Gold Mine

He squeezed off both barrels. Wham! Wham! And the duck broke formation and rocketed upwards, whirring aloft on noisy wings.

"Damn it!" said Rod.

"What's wrong, dead-eye Dick, did you miss?" asked Terry.

"The light's too bad."

"Excuses! Excuses!" Terry stood up beside him, and Rod pushed a balled fist lightly against her cheek.

"That's enough from you, woman. Let's go home." Carrying the shotguns and bunches of dead duck, they trudged along the bank in the dusk to the waiting Land Rover.

It was completely dark as they drove back to the lodge.

"What a wonderful day it's been," Terry murmured dreamily. "If for nothing else, I will always be grateful to you for teaching me how to enjoy my life." Back at the lodge, they bathed and changed into fresh clothes. For dinner they had wild duck and pineapple, with salads from Mrs. Fat Hans" vegetable garden. Afterwards, they sprawled on the leopard-skin rugs in front of the fireplace and watched the log fire without talking, relaxed and happy and tired.

"My God, it's almost nine o'clock." Terry checked her wristwatch. "I fancy a bit of bed myself, how about you, Mr. Ironsides?"

"Let's hear the nine o'clock news first."

"Oh, Rod! Nobody ever listens to the news here. This is fairyland!"

Rod switched on the radio and the first words froze them both. They were "Sander Ditch'.

In horrified silence they listened to the report. Rod's expression was granite-hard, his mouth a tight grim line.

When the news report ended, Rod switched off the radio set and lit a cigarette.

"There is trouble," he said. "Big trouble. I'm sorry, Terry, we must go back. As soon as possible. I have to get back to the mine." "I know," Terry agreed immediately. "But Rod, I can't take off from this landing-strip in the dark. There is no flare path."

"We'll leave at first light." Rod slept very little that night.

Whenever she woke, Terry sensed him lying unsleeping, worrying. Twice she heard him get up and go to the bathroom.

In the very early hours of the morning she woke from her own troubled sleep and saw him silhouetted against the starlit window. He was smoking a cigarette and staring out into the darkness. It was the first night they had spent together without making love. In the dawn Rod was haggared and puffy-eyed.

They were airborne at eight o'clock and they landed in Johannesburg a little after ten.

Rod went straight to the telephone in Hank's office and Lily Jordan answered his call.

"Miss. Jordan, what the hell is happening? Is everything all right?"

"Is that you, Mr. Ironsides. Oh! Thank God! Thank God you've come, something terrible has happened!" Johnny Delange blew the face of the drive twice before nine o'clock, cutting thirty feet further into the glassy green dyke.

He had found that by drilling his cutter blast holes an additional three feet deeper, he could achieve a shatter effect on the serpentine rock which more than compensated for the additional drilling time. This next blast he was going to flout standard regulations and experiment with double-charging his cutter holes. He would need additional explosives.

"Big King," he shouted to make himself heard above the roar of drills.

"Take a gang back to the shaft station. Pick up six cases of Dynagel."

He watched Big King and his gang retreat back down the drive, and then he lit a cigarette and turned his attention to his machine boys. They were poised before the rock face, sweating behind their drills. The dark rock of the dyke absorbed the light from the overhead electric bulbs. It made the end of the drive a gloomy place, filled with a sense of foreboding.

Johnny began to think about Davy. He was aware suddenly of a sense of disquiet, and he moved restlessly. He felt the hair on his forearms come slowly erect, each on a separate goose pimple. Davy is here. He knew it suddenly, and surely. His flesh crawled and he went cold with dread.

He turned quickly and looked over his shoulder. The tunnel behind him was deserted, and Johnny gave a sickly grin.

"Shaya, madoda," he called loudly and unnecessarily to his gang. They could not hear him above the roar of the drills, but the sound of his own voice helped reassure him.

Yet the creepy sensation was still with him. He felt that Davy was still there, trying to tell him something.

Johnny fought the sensation. He walked quickly forward, standing close to his machine boys, as though to draw comfort from their physical presence. It did not help. His nerves were shrieking now, and he felt himself beginning to sweat.

Suddenly the machine boy who was drilling the cutter hole in the centre of the face staggered backwards.

"Hey!" Johnny shouted at him, then he saw that water was spurting in fine needle jets from around the drill steel.

Something was squeezing the drill steel out of its hole, like toothpaste out of a tube. It was pushing the machine boy backwards.

"Hey!" Johnny started forward and at that instant the heavy metal drill was fired out of the rock with the force of a cannon ball. It decapitated the machine boy, tearing his head from his body with such savagery that his carcass was thrown far back down the drive, his blood spraying the dark rock walls.

From the drill hole shot a solid jet of water. It came out under such pressure that when it caught the machine boy's assistant in the chest it stove in his ribs as though he had been hit by a speeding automobile.

"Oud" yelled Johnny. "Get out! And the rock face exploded. It blew outwards with greater force than if it had been blasted with Dynagel.

It killed Johnny Delange instantly. He was smashed to a bloody pulp by the flying rock. It killed every man in his gang with him, and immediately afterwards the monstrous burst of water that poured from the face picked up their mutilated remains and swept them down the drive.

Big King was at the shaft station when they heard the water coming. It sounded like an express train in a tunnel, a dull bellow of irresistible power. The water was pushing the air from the drive ahead of it, so that a hurricane of wind came roaring from the mouth of the drive, blowing out a cloud of dust and loose rubbish.

Big King and his gang stood and stared in uncomprehending terror until the head of the column of water shot from the drive, frothing solid, carrying with it a plug of debris and human remains.

Bursting into the T-junction of the main 66 level haulage, the strength of the flood was reduced, yet still it swept down towards the tilt station in a waist-deep wall.

This way!" Big King was the first to move. He leapt for the steel emergency ladder that led up to the level above.

The rest of his gang were not fast enough, the water picked them up and crushed them against the steel-mesh barrier that guarded the shaft. The crest of the wave burst around Big King's legs, sucking at him, but he tore himself from its grip and climbed to safety.

Beneath him the water poured into the shaft like bath water into a plug hole, forming a spinning whirlpool about the collar as it roared down to flood the workings below 66 level.

Leaving Terry at the airfield to solicit transport from Hank, the mechanic, Rod drove directly to the head of No. 1 shaft of the Sander Ditch. He jumped from the Volkswagen into the clamouring crowd clustered above the shaft head.

Dimitri was wide-eyed and distracted, beside him Big King towered like a black colossus.

"What happened?" Rod demanded.

"Tell him," Dimitri instructed Big King.

"I was at the shaft with my gang. A river leaped from the mouth of the drive, a great river of water running faster than the Zambesi in flood; roaring like a lion the water ate all the men with me. I alone climbed above it."

"We've hit a big one, Rod," Dimitri interrupted. "It's pouring in fast. We calculate it will flood the entire workings up to 66 level in four hours from now."

"Have you cleared the mine? "Rod demanded.

"All the men are out except Delange and his gang. They were in the drive. They've been chopped, I'm afraid Dimitri answered.

"Have you warned the other mines we could have a burst through into their workings?"

"Yes, they are pulling all their shifts out." "Right." Rod set off for the blast control room with Dimitri trotting to keep up with him.

"Give me your keys, and find the foreman electrician." Within minutes the three of them were crowded into the tiny concrete control room.

"Check in the special circuit," Rod instructed. "I'm going to shoot the drop-blast matt and seal off the drive." The foreman electrician worked quickly at the control panel. He looked up at Rod.

"Ready!" he said.

"Check her in," Rod nodded.

The foreman threw the switch. The three of them caught their breath together.

Dimitri said it for them: "Red!" On the conntrol panel of the special circuit the red bulb glared balefully at them, the Cyclops eye of the god of despair.

"Christ!" swore the foreman. "The circuit is shot. The water must have torn the wires out."

"It may be a fault in the board."

"No." The foreman shook his head with certainty.

"We've had it," whispered Dimitri. "Goodbye the Sander Ditchr Rod burst out of the control room into the expectant crowd outside.

"Johnson!" He singled out one of his mine captains. "Go down to the Yacht Club at the dam, get me the rubber rescue dinghy. Quick as you can, man." The man scurried away, and Rod turned on the electrician foreman as he emerged from the control room.

"Get me a battery hand-operated blaster, a reel of wire, pliers, two coils of nylon "rope. Hurry!" The foreman went!

"Rod." Dimitri caught his arm. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going down there. I'm going to find the break in the circuit and I'm going to blast her by hand."

"Jesus!" Dimitri gasped. "You are crazy, Rod. You'll kill yourself for sure!" Rod completely ignored his protest.

want one man with me. A strong man. The strongest there is, we will have to drag the dinghy against the flood." Rod looked about him. Big King was standing by the banks man office. The two of them were tall enough to face each other over the heads of the men between them.

"Will you come with me, Big King? "Rod asked.

"Yes," said Big King.

In less than twenty minutes they were ready. Rod and Big King were stripped down to sing lets and bathing-trunks. They wore canvas tennis shoes to protect their feet, and the hard helmets on their heads were incongruous against the rest of their attire.

The rubber dinghy was ex-naval disposal. A nine-foot air-filled mattress, so light that a man could lift it with one hand. Into it was packed the equipment they would need for the task ahead. A water-proof bag contained the battery blaster, the reel of insulated wire, the pliers and a spare lantern. Lashed to the eyelets along the sides of the dinghy were two coils of light nylon rope, a small crowbar, an axe and a razor-sharp machete in a leather sheath. To the bows of the dinghy were fastened a pair of looped nylon towing lines.

"What else will you need, Rod?" Dimitri asked.

Rod shook his head thoughtfully. "That's it, Dimitri.

That should do it."

"Right!" Dimitri beckoned and four men came forward and carried the dinghy into the waiting cage.

"Let's go," said Dimitri and followed the dinghy into the cage. Big King went next and Rod paused a second to look up at the sky. It was very blue and bright.

Before the on setter could close the shutter door, a Silver Cloud Rolls-Royce came gliding onto the bank. From the rear door emerged first Hurry Hirschfeld and then Terry Steyner.

"Ironsides!" roared Hurry. "What the hell is going on?"

"We've hit water," Rod answered him from the cage.

"Water? Where did it come from?"

"Beyond the Big Dipper."

"You drove through the Big Dipper?"

"Yes."

"You bastard, you've drowned the Sander Ditch," roared Hurry, advancing on the cage.

"Not yet, I haven't," Rod contradicted.

"Rod." Terry was white-faced beside her grandfather. "You can't go down there." She started forward.

Rod pushed the on setter aside and pulled down the steel shutter door of the cage. Terry threw herself against the steel mesh of the guard barrier, but the cage was gone into the earth.

"Rod," she whispered, and Hurry Hirschfeld put his arm around her shoulders and led her to the Rolls-Royce.

From the back seat of the Rolls, Hurry Hirschfeld was conducting a Kangaroo Court Trial of Rodney Ironsides.

One by one he called for the line managers of the Sander Ditch and questioned them. Even those who were loyal to Rod could say little in his defence, and there were others who took the opportunity to level old scores with Rodney Ironsides.

Sitting beside her grandfather, Terry heard such a condemnation of the man she loved as to chill her to the depths of her soul. There was no doubt that Rodney Ironsides, without Head Office sanction, had instituted a new development so risky and contrary to company policy as to be criminal in concept.

"Why did he do it?" muttered Hurry Hirschfeld. He seemed bewildered.

"What could he possibly achieve by driving through the Big Dipper? It looks like a deliberate attempt to sabotage the Sander Ditch." Hurry's anger began to seethe within him. "The bastard! He has drowned the Sander Ditch and killed dozens of men." He punched his fist into the palm of his hand. "I'll make him pay for this.

I'll break him, so help me God, I'll smash him! I'll bring criminal charges against him. Malicious damage to property.

Manslaughter. Culpable homicide! By Jesus, I'll have his guts for this!" Listening to Hurry ranting and threatening, Terry could keep silent no longer.

"It wasn't his fault, Pops. Truly it wasn't. He was forced to do it."

"Ha! snorted Hurry. "I heard you at the pit head a few minutes ago.

just what is this man to you, Missy, that you spring to his defence so nobly?"

"Pops, please believe me." Her eyes were enormous in her pale face.

"Why should I believe you? The two of you are obviously up to mischief together. Naturally you will try and protect him."

"Listen to me at least," she pleaded, and Hurry checked the run of his tongue and breathing heavily he turned to face her.

"This better be good, young lady," he warned her.

In her agitation she told it badly, and halfway through.

she realized that she wasn't even convincing herself. Hurry's expression became more and more bleak, until he interrupted her impatiently.

"Good God, Theresa, this isn't like you. To try and put the blame for this onto your own husband! That's despicable! To try and switch the blame for this..

"It's true! As God is my witness." Terry was almost in tears, she was tugging at Hurry's sleeve in her agitation.

"Rod was forced to do it. He had no option."

"You have proof of this?" Hurry asked drily, and Terry fell silent, staring at him dumbly.

What proof was there?

The cage checked and slowed as it approached 65 level. The lights were still burning, but the workings were deserted. They lugged the dinghy out onto the station.

They could hear the dull waterfall roar of the flood on the level below them. The displacement of huge volumes of water disturbed the air so that a strong cool breeze was blowing up the shaft.

"Big King and I will go down the emergency ladder. You will lower the dinghy to us afterwards," Rod told Dimitri.

"Make sure all the equipment is tied into it."

"Right Dimitri nodded.

All was in readiness. The men who had come down with them in the cage were waiting expectantly. Rod could find no reason for further delay.

He felt something cold and heavy settle in his guts.

"Come on, Big King." And he went to the steel ladder.

"Good luck, Rod." Dimitri's voice floated down to him, but Rod saved his breath for that cold dark climb downwards.

All the lights had fused on 66 level, and in the beam of his lamp the water below him was black and agitated. It poured into the mouth of the shaft, bending the mesh barrier inwards. The mesh acted as a gigantic sieve, straining the floating rubbish from the flood. Amongst the timber and planking, the sodden sacking and unrecognizable objects, Rod made out the water-logged corpses of the dead pressed against the wire.

He climbed down and gingerly lowered himself into the water. Instantly it dragged at his lower body, shocking in its power. It was waist-deep here, but he found that by bracing his body against the steel ladder he could maintain his footing.

Big King climbed down beside him, and Rod had to raise his voice above the hissing thunder of water.

"All right?"

"Yes. Let them send down the boat." Rod flashed his lamp up the shaft, and within minutes the dinghy was swaying slowly down to them.

They reached up and guided it right side up to the surface of the water, before untying the rope.

The dinghy was sucked firmly against the wire mesh, and Rod checked its contents quickly. All was secure.

"Right." Rod tied a bight of the nylon rope around his waist, and climbed up the wire mesh barrier until he could reach the roof of the tunnel. Behind him Big King was paying out the nylon line.

Rod leaned out until he could get his hands on the compressed air pipes that ran along the roof of the tunnel.

The pipes were as thick as a man's wrist, bolted securely into the hanging wall of the drive; they would support a man's weight with ease.

Rod settled his grip firmly on the piping and then kicked his feet free from the barrier. He hung above the rushing waters, his feet just brushing the surface.

Hand over hand, swinging forward with feet dangling, he started up the tunnel. The nylon rope hung down behind him like a long white tail. It was 300 feet to where the water boiled from the drive into the main haulage, and Rod's shoulder muscles were shrieking in protest before he reached it. It seemed that his arms were being wrenched from their sockets, for the weight of the nylon rope that was dragging in the water was fast becoming intolerable.

There was a back eddy in the angle formed by the drive and the haulage.

Here the flood swirled in a vortex, and if Rod lowered himself slowly into it. The water buffeted him, but again he was able to cower against the side wall of the haulage and hold his footing. Quickly he began tying the rope onto the rawlbolts that were driven into the sidewall to consolidate the rock. Within minutes he had established a secure base from which to operate, and when he flashed his lamp back down the haulage he saw Big King following him along the compressed air piping.

Big King dropped into the waist-deep water beside Rod, and they gripped the nylon rope and rested their burning arm muscles.

"Ready?" asked Rod'at last, and Big King nodded.

They laid hold of the rope that led back to the dinghy and hauled upon it. For a moment nothing happened, the other end might just as well have been anchored to a mountain.

"Together!" grunted Rod, and they recovered a foot of rope.

"Again!" And they drew the dinghy inch by inch up the haulage against the rush of water.

Their hands were bleeding when they at last pulled the laden dinghy up to their own position and anchored it to the rawlbolts beside them. It bounced and bobbed with the water drumming against its underside.

Neither Rod nor Big King could talk. They hung exhausted on the body lines with the water ripping at their skin and gasped for breath.

At last Rod looked up at Big King, and in the lamp light he saw his own doubts reflected in Big King's eyes. The drop-blast matt was 1,000 feet up the drive. The strength and speed of the water in the drive was almost double what it was in the haulage. Could they ever fight their way against such primeval forces as these that were now unleashed about them?

"I will go next," Big King said, and Rod nodded his agreement.

The huge Bantu drew himself up the rope until he could reach the compressed air pipe. His skin in the lamplight glistened like that of a porpoise. Hand over hand he disappeared into the gaping black maw of the drive. His lamp threw deformed and monstrous shadows upon the walls of rock.

When Big King's lamp flashed the signal to him, Rod climbed up to the pipe and followed him into the drive.

Three hundred feet later he found Big King had established another base. But here they were exposed to the full force of the flood, and they were pulled so violently against the body lines that the harsh nylon smeared the skin from their bodies. Together they dragged the dinghy up to them and anchored it.

Rod was sobbing softly as he held his torn hands to his chest and wondered if he could do it again.

"Ready?" Big King asked beside him, and Rod nodded.

He reached up and placed the raw flesh of his palms onto the metal piping, and felt the tears of pain flood his eyes.

He blinked them back and dragged himself forward.

Vaguely he realized that should he fall, he was a dead man. The flood would sweep him away, dragging him along the jagged side walls of the drive, ripping his flesh from the bone, and finally hurling him against the mesh surrounding the shaft to crush the life from his body.

He went on until he knew he could go no farther. Then he selected a rawlbolt in the side wall and looped the rope through it. And they repeated the whole heart-breaking procedure. Twice as he strained against the dinghy rope Rod saw his vision explode into stars and pinwheels. Each time he dragged himself back from the brink of unconsciousness by sheer force of will.

The example that Big King was setting was the inspiration which kept Rod from failing. Big King worked without change of expression, but his eyes were bloodshot with exertion. Only once Rod heard him grunt like a gut-shot lion, and there was bright blood on the rope where he touched it.

Rod knew he could not give in while Big King held on.

Reality dissolved slowly into a dark roaring nightmare of pain, wherein muscles and bone were loaded beyond all endurance, and yet continued to function. It seemed that for all time Rod had hung on arms that were leadened and slow with exhaustion. He was inching his way along the compressed air pipe for yet another advance up the drive.

Sweat running into his eyes was bluffing his vision, so at first he did not credit what he saw ahead of him in the darkness.

He shook his head to clear his eyes, and then squinted along the beam of his lamp. A heavy timber structure was hanging drunkenly from the roof of the drive. The bolts that held it were resisting the efforts of the water to tear it loose.

Rod realized abruptly that this was what remained of the frame which had held the ventilation doors. The doors were gone, ripped away, but the frame was still in position.

He knew that just beyond the ventilation doors the drop blast matt began. They had reached it!

New strength flowed into his body and he swung forward along the pipe.

The timber frame made a fine anchor point and Rod secured the rope to it, and flashed back the signal to Big King. He hung in the loop of rope and rested awhile, then he forced himself to take an interest in his surroundings. He played the beam over the distorted timber frame and saw instantly why the blasting circuit had been broken.

In the lamp light the distinctive green plastic-coated blasting cable hung in festoons from the roof of the drive; clearly it had become entangled in the ventilation doors and been severed when they were ripped away. The loose end of the cable dangled to the surface of the racing water.

Rod fastened his eyes on it, drawing comfort and strength from the knowledge that they would not have to continue their agonized journey down the drive.

When Big King came up out of the gloom, Rod indicated the dangling cable.

"There!" he gasped, and Big King narrowed his eyes in acknowledgement; he was unable to speak.

It was five minutes before they could commence the excruciating business of hauling the dinghy up and securing it to the door frame.

Again they rested. Their movements were slowing up drastically.

Neither of them had much strength left to draw upon.

"Get hold of the end of the cable." Rod instructed Big King, and he dragged himself over the side of the dinghy and lay sprawled full-length on the floor boards.

His weight forced the dinghy deeper, increasing its resistance to the racing water, and the rope strained against the wooden frame. Rod began clumsily to unpack the battery blaster. Big King stood waist-deep clinging with one arm to the wooden frame, reaching forward with the other towards the end of the green-coated cable. It danced just beyond his fingertips, and he edged forward against the current, steadying himself against the timber frame, placing a greater strain on the retainin bolts.

His fingers closed on the cable and with a grunt of satisfaction he passed it back to Rod.

Working with painstaking deliberation, Rod connected the crocodile clips from the reel of wire to the loose end of the green cable. Rod's plan was for both he and Big King to climb aboard the dinghy, and, paying out the nylon rope, let themselves be carried back down the drive. At the same time they would be letting the wire run from its reel. At a safe distance they would fire the drop-blast matt.

Rod's fingers were swollen and numbed. The minutes passed as he completed his preparations and all that while the strain on the wooden frame was heavy and constant.

Rod looked up from his task, and crawled to his knees.

"All right, Big King," he wheezed as he knelt in the bows of the dinghy and gripped the wooden frame to steady the dinghy. "Come aboard. We are ready." Big King waded forward and at that instant the retaining bolts on one side of the heavy timber frame gave way. With a rending, tearing sound the frame slewed across the tunnel.

The beams of timber crossed each other like the blades of a pair of gigantic scissors. Both Rod's arms were between the beams. The bones in his forearms snapped with the loud crackle of breaking sticks.

With a scream of pain Rod collapsed onto the floorboards of the dinghy, his arms useless, sticking out at absurd angles from their shattered bones. Three feet away Big King was still in the water. His mouth was wide open, but no sound issued from his throat. He stood still as a black statue and his eyes bulged from their sockets. Even through his own suffering Rod was horrified by the expression on Big King's contorted features.

Below the surface of the water the bottom timber beams had performed the same scissor movement, but this time they had caught Big King's lower body between them. They had closed across his pelvis and crushed it. Now they held him in a vice like grip from which it was not possible to shake them.

The white face and the black face were but a few feet apart. The two stricken companions in disaster looked into each other's eyes and knew that there was no escape. They were doomed.

"My arms," whispered Rod huskily. "I cannot use them." Big King's bulging eyes held Rod's gaze.

"Can you reach the blaster?" Rod whispered urgently.

"Take it and turn the handle. Burn it, Big King, burn it! Slow comprehension showed in Big King's pain-glazed eyes.

"We are finished, Big King. Let us go like men. Burn it, bring down the rock!" Above them the rock was sown with explosive. The blaster was connected. In his agitation Rod tried to reach out for the blaster. His forearm swung loosely, the fingers hanging open like the petals of a dead flower, and the pain checked him.

"Get it, Big King," Rod urged him, and Big King picked up the blaster and held it against his chest with one arm.

"The handle!" Rod encouraged him. "Turn the handle!" But instead Big King reached into the dinghy once more and drew the machete from its sheath. "What are you doing?" Rod demanded, and in reply Big King swung the blade back over his shoulder and then brought it forward in a gleaming arc aimed at the nylon rope that held the dinghy anchored to the wooden frame.

Clunk! The blade bit into the wood, severing the rope that was bound around it.

Freed by the stroke of the machete, the dinghy was whisked away by the current. Lying in the dancing rubber dinghy, Rod heard a bull voice bellow above the rush of the water.

"Go in peace, my friend." Then Rod was careening back along the drive, a hell ride during which the dinghy spun like a top and in the beam of his lamp the roof and walls melted into a dark racing blur as Rod lay maimed on the floor of the dinghy.

Then suddenly the air jarred against his ear drums, a long rolling concussion in the confines of the drive and he knew that Big King had fired the drop-blast matt. Rodney Ironsides slipped over the edge of consciousness into a soft warm dark place from which he hoped never to return.

Dimitri squatted on his haunches above the shaft at 65 level. He was smoking his tenth cigarette. The rest of the men waited as impatiently as he did; every few minutes Dimitri would cross to the shaft and flash his lamp down the hundred-foot hole to 66 level.

"How long have they been gone?" he asked, and they all glanced at their watches.

"An hour and ten minutes."

"No, an hour and fourteen minutes." "Christ, call me a liar for four minutes!" and they lapsed into silence once more. Suddenly the station telephone shrilled, and Dimitri jumped up and ran to it.

"No, Mr. Hirschfeld, nothing yet!" He listened a moment.

"All right, send him down then." He hung up the telephone, and his men looked at him enquiringly.

"They are sending down a policeman," he explained.

"What the hell for?"

"They want Big King."

"Why?"

"Warrant of arrest for murder."

"Murder?"

"Ja, they reckon he murdered the Portuguese storekeeper."

"Jeer!"

"Big King, is that so!" Delighted to have found something to pass the time, they fell into an animated debate.

The police inspector arrived in the cage at 65 level, but he was disappointing. He looked like a down-at-heel undertaker, and he replied to their eager questions with a sorrowful stare that left them stuttering.

For the fifteenth time Dimitri went to the shaft and peered down into it. The blast shook the earth around them, a long rumbling that persisted for many seconds.

"They've done it! yelled Dimitri, and began to caper wildly. His men leapt to their feet and began beating each other on the back, shouting and laughing. The police inspector alone took no part in the celebrations.

"Wait," yelled Dimitri at last. "Shut up all of you! Shut up! Damn it! Listen!" They fell silent.

"What is it?" someone asked. "I can't hear anything."

"That's just id" exulted Dimitri. "The water! It has stopped Only then did they become aware that the dull roar of water to which their ears had become resigned was now ended. It was quiet; a cathedral hush lay upon the workings.

They began to cheer, their voices thin in the silence, and Dimitri ran to the steel ladder and swarmed down it like a monkey.

From thirty feet up Dimitri saw the dinghy marooned amongst the filth and debris around the shaft. He recognized the crumpled figure lying in the bottom of it.

"Rod!" he was shouting before he reached the station at 66 level.

"Rod, are you all right?" The floor of the haulage was wet, and here and there a trickle of water still snaked towards the shaft. Dimitri ran to the stranded dinghy and started to turn Rod onto his back. Then he saw his arms.

"Oh, Christ!" he gasped in horror, then he was yelling up the ladder.

"Get a stretcher down here." Rod regained consciousness to find himself covered with blankets and strapped securely into a mine stretcher. His arms were sprinted and bandaged, and from the familiar rattle and rush of air he knew he was in the cage on the way to the surface.

He recognized Dimitri's voice raised argumentatively.

"Damn it! The man is unconscious and badly injured, can't you leave him alone?"

"I have my duty to perform," a strange voice answered.

"What's he want, Dimitri?"Rod croaked.

"Rod, how are you?" At the sound of his voice Dimitri was kneeling beside the stretcher anxiously.

"Bloody awful," Rod whispered. "What does this joker want?"

"He's a police officer. He wants to arrest Big King for murder," Dimitri explained.

"Well, he's a bit bloody late," whispered Rod, and even through his pain this seemed to Rod to be terribly funny.

He began to laugh. He sobbed with laughter, each convulsion sending bright bursts of pain along his arms. He was shaking uncontrollably with shock, sweat pouring from his face, and he was laughing wildly.

"He's a bit bloody late," he repeated through his hysterical laughter, as Doctor Dan Stander pushed the hypodermic needle into his arm and shot him full of morphine.

Hurry Hirschfelctstood in the main haulage on 66 level. There , was bustle all around him. Already the crews from the cementation company were manhandling their equipment up towards the blocked drive.

These were specialists from an independent contracting company. They were about to begin pumping thousands of tons of liquid cement into the rock jam that sealed the drive. They would pump it in at pressures in excess of 3,000 pounds per square inch, and when that concrete set it would form a plug that would effectively seal off the drive for all time. It would also form a burial vault for the body of Big King, thought Hurry, a fitting monument to the man who had saved the Sander He would arrange to have a commemorative plaque placed on the outer wall of the cement plug with a suitable inscription describing the man and the deed.

The man's dependents must be properly taken care of-, perhaps they could be flown down for the unveiling of the plaque. Anyway he could leave that to Public Relations and Personnel.

The haulage stank of wetness and mud. It was dank and clammy cool, and it would not improve his lumbago. Hurry had seen enough; he started back towards the shaft. Faintly he was aware of the muted clangour of the mighty pumps which in a few days would free the Sander Ditch of the water that filled her lower levels.

The laden stretchers with their grisly blanket-covered burdens stood in a row under the hastily rigged electric lights along one wall of the tunnel. Hurry's expression hardened as he passed them.

"I'll have the guts of the man responsible for this," he vowed silently as he waited for the cage.

Terry Steyner rode in the rear of the ambulance with Rod.

She wiped the mud from his face.

"How bad is it, Dan?" she asked.

"Hell, Terry, he'll be up and about in a few days. The arms of course are not very pretty, that's why I'm taking him directly to Johannesburg. I want a specialist orthopaedic surgeon to set them.

Apart from that he is suffering from shock pretty badly and his hands are superficially lacerated. But he will be fine." Dan watched curiously as Terry fussed ineffectually with the damp hair of the drugged man.

"You want a smoke?" he asked.

"Light me one, please Dan." He passed her the cigarette.

"I didn't know that you and Rod were so friendly," he ventured.

Terry looked up at him quickly.

"How very delicate you are, Doctor Stander," she mocked him.

"None of my business, of course." Hurriedly Dan withdrew.

"Don't be silly, Dan. You're a good friend of Rod's and joy is mine.

You two are entitled to know. I am desperately, crazily in love with this big hunk. I intend divorcing Manfred just as soon as possible."

"Is Rod going to marry you?"

"He hasn't said anything about marriage but I'll sure as hell start working on him," Terry grinned, and Dan laughed.

"Good luck to you both, then. I'm sure Rod will be able to get another job." "What do you mean? "Terry demanded.

"They say your grandfather is threatening to fire him so high he'll be the first man on the moon." Terry relapsed into silence. Proof was what Pops had asked for, but what proof was there?

"They'll be waiting 4 X-ray reports." joy Albright gave her opinion.

Since her engagement to Dan, joy had suddenly become something of a medical expert. She had rushed down to the Johannesburg Central Hospital at Dan's hurried telephonic request. Dan wanted her to keep Terry company while she waited for Rod to come out of emergency. They sat together in the waiting-room.

"I expect so," Terry agreed. Something joy had just said had jotted in her mind, something she must remember.

"It takes them twenty minutes or so to expose the plates and develop them. Then the radiologist has to examine the plates and make his report to the surgeon." There, joy had said it again. Terry sat up straight and concentrated on what joy had said. Which word had disturbed her?

Suddenly she had it.

"The repord" she exclaimed. "That's it. The report, that's the proof." She leapt out of her chair.

"Joy! Give me the keys of your car," she demanded.

"What on earth? "Joy looked startled.

"I can't explain now. I have to get home to Sandown urgently, give me your keys. I'll explain later." joy fished in her handbag and produced a leather key folder. Terry snatched it from her.

"Where are you parked? "Terry demanded.

"In the car park, near the main gate."

"Thanks, joy." Terry dashed from the waiting-room, her high heels clattered down the passage.

"Crazy woman. "Joy looked after her bewildered.

Ten minutes later Dan looked into the waiting-room.

"Rod's fine now. Where's Terry?"

"She went mad-" And joy explained her abrupt departure. Dan looked grave.

"I think we'd better follow her, joy."

"I think you're right, darling." "I'll just grab my coat," said Dan.

There was only one place where Manfred would keep the geological report on the Big Dipper that Rod had told her about. That was in the safe deposit behind the panelling in his study. Because her jewellery was kept in the same safe, Terry had a key and the combination to the lock.

Even in joy's Alfa Romeo, taking liberties with the traffic regulations, it was a thirty-five-minute drive out to Sandown. It was after five in the evening when Terry coasted down the long driveway and parked before the garages.

The extensive grounds were deserted, for the gardeners finished at five, and there was no sign of life from the house.

This was as it should be, for she knew Manfred was still in Europe. He was not due back for at least another four days.

Leaving the ignition keys in the Alfa, Terry ran up the pathway and onto the stoep. She fumbled in her handbag and found the keys to the front door. She let herself in, and went directly to Manfred's study.

She slid the concealing panel aside and set about the lengthy business of opening the steel safe. It required both key and combination to activate the mechanism, and Terry had never developed much expertise at tumbling the combination.

Finally, however, the door swung open and she was confronted by the voluminous contents. Terry began removing the various documents and files, examining each one and then stacking them neatly on the floor beside her.

She had no idea of the shape, size nor colour of the report for which she was searching, it was ten minutes before she selected an unmarked folder and flicked open the cover. "Confidential Report on the geological formations of the Kitchenerville gold fields, with special reference to those areas lying to the east of the Big Dipper Dyke."

Terry felt a wonderful lift of relief as she read the titling for she had begun douting that the report was here.

Quickly she thumbed through the pages and began reading at random.

There was "no doubt.

"This is it!" she exclaimed aloud.

"I'll take that, thank you." The dreaded familiar voice cut into her preoccupation, and Terry spun around and came to her feet in one movement, clutching the file protectively to her breast. She backed away from the man who stood in the doorway.

She hardly recognized her own husband. She had never seen him like this. Manfred was coat less and his shirt was without collar or stud.

He appeared to have slept in his trousers, for they were rumpled and baggy. There was a yellow stain down the front of his white shirt.

His scanty brown hair was dishevelled, hanging forward wispily onto his forehead. He had not shaved, and the skin around his eyes was discoloured and puffy.

"Give that to me." He came towards her with hand outstretched.

"Manfred." She kept moving away from him. "What are you doing here?

When did you get back?"

"Give it to me, you slut." "Why do you call me that?" she asked, trying for time.

"Slut!" he repeated, and lunged towards her. Terry whirled away from him lightly.

She ran for the study door, with Manfred close behind her. She beat him into the passage and raced for the front door. Her heel caught in one of the Persian carpets that covered the floor of the passage, and she staggered and fell against the wall.

"Whore! He was on her instantly trying to wrestle the report out of her hands, but she clung to it with all her strength. Face to face they were almost of a height, and she saw the madness in his eyes.

Suddenly Manfred released her. He stepped back, bunched his fist and swung it round-armed into her cheek.

Her head jerked back and cracked against the wall. He drew back his fist and hit her again. She felt the quick warm burst of blood spurt from her nose, and staggered through the door beside her into the dining-room. She was dizzy from the blows and she fell against the heavy stinkwood table.

Manfred was close behind her. He charged her, sending her sprawling backwards onto the table. He was on top of her, both his hands at her throat.

"I'm going to kill you, you whore," he wheezed. His thumbs hooked and pressed deep into the flesh of her throat. With the frenzied strength of despair, Terry clawed at his eyes with both hands. Her nails scored his face, raking long red lines into his flesh. With a cry Manfred released her, and backed away holding both hands to his injured face, leaving Terry lying gasping across the table.

He stood for a moment, then uncovered his face and inspected the blood on his hands.

"I'll kill you for that!" But as he advanced towards her, Terry rolled over the table.

"Whore! Slut! Bitch!" he screamed at her, following her around the table. Terry kept ahead of him.

There were a matched pair of heavy Stuart crystal decanters on the sideboard, one containing port, the other sherry. Terry snatched up one of them and turned to face Manfred. She hurled the decanter with all her remaining strength at his head.

Manfred did not have time to duck. The decanter cracked against his -forehead, and he fell backwards, stunned. Terry snatched up the report and ran out of the dining-room, down the passage, out of the front door and into the garden. She was running weakly, following the driveway towards the main road.

Then behind her she heard the engine of an automobile roar into life.

Panting wildly, holding the report, she stopped and looked back.

Manfred had followed her out of the house. He was behind the steering wheel of joy's Alfa Romeo. As she watched he threw the car into gear and howled towards her, blue smoke burning from the rear tyres with the speed of the acceleration. His face behind the windscreen was white and streaked with the marks of her nails, his eyes were staring, insane, and she knew he was going to ride her down.

She kicked off her shoes and ran off the driveway onto the lawns.

Crouched forward in the driver's seat of the Alfa, Manfred watched the fleeing figure ahead of him.

Terry ran with the full-hipped sway of the mature woman, her long legs were tanned and her hair flew out loosely behind her.

Manfred was not concerned with the return of the geological report, its existence was no longer of significance to him. What he wanted was to completely destroy this woman. In his crazed state, she had become the symbol and the figurehead of all his woes. His humiliation and fall were all linked to her, he could exact his vengeance by destroying her, crushing that revolting warm and clinging body, bruising it, ripping it with the steel of the Alfa Romeo's chassis.

He hit second gear and spun the steering-wheel. The Alfa swerved from the driveway, and as its rear wheels left the tarmac, they skidded on the thick grass. Deftly Manfred checked the skid and lined up on Terry's running back.

Already she was among the Protea bushes on the lower terrace. The Alfa buck-jumped the slope, flying bird-free before crashing down heavily on its suspension. wheels spun and bit, and the sleek vehicle shot forward again.

Terry looked back over her shoulder, her face was white and her eyes very big and fear-filled. Manfred giggled. He was aware of a sense of power, the ability to dispense life or death. He steered for her, reckless of all consequences, intent on destroying her.

There was a six-foot-tall Protea bush ahead of him, and Manfred roared through it, bursting it asunder. Scattering branches and leaves, giggling again, he saw Terry directly ahead of him. She was still looking back at him, and at that moment she stumbled and fell onto her knees.

She was helpless. Her face streaked with tears and blood, her hair falling forward in wild disorder, kneeling as though for the headsman's stroke. Manfred felt a flood of disappointment. He did not want it to end so soon, he wanted to savour this sadistic elation, this sense of power.

At the last possible moment he yanked the wheel over and the car slewed violently. It shot past Terry with six inches to spare, and its rear wheels pelted her with clods of turf and thrown dirt.

Laughing aloud, wild-eyed, Manfred held the wheel hard over, bringing the Alfa around in a tight skidding circle, crackling sideways through another Protea bush.

Terry was up and running again. He saw immediately that she was heading for the changing rooms of the swimming pool among the trees on the bottom lawn and she was far enough ahead to elude him, perhaps.

"Bitch!" he snarled, and crash-changed into third gear, with engine revs peaking. The Alfa howled in pursuit of the running girl.

Had Terry thrown the bulky report aside, she might have reached the brick change rooms ahead of the racing sports car, but the report hampered and slowed her. She still had twenty yards to cover, she was running along the paved edge of the swimming-pool, and she sensed that the car was right on top of her.

Terry dived sideways, hitting the water flat on her side, and the Alfa roared past. Manfred trod heavily on the brakes, the Michelin metallic tyres screeched against the paving stones, and Manfred leapt out of the driver's seat the moment the Alfa stopped.

He ran back to the pool side. Terry was floundering towards the far steps. She was exhausted, weak with exertion and terror. Her sodden hair streamed down over her face, and she was gasping open-mouthed for air.

Manfred laughed again, a high-pitched, almost girlish giggle, and he dived after her, landing squarely between Terry's shoulder blades with his full weight. She went under, sucking water agonizingly into already aching lungs, and when she surfaced she was coughing and gagging, blinded with water and her own wet hair.

Almost immediately she felt herself seized from behind and forced face down into the water. For half a minute she struggled fiercely, then her movements slowed and became weaker.

Manfred stood over her, chest deep in the clear water, gripping her around the waist and by a handful of her sodden hair, forcing her face deep below the surface. He had lost his spectacles, and he blinked owlishly. The wet silk of his shirt clung to his upper body, and the water had slicked his hair down.

As he felt the life going out of her, and her movements becoming sluggish and slow, he began to laugh again. The broken, incoherent laughter of a madman.

"Dan!" joy pointed off through the trees. "That's my car down there, parked by the swimming-pool!"

"What the hell is it doing there?" "There's something wrong, Terry wouldn't drive through her beloved garden, unless there was!" Dan braked sharply and pulled his Jaguar to the side of the driveway.

"I'm going to take a look." He slid out of the car and started off across the lawns. joy opened her own door and trotted after him.

Dan saw the man in the water, fully dressed, intent on what he was doing. He recognized Manfred Steyner.

"What the hell is he up to?" Dan started running. He reached the edge of the pool, and suddenly he realized what was happening.

"Christ! He's drowning her," he shouted aloud, and he sprang into the water.

He did not waste time struggling with Manfred. He hit him a great open-handed, round-armed blow, that cracked against the side of Manfred's head like a pistol shot and it sent him lurching sideways, releasing his grip on Terry.

Ignoring Manfred, Dan picked Terry from the water like a drowned kitten and waded to the steps. He carried her out and laid her face down on the paving. He knelt over her and began applying artificial respiration. He felt Terry stir under his hands, then cough and retch weakly.

joy came up at the run and dropped on her knees beside him.

"My God, Dan, what happened?"

"That little bastard was trying to drown her." Dan looked up from his labours without interrupting the rhythm of his movement over Terry. She spluttered and reached again.

On the far side of the pool Manfred Steyner had dragged himself from the pool. He was sitting on the edge with his feet still dangling into the water, his head was hanging and he was fingering the side of his face where Dan had hit him.

On his lap he held a wet pulpy mess that had been the geological report.

"Joy, can you take over here? Terry's not too far gone, and I want to get my hands on that little Hun." joy took Dan's place over Terry's prostrate form, and Dan stood up.

"What are you going to do to him? "Joy asked.

"I'm going to beat him to a pulp."

"Good show!" joy encouraged him. "Give him one for me." Manfred had heard the exchange and as Dan ran around the edge of the pool he scrambled to his feet, and staggered to the parked Alfa. He slammed the door and whirred the engine to life. Dan was just too late to stop him. The car shot forward across the lawns, leaving Dan running, futile, behind it.

"Look after her, Joy!" Dan shouted back.

By the time Dan had run up the terrace to his Jaguar and reversed it to point in the opposite direction, the Alfa had disappeared through the white gates with a musical flutter of its exhaust.

"Come on, girlie," Dan spoke to his Jaguar. "Let's go get him The rear wheels spun as he pulled away.

Without his spectacles Manfred Steyner's vision was blurred and milky.

The outlines of all objects on which he looked were softened and indistinct.

He instinctively checked the Alfa at the stop street at the bottom of the lane. He sat undecided, water still streaming from his clothing, squelching in his shoes. Beside him on the passenger seat lay the sodden report, its pages beginning to disintegrate from its soaking and the rough handling it had received.

He had to get rid of it. It was the shred of incriminating evidence.

That was the only clear thought Manfred had.

For the first time in his life the crystalline clarity of his thought processes was interrupted. He was confused, his mind jerking abruptly from one subject to another, the intense pleasure of inflicting hurt on Terry mingled with the sting and smart of his own injuries. He could not concentrate on either sensation for over-lying it all was a sense of fear, of uncertainty. He felt vulnerable, hunted, hurt and shaken.

His brain flickered and wavered as though a computer had developed an electrical fault. The answers it produced were nonsensical.

He looked in the rear view mirror, saw the Jaguar glide out between the white gates and turn towards him.

"Christ!" he panicked. He rammed his foot down on the accelerator and engaged the clutch. The Alfa screeched out into the main highway, swerved into the path of a heavy truck, bounded over the far kerb and swung back into the road.

Dan watched it tear away towards Kayalami.

He let the truck pass and then swung into the traffic behind it. He had to wait until the road was clear ahead before he could overtake the truck, and by that time the Alfa was a dwindling cream speck ahead of him.

Dan settled back in the leather bucket seat, and gave the Jaguar its head. He was furious, outraged by the treatment he had seen Manfred meting out to Terry. Her swollen and bruised face had shocked him and his feet were firmly set upon the path of vengeance.

His hands gripped the steering-wheel fiercely, he was muttering threats of violence as the speedometer moved up over the hundred mile per hour mark and he began relentlessly overhauling the cream sports car.

Steadily he moved up behind the Alfa until he was driving almost on its rear bumper. The Alfa was held up by a green school bus. Dan could not pass, however, for there was a steady stream of traffic coming in the opposite direction.

He fastened his attention on the back of Manfred's head, still fuming with anger.

Dan dropped down a gear, ready to pull out and overtake the Alfa when the opportunity arose. At that moment Manfred looked up into his rear view mirror. Dan saw the reflection of his white face with disordered damp hair hanging onto the forehead, saw his expression change immediately he recognized Dan and the Alfa shot out into the face of the approaching traffic.

There was a howl and blare of horns, vehicles swerved to make way for Manfred's wild rush. Dan glimpsed frightened faces flicking past, but the Alfa had squeezed around the green bus and was speeding away.

Dan dropped back, then sent the Jaguar like a thrown javelin through the gap between bus and kerb, overtaking on the wrong side and ignoring the bus driver's yell Of protest.

The Jaguar had a higher top speed, and on the long straight of the Pretoria highway Dan crept up steadily on the cream Alfa.

He could see Manfred glancing repeatedly into his driving-mirror, and he grinned mirthlessly.

Ahead of them the highway rose and then dipped over a low rounded ridge. A double avenue of tall blue gum trees flanked each side of the road.

Travelling in the same direction as the two high performance sports cars was a Mini of a good vintage year. Its elderly driver was triumphantly about to overtake an overloaded vegetable truck. Neck and neck they approached the blind rise at twenty-five miles per hour, between them they effectively blocked half the road.

The horn of the Alfa wailed a high-pitched warning, and Manfred pulled out to overtake both slower vehicles.

He was level with them, well out over the white dividing line, when a cement truck popped up over the blind rise.

Dan stood on his brake pedal with all the strength of his right leg, and watched it happen.

The cement truck and the Alfa came head on towards each other at a combined speed of well over a hundred miles per hour. At the last moment the Alfa began to turn away but it was too late by many seconds.

It caught the heavy cement truck a glancing blow and was hurled across the path of the two slower vehicles, miraculously touching neither of them; it skidded sideways leaving reeking black smears of rubber on the tarmac, and hurdled the low bank. It struck one of the blue gums full on, with a force that shivered the giant tree trunk and brought down a rain of leaves.

Dan pulled the Jaguar into the side of the road, parked it, and walked back.

He knew there was no hurry. The drivers of the Mini and the vegetable truck were there before him. They were attempting to talk each other down, both of them excited and relieved by their own escapes.

"I'm a doctor," said Dan, and they fell back respectfully.

"He doesn't need a doctor," said one of them. "He needs an undertaker." One look was sufficient. Doctor Manfred Steyner was as dead as Dan had ever seen anybody. His crushed head was thrust through the windscreen. Dan picked up the sodden bundle of paper from the seat beside the huddled body. He was aware that some particular importance was attached to it.

Dan's anger had evaporated entirely, and he felt a twinge of pity as he looked into the wreckage at the corpse. It appeared so frail and small of such little consequence.

The sunlight was sparkling bright, broken into a myriad eye stinging fragments by the rippling surface of the bay. The breeze was strong enough for the Arrow class yachts to fly their spinnakers as they came down on the wind. The sails bulged out blue and yellow and bright scarlet against the sombre green of the great whale-back bluff above Durban Bay.

Under the awning of the afterdeck of the motor yacht it was cool, but the fat man wore only a pair of white linen slacks with his feet thrust into dark blue cloth espadrilles.

Sprawled in a deck-chair, his belly bulged smooth and hard over the waistband of his slacks; he was tanned a dark mahogany colour and his body-hair grew thick and curly from chest to navel.

"Thank you, Andrew." He extended his empty glass, and the younger man carried it to the open-air bar. The fat man watched him as he mixed another Pimms No. 1 cup.

A white-clad crew member clambered down the companion way from the bridge. He touched his cap respectfully to the fat man.

"Captain's respects, sir, and we are ready to sail when you give the order."

"Thank you. Please tell the captain we will sail as soon as Miss. du Maine comes aboard." And the crew man ran back to the bridge.

"Ah!" The fat man sighed happily as Andrew placed the Pimms in his outstretched hand. "I have really earned this break. The last few weeks have been nerve-racking, to say the least." "Yes, sir," Andrew agreed dutifully. "But, as usual, you snatched victory from the ashes."

"It was close," the fat man agreed. "Young Ironsides gave us all a nasty fright with his drop-blast matt. I was only just able to make good my personal commitments before the Price shot up again. The profit was not as high as I had anticipated, but then I have never made a habit of peering into the mouths of gift-horses."

"It was a pity that our associates lost all that money," Andrew ventured.

"Yes, yes. A great pity. But rather them than us, Andrew." indeed, sir."

"In a way I am glad it worked out as it did. I am a patriotic man, at heart. I am relieved that it was not Mnecessary to disrupt the economy of the country to make our little profit." He stood up suddenly, his interest quickening as a taxi cab came down onto the Yacht Club jetty.

The cabby opened a rear door and from it emerged a very beautiful young lady.

"Ah, Andrew! Our guest has arrived. You may warn the captain that we will be sailing within minutes; and send a man to fetch her luggage."

He went to the entry port to welcome the young lady.

In mid-summer in the Zambesi Valley the heat is a solid white shimmering thing. In the noonday nothing moves in the merciless sunlight.

At the centre of the native village grew a baobab tree.

A monstrous bloated trunk with malformed branches like the limbs of a polio victim. The carrion crows sat in it, black and shiny as cockroaches. A score of grass huts ringed the tree, and beyond them lay the millet fields. The millet stood tall and green in the sun.

Along the rude track towards the village came a Land Rover. It came slowly, lurching and jolting over the rough ground, its motor growling in low gear. Printed in black on its sides were the letters ARC, African Recruiting Corporation.

The children heard it first, and crawled from the grass huts. Naked black bodies, and shrill excited voices in the sunlight.

They ran to meet the Land Rover and danced beside it, shrieking and laughing. The Land Rover came to a halt in the meagre shade under the baobab tree. An elderly white man climbed from the cab. He wore khaki safari clothes and a wide-brimmed hat. Complete silence fell, and one of the oldest boys fetched a carved stool and placed it in the shade.

The white man sat on the stool. A girl came forward, knelt before him and offered a gourd of millet beer. The white man drank from the gourd. No one spoke, none would disturb an honoured guest until he had taken refreshment, but from the grass huts the adult members of the village came. Blinking into the sunlight, winding their loin clothes about their waists. They came and squatted in a semi-circle before the white man on his stool.

He lowered the gourd and set it aside. He looked at them. "

"i see you, my friends," he greeted them, and the response was warm.

"We see you, old one," they chorused, but the expression of their visitor remained grave.

"Let the wives of King Nkulu come forward," he called.

"Let them bring each their first-born son with them." Four women and four adolescent boys left the crowd and came shyly into the open. For a moment the white man studied them compassionately, then he stood and stepped forward. He placed a hand on the shoulder of each of the two eldest lads.

"Your father has gone to his fathers," he told them. There was a stirring, an intake of breath, a startled cry, and then, as was proper, the eldest wife let out the first sobbing wail of mourning.

One by one each wife sank down onto the dry musty earth and covered her head with her shawl.

"He is dead," the white man repeated against the background of their keening lament. "But he died in such honour as to let his name live on forever. So great was his dying that for all their lives money will each month be paid to his wives, and for each of his sons there is already set aside a place at the University that each may grow as strong in learning as his father was in body. Of Big King there will be raised up an image in stone.

"The wives of Big King and his sons will travel in a flying machine to I'Goldi, that their eyes also may look upon the stone image of the man who was their husband and their father." The white man paused for breath, it was a lengthy speech in the midday heat of the valley. He wiped his face and then tucked the handkerchief into his pocket.

"He was a lion!"

"Ngwenyama!" whispered the sturdy twelve-year-old boy standing beside the white man. The tears started from his eyes and greased down his cheeks. He turned away and ran alone into the millet fields.

Dennis Langley, the Sales Manager of Kitchenerville Motors who were the local Ford agents, stretched his arms over his head luxuriously. He sighed with deep contentment. What a lovely way to spend a working day morning.

"Happy?" asked Hettie Delange beside him in the double bed. In reply Dennis grinned and sighed again.

Hettie sat up and let the sheet fall to her waist. Her breasts were big and white, and damp with perspiration. She looked down on his naked chest and arm muscles approvingly.

"Gee, you're built nicely."

"So are you," Dennis smiled up at her.

"You're different from the other chaps I've gone out with," Hettie told him. "You speak so nicely like a gentleman, you know." Before Dennis Langley could decide on a suitable reply, the front door bell shrilled, the sound of it echoing through the house. Dennis shot into an upright position with a fearful expression on his face.

"Who's that?" he demanded.

"It's probably the butcher delivering the meat."

"It may be my wife!" Dennis cautioned her. "Don't answer it."

"Of course I've got to answer it, silly." Hettie threw back the sheet, and rose in her white and golden glory to find her dressing-gown. The sight was enough to momentarily quiet Dennis Langley's misgivings, but as she belted her gown and hid it from view he urged her again.

"Be careful! Make sure it's not her before you open the door."

Hettie opened the front door and immediately drew her gown more closely around her with one hand, while the other she tried to pat her hair into a semblance of order.

"Hello," she breathed.

The tall young man in the doorway was really rather dreamy. He wore a dark business suit and carried an expensive leather briefcase.

"Mrs. Delange?" he enquired. He had a nice soft dreamy voice.

"Yes, I'm Mrs. Delange." Hettie fluttered her eyelashes.

"Won't you come in?" She led him through to the lounge, and she was pleasantly aware of his eyes on the opening of her gown.

"What can I do for you? "she asked archly.

"I am your local representative of the Sanlam Insurance Company, Mrs. Delange. I have come to express my company's condolences on your recent sad bereavement. I would have called sooner, but I did not wish to intrude on your sorrow."

"Oh!" Hettie dropped her eyes, immediately adopting the role of the widow.

"However, we hope we can bring a little light to disperse the darkness that surrounds you. You may know that your husband was a policy-holder with our Company?" Hettie shook her head, but watched with interest while the visitor opened his briefcase.

"Yes, he was. Two months ago he took out a straight life policy with double indemnity. The Policy was ceded to You." The insurance man extracted a sheaf of papers from his case. "I have here my company's cheque in "settlement of all claims under the policy. If you will just sign for it, please." How much?"Hettie abandoned the role of the bereaved.

"With the double indemnity, the cheque is for forty eight thousand rand." Hettie's eyes flew wide with delight. "Gee!" she gasped.

"That's fabulous!" Hurry's original intentions had expanded considerably. Instead of a plaque on the cement plug at 66 level, the monument to Big King had become a life-sized statue in bronze. He sited it on the lawns in front of the Adminstrative offices of the Sander Ditch on a base of black marble.

It was effective. The artist had captured a sense of urgency, of vibrant power. The inscription was simple, just the name of the man "King Nkulu" and the date of his death.

Hurry attended the unveiling in person, even though he hated ceremonies and avoided them whenever possible. In the front row of guests facing him his granddaughter sat beside Doctor Stander and his very new blonde wife. She winked at him and Hurry.frowned lovingly back at her.

From the seat beside Hurry, young Ironsides stood up to introduce the Chairman. Hurry noted the expression on his granddaughter's face as she transferred all her attention to the tall young man with both his arms encased in plaster of Paris and supported by slings.

"Perhaps I should have fired him, after all," thought Hurry. "He is going to cut one out of my herd." Hurry glanced sideways at his General Manager, and decided with resignation, "Too late." Then he went on to cheer himself. "Anyway he looks like good breeding stock."

His line of thought switched again. "Better start making arrangements to transfer him up to Head Office. He will need a lot of grooming and polishing." Without thinking he fished a powerful-looking cigar in his breast pocket. He had it halfway to his mouth When he caught Terry's scandalized glare. Silently her lips formed the words: "Your doctor!" Guiltily Hurry Hirschfeld stuffed the cigar back into his pocket.

The End