decanter of honey-golden Madeira wine. He came round the table to refill their spiral-stemmed glasses. A heavy silence hung over the room. "I will make allowance for the fact you are foreigners and perhaps you did not understand me." Van de Witten resumed his seat. "I will repeat myself. I require a surety of one hundred thousand guilders from you."



"That is a great deal of money," Tom said at last.



"Yes, I would think it should be sufficient." The governor nodded. "But a relatively modest sum when we take into consideration the profits of your last trading voyage."



"I will need some time to raise that amount in cash," Tom said. His face was almost impassive; a slight tic of one eyelid was all that betrayed his agitation.



"Yes, I understand that," van de Witten agreed. "However, while you are making provision for the surety, you should take into consideration that your residence-licence renewal fee is also due for payment within a few weeks. It would be just as well if you paid both amounts at the same time."



"An additional fifty thousand guilders," Tom said, trying to hide his dismay.



No, Mijnheer. On account of these unforeseen circumstances I have had to reconsider the amount of the residence licence. It has been increased to one hundred thousand guilders."



That is piracy," Tom snapped, losing his temper for the instant, then recovering it at once. "I beg you pardon, Your Excellency. I withdraw that remark."



"You should know about pirates, Mijnheer Courtney." Van de Witten sighed mournfully. "Your own grandfather was executed for that crime." He pointed through the bay windows. "Out there on the parade-ground within sight of this very room. We must pray that no other member of your family meets the same tragic end." The threat was implicit, but it lay across the quiet room like the shadow of the gallows.



Dorian intervened for the first time: "A fee of one hundred thousand on top of the surety deposit will beggar our company."



Van de Witten turned to him. "I think that you still misunderstand me," he said sadly. "The fee for your brother's family residence is one hundred thousand and for your family an additional one hundred thousand. Then you must add to that the surety for good behaviour."



"Three hundred thousand!" Tom exclaimed. That is not possible."



"I am sure it is!" van de Witten contradicted him. "As a last resort you could always sell your ships and the contents of your warehouse. That will surely bring in the full amount."



"Sell the ships?" Tom leaped to his feet. "What madness is this? They are the blood and bones of our company."



"I assure you it is not madness." Van de Witten shook his head and smiled at Colonel Keyser. "I think you should explain the position to these gentlemen."



"Certainly, Your Excellency." Keyser hoisted himself out of his chair and swaggered to the window. "Ah, good! Just in time to illustrate the point."



On the beach below the ramparts of the castle two platoons of VOC soldiers were drawn up. The bayonets were fixed on their muskets, and they carried full packs. Their green uniform jackets stood out sharply against the white sands. As Tom and Dorian watched they began to embark in two open lighters at the edge of the water, wading out knee deep to reach them.



"I am taking the precaution of placing guards on board both your ships," Keyser announced, 'merely to ensure your compliance with Governor van de Witten's edict." Keyser settled back in his chair again. "Until further notice, both of you will report every day before the noon gun to my headquarters to reassure me that you have not left the colony. Of course, as soon as you can produce a receipt from the treasury for the full amount you owe, and a passport from Governor van de Witten, you will be free to leave. I fear, however, that it might not be so easy to return next time."



"*-VT Tell, perhaps we have overstayed our welcome," Tom said, and \ \ / beamed round the room. The family was seated in the



V V counting-house of the High Weald go down



Sarah Courtney tried to show her disapproval in sternness, but an expression of resignation was not entirely hidden by her lowered lids. He will never cease to amaze me, this husband of mine, she thought. He revels in circumstances that would devastate other men.



"I think Tom is right." Dorian joined in between puffs on his hookah. "We Courtneys have always been voyagers on the oceans and wanderers on the continents. Twenty years in one spot on this earth is too long."



"You are talking about my home," Yasmini protested, 'the place where I have spent half my life, and where my only son was born."



"We will find both you and Sarah another home, and give you both more sons, if that is what will make you happy," Dorian promised.



"You are as bad as your brother," Sarah rounded on him. "You don't understand a woman's heart."



"Or her mind." Tom chuckled. "Come now, my sweeting, we cannot stay here to be beggared by van de Witten. You have been forced to up sticks and run before. Don't you remember how we had to clear out of Fort Providence at five minutes' notice when Zayn al-Din's men came calling?"



"I shall never forget it. You threw my harpsichord overboard to lighten the ship so we could clear the sandbars at the mouth of the river."



"Ah, but I bought you another," Tom said, and they all glanced across the room to the triangular instrument standing against the inner wall. Sarah stood up and crossed to it. She opened the lid of the keyboard, took her seat on the stool and played the opening bars of "Spanish Ladies'. Tom hummed the chorus.



Abruptly Sarah closed the lid, and stood up. There were tears in her eyes. That was long ago, Tom Courtney, when I was a silly young girl."



"Young? Yes. Silly? Never!" Tom went to her quickly and placed an arm round her shoulders.



"Tom, I am too old to start all over again," she whispered.



Nonsense, you are as young and strong as you ever were."



We will be destitute," Sarah mourned. "Beggars and homeless wanderers."



If you think that, you do not know me as well as you think you do."



Still holding her fondly he looked at his brother. "Shall we show them, Dorry?"



"There will be no peace for us if we do not." Dorian shrugged. "They are scolds and martinets, these women of ours."



Yasmini leaned over and tugged his curling red beard. "I have always been a dutiful Muslim wife to you, al-Salil." She used his Arabic name, the Drawn Sword. "How dare you accuse me of disrespect? Recant at once or you shall be deprived of all favours and privileges until next Ramadan comes round."



"You are so lovely, full moon on my life. You grow sweeter and more docile with each day that passes."



"I shall take that as a recantation." She smiled and her great dark eyes glowed at him.



"Enough!" cried Tom. "This dispute tears apart our family and our hearts." They all laughed, even the women, and Tom seized the advantage. "You know that Dorian and I were never such fools as to trust that gang of footpads and cut purses who make up the board of governors of the VOC," he said.



"We always knew that we were in this colony under sufferance," Dorian went on. "The Dutch looked upon us as milch cows. For the last twenty years they have been sucking our udders dry."



"Well, not entirely dry," Tom demurred, and went to the bookcase at the far end of the room, which reached from floor to ceiling. "Lend a hand here, brother," he said, and Dorian went to help him. The bookcase, filled with heavy leather bound tomes, was set on steel rollers cunningly concealed beneath the dark wooden skirting-board. With both of them shoving at one end, it slid aside, with squealing protest from the rollers, to reveal a small door in the back wall, barred with iron cross bolts and locked with an enormous bronze padlock.



Tom lifted down a book, whose spine was embossed in gold leaf Monsters of the Southern Oceans. He opened the covers; in the hollowed out interior lay a key.



"Bring the lantern," he told Sarah, as he turned the key in the padlock, shot back the bolts and opened the door.



"How did you keep this from us over all these years?" Sarah demanded.



"With the greatest difficulty." Tom took her hand, and led her into a tiny room, not much bigger than a cupboard. Dorian and Yasmini followed. There was barely enough space for them all and the stack of small wooden chests piled neatly against the far wall.



"The family fortune," Tom explained. "The profits of twenty years. We did not have the reckless courage or the lack of good sense to entrust it to the Bank of Batavia, which is owned by our old friends in Amsterdam,



ithe VOC." He opened the top chest, which was packed to the brim with small canvas bags. Tom handed one of the bags to each of the women.



"So heavy!" Yasmini exclaimed, and nearly dropped hers.



"An't nothing heavier," Tom agreed.



When Sarah opened the mouth of the bag she held she gasped. "Gold coins? All three chests rilled with gold?"



"Naturally, my sweeting. We pay our expenses in silver, and keep the profits in gold."



"Tom Courtney, you are a dark horse. Why did you never tell us of this hoard?"



"There was never a reason until now." He laughed. "The knowledge would have made you discontent, but now it has taken a weight off your heart."



"How much have you and Dorry squirrel led away in here?" Yasmini asked, in wonder.



Tom knocked with his knuckles on each of the three chests in turn. " "Seems all three are still full. This is the most part of our savings. In addition we have an ample collection of sapphires from Ceylon and diamonds from the fabulous Kollur mine on the Krishna river in India. They are all large stones of the first water. If not quite a king's ransom, then at least a rajah's." He chuckled richly. "In truth, that is not quite all. Both our ships lying in the bay have their weighty cargoes still intact."



To say nothing of two platoons of VOC soldiers on board as well," Sarah pointed out spicily, as she backed out of the concealed strongroom.



"That presents an interesting problem," Tom admitted, as he locked the door and Dorian helped him push the bookcase back into position to cover it. "But one that is not insoluble." He went to take his seat again, and patted the chair next to him. "Come sit beside me, Sarah Courtney. I am going to need the benefit of your sharp wit and famous erudition now."



"I think it is time that we invited Mansur to join the family deliberations," Dorian suggested. "He is old enough at last and, what is more, his life will be changed as profoundly as ours when we sail out of Table Bay. He will probably be distraught to be taken from his childhood home."



Quite right!" Tom agreed. "But now speed is everything. Our exodus must take van de Witten and Keyser by surprise. They cannot be expecting us to abandon High Weald and all its contents. There is a great deal to be seen to, but we must set ourselves a limit." He looked UP at Dorian. Three days?"



"It will be a close-run thing." Dorian frowned as he considered it. "But, yes, we can be ready to sail in three days."



Those three days were filled with frenzied activity, carefully concealed from the rest of the world. It was essential that even the most trusted of their servants had no inkling of their true intentions. Loyalty did not presuppose discretion: the serving girls were notorious chatterboxes, and the chambermaids even worse. Many had romantic attachments to men in the town and a few consorted with the soldiers and petty officers in the castle. To allay any suspicions, Sarah and Yasmini put it about that the sorting and packing of clothes and furniture was merely a seasonal reordering and cleaning of the rambling homestead. In the go down Tom and Dorian conducted their annual stock-taking three months earlier than was their usual custom.



An English East Indiaman was lying at anchor in the bay, and the captain was an old and trusted friend of Tom. They had dealt with each other over the last twenty years. Tom sent him an invitation to dinner and, during the meal, swore him to secrecy and informed him of their plans to leave Good Hope. Then he sold him the entire contents of the go down at High Weald for a fraction of its real value. In return Captain Welles promised not to take possession until after the two Courtney ships had sailed from the bay. He undertook to make payment for the goods directly into the CBTC account at Mr. Coutts's bank in Piccadilly immediately on his return to London.



The land and buildings of High Weald were held under perpetual quit-rent to the VOC. Mijnheer van de Velde, another prosperous burgher of the colony, had been importuning Tom and Dorian for years to sell the estate to him.



After midnight the brothers, dressed in black, their faces covered by the brims of their hats and the collars of their greatcoats, rode across to his homestead on the banks of the Black river, and knocked on the shutters of van de Velde's bedroom. After his initial alarm, angry shouts and threats, he came out in his nightshirt brandishing a bell-mouthed blunderbuss. He shone his lantern into their faces.



"Name of a dog, it is you!" he exclaimed, and led them into his counting-house. As the first light of dawn paled the sky and the doves cooed in the oaks outside the windows they shook hands on the bargain. Tom and Dorian signed the deed of transfer of High Weald and, grinning triumphantly, van de Velde handed over an irrevocable letter of credit drawn on the Bank of Batavia for an amount less than half of what he had been prepared to pay for it only a few months before.



On the planned evening of departure, as the sun set and the light faded, when they could not be observed from the beach or the castle



walls, Mansur and a small crew rowed out to the anchored ships. Keyser had placed six Hottentot troopers under a corporal on board each. After five days at anchor, with the vessels pitching and rolling in the steep swells kicked up by the south-easter, those soldiers who were not prostrated with seasickness were bored and disenchanted with this duty. To add to their misery they could see the lights of the taverns along the beachfront and hear snatches of song and revelry drifting across the dark, wind-churned surface from the shore.



Mansur's arrival alongside was a pleasant distraction, and they crowded the rail to exchange jests and friendly insults with him and his rowers. Mansur was a favourite of the Hottentot community in the colony. The nickname they had bestowed upon him was Specht, Woodpecker, for his fiery topknot.



"You are not allowed on board, Specht," the corporal told him sternly. "Colonel Keyser's orders. No visitors allowed."



"Do not fuss yourself. I am not coming on board. I would not want to be seen in the company of such rogues and ruffians," Mansur shouted back.



"So you say, old Specht, but then what are you doing here? You should be giving the girls in the village sewing lessons." The corporal shouted with laughter at his own wit. The word naai had a double meaning: not only to sew but also to fornicate. Mansur's red hair and startling good looks rendered him almost irresistible to the members of the fair sex.



"It's my birthday," Mansur told them, 'and I have brought a present for you." He kicked the keg of Cape brandewiin that lay in the bottom of the boat. "Send down a cargo net." They jumped to obey, and the keg swayed up on to the deck.



The Muslim captain of the Gift of Allah came up from his cabin to protest at this devil's brew, forbidden by the Prophet, coming on board.



"Peace be upon you, Batula," Mansur called to him in Arabic. "These men are my friends." Batula had been Dorian's lance-bearer in the early days in the deserts, they had spent most of their lives together and the links between them were of iron. Batula had known Mansur from the day of his birth. He recognized Mansur's voice and his anger abated a little. He consoled himself that all his men were believers and they would not be tempted by Satan's liquor, unlike the kaffir soldiers.



The Hottentot corporal knocked the bung out of the brandy keg and ruled a pewter mug. He took a mouthful of the neat spirits, gasped and exhaled the fumes noisily. "Yis moar!" he exclaimed. "Dis kkkerl It's so good!"



Mugs in hand his men crowded round him for their turn at the keg, but the corporal relented his former strictures and called down to Mansur, "Hey, Specht! Come on board and share a cup."



Mansur waved an apology as they pulled away and headed for the other ship. "Not now, perhaps later. I have another present for your men on the Maid of York."



Sarah and Yasmini had been strictly charged by their husbands to restrict their luggage to two large travelling trunks each. Tom absolutely forbade Sarah to try to smuggle her harpsichord on to the ship. As soon as the men were occupied elsewhere, the two good wives had the servants load their ten large chests on to the waiting cart, and the harpsichord sat four-square on top of this abundant cargo. The wheels of the cart were splayed under the weight.



"Sarah Courtney, you astound me. I know not what to say." Tom glared at the offending instrument when he returned.



"Then say naught, Tom, you big booby. And I shall play you the sweetest rendition of "Spanish Ladies" you have ever heard when we reach the new home you shall build me." That was his favourite song, and he stumped off in defeat to oversee the loading of the other wagons.



At this last hour it was not possible that word of their departure might reach Colonel Keyset's ear in time for him to intervene, so the servants were assembled and Tom and Dorian told them that the family was leaving High Weald for ever. There was not space on board the two ships for all of the servants and freed slaves that made up the High Weald household. Those who had been chosen to go with the family were given the right to refuse and stay in the colony. Not one took up that option. They were given an hour to pack. Those who were being left behind huddled in a forlorn group at the end of the wide veranda. The women were weeping softly. All the members of the Courtney family went down the line of familiar, well-beloved faces, talking to each in turn and embracing them. Tom and Dorian handed each a canvas purse, and a deed of manumission and release from service, with a glowing letter of character reference.



"Where is Susie?" Sarah asked, when she reached the end of the line, and looked around for one of her older housemaids. Susie was married to the wagon driver Sonnie, who was still a prisoner in the castle dungeons.



The other servants looked around with surprise. "Susie was here," one answered. "I saw her at the end of the veranda."



"She was probably overcome by the shock of hearing that we are leaving," Yasmini suggested. "When she has recovered I'm sure she will come back to take her leave."



There was so much still to be done that Sarah was forced to put Susie's absence to the back of her mind. "I'm sure she would never let us go without a word," she said, and hurried down to make sure that the cart carrying her special treasures was ready to leave for the beach.



By the time the wagons were ready to leave the homestead the moon had risen, and by its light Susie was hurrying along the road to the castle. She had her shawl over her head, the tail of it wrapped round the lower half of her face. Her face was wet with tears, and she muttered to herself as she ran: They don't think about me and Sonnie. No, they leave my husband in the hands of the Boers, to be beaten and killed. They leave me here with three little ones to starve while they sail away." The twenty years of kindness she had received from Sarah Courtney were swept from her mind and she burst into sobs as she thought about the cruelty of her employer.



She quickened her pace. "Well, if they don't care for me and Sonnie and the little ones, why should I care for them?" Her voice hardened with her resolve. "I will make a bargain with the Boers. If they let Sonnie go from the dungeon, I will tell them what Klebe and his wife are up to tonight."



Susie did not waste time going to the castle to find Colonel Keyser. She went directly to the little cottage behind the Company gardens. The Hottentot community was close-knit and Shala, Colonel Keyset's paramour, was the youngest daughter of Susie's sister. Her liaison with the colonel gave Shala great prestige in the family.



Susie knocked on the shutters of the back room of the cottage. After some fumbling and grumbling in the darkened bedroom, lantern light flared behind the shutters and Shala's voice demanded sleepily, "Who is it?"



"Shala, it's me. Tannic Susie."



Shala opened the shutters. She stood naked in the light of her own lantern, and her fat honey-coloured breasts joggled together as she leaned over the window-sill. "Auntie? How late is it? What do you want at this hour?"



Is he here, child?" Susie's question was redundant. Keyset's snores



rumbled from the darkened bedroom like distant thunder. "Wake him up."



"He will beat me if I do," Shala protested. "You also, he will thrash you."



"I have important news for him," Susie snapped. "He will reward us both when he hears it. Your uncle Sonnie's life depends on it. Wake him at once."



When the line of wagons set off from High Weald towards the se afront even those who were not sailing with the family walked alongside. When they reached the beach they helped load the cargo into the lighters that were already waiting at the edge of the surf. Before all the wagons had made their way down through the dunes both boats were fully loaded.



"In this surf we will risk a capsize if we burden them any more," Tom decided. "Dorian and I will take this load out to the ships and secure the guards." He turned to Sarah and Yasmini. "If they are not sufficiently lulled with Mansur's brandy, there may be a rumpus on board. I don't want you mixed up in that. You two must wait here and I will bring you out to the ships on the next trip."



"The cart with our luggage has not arrived yet." Sarah peered back worriedly into the darkness of the dunes.



"It will be here in short order," Tom assured her. "Now, please wait here and do not take Yassie and go wandering off to heaven knows where." He embraced her and whispered in her ear, "And I would be mightily obliged if you do as I ask just this once."



"How can you think so poorly of your own wife?" she whispered back. "Off you go. When you return I shall be here, as good as gold."



"And twice as beautiful," he added.



The men scrambled aboard the lighters and seized the oars. The pull out to the ships was rough and wet, for the laden vessels were low in the water. The spray came over the bows, soaking them to the skin. When at last they rowed into the calmer water in the lee of the Gift of Allah there was no challenge from the ship. Tom swarmed up the rope ladder with Dorian and Mansur not far behind him. They drew their blades, ready to meet an attack from the VOC troops, but instead they found Captain Batula waiting at the entry-port.



"May the peace of God be upon you." He greeted his ship's owners with the deepest respect. Dorian embraced Batula warmly. They had ridden thousands of leagues together and sailed even further. They had fought side by side in the battles that had won a kingdom. They had shared bread and salt. Their friendship was a rock.



"Where are the guards, Batula?" Tom cut short their greetings. "The forecastle," Batula told him. "They are sodden with drink." Tom ran to the open companion way and jumped down. The cabin stank of brandy fumes and other less attractive odours. The VOC troopers and their corporal were lying comatose in puddles of their own vomit.



Tom sheathed his sword. "These gentlemen are quite happy for a while. Tie them up and let them enjoy their rest until we are ready to leave. Let's get the gold chests and the rest of the cargo on board."



Once the chests of gold coins were safely stowed in the main cabin, Tom left Dorian and Mansur to supervise the loading of the rest of the cargo. He took charge of the second lighter and they rowed across to the Maid of York. They found the VOC guards there in no better condition than their comrades on the Gift of Allah.



"Sunrise in eight hours, and we must be out of sight of land by then," Tom told Kumrah, the Arab captain. "Get this cargo on board as soon as you like." The crew flew at the task and as the last bale of goods came on board, Tom looked across at the other ship and saw that Dorian had sent a single lantern to the masthead of the Gift, the signal that the first lighter was unloaded and returning to the beach to pick up the women and the remaining cargo.



As soon as the bales were lashed down, Tom had his crew carry the VOC soldiers up from the forecastle and dump them, trussed like chickens, into the lighter lying alongside. By then some were regaining consciousness, but on account of their gags and bonds they were unable to express their indignation except by grunting and rolling their eyes.



They pushed off from the ship's side and Tom took the tiller and steered back towards the shore following Dorian's lighter. As they came on to the sand Tom saw Dorian's boat was already on the beach, but nobody was at work loading it. Instead an agitated knot of servants and crew was gathered at the foot of the dunes. Tom jumped down into the shallow water and waded to the shore. He ran up the beach and saw Dorian arguing with the head driver.



What has happened?" Then he saw that Sarah and Yasmini were missing. "Where are the women?" Tom called.



This idiot has let them go back." Dorian's tone was edged with desperation.



Go back?" Tom stopped dead and stared at him. "What do you mean, go back?"



The cart with their luggage broke down in the dunes. The axle snapped. Sarah and Yasmini have taken one of the empty wagons to retch the load."



"Those mad women!" Tom exploded, and then, with a great effort, brought his temper under control. "Very well, we must make the best of it. Mansur, take the prisoners up above the high-water mark. Do not untie them. Leave them there for Keyser to find in the morning. Then load these goods into the first lighter." He pointed at the remaining boxes and crates piled on the beach. "Send them out to the ships with the crew from the Maid of York. Thank the good Lord we have the gold chests on board already."



"What shall I do after that?" asked Mansur.



"You have charge here at the landing. Wait with the second boat. Be ready to load up and launch as soon as we return with the women." Mansur ran to obey, and Tom turned back to Dorian. "Come, brother, you and I will go to fetch the sweet chickens that have flown the coop."



They hurried to the horses. "Loosen your blade in its scabbard, and make sure both your pistols are charged, Dorry. I like this turn in the road not at all," Tom muttered, as they mounted. He took his own advice, loosened the blue sword in its scabbard, drew the pistols from the holsters on the front of his saddle, checked them, then thrust them back again.



"Come!" he said, and the two galloped back along the sandy track. Tom was expecting at any moment to come across the stranded cart, but when they rode down out of the dunes and started up through the paddocks towards the homestead they had still not found it.



"If the cart did not get very far," Dorian muttered, 'you cannot place much blame on the driver. It collapsed under that great mountain of female baggage."



"We should have packed it on the larger wagon."



"The ladies would not have it so," Dorian reminded him. "They did not want their treasures contaminated by sharing the ride with common goods."



"I see no call for levity in this, brother. Time runs us short." Tom looked up at the eastern sky, but there was no sign of the dawn.



There they are!" Ahead they saw the gleam of a lantern, and the dark shape of a wagon beside the lesser bulk of the capsized cart. They urged the horses to the top of their speed. As they came up Sarah stepped into the road, holding up the lantern, with Yasmini beside her.



"You are just in time to be too late, husband of mine." Sarah laughed. "Everything is safely repacked on board the wagon."



At that moment Tom saw the driver behind her brandish his long whip, flicking out the lash to fire it over the backs of the oxen. "Stay



your hand, Henny, you damned fool. They will hear your whiplash down in the castle. You will bring the colonel and all his men upon us like a pride of lions!"



Guiltily Henny lowered the great whip, and instead he and his voorloper ran alongside the oxen slapping their rumps and urging them to pull away. The wagon began lumbering along towards the start of the dunes. The harpsichord swayed and rocked on top of the load. Tom spared it one bitter glance. "May it fall and burst into a thousand pieces!" he grumbled.



"I choose to ignore that remark," Sarah said primly, 'for I know you did not mean it."



"Come up behind me, my sweeting." Tom leaned out of the saddle to lift her up. "I shall whisk you back to the beach and have you on board before you can blink an eye."



"I thank you, no, my own true heart. I prefer to stay with the wagon, to see that no further mishaps befall my baggage." In frustration Tom slapped the lead ox across its rump with the heavy sword scabbard.



They reached the first slope of the dunes and Tom looked back, and felt the first flare of alarm. There were lights showing around the homestead, which only minutes before had been in complete darkness.



"Look at that, brother," he muttered to Dorian, keeping his voice low. "What do you make of it?"



Dorian turned in the saddle. "Mounted men carrying lighted torches," Dorian exclaimed. "They are coming up the hill from the direction of the colony. A large troop, riding in column. They must be cavalry."



"Keyser!" Tom agreed. "Stephanus Keyser! It can be no other. Somehow he has got wind of what we are about."



"When he finds that we have left the homestead, he will come straight on to the landing on the shore."



"He will catch us before we can load this baggage into the boats," Tom agreed. "We must abandon the wagon, and run for the beach."



He spurred back to where Sarah and Yasmini were walking alongside the span of oxen. They had cut sticks from the side of the road and were helping to drive the span onwards.



"Douse that lantern. Keyser has come," Tom shouted at Sarah and pointed back. "He will be after us in no time at all."



"Leave the wagon. We must run." Dorian was at Tom's side.



Sarah cupped her hand around the glass chimney of the lantern, blew out the flame. Then she turned on her husband. "You cannot be sure it is Keyser," she challenged him.



Who else would be leading a troop of cavalry to High Weald at this time of the night?"



"He will not know that we are heading for the beach."



"He may be fat, but that does not make him blind or stupid. Of course he will come after us."



Sarah looked ahead. "It's not far now. We can reach the shore before him."



"A loaded ox-wagon against a troop of cavalry? Don't be daft, woman."



"Then you must think of something," she said, with simple faith. "You always do."



"Yes, I have already thought of something. Get up behind me, and we will run as though the devil is breathing fire down our necks."



"Which he is!" said Dorian, and then to Yasmini, "Come, my darling, let us go at once."



"You may go, Yassie," Sarah said, 'but I am staying."



"I cannot leave you, Sarah, we have been together too long. I will stay with you," said Yasmini, and moved closer to her side. They presented the men with an unassailable front. Tom hesitated just a moment longer. Then he turned back to Dorian.



"If I have learned nothing else in my life, this I know. They will not be moved." He drew one of the pistols from its holster on the pommel of his saddle. "Look to your priming, Dorry." He turned back to Sarah and told her sternly, "You will get us all killed. Perhaps then you will be satisfied. Make all haste. When you reach the beach Mansur will be waiting with the lighter. Have it loaded and ready to shove off. When next you see us Dorry and I might be in somewhat of a hurry." He was about to ride off when a sudden thought occurred to him. He leaned over and lifted the spare trek chain from its bracket at the back end of the wagon. Every wagon carried this piece of equipment: it was there for use when the teams had to be double spanned.



"What do you mean to do with that?" Dorian demanded. "It will weigh down your mount."



"Perhaps nothing." Tom lashed the chain to the pommel of his saddle. "But then again, perhaps a great deal."



They left their two wives and the wagon after one last exhortation to make for the beach at their best speed, and galloped back up the hill. As they approached, the lights of the torches became brighter and the scene clearer. They reined in at the edge of the paddock, just below the homestead, and walked the horses into the deeper darkness below the outspread branches of the trees. They saw at once that these visitors were uniformed troopers. Many were dismounted and running in and out of the buildings, their sabres drawn, searching the rooms. Tom and Dorian could clearly make out their faces and features.



"There is Keyser," Dorian exclaimed, 'and, by the beard of the Prophet, that is Susie with him."



"So she is our Judas!" Tom's tone was grim. "What possible reason would she have to betray us?"



"Sometimes there is no accounting for the treacherous spite of those we have loved and trusted most," Dorian replied.



"Keyser won't waste much time searching for us in the homestead," Tom grunted, as he untied the riempie that secured the heavy trek chain to the front of his saddle. "Here is what you must do, Dorry."



Quickly he outlined his plan. Almost as soon as he started talking Dorian had grasped it all.



"The gate above the main kraal," Dorian agreed.



"When you have done, leave it open," Tom warned him.



"You do have a hellish mind, brother Tom." Dorian chuckled. "At times such as these, I am pleased that I am for you, not against."



"Go quickly," Tom said. "Keyser has already discovered that the stable is empty and the birds have flown." Tom mixed his metaphors cruelly.



Dorian left Tom under the trees and took the fork of the road that led down to the main cattle stockades above the lagoon. Tom noted that he had the good sense to keep to the verge so that the grass muffled his horse's hoofbeats. He watched until Dorian disappeared into the darkness, then switched his attention to what was happening around the buildings of High Weald.



The troopers had at last abandoned the search and were hurrying back to their horses. On the front stoep of the homestead Susie was cowering in front of Keyser, who was shouting at her. His angry tone carried to where Tom waited, but he was too distant to catch the words.



Perhaps Susie has been stricken by an attack of conscience, Tom thought, and watched Keyser lash the woman across the face with his riding crop. Susie fell to her knees. Keyser struck her again across her shoulders with a full overhead stroke of the whip. Susie screamed shrilly and pointed down the road to the dunes.



The cavalry troopers mounted hastily and fell in behind Keyser as he rode at the head of the column. By the light of the torches they carried, Tom watched them come down towards the paddock. The jingle of the harness and the clatter of the carbines and sabres in the scabbards grew louder. When they were so close that he could hear the breathing of their horses, Tom spurred his own horse out of the darkness into the middle of the road in front of them.



Keyser, you treacherous bag of pig's lard! A curse on your black heart and a pox on your shrivelled genitals!" he shouted. Keyser was so taken aback that he reined in his horse. The troopers behind him bumped



into each other. For a moment there was confusion in the column as the horses milled about.



"You will never take me, Keyser, you great round of cheese! Not on that donkey you call a horse."



Tom lifted the double-barrelled pistol and aimed as close over the top of the ostrich plumes in Keyser's hat as he dared. Keyser ducked as the ball buzzed past his ear.



Tom spun his horse and sent him racing down the road towards the kraal. Behind him he heard the thud of answering pistol shots, and Keyser's furious bellows: "Catch that man! After him! Alive if you can, but dead if you must. Either way, I want him!"



The troop of cavalry pounded after Tom. A blast of pellets from a cavalry carbine whirred around him like a covey of partridge rising from cover, and he lay flat on his horse's mane and lashed the loose end of the reins across its neck.



He looked back under his arm to judge the gap between himself and the pursuit, and when he saw that he was drawing ahead he slowed down a little into a firm gallop and let Keyser close in. The excited shouts and halloos of the troopers reassured Tom that they had him well in sight. Every few seconds there came the bang and thud of a pistol or carbine, and a few balls flew close enough for him to hear them pass. One struck his saddle only inches from his buttocks and went whining off into the night. If it had hit him, it would certainly have inflicted a wound that would have ended it all there and then.



Although he knew exactly where the gate was and he was looking ahead to find it, it still surprised him when it appeared suddenly out of the darkness ahead of him. He saw instantly that Dorian had done as he had asked and left it wide open. The hedge on each side of the opening was shoulder high, thick and dark with matted thorn. Tom had only a moment to steer away from the gateway, and aim at the hedge. As he gathered his mount for the jump with the pressure of his knees and his hands on the reins, from the corner of his eye he saw the glint of steel. Dorian had wrapped each end of the chain around the heavy wooden gate-posts and the links were stretched at waist height across the opening.



Tom let the horse under him judge the moment of take-off, moved his weight forward and helped him surge upwards. They brushed over the top of the hedge and landed well in hand on the far side. The instant Tom recovered his balance and steadied his mount he turned and looked back. One of the troopers had pulled well ahead of his comrades, and tried to follow Tom over the hedge. His horse shied and refused at the last moment, running out while his rider flew off his back



and came sailing over the hedge, flying free. He struck the ground in a tangle of limbs and equipment and lay like a sack of beans.



Colonel Keyset saw his man unhorsed, waved his sword over his head and shouted, "Follow me! Through the gate!"



His squadron bunched up close behind him and he charged into the gateway. With a metallic clash the chain sprang tight as the combined weight of animals and men crashed into it. In an instant the entire column was cut down, horses piling into each other as they fell. The bones of their legs snapped like dry firewood as they hit the chain. Their bodies filled the gateway in a struggling, kicking, screaming mass. Men were caught under the animals and their cries swelled the tumult.



Even Tom, who had engineered it, was appalled by the shambles. Instinctively he turned back his horse, tempted for a fleeting moment to try to render assistance to his victims. Dorian rode out from behind the wall of the kraal where he had been concealed and stopped beside Tom. The two stared in horror. Then Keyser struggled to his feet almost under the noses of their horses.



As the first into the trap, Keyser's mount had struck the chain cleanly, and as they went down Keyser was hurled from the saddle like a stone from a sling. He struck and rolled across the earth, but somehow retained his grip on his sabre. Now he stood up unsteadily and gazed back in disbelief at the pile of struggling men and horses. Then he let out a cry of rage and despair mingled. He raised his sword and rushed at Tom.



"For this I shall have your hide and heart!" he bellowed. With a flick of his sword Tom sent the sabre spinning from his grip to peg into the earth ten paces away. "Don't be an idiot, man. There has been enough damage done for one day. See to your men." Tom glanced at Dorian. "Come, Dorry, let's go on."



They turned their horses. Still half stunned Keyser staggered to retrieve his sword and as they rode away he shouted after them, "This is not the end of the business, Tom Courtney. I shall come after you with all the might and authority of the VOC. You shall not escape my wrath." Neither Tom nor Dorian looked back and he ran after them shouting threats, until they had pulled away and he had run out of breath. He stopped, panting, and hurled his sabre after them. "I shall hunt you down and root you out, you and all your seed."



Just as they were disappearing into the night, Keyser bellowed his last taunt: "Koots has already captured your bitch-born bastard. He is bringing back Jim Courtney's head, and the head of his convict whore, P'ckled in a keg of brandy."



Tom stopped and stared back at him.



"Yes, Koots has caught him," Keyser shouted, with wild laughter.



"He is lying, brother. He says it to wound you." Dorian laid a hand on Tom's arm. "How could he know what has happened out there?"



"You are right, of course," Tom whispered. "Jim has got clean away."



"We must get back to the women, and see them safely aboard," Dorian insisted. They rode on and Keyser's shouts receded behind them.



Struggling for breath, Keyser tottered back to the tangle of men and horses. A few of his troopers were crawling to their feet, or sitting holding their heads or nursing other injuries. "Find me a horse," Keyser yelled.



His own horse, like most of the others, had broken its legs when it struck the chain, but a few animals, who had been in the rear rank of the charge, had been able to heave themselves upright and were standing, shivering and shaken. Keyser ran from one to another, checking their legs. He selected the one that seemed strongest, hoisted himself into the saddle and shouted to his men who could still walk, "Come on! Find yourselves a mount and follow me. We can still catch them on the beach."



Tom and Dorian found the last wagon descending the final slope of the dunes. The women were walking beside it. Sarah had relit the lantern and held it high when she heard the horses galloping up.



"Will you not hurry, woman?" Tom was so agitated that he shouted at her from a distance.



"We are hurrying," she replied, 'and your rough seaman's language will make us go no faster."



"We have delayed Keyser for the moment, but he will be after us again soon enough." Tom realized his mistake in adopting that brusque approach to his wife and, despite his agitation, tried to ameliorate his tone. "We are in sight of the beach, and all your possessions are safe." He pointed ahead. "Will you now let me take you to the boat, my sweeting."



She looked up at him and, even in the poor light of her lantern, could see the strain on his face. She relented. "Lift me up, then, Tom." She raised her arms to him like a small girl to her father. When he swung her up and placed her behind him she hugged him close, and



whispered into the thick curls that bushed down the back of his neck, "You are the finest husband God ever placed upon this earth, and I am the most fortunate of wives."



Dorian gathered up Yasmini and they followed Tom down to where Mansur waited with the lighter at the water's edge. They placed the two women firmly on board. The wagon came trundling down, and as it reached the lighter it sank axle deep into the wet sand. But this made it easier to transfer the last of their possessions into the boat. Once the wagon was empty the oxen were able to haul it away.



While this was going on, Tom and Dorian kept glancing back into the darkness of the dunes, expecting the worst of Keyset's threats to materialize, but the harpsichord was at last lashed down and covered with a tarpaulin to protect it from the spray.



Mansur and the crewmen who were shoving out the boat were still waist deep, when there was an angry shout from the dunes and the flash and clap of a carbine shot. The ball slammed into the transom of the boat, and Mansur leaped in.



There was another shot and again the ball struck the hull. Tom pushed the women down until they were sitting on the deck, in an inch or more of bilge water, protected by the pile of hastily loaded cargo.



"I entreat you now to keep your heads well down. We can argue the merits of this suggestion later. However, I assure you those are real musket balls."



He looked back and could just make out Keyser's distinctive outline against the pale sand, but his stentorian bellows carried clearly: "You will not escape me, Tom Courtney. I shall see you hanged, drawn and quartered on the same scaffold as that bloody pirate, your grandfather. Every Dutch port in this world will be closed to you."



"Take no notice of what he says," Tom told Sarah, dreading that Keyser would repeat his gruesome description of Jim's fate and torment her beyond bearing. "In his pique he utters only monstrous lies. Come, let us give him a farewell tune."



To drown Keyser's threats, he launched into a hearty but off-key rendition of "Spanish Ladies', and the others all joined in. Dorian's voice was as magnificent as ever and Mansur had inherited his ringing tenor. Yasmini's soprano lisped sweetly. Sarah leaned against Tom's reassuring bulk and sang with him.



"Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies, Farewell and adieu to you," ladies of Spain For we've received orders to sail for old England, But we hope in a short time to see you again...



Then let every man here toss off a full bumper,



Then let every man here toss off his full bowl,



For we will be jolly and drown melancholy,



With a health to each jovial and true-hearted soul..."



Yasmini laughed and clapped her hands. That's the first naughty song Dorry ever taught me. Do you remember when first I sang it to you, Tom?"



"My oath on it, I will never forget it." Tom chuckled as he steered for the Maid of York. Twas the day you brought Dorrie back to me after I had lost him for all those years."



As Tom clambered aboard the Maid of York he gave orders to his captain: "Captain Kumrah, in God's name, get this last load on board as quick as you like." He went back to the rail and looked down at Dorian, who was still in the lighter. He called to him, "As soon as you're on board the Gift of Allah douse all lights and hoist anchor, we must be clear of the land before first light. I don't want Keyset and the Dutch lookouts in the castle to spy out in which direction we are headed. Let them guess whether it be east or west, or even south to the Pole."



The last of the baggage to come on board from the lighter was Sarah's harpsichord. As it dangled over the side, Tom called to the men on the fall of the tackle, "A guinea for the man who lets that damn thing drop down to Davy Jones."



Sarah prodded him sharply in the ribs, and the crewmen paused and looked at each other. They were never sure what to make of Tom's sense of humour. Tom put his arm around Sarah and went on, "Of course, once you have your guinea, out of deference to the feeling of my wife, I shall be obliged to throw you in after it."



They laughed uncertainly and swung the harpsichord in board. Tom strode back to the side. "Be away with you then, brother," he called to Dorian.



The crew of the lighter shoved off and Dorian hailed back, "If we become separated in the dark, then the rendezvous will be off Cape Hangklip, as always?" '



"As always, Dorry."



The two ships sailed within minutes of each other, and for the first ] hour they were able to keep station. Then the wind increased to near j gale force and the last sliver of moon went behind the clouds. In the ; darkness they lost contact with each other. i



When dawn broke the Maid* found herself alone, with the south' ,: easter howling through her rigging. The land was a blue smear, low on ; the northern horizon, almost obscured by the breaking waves and the ' swirling sea fret. ;



298 }



"Fat chance that the Dutch will make us out in this weather," Tom shouted at Kumrah, as the tails of his tarpaulin coat flapped around his legs, and the ship heeled over to the push of the storm. "Make this your offing, and come about for Cape Hangklip."



Close-hauled against the storm they raised the Cape the next morning, and found the Gift there before them, beating back and forth on the rendezvous. Once more in convoy they set out eastwards to round Cape Agulhas, the southernmost tip of Africa. The wind held steadily out of the east. They spent many weary days tacking back and forth, steering clear of the treacherous shoals that guarded Agulhas and clawing their way into their eas tings At last they were able to double the Cape and turn northwards along that rugged and inhospitable coast.



Three weeks after leaving High Weald they finally passed through the heads of grey rock that guarded the great Lagoon of the Elephants. They dropped anchor in the blessedly calm waters, clear as good Hollands gin and learning with shoals of fish.

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