Power of the Sword

The homestead had originally been a frontier fort, built to hold off the Herero regiments. Its thick whitewashed outer walls were crenellated and even the central tower was furnished with battlements and a flagstaff upon which the German imperial eagle still defiantly flew.

The count saw them from afar, coming down the dusty road past the springs, and sent out a trap to bring them in.

He was of Lothar's mother's generation, but still tall and lean and straight. A white duelling scar puckered the corner of his mouth and his manners were old-fashioned and formal. He sent Swart Hendrick to quarters in the servants wing and then led Lothar and Manfred through to the cool dark central hall where the countess had black bottles of good German beer and jugs of homemade ginger beer already set out for them.

Their clothes were whisked away by the servants while they bathed, and were returned within an hour, laundered and ironed, their boots polished until they gleamed. For dinner there was a baron of tender beef from the estate, running with its own fragrant juices, and marvelous Rhine wines to wash it down. To Manfred's unqualified delight, this was followed by a dozen various tarts and puddings and trifles, while for Lothar the greater treat was the civilized discourse of his host and hostess. It was a deep pleasure to discuss books and music, and to listen to the precise and beautifully enunciated German of his hosts.

When Manfred could eat not another spoonful, and had to use both hands to cover his yawns, one of the Herero serving maids led him away to his room, and the count poured schnapps for Lothar and brought a box of Havanas for his approval while his wife fussed over the silver coffee pot.

When his cigar was drawing evenly the count told Lothar: I received the letter you sent me from Windhoek, and I was most distressed to hear of your misfortune. Times are very difficult for all of us. He polished his monocle upon his sleeve before screwing it back into his eye and focusing it upon Lothar again. Your sainted mother was a fine lady.

There is nothing that I would not do for her son. He paused and drew upon the Havana, smiled thinly at the flavour and then said, 'However Lothar's spirits dropped at that word, always the harbinger of denial and disappointment.

However, not two weeks before I received your letter the purchasing officer for the army remount department came out to the ranch and I sold him all our excess animals. I have retained only sufficient for our own needs. Though Lothar had seen at least forty fine horses in the herd grazing on the young pasture that grew around the ranch, he merely nodded in understanding.

Of course, I have a pair of excellent mules, big, strong beasts, that I could let you have at a nominal price, say fifty pounds. The pair? Lothar asked deferentially.

Each, said the count firmly. As to the other suggestion in you r letter, I make it a firm rule never to lend money to a friend. That way one avoids losing both friend and money. Lothar let that slide by, and instead returned to the count's earlier remarks. The army remount officer, he has been buying horses from all the estates in the district! I understand he has purchased almost a hundred. The count showed relief at Lothar's gentlemanly acceptance of his refusal. All excellent animals. He was interested only in the best, desert-hardened and salted against the horse-sickness. And he has shipped them south on the railway, I expect! Not yet, the count shook his head. or he had not done so when last I heard. He is holding them on the pool of the Swakop river on the far side of the town, resting them and letting them build up their strength for the rail journey. I heard that he plans to send them down the line when he has a hundred and fifty altogether. They left the fort the following morning after a gargantuan breakfast of sausage and prepared meats and eggs, all three of them riding up on the broad back of the grey mule for which Lothar had finally paid twenty pounds with the head halter thrown in to sweeten the bargain.

How were the servants quarters at the fort? Lothar asked.

Slave quarters, not servants quarters, Hendrick corrected him. 'in them a man could starve to death or, from what I heard, be flogged to death by the count. Hendrick sighed.

If it had not been for the generosity and good nature of the youngest of the Hereto maids, Lothar nudged him sharply in the ribs and shot a warning glance towards Manfred, and Hendrick went on smoothly.

So do we all escape on one sway-backed ancient mule, he observed.

They will never catch us on this gazelle-swift creature. He slapped the fat rump and the mule maintained its easy swaying gait, its hooves plopping in the dust.

We are going to use him for hunting, Lothar told him, and grinned at Hendrick's perplexed frown.

Back at the rock shelter, Lothar worked quickly, making up twelve pack-saddles of ammunition, food and equipment.

When they were lashed and loaded, he laid them out at the entrance of the shelter.

Well, Hendrick grinned. We've got the saddles. All we need are the horses. We should leave a guard here. Lothar ignored him, But we'll need every man with us. He gave the money to Pig John, the least untrustworthy of the gang.

Five pounds is enough to buy a bathtub full of Cape Smoke, he pointed out, and a glassful of it will kill a bull buffalo. But remember this, Pig John, if you are too drunk to stay in the saddle when we ride, I'll not leave you for the police to question. I'll leave you with a bullet in the head. I give you my oath on it. Pig John tucked the banknote into the sweatband of his slouch hat. Not a drop of it will touch my lips, he whined ingratiatingly. The baas knows he can trust me with liquor and women and money. It was almost twenty miles back to the town of Okahandja and Pig John set out immediately to be there well in advance of Lothar's arrival. The rest of the party, with Manfred leading the mule, climbed down the hillside.

There had been no wind since the previous day, so the lion's tracks were still clearly etched and uneroded, even in that loose soil.

The hunters, all armed with the new Mausers, and with bandoliers of ammunition belted over their shoulders, spread out in a fan across the lion spoor and went away at a trot.

Manfred had been warned by his father to keep well back, and with the memories of the beast's wild roarings still in his ears, was pleased to amble along at the mule's slow plod.

The hunters were out of sight ahead, but they had marked their trail for him with broken branches and blazes on the trunks of the camel-Thorn trees so he had no difficulty following.

Within an hour they found the spot at which the old red torn had killed one of the count's heifers. He had stayed on the carcass until he had consumed everything but the head and hooves and larger bones. But even from these he had licked the flesh as proof of his hunger and restricted hunting prowess.

Quickly Lothar and Hendrick cast forward in a circle around the trampled area of the kill and almost immediately cut the outgoing spoor.

He left not more than a few hours ago, Lothar estimated, and then as one of the grass stalks trodden down by the big cat's paws, slowly rose and straightened of its own accord, he amended his guess. Less than half an hour, he might have heard us coming up. No. Hendrick touched the spoor with the long peeled twig he carried. He has gone on at a walk. He isn't worried, he hasn't heard us. He is full of meat and will go now to the nearest water. He's going south. Lothar squinted against the sun to check the run of the spoor. Probably heading for the river and that will take him closer to the town, which suits us very well. He reslung the Mauser on his shoulder and signalled his men to stay in extended order. They went on up the low rise of a consolidated dune and before they reached the top the lion broke, flushing from the cover of a low clump of scrub directly ahead of them, and went away from them across the open ground at an extended catlike run. But his belly, gorged with meat, swung weightily at each stride as though he were heavily pregnant.

It was long range, but the Mausers whip-cracked all along the line as they opened up on the running beast. Dust spurted wide and beyond him. All Lothar's men except Hendrick were appalling marksmen. He could never convince them that the speed of the bullet was not directly proportional to the force with which one pulled the trigger, or break them of the habit of tightly closing their eyes as they ejected the bullet from the barrel with all their strength.

Lothar saw his own first shot kick dust from beneath the lion's belly. He had misjudged the range, always a problem over open desert terrain. He worked the bolt of the Mauser without taking the butt from his shoulder and lifted his aim until the pip of the foresight rode just above the beast's shaggy flowing red mane.

The lion checked to the next shot, breaking his stride, swinging his great head around to snap at his flank where it had stung him, and the sound of the jacketed bullet slapping into his flesh carried clearly to the line of hunters. Then the bon flattened once more into his gallop, ears back, growling with pain and outrage as he vanished over the rise.

He won't go far! Hendrick waved the line of hunters forward.

The lion is a sprinter. He can only maintain that blazing gallop over a very short distance before he is forced back into a trot. If you press him further, he will usually turn and come back at you.

Lothar, Hendrick and Klein Boy, the strongest and fittest of them, pulled ahead of the line.

Blood! Hendrick shouted as they reached the spot where the lion had taken Lothar's bullet. Lung blood! The splashes of crimson were frothy with the wind of the ruptured lungs.

They raced along the bloody spoor.

Pasop! Lothar called as they reached the rise over which the beast had disappeared. Look out! He'll be lying in wait for us, And at the warning the lion charged back at them.

He had been lying in a patch of sansevieria just beyond the crest, flattened against the earth with his ears laid back upon his skull. But the moment Lothar led them over the crest, he launched himself at him from a distance of only fifty feet.

The lion kept low to the ground, with his ears still back so that his forehead was flat and broad as that of an adder and his eyes were a bright implacable yellow. His gingery red mane was fully erect, increasing his bulk until he appeared monstrous, and such a blast of sound came out of those gaping fang-lined jaws that Lothar flinched and was an instant slow on the shot. As the butt of the Mauser touched his shoulder, the lion rose from the ground in front of him, filling all his vision and the blood from his torn lungs blew in a pink cloud and spattered into Lothar's face.

His instinct was to fire as swiftly as possible into the enormous shaggy bulk of the lion as it towered over him on its hind-legs, but he forced himself to shift his aim. A shot in the chest or neck would not stop the beast from killing him, the Mauser bullet was light, designed for men not great game, and that first bullet would have desensitized the lion's nervous system and flooded his system with adrenaline The brain shot was the only one which would stop him at such close quarters.

Lothar shot him on the point of his muzzle, between the flared pink pits of his nostrils, and the bullet tore up between the cat's eyes, through the butter-yellow brain in its bony casket and out through the back of his skull, but still the lion was driven on by the momentum of its charge. The huge muscular body slammed into Lothar's chest, and the rifle cartwheeled from his hands as he was hurled backwards to hit the earth with his shoulder and the side of his head.

Hendrick dragged him into a sitting position and wiped the sand from his mouth and nostrils with his bare hands, and then the alarm faded from his eyes and he grinned as Lothar struck his hands away weakly.

You are getting old and slow, Baas, Hendrick laughed.

Get me up before Manie sees me, Lothar ordered him, and Hendrick put a shoulder under him and hoisted him.

He swayed on his feet, leaning heavily on Hendrick, holding the side of his head where it had struck but already he was giving orders.

Klein Boy! Legs! Go back and hold the mule before it smells the lion and bolts with Manie! He pulled away from Hendrick and crossed unsteadily to the lion's carcass. It lay on its side and already the flies were gathering on the shattered head. We'll need every man and a bit of luck to get him loaded. Even though the cat was old and lean and out of condition, scarred by years of hunting in thorn veld and his coat dull and shaggy, yet his belly was crammed with beef and he would weigh four hundred pounds or more. Lothar picked his rifle out of the sand and wiped it down carefully, then he propped it against the carcass and hurried back over the ridge, still limping from the fall and massaging his neck and temple.

The mule with Manfred perched on his back was coming towards him, and Lothar broke into a run.

Did you get him, Pa? Manfred yelled excitedly. He had heard the firing.

Yes. Lothar yanked him down from the mule's back. He's lying just beyond the rise. Lothar checked the mule's head halter. It was new and strong, but he clipped an extra length of rope on to the iron chin ring and put two men on each rope. Then carefully he blindfolded the mule with a strip of canvas.

All right. Let's see how he takes it. The men on the head halter dragged on it with their concerted weight, but the mule dug in his hooves, mutinying against the blindfold, and would not budge.

Lothar went round behind him, taking care to keep out of the way of his back hooves, and twisted the mule's tail.

Still the animal stood like a rock. Lothar leaned over and bit him at the root of the tail, sinking his teeth into the soft tender skin, and the mule let fly with both back hooves in a head-high kick.

Lothar bit him again, and he capitulated and trotted forward towards the ridge, but as he reached it the light breeze shifted and the mule filled both nostrils with the fresh hot smell of lion.

The scent of lion has a remarkable effect on all other animals, domestic or wild, even on exotics from an environment where it is impossible that either they or even their remote ancestors could possibly ever have had contact with a lion.

Lothar's father had always selected his hunting dogs by offering the litter of puppies a green wet lion skin to sniff.

Most of the pups would howl with terror and stumble away with their tails tucked up between their hind legs. A very few pups, not more than one in twenty, nearly always bitches would stand, albeit with every hair on their bodies erect and small growls shaking them from tail to tip of quivering nostrils. These were the dogs he kept.

Now the mule smelt the lion and went berserk. The men on the head ropes were hauled off their feet as it reared and whinnied, and Lothar ducked out from under its lashing hooves. Then it burst into a ponderous gallop and dragged the four handlers, stumbling and falling and shouting, half a mile over thorn scrub and through deep waterworn dongas, before at last it stopped in a cloud of its own dust, sweating and trembling, its flanks heaving with terror.

They dragged him back again, the blindfold firmly in place, but the moment he smelled the carcass again the entire performance was repeated, though this time he only managed a gallop of a few hundred yards before exhaustion and the weight of four men brought him up short.

Twice more they led him back to the dead lion and twice more he bolted, each time for a shorter distance, but finally he stood, trembling in all four legs, and sweating with terror and fatigue as they lifted the carcass onto his back and tried to lash the lion's paws under his chest. That was too much.

Another copious flood of nervous sweat drenched the mule's body, and he reared and bucked and kicked until the carcass slid off his back in a heap.

They wore him down, and after an hour of struggling, the mule stood at last, shaking piteously and blowing like a blacksmith's bellows, but with the dead lion securely lashed upon his back.

When Lothar took the lead rope and tugged upon it, the mule stumbled along meekly behind him, following him down towards the bend in the river.

From the top of one of the low wooded koppies Lothar looked down across the Swakop river to the roofs and the church spire of the village beyond. The Swakop made a wide bend, and in the elbow directly below there were three small green pools hemmed in with yellow sandbanks. The river flowed only in the rieperioer rain.

They were watering the horses at the pools, bringing them down from the stockades of thorn branches on the bank to drink before closing them in for the night. The count had been right, the army buyers had chosen the best. Lothar watched them avariciously through his binoculars. Desert bred, they were powerful animals, full of vigour as they frolicked and milled at the edge of the pool or rolled in the sand with their legs kicking in the air.

Lothar switched his attention to the drovers, and counted five of them, all coloured troopers in casual khaki uniform, and he looked for white officers in vain.

They could be in camp, he muttered and focused the glasses on the cluster of brown army tents beyond the horse stockades.

There was a low whistle from behind him, and when he looked over his shoulder, Hendrick was signalling from the foot of the kopje. Lothar slid off the skyline and then scrambled down the slope. The mule, his blood-soaked burden still on his back, was tethered in the shade. He had become almost resigned to it, though every now and again he gave a spontaneous shudder and shifted his weight nervously. The men were lying under the sparse branches of the thorn trees, eating bully out of the cans and Pig John stood up as Lothar reached him.

You are late, Lothar accused him, and seizing the front of his leather vest he pulled him close and sniffed his breath.

Not a drop, Master, Pig John whined. I swear on my sister's virginity. That is a mythical beast. Lothar released him, and glanced down at the sack at Pig John's feet.

TWelve bottles. just like you said. Lothar opened the sack and took out a bottle of the notorious Cape Smoke. The neck was sealed with wax and the brandy was a dark poisonous brown when he held it to the light.

What did you find out in the village? He returned the bottle to the sack.

There are seven horse handlers at the camp I counted five. 'Seven. Pig John was definite and Lothar grunted.

What about the white officers? They rode out towards Otjiwaronga yesterday, to buy more horses. It will be dark in an hour. Lothar glanced at the sun.

Take the sack and go to the camp. What shall I tell them? 'Tell them you are selling, cheap, and then give them a free taste. You are a famous har, tell them anything. What if they don't drink? Lothar laughed at the improbability but didn't bother to answer. I will move after moonrise, when it clears the treetops. That will give you and your brandy four hours to soften them up. The sack clinked as Pig John slung it over his shoulder.

Remember, Pig John, I want you sober or I'll have you dead, and I mean it. Does Master think I am some kind of animal, that I can't take a drink like a gentleman? Pig John demanded and drawing himself up marched out of the camp with affronted dignity.

From his look-out Lothar watched Pig John cross the dry sandbanks of the Swakop and trudge up the far side under his sack. At the stockade the guard challenged him and Lothar watched through the glasses as they talked, until at last the coloured trooper set his carbine aside and peered into the neck of the sack that Pig John held open for him.

Even at that distance and in the deepening dusk, Lothar saw the flash of the guard's white teeth as he grinned with delight and turned to call his companions from the tented encampment. Two of them came out in their underclothes, and a long heated discussion ensued with a great deal of gesticulation and shoulder slapping and head shaking, until Pig John cracked the wax seal on one of the bottles and handed it to them. The bottle passed quickly from one to the other, and each of them pointed the base briefly at the sky like a bugler sounding the charge and then gasped and grinned through watering eyes. Finally, Pig John was led like an honoured guest into the encampment, lugging his sack, and disappeared from Lothar's view.

The sun set and night fell and Lothar remained on the ridge. Like a yachtsman he was intensely aware of the strength and direction of the night breeze as it switched erratically. An hour after dark it settled down into a steady warm stream on the back of Lothar's neck.

Let it hold, Lothar murmured, and then whistled softly, the cry of a scops owlet. Hendrick came almost at once and Lothar indicated the wind.

Cross the river well upstream and circle out beyond the camp. Not too close. Then turn back and keep the wind in your face. At that moment there was a faint shout from across the river and they both looked up. The camp-fire in front of the tents had been built up until the flames roared high enough to lick the under branches of the camel-thorn trees and silhouetted against them were the dark figures of the coloured troopers.

what the hell do you think they are doing? Lothar wondered. 'Dancing or fighting? By now they don't know themselves, Hendrick chuckled.

They were reeling around the fire, colliding and clinging together, then separating, collapsing in the dust and crawling on their knees, or with enormous effort heaving themselves to their feet only to stand swaying with legs braced apart and then collapse again. One of them was stripped naked, his thin yellow body gleaming with sweat as he pirouetted wildly and then fell into the fire, to be dragged out by the heels by a pair of his companions, all three of them screeching with laughter.

Time for you to go. Lothar slapped Hendrick's shoulder.

Take Manie with you and let him be your horse holder. Hendrick started back down the slope but paused as Lothar A called softly after him, Manie is in your charge. You'll answer for him with your own life. Hendrick did not reply but disappeared into the night.

Half an hour later Lothar glimpsed them crossing the pale sandbanks of the river, a dark shapeless movement in the starlight, and then they were gone into the scrub beyond.

The horizon lightened and the stars in the east paled before the rising moon, but in the camp across the river the drunken gyrations of the troopers had now descended into swinish inertia. Through the glasses Lothar could make Out bodies, scattered haphazard like casualties on the battlefield, and one of them looked very much like Pig John, although Lothar couldn't be certain for he lay face down in the shadow on the far side of the fire.

If it's him, he's a dead man, Lothar promised and stood up. It was time to move at last, for the moon was clear of the horizon, horned and glowing like a horseshoe from the blacksmith's forge.

Lothar picked his way down the slope, and the mule snorted and blew through his nostrils, still standing miserably under his dreadful burden.

Almost over now. Lothar stroked his forehead. You've done well, old fellow. He loosed the head halter, adjusted the Mauser slung over his shoulder and led the mule around the side of the kopje and down the bank to the river.

There was no question of a stealthy approach, not with that great pale animal and his swaying load. Lothar unslung the rifle and rimmed a cartridge into the breech as they plodded through the sand of the riverbed and he watched the line of trees on the bank ahead, even though he expected no challenge.

The camp-fire had died down, and there was complete silence until they climbed the bank and Lothar heard the stamp of a hoof and the soft fluttering breath of one of the animals in the stockade ahead. The breeze was behind Lothar, steady still, and suddenly there was a shrill unhappy whinny.

That's it, get a good whiff of it. Lothar led the mule towards the stockade.

Now there was the trample of hooves and the sound of restless animals as they began to mill and jostle one another.

Alarm transmitted by the rank smell of the bleeding lion carcass was spreading infectiously through the herd. A horse whinnied in terror, and immediately others reared in panic.

Lothar could see their heads above the thorn-bush wall of the stockade, manes flying in the moonlight, front hooves lashing out wildly.

Against the windward wall of the stockade Lothar held the mule, and then cut the rope that held the lion to its back. The carcass slid over and hit the ground, the wind from its lungs was driven up the dead throat with a low belching roar and the animals on the far side of the brush wall surged and screamed and began to swirl around the stockade in a living whirlpool of horse-flesh.

Lothar stooped and split the lion's belly from the crotch of the back legs to the sternum of the ribs, driving his blade deeply so that it slashed through the bladder and guts, and instantly the stench was thick and rank.

The horse herd was in chaos. He could hear them crashing into the far wall of the stockade as they attempted to escape from the awful scent. Lothar lifted the rifle to his shoulder, aiming only feet over the maddened horses, and emptied the magazine. The shots crashed out in quick succession, the muzzle-flashes lighting the stockade, and the herd in terrified concert burst through the wall of the stockade, pouring through it in a dark river, their manes tossing like foam as they galloped away into the night, heading downwind to where Hendrick waited with his men.

Hurriedly Lothar tethered the mule, and reloading the rifle as he ran, headed for the dying camp-fire. One of the troopers, aroused by the escaping horses even from his drunken stupor, was on his feet, staggering determinedly towards the stockade.

The horses, he was screaming. Come on you drunken thunders! We have to stop the horses! He saw Lothar. Help me! The horses, Lothar lifted the butt of the Mauser under his chin. The trooper's teeth clicked together and he sat down in the sand and then slowly toppled over backwards again. Lothar stepped over him and ran forward.

Pig John! he called urgently. Where are you? There was no reply and he went past the fire to the inert figure he had seen from the lookout. He rolled it over with his foot, and Pig John looked up at the moon with sightless eyes and a tranquil smile on his wrinkled yellow face.

Up! Lothar kicked him with a full swing of the boot. Pig John's smile did not waver. He was far past any pain. All right, I warned you! Lothar worked the Mauser's bolt and flicked over the safety-catch with his thumb. He put the muzzle of the rifle to Pig John's head. If he was handed over to the police alive it would take only a few strokes of the hippo-hide sjambok whip to get Pig John talking. Though he did not know the full details of the plan, he knew enough to ruin their chances and to put Lothar on the wanted list for horse-theft and the destruction of army property. He took up the slack in the trigger of the Mauser.

It's too good for him, he thought grimly. He should be flogged to death. But his finger relaxed, and he swore at himself for his own foolishness as he flipped the safety-catch and ran back to fetch the mule.

Even though Pig John was a skinny little man, it took all of Lothar's strength to swing his relaxed rubbery body over the mule's back. He hung there like a piece of laundry on the drying line, arms and legs dangling on opposite sides.

Lothar leapt up behind him, whipped the mule into his top gait, a laboured lumbering trot, and steered him directly down the wind.

After a mile Lothar thought he must have missed them, and slowed the mule just as Hendrick stepped out of the moon shadows ahead of him.

How goes it? How many did you get? Lothar called anxiously, and Hendrick laughed.

So many we ran out of halters. once each of his men had captured one of the escaped horses, he had gone up on its bare back and cut off the bunches of fleeing animals, turning them and holding them while Manfred ran in and slipped the halters over their heads.

Twenty-six! Lothar exulted as he counted the strings of roped horses. We'll be able to pick and choose. He tempered his own jubilation. All right, we'll move out right away.

The army will be after us as soon as they can get troops up here. He slipped the halter off the mule's head and slapped his rump. Thank you, old fellow, he said. You can get on back home. The mule accepted the offer with alacrity and actually managed to gallop the first hundred yards of his homeward journey.

Each of them picked a horse and mounted bareback with a string of three or four loose horses behind him, and Lothar led them back towards the rock shelter in the hills.

At dawn they paused briefly while Lothar checked over each of the stolen horses. Two had been injured in the melee in the stockade and he turned them loose. The others were of such fine quality and condition that he could not choose between them though they had many more than they required.

While they were sorting the horses Pig John regained consciousness and sat up weakly. He muttered prayers to his ancestors and Hottentot gods for a release from his suffering and then vomited a painful gush of vile brandy.

You and I still have business to settle, Lothar promised him unsmilingly, then turned to Hendrick. We'll take all these horses. We are certain to lose some in the desert. Then he raised his right arm in the cavalry command: Move out! They reached the rock shelter a little before noon, but they paused only to load the waiting pack-saddles onto the spare horses and then each of them chose a mount and saddled up. They led the horses down the hill and watered them, allowing them to drink their fill.

How much of a start do we have? Hendrick asked.

The coloured troopers can do nothing without their white officers and it might take them two or three days to get back. They will have to telegraph Windhoek for orders, and then they will have to make up a patrol. I'd say three days at least, more likely four or five. We can go a long way in three days, Hendrick said with satisfaction.

Nobody can go further, Lothar agreed. It was a fact not a boast.

The desert was his dominion. Few white men knew it as well as he, and none better.

Shall we mount up? Hendrick asked.

One more chore. Lothar took the spare leather reins out of his saddle-bag and looped them over his right wrist with the brass buckles hanging to his ankles as he crossed to where Pig John sat miserably in the shade of the riverbank with his face buried in his hands. in his extremity he did not hear Lothar's tread in the soft sand until he stood over him.

I promised you, Lothar told him flatly, and shook out the heavy leather thongs.

Master, I could not help it, shrieked Pig John and he tried to scramble to his feet.

Lothar swung the thongs and the brass buckles blurred in a bright arc in the sunlight. The blow caught Pig John around the back and the buckles snapped around his ribs and gouged out a groove in his flesh below the armpit.

Pig John howled. They forced me. They made me drink The next blow knocked him off his feet. He kept screaming, although now the words were no longer coherent, and the leathers cracked on his yellow skin, the weals rising in thick shiny ridges and turning purple-red as ripe grape-skins.

The sharp buckles shredded his shirt as though it had been torn off him by lion's claws, and the sand clotted his blood into wet balls as it dribbled into the riverbed.

He stopped screaming at last and Lothar stood back panting and wiped the wet red leather thongs on a saddle cloth and looked at the faces of his men. The beating had been for them as much as for the man curled at his feet. They were wild dogs and they understood only strength, respected only cruelty.

Hendrick spoke for them all. He was paid a fair price.

Shall I finish him? No! Leave a horse for him. Lothar turned away. When he comes round he can follow us, or he can go to hell where he belongs. He swung up into the saddle of his own mount and avoided his son's stricken eyes as he raised his voice. All right, we are moving out. He rode with long stirrups in the Boer fashion, slouched down comfortably in the saddle, and Hendrick pushed his mount up on one side of him and Manfred on the other.

Lothar felt elated; the adrenalin of violence was like a drug in his blood still and the open desert lay ahead of him.

With the taking of the horses he had crossed the frontier of law, he was an outlaw once again, free of society's restraint, and he felt his spirit towering on high like a hunting falcon.

By God. I'd almost forgotten what it was like to have a rifle in my hand and a good horse between my legs. We are men once again, Hendrick agreed, and leaned across to embrace Manfred. You too. Your father was your age when he and I first rode out to war. We are going to war again. You are a man as he was. And Manfred forgot the spectacle he had just witnessed and swelled with pride at being counted in this company. He sat up straight in the saddle and lifted his chin.

Lothar turned his face into the north-east, towards the hinterland where the vast Kalahari brooded, and led them away.

That night while they camped in a deep gorge which shielded the light of their small fire, the sentinel roused them with a low whistle.

They rolled out of their blankets, snatched up their rifles and slipped away into the darkness.

The horses stirred and whickered and then Pig John rode in out of the darkness and dismounted. He stood wretchedly by the fire, his face swollen and discoloured with bruises like a cur dog expecting to be driven away. The others came out of the shadows and without looking at him or otherwise acknowledging his existence climbed back into their blankets.

Sleep on the other side of the fire from me, Lothar told him harshly. You stink of brandy. And Pig John wriggled with relief and gratification that he had been accepted back into the band.

In the dawn they mounted again and rode on into the wide hot emptiness of the desert.

The road out to H'ani Mine was probably one of the most rugged in South West Africa and every time she negotiated it Centaine promised herself: We must really do something about having it repaired. Then Dr TWentyman-jones would give her an estimate of the cost of resurfacing hundreds of miles of desert track and of erecting bridges over the river courses and consolidating the passes through the hills, and Centaine's good frugal sense would reassert itself.

After all it only takes three days, and I seldom have to drive it more than three times a year, and it is really quite an adventure. The telegraph line that connected the mine to Windhoek had been expensive enough. After an estimate of fifty pounds it had finally cost her a hundred pounds for every single Mile and she still felt resentment every time she looked at that endless line of poles strung together with gleaming copper wire that ran beside the track. Apart from the cost, it spoiled the view, detracting from the feeling of wildness and isolation which she so treasured when she was out in the Kalahari.

She remembered with a twinge of nostalgia how they had slept on the ground and carried their water in the first years.

Now there were regular stages at each night's stop, thatched rondavels and windmills to raise water from the deep bores, servants living permanently at each station to service the rest houses, providing meals and hot baths and a log fire in the hearth on those crisp frosty nights of the Kalahari winter, even paraffin refrigerators manufacturing heavenly ice for the sundowner whisky in the fierce summer heat. The traffic on the road was heavy, the regular convoy under Gerhard Fourie carrying out fuel and stores had cut deep ruts in the soft earth and churned up the crossings in the dried riverbeds, and worst of all the gauge of the tyres of the big Ford trucks was wider than that of the yellow Daimler so that she had to drive with one wheel in the rut and the other bouncing and jolting over the uneven middle ridge.

Added to all this it was high summer and the heat was crushing. The metal of the Daimler's coachwork could raise blisters on the skin, and they were forced to halt regularly when the water in the radiator boiled and blew a singing plume of steam high in the air. The very heavens seemed to quiver with blue fire, and the far desert horizons were washed away by the shimmering glassy whirlpools of heat mirage.

If only they could make a machine small enough to cool the air in the Daimler, she thought, like the one in the railway coach, and then she burst out laughing. nens: I must be getting soft! She remembered how, with the two old Bushmen who had rescued her, she had travelled on foot through the terrible dune country of the Namib and they had been forced to cover their bodies with a plaster of sand and their own urine to survive the monstrous heat of the desert noons.

Why are you laughing, Mater? Shasa demanded.

just something that happened long ago, before you were born. 'Tell me, oh please tell me. He seemed unaffected by the heat and the dust and the merciless jolting of the chassis.

But then why should he be? She smiled at him. This is where he was born. He too is a creature of the desert.

Shasa took her smile for acquiescence. Come on, Mater.

Tell me the story. Pourquoi pas? Why not? And she told him and watched the shock in his expression.

Your own pee-pee? He was aghast.

That surprises you? She mocked him. Then let me tell you what we did when the water in our ostrich-egg bottles was finished. Old O'wa, the Bushman hunter, killed a gemsbok bull with his poisoned arrow and we took out the first stomach, the rumen, and we squeezed out the liquid from the undigested contents and we drank that. It kept us going just long enough to reach the sip-wells. Mater! That's right, cheri, I drink champagne when I can, but I'll drink whatever keeps me alive when I have to., She was silent while he considered that, and she glanced at his face and saw the revulsion turn to respect.

What would you have done, cheri, drunk it or died? she asked, to make sure the lesson was learned.

I would have drunk, he answered without hesitation, and then with affectionate pride, You know, Mater, you really are a crackerjack. It was his ultimate accolade.

Look! She pointed ahead to where the lion-coloured plain, its far limits lost in the curtains of mirage, seemed to be covered with a gauzy cinnamon-coloured veil of thin smoke.

Centaine pulled the Daimler off the track and they climbed out onto the running-board for a better view.

Springbok. The first we have seen on this trip. The beautiful gazelle were moving steadily across the flats, all in the same direction.

There must be tens of thousands. The springbok were elegant little animals with long delicate legs and lyre-shaped horns.

They are migrating into the north, Centaine told him.

There must have been good rains up there, and they are moving to the water. Suddenly the nearest gazelles took fright at their presence and began the peculiar alarm display that the Boers called pronking'. They arched their backs and bowed their long necks until their muzzles touched their fore hooves, and they bounced on stiff legs, flying high and lightly into the shimmering hot air while from the fold of skin along their backs they flashed a flowing white crest of hair.

This alarm behaviour was infectious and soon thousands of gazelle were bounding across the plain like a flock of birds. Centaine jumped down from the running-board and mimicked them, forking the fingers of one hand over her head as horns and with the fingers of the other showing the crest hair down her back. She did it so skilfully that Shasa hooted with laughter and clapped his hands.

Bully for you, Mater! He jumped down and joined her, and they pranced in a circle, until they were weak with laughter and exertion. Then they leaned against the Daimler and clung to each other for support.

Old O'wa taught me that, Centaine gasped. He could imitate every animal of the veld. When they drove on she let Shasa take the wheel, for the crossing of the plain was one of the easier stretches of the journey and he drove well. She lay back in the corner of her seat and after a while Shasa broke the silence.

When we are alone you are so different. He searched for the words. You are such jolly good fun. I wish we could just be like this forever. Anything you do too long becomes a bore, she told him gently. The trick is to do it all, not just one thing. This is good fun but tomorrow we will be at the mine and there will be another type of excitement for us to experience and after that there will be something else. We'll do it all, and we will wring from each moment the last drop it has to offer. Twenty-man-Jones had gone ahead to the mine while Centaine stayed on for three days in Windhoek to go over the paperwork with Abraham Abrahams. So he had alerted the servants at the rest houses as he passed through.

When they reached the last stage that evening, the bath water was so hot that even Centaine who enjoyed her bath at the correct temperature for boiling lobster was forced to add cold before she could bear it. The champagne was that marvelous 1928 Krug pale and chilled to the temperature she preferred, just low enough to frost the bottle, and though there was ice, she would not allow the barbaric habit of standing the bottle in a bucket of it.

Cold feet, hot head, bad combination for both men and wine, her father had taught her. As always she drank only a single glass from the bottle and afterwards there was the cold collation that TWentyman-jones had provided for her and stored in the paraffin refrigerator, fare suitable for this heat and which he knew she enjoyed - rock lobster from the green Benguela Current with rich white flesh curled in their spiny red tails and salad vegetables grown in the cooler highlands of Windhoek, lettuce crackling crisp, tomatoes crimson ripe and pungent onions purple tinted, then, as the final treat, wild truffles gleaned from the surrounding desert by the tame Bushmen who tended the milk herd. She ate them raw and the salty fungus taste was the taste of Kalahari.

They left again in the pitch darkness before dawn, and at sunrise they stopped and brewed coffee on a fire of camel-thorn branches; the grainy red wood burned with an intense blue flame and gave to the coffee a peculiar and delicious aroma. They ate the picnic breakfast that the rest-house cook had provided and washed it down with the smoky coffee and watched the sunrise smearing the sky and desert with bronze and gilding it with gold leaf. As they went on, so the sun rose higher and drained the land of colour, washing it with its silver-white bleach.

Stop here! Centaine ordered suddenly, and when they climbed up onto the roof of the Daimler and stared ahead, Shasa was puzzled.

What is it, Mater? Don't you see it, cheri? She pointed, 'There! Above the horizon. It floated in the sky, indistinct and ethereal.

It's standing in the sky, Shasa exclaimed, discerning it at last.

The mountain that floats in the sky, Centaine murmured. Each time she saw it like this the wonder of it was still as fresh and enchanting as the first time. The place of All Life. She gave the hills their Bushman name.

As they drove on so the shape of the hills hardened, becoming a sheer rock palisade below which were spread the open mopani forests. In places the cliffs were split and riven with gulleys and gorges. In others they were solid and tall and daubed with bright lichens, sulphur yellow and green and orange.

The H'ani Mine was nestled beneath one of these sheer expanses of rock, and the buildings seemed insignificant and incongruous in this place.

Centaine's brief to Twenty-man-Jones had been to make them as unobtrusive as possible, without, of course, affecting the productivity of the workings, but there was a limit to just how far he had been able to follow her instructions. The fenced compounds of the black workers and the weathering grounds for the blue diamondiferous earth were extensive, while the steel tower and elevator of the washing gear stuck up high as the derrick of an oil rig.

However, the worst depredation had been caused by the appetite of the steam boiler, hungry as some infernal Baal for cordwood. The forest along the foot of the hills had been cut down to satisfy it, and the second growth had formed a scraggly unsightly thicket in place of the tall grey-barked timber.

Twenty-man-Jones was waiting for them as they climbed out of the dusty Daimler in front of the thatched administration building.

Good trip, Mrs Courtney? he asked, lugubrious with pleasure. 'You'll want a rest and clean up, I expect. You know better than that, Dr Twenty-man-Jones. Let's get down to work. Centaine led the way down the wide verandah to her own office. Sit beside me, she ordered Shasa as she took her seat at the stinkwood desk.

They began with the recovery reports, then went on to the cost schedules; and as Shasa struggled to keep up with the quick calling and discussion of figures, he wondered how his mother could change so swiftly from the girl companion who had hopped around in imitation of a springbok only the previous day.

Shasa, what did we establish was the cost per carat if we average twenty-three carats per load? She fired the question at Shasa suddenly, and when he muffed it she frowned. This isn't the time for dreams. And she turned her shoulder to him to emphasize the rebuke. 'Very well, Dr TWentyman-Jones, we have avoided the unpleasant long enough. Let us consider what economies we have to institute to meet the quota cut and still keep the H'ani Mine working and turning a profit. It was dusk before Centaine broke off and stood up. We'll pick it up from there tomorrow. She stretched like a cat and then led them out onto the wide verandah.

Shasa will be working for you as we agreed. I think he should begin on the haulage. I was about to suggest it, Ma'am. What time do you want me? Shasa asked.

The shift comes on at five am but I expect Master Shasa will want to come on later? Twenty-man-Jones glanced at Centaine. It was, of course, a challenge and a test, and she remained silent, waiting for Shasa to make the decision on his own account. She saw him struggling with himself. He was at that stage of growth when sleep is a drug and rising in the morning a brutal penance.

I'll be at the main haulage at four-thirty, sir, he said, and Centaine relaxed and took his arm.

Then it had best be an early night. She turned the Daimler into the avenue of small iron-roofed cottages which housed the white shift bosses and artisans and their families. The orders of society were strictly observed on the H'ani Mine. It was a microcosm of the young nation. The black labourers lived in the fenced and guarded compounds where whitewashed buildings resembled rows of stables. There were separate, more elaborate quarters for the black boss-boys, who were allowed to have their families living with them. The white artisans and shift bosses were housed in the avenues laid out at the foot of the hills, while the management lived up the slopes, each building larger and the lawns around it more extensive the higher it was sited.

As they turned at the end of the avenues there was a girl sitting on the stoep of the last cottage and she stuck her tongue out at Shasa as the Daimler passed. It was almost a year since Shasa had last seen her and nature had wrought wondrous changes in her during that time. Her feet were still bare and dirty to the ankles, and her curls were still wind-tousled and sun-streaked, but the faded cotton of her blouse was now so tight that it constricted her blossoming breasts. They were forced upwards and bulged out over the top in a deep cleavage and Shasa wriggled in the seat as he realized that the twin red-brown coin-shaped marks on the blouse, though they looked like stains, were in fact showing through the thin cloth from beneath.

Her legs had grown longer, her knees were no longer knobbly, and they shaded from coffee brown at the ankles to smooth cream on the inside of her thighs. She sat on the edge of the verandah with her knees apart and her skirts pulled high and rucked up between her legs. As Shasa's gaze dropped, she let her knees fall a little further open. Her nose was snubbed and sprinkled with freckles, and she wrinkled it as she grinned. it was a sly cheeky grin, and her tongue was bright pink between white teeth.

Guiltily Shasa jerked his eyes away and stared ahead through the windshield. But he remembered vividly every last detail of those forbidden minutes behind the pump-house and the heat rose in his cheeks. He could not help glancing at his mother. She was looking ahead at the road and had not noticed. He felt relief until she murmured, She is a common little hussy, ogling everything in pants. Her father is one of the men we are retrenching. We'll be rid of her before she causes real trouble for us and herself. He should have known she had not missed that brief exchange. She saw everything, he thought, and then he felt the impact of her words. The girl was being sent away, and he was surprised by his feeling of deprivation. It was a physical ache in the floor of his stomach.

What will happen to them, Mater? he asked softly. I mean, the people we are firing. While he had listened to his mother and Twenty-man-jones discussing the retrenchments, he had thought of them merely as numbers; but with that glimpse of the girl, they had become flesh and blood. He remembered his adversary the blond boy, and the little girl that he had seen from the window of the railway coach, standing beside the tracks in the hobo camp, and he imagined Annalisa Botha in the place of that strange girl.

I don't know what will become of them. His mother's mouth tightened. I don't think it is anything that should concern us. This world is a place of harsh reality, and each of us has to face it in his own way. I think we should rather consider what would be the consequences if we did not let them go. We would lose money. That is right, and if we lose money, we have to close down the mine, which would mean that all the others would lose their jobs, not just the few that we have to fire. Then we all suffer. If we did that with everything we own, in the end we would lose everything. We would be like the rest of them. Would you prefer that? Suddenly Shasa had a new mental image. Instead of the blond boy standing in the hobo camp, it was himself, barefoot in dusty, tattered khakis, and he could almost feel the night chill through the thin shirt and the rumble of hunger in his guts.

No! he said explosively, and then dropped his voice. I wouldn't like that. He shivered at the persistent images her words had invoked. Is that going to happen, Mater? Could it happen? Might we also be poor? We could be, cheri. It could happen quickly and cruelly if we are not on guard every minute. A fortune is extremely difficult to build but very easy to destroy. Is it going to happen? he insisted, and he thought about the Midas Touch, his yacht, and the polo ponies, and his friends at Bishops, and the vineyards of Weltevreden and he was afraid.

Nothing is certain. She reached across and took his hand.

That's the fun of this game of life, if it was then it wouldn't be worth playing. I wouldn't like to be poor. No! She said it as vehemently as he had. It will not happen, not if we are cunning and bold. What you said about the trade of the world coming to a halt. People no longer able to buy our diamonds... Before those had been merely words, now they were a dreadful possibility.

We must believe that the wheels will one day begin to turn again, one day soon, and we must play the golden rules.

Do you remember them? She swung the Daimler through the climbing turns up the slope and around the spur of the hills so that the mine buildings disappeared behind the rock wall of the cliff.

What was the first golden rule, Shasa? she prompted him.

Sell when everybody else is buying and buy when everybody else is selling he repeated.

Good. And what is happening now? Everybody is trying to sell. It dawned upon him and his grin was triumphant.

He's so beautiful, and he has the sense and the instinct, she thought as she waited for him to follow the coils of the serpent until he reached its head and discovered the fangs.

His expression changed as it happened. He looked at her crestfallen.

But, Mater, how can we buy if we haven't got the money? She pulled to the side of the track and cut the engine.

Then turned to him seriously and took both his hands.

I am going to treat you as a man, she said. What I tell you is our secret, our private business that we share with nobody. Not Grandpater or Anna, or Abraham Abrahams or TWentyman-jones. It's our thing, yours and mine alone. He nodded and she drew a deep breath. I have a premonition that this catastrophe that has engulfed the world is our pivot, an opportunity that very few are ever offered. For the last few years I have been preparing to exploit it. How did I do that, cheri? He shook his head, staring at her fascinated.

I have turned everything, with the exception of the mine and Weltevreden, into cash, and even on those I have borrowed heavily, very heavily. That's why you called all the loans. That's why we went to Walvis for that fish factory and the trawlers, you wanted the money. 'Yes, cheri, yes, she encouraged him, unconsciously shaking hands, willing him to see it. And his face lit again.

You are going to buy! he exclaimed.

I have already begun, she told him. I have bought land and mining concessions, fishing concessions and guano concessions, buildings. I have even bought the Alhambra Theatre in Cape Town and the Coliseum in Johannesburg. But most of all I have bought land, and the option to buy more land, tens and hundreds of thousands of acres, cheri, at two shillings an acre. Land is the only true store of wealth. He could not really grasp it, but he sensed the enormity of what she told him and she saw it in his eyes.

Now you know our secret, she laughed. If I have guessed right, we will double and redouble our fortune. And if it doesn't change. If the, he searched for the word, if the Depression goes on and on for ever, what then, Mater? She pouted and dropped his hands. Then, cheri, nothing will matter very much, one way or the other. She started the Daimler and drove up the last pitch of the road to the bungalow standing alone in its wide lawns, with lights burning in the windows and the servants lined up respectfully on the front verandah in their immaculate white livery to welcome her.

She parked at the bottom of the steps, turned off the engine and turned to him again.

No, Shasa cheri, we are not going to be poor. We are going to be richer, much richer than we ever were before. And then later, through you, my darling, we will have power to go with our wealth. Great fortune, enormous power. Oh, I have it all planned, so carefully planned! Her words filled Shasa's head with turbulent thoughts. He could not sleep.

Great fortune, enormous power. The words excited and disturbed him. He tried to visualize what they meant and saw himself like a strongman at the circus, in leopard-skins and leather wristbands, standing with arms akimbo, huge biceps flexed, upon a pyramid of golden sovereigns, while a congregation in white robes knelt and made obeisance before him.

He ran the images through his head over and over, each time altering some detail, all of them pleasurable but lacking the final touch until he bestowed upon one of his white robed worshippers a crown of unruly wind-tousled sun-streaked curls. He placed her in the front rank, and she lifted her forehead from the ground and stuck her tongue out at him.

His erection was so quick and hard that it made him gasp, and before he could prevent himself he had slipped his hand under the sheet and prised it out of the fly of his pyjamas.

lock Murphy had warned him about it. It will spoil your eye, Master Shasa. I have seen many a good man with a bat or a polo stick ruined by Mrs Palm and her five daughters. But in his fantasy Armalisa was sitting up, her long legs apart, and she was slowly drawing up the skirt of her white robe. The skin of her legs was smooth as butter, and he moaned softly. She was staring at the front of his costume, her tongue whisking lightly over her parted lips, and the white skirt rose higher and higher, and his fist began to jerk rhythmically. He could not prevent it.

Up and up rode the white skirt, never quite reaching the fork of her crotch. Her legs seemed to stretch forever, like the railway tracks across the desert running on and on and never meeting. He choked and jerked into a sitting position on the feather mattress, doubled over his flying fist, and when it came it was sharp and painful as a bayonet driven up into his intestines, and he cried out and fell back against the pillows.

Annalisa's sly grinning freckled face receded, and the wet front of his pyjamas began to turn icy cold, but he did not have the will to strip them off.

When the servant woke him with a tray of coffee and a dish of hard sweet rusks, he felt dazed and exhausted. It was still dark outside, and he rolled over and pulled the pillows over his head.

Madam your mother, she says I wait here until you get up, said the Ovambo servant darkly, and Shasa dragged himself to the bathroom trying to conceal the dry stain on the front of his pyjamas.

One of the grooms had his pony saddled and waiting at the front steps of the bungalow. Shasa took a moment to joke and laugh with the groom and then greet and caress his pony, rubbing foreheads with him and blowing softly into his nostrils.

You are getting fat, Prester John, he chided the pony.

We'll have to work that off you with the polo sticks. He swung up into the saddle and took the short cut, following the pipe track around the shoulder of the hill. The pipe line carried the water from the spring around the hills to the mine and the washing gear. He passed the pumphouse and felt a guilty pang at its associations with last night's depravity, but then the dawn lit the plains below the cliffs and he forgot that in the pleasure of watching the veld come alive and greet the sun.

On this side of the hills Centaine had ordered that the forest be left untouched and the mopani was tall and stately.

A covey of francolin were dawn-crying in the thicket down the slope, and a grey duiker, returning from the spring, bounded across the track under the pony's nose. Shasa laughed as he shied theatrically.

Stop that, you old show-off! He turned the corner of the cliff and the contrast was depressing. The desecrated forest, the deforming scar of the workings on the hillside, the graceless square iron buildings and the stark skeletal girders o t was ing gear, they were.

He gave the pony a touch with his heels and they galloped the last mile and reached the main haulage just as Twenty-man-Jones old Ford came up the track from the village with headlights still burning. He checked his watch as he stepped out and looked sad as he saw that Shasa was three minutes ahead of time.

Have you ever been down the haulage, Master Shasa? No, sir. He was going to add, My Mater has never allowed it, but somehow that seemed superfluous, and for the first time he felt a twinge of resentment at his mother's all-pervading presence.

Twenty-man-Jones led him to the head of the haulage and introduced him to the shift boss.

Master Shasa will be working with you, he explained.

Treat him normally, just like you would treat any other young man who will one day be your managing director, he instructed. It was impossible to tell by Twenty-man-jones expression when he was joking, so nobody laughed.

Get a tin helmet for him, Twenty-man-Jones ordered, and while Shasa adjusted the straps of the helmet he led him to the foot of the sheer cliff.

The incline tunnel had been cut into the base of the cliff, a round aperture into which the steel rail tracks angled downwards at forty-five degrees before disappearing into the dark depths. A string of cocopans stood at the head of the tracks, and Twenty-man-jones led him to the first truck and they climbed into the steel bin. The shift swarmed into the trucks behind them, a dozen white foremen and one hundred and fifty black workers in ragged dusty overalls and helmets of bright unpainted metal, laughing and ragging each other in boisterous horseplay.

The steam winch of the winding gear clattered and hissed and the string of trucks jerked forward and then, rocking and swaying, ran down the steeply inclined ramp on the narrow-gauge railway tracks. The steel wheels rumbling and clacking over the joints of the track, they dropped down into the dark maw of the tunnel.

Shasa stirred uneasily, stabbed with unreasoning fear at the sudden absolute blackness that engulfed them. However, in the trucks behind him the Ovambo miners were singing, their deep melodious voices echoing in the dark confines of the tunnel, a marvelous chorus raised in an African work chant, and Shasa relaxed and leaned closer to Twenty-man-Jones to follow his explanation.

The incline is forty-five degrees and the capacity of the winding gear is one hundred tons, in mining parlance that is sixty loads of ore. Our target is six hundred loads a shift raised to the surface. Shasa was trying to concentrate on the figures; he knew his mother would question him this evening, but the darkness and singing and the rumble of the swaying trucks distracted him. Ahead of him there was a tiny coin of brilliant white light that grew swiftly in size until abruptly they burst out of the far end of the tunnel and involuntarily Shasa gasped with astonishment.

He had studied the diagrams of the pipe and, of course, there were photographs on his mother's desk at Weltevreden but they had not adequately prepared him for its immensity.

It was an almost perfectly round hole in the centre of the hills. It was open to the sky, and the sides of the excavation were vertical and sheer, a circular wall of grey rock like a cockpit. They had entered it through the tunnel that connected the workings to the far side of the hills and the narrow ramp on which they were riding continued down at the same angle of forty-five degrees until it reached the floor of the excavation two hundred feet below them. The drop on either hand was breathtaking. The great rock-lined hole was a mile across, and its sheer walls four hundred feet from the tip to the floor.

Twenty-man-Jones was still lecturing him. This is a volcanic pipe, a blow hole from the earth's depths up which the molten magma was forced to the surface in the beginning of time. In those temperatures, as hot as the sun, and enormous pressures the diamonds were forged, and they were brought up in the fiery lava. Shasa stared around him, screwing his head to take in the proportions of the huge excavation as TWentyman-Jones went on, Then the pipe was pinched off at depth, and the magma in it cooled and solidified. The upper layer, exposed to air and sun, was oxidized into the classical "yellow ground" of the diamondiferous formation.

We worked down through that for eleven years, and only recently we reached the "blue ground". He made an expansive gesture that took in the slaty blue rock that formed the floor of the huge pit. That is the deeper deposit of the solidified magma, hard as iron and as full of diamonds as currants in a hot cross bun. They reached the floor of the workings and climbed down from the truck.

The operation is fairly straightforward, Twenty-man-jones went on.

The new shift comes in at first light and begins work on the previous evening's blast. The broken ground is lashed and loaded into the cocopans and sent up the haulage to the surface. After that they mark out and drill the shot-holes for the next blast and then they set the charges. At dusk we pull out the shift, and the shift boss lights the fuses.

After the blast we leave the workings overnight to settle and for the fumes to disperse, then the next morning we begin the whole process over again. There, he pointed to an area of shattered blue grey rock, 'that's last night's blast.

That's where we will begin today. Shasa had not expected to be so absorbed by the fascination of this mighty excavation, but his interest grew more intense as the day went on. Not even the heat and the dust daunted him. The heat was trapped between the sheer walls when at noon the sun beat down directly onto the uneven broken floor. The dust was floury, rising from the shattered ore body as the hammer-men swung their ten-pound sledges to crack the larger lumps into manageable pieces. The dust hung in a fog over the lashing teams as they loaded the cocopans, and it coated their faces and their bodies and turned them into ghostly grey albinos.

We get a bit of miners phthisis, Twenty-man-jones admitted. The dust gets into their lungs and turns to stone. ideally we should hose the ore down and keep it wet to lay the dust, but we are short of water. We haven't enough for the washing gear. We certainly can't afford to splash it around. So men die and are crippled, but it takes ten years to build up in the lungs, and we give them, or their widows, a good pension, and the miners inspector is sympathetic, though his sympathy costs a penny. At noon TWentyman-jones called Shasa across. 'Your mother said you need only work half the shift. I'm going up now.

Are you coming? I'd rather not, sir, Shasa answered diffidently. 'I'd like to watch them charge the holes for the blast., TWentyman-jones shook his head sorrowfully. Chip off the old block! and went away still muttering.

The shift boss allowed Shasa to fight the fuses, under his careful supervision. It gave Shasa a sense of importance and power to touch the flaring chesa stick, the igniter, to the bunched tips of the fuses, passing quickly down the line and watching the fire run down the twisted white fuses, turning them sizzling black in the swirl of blue smoke.

He and the shift boss rode up on the haulage to the cry of Fire in the hole! and Shasa lingered at the head of the main haulage until the shots fired and he felt the earth tremble beneath his feet.

Then he saddled Prester John and, dusty, streaked with sweat, bone-tired and happy as he had seldom been in his life, he rode back along the pipe track.

He was not even thinking about her when he reached the pump-house, but there she was, perched up on top of the silver-painted waterpipe. The shock was such that when Prester John shied under him he almost lost his seat and had to snatch at the pommel.

She had plaited a wreath of wild flowers into her hair and unbuttoned the top of her blouse. In one of the books in the library at Weltevreden there was an illustration of satyrs and nymphs dancing in the forest. The book was kept in the forbidden section to which his mother guarded the key, but Shasa had invested some of his pocket money in a duplicate and lightly clad nymphs were among his favourites of all that treasure house of erotica.

Annalisa was one of these, a wood nymph, only part human, and she slanted her eyes at him slyly and her eye teeth were pointed and very white.

Hello, Annalisa. His voice cracked treacherously, and his heart was beating so wildly that he thought it might spring into his throat and choke him.

She smiled but did not reply, instead she caressed her own arm, a slow lingering stroke from her wrist to her bare shoulder. He watched her fingers raising the fine coppery hair on her forearm and his loins swelled.

She leaned forward and placed her forefinger on her lower lip, still grinning slyly, and her bosom changed shape and the opening of her blouse gaped and he saw that the skin in the vee was so white and translucent that the tiny blue veins showed through it.

He kicked out of the stirrups and swung a leg over Prester John's withers in the showy polo player's forward dismount, but the girl whirled to her feet, hoisted her skirts high and, with a flash of creamy thighs, sprang lightly over the pipeline and disappeared into the thick scrub on the hillside beyond.

Shasa raced after her, and found himself struggling through dense undergrowth. It clawed at his face and seized his legs.

He heard her giggle once, not far ahead of him, but a rock twisted under his boot and he fell heavily, winding himself.

When he pulled himself up and limped after her, she was gone.

A while longer he floundered around in the scrub, his ardour swiftly cooling, and by the time he battled his way back to the pipe track to find that Prester John had taken full advantage of the diversion and decamped, he was bubbling over with anger at himself and the girl.

it was a long tramp back to the bungalow and he hadn't realized how tired he was. It was dark by the time he got home. The pony with empty saddle had raised the alarm and Centaine's concern changed instantly to relieved fury when she saw him.

A week in the heat and dust of the workings and the monotony of the work began to pall, so TWentyman-Jones sent Shasa to work in the winch room of the main haulage. The winch driver was a taciturn, morose man and jealous of his job. He would not allow Shasa to touch the controls of the winch.

My union doesn't allow it. He stood his ground stubbornly and after two days Twenty-man-Jones moved Shasa to the weathering ground.

Here the ore was tipped out and spread in the open by gangs of Ovambo labourers, all stripped to the waist and chanting in chorus as they went through the laborious repetitive process of tip and spread under the urgings of their white supervisor and his gang of black boss-boys.

On this weathering ground lay the stockpile of the H'ani Mine, thousands of tons of ore spread out on an area the size of four polo fields. When the blue ground was blasted out of the pipe it was hard as concrete; only gelignite and the ten-pound sledge hammers would break it. But after it had been lying in the sun on the weathering ground for six months it began to break down and crumble until it was chalky and friable and could be reloaded in the cocopans and taken to the mill and the washing gear.

Shasa was placed in charge of a gang of forty labourers, and soon struck up a friendship with the Ovambo boss-boy.

Like all the black tribesmen he had two names, his tribal name which he did not divulge to his white employers, and his work name. The Ovambo's work name was Moses. He was fifteen years or so younger than the other boss-boys, and had been selected for his intelligence and initiative. He spoke both English and Afrikaans well and the respect that the black labourers usually reserved for the grey hair of age he earned from them with his billy club and boot and acid wit.

If I was a white man, he told Shasa, one day I would have Doctela's job. Doctela was the Ovambo name for TWentyman-Jones, and Moses went on, I might still have it, one day, or if not me, then my son. Shasa was shocked and then intrigued by such an outrageous notion. He had never before met a black who did not know his place in society. There was a disturbing presence about the tall Ovambo, who looked like one of the drawings of an Egyptian pharaoh from the forbidden section of the Weltevreden library, but that hint of danger made him more intriguing to Shasa.

They usually spent the lunch-hour break together, Shasa helping Moses to perfect his reading and writing in the grubby ruled notebook which was his most prized possession. In return the Ovambo taught Shasa the rudiments of his language, especially the oaths and insults, and the meaning of some of the work chants, most of which were ribald.

Is baby-making work or pleasure? was the rhetorical opening question of Shasa's favourite chant, and he joined in the response to the delight of the gang he was supervising: It cannot be work or the white man would make us do it for him! Shasa was just over fourteen years old. Some of the men he supervised were three times his age, and none of them thought it strange. Instead they responded to his teasing and his sunny smile and his sorry attempts to speak their language. His men were soon spreading five loads to four of the other teams, and they ended the second week as top gang on the grounds.

Shasa was too involved with the work and his new friend to notice the dark looks of the white supervisor, and even when he made a pointed remark about kaffer-boeties, or nigger-lovers', Shasa did not take the reference personally.

On the third Saturday, after the men had been paid at noon, he rode down to the boss-boys cottage at Moses invitation and spent an hour sitting in the sun on the front doorstep of the cottage drinking sour milk from the calabash that Moses shy and pretty young wife offered, and helping him read aloud from the copy of Macaulay's History of England he had smuggled out of the bungalow and brought down in his saddlebag.

The book was one of his set works at school so Shasa considered himself something of an authority on it, and he was enjoying the unusual role of teacher and instructor until at last Moses closed the book.

This is very heavy work, Good Water, he had translated Shasa's name directly into the Ovambo, worse than spreading ore in the summer.

I will work on it later, and he went into the single-roomed cottage, placed the book in his locker and came back with a roll of newspaper.

Let us try this. He offered the paper to Shasa, who spread it on his lap. It was poor quality yellow newsprint and the ink smudged onto his fingers. The name on the top of the page was Umlomo Wa Bantu, and Shasa translated it without difficulty: The Mouth of the Black Nations', and he glanced down the columns of print. The articles were mostly in English, though there were a few in the vernacular.

Moses pointed out the editorial, and they started working through it.

What is the African National Congress? Shasa was puzzled. And who is Jabavu? Eagerly the Ovambo began to explain, and Shasa's interest turned to unease as he listened.

Jabavu is the father of the Bantu, of all the tribes, of all the black people. The African National Congress is the herder who guards our cattle. I don't understand. Shasa shook his head. He did not like the direction that the discussion was taking, and he began to squirm as Moses quoted: Your cattle are gone, my people Go rescue them!

Go rescue them!

Leave your breechloader And turn instead to the pen.

Take paper and ink, For that will be your shield.

Your rights are going So take up your pen Load it with ink And do battle with the pen.

That is politics, Shasa interrupted him. Blacks don't take part in politics. That's white men's business. This was the cornerstone of the South African way of life.

The glow went out of Moses expression and he lifted the newspaper off Shasa's lap and stood up.

I will return your book to you when I have read it. He avoided Shasa's eyes and went back into the cottage.

on the Monday Twenty-man-Jones stopped Shasa at the main gate of the weathering grounds. I think you have learned all there is to know about weathering, Master Shasa. It's about time we moved you along to the mill house and washing gear!

And as they followed the railway tracks up to the main plant, walking beside one of the cocopans which was full of the crumbling weathered ore, Twenty-man-Jones remarked: It is just as well not to become too familiar with the black labourers, Master Shasa, you will find they tend to take advantage if you do. Shasa was puzzled for a moment, then he laughed. Oh, you mean Moses. He isn't a Labourer, he is a boss-boy, and he is jolly bright, sir. A bit too bright for his own good, Twenty-man-Jones agreed bitterly. The bright ones are always the malcontents and trouble-stirrers. Give me an honest dumb nigger every time. Your friend Moses is trying to organize a black mineworkers union. Shasa knew from his grandfather and his mother that Bolsheviks and trade unionists were the most dreaded monsters, intent on tearing down the framework of civilized society.

He was appalled to learn that Moses was one of these, but Twenty-man-Jones was going on: We also suspect that he is at the centre of a nice little IDB operation. IDB was the other monster of civilized existence, illicit Diamond Buying, the trade in stolen diamonds, and Shasa was revolted by the idea that his friend could be both a trade unionist and an illicit dealer.

Yet Twenty-man-jones next words depressed him. I am afraid Mister Moses will head the list of those we will be laying off at the end of the month. He is a dangerous man.

We will simply have to get shot of him. They are getting rid of him simply because the two of us are friends. Shasa saw through it. 'It's because of me. He was swamped with a sense of guilt, and guilt was followed almost immediately by anger. Quick words leapt to his tongue. He wanted to cry, It's not fair! But before he spoke he looked at Twenty-man-Jones and knew intuitively that any defence he attempted of Moses would only seal the bossboy's fate.

He shrugged. You know what is best, sir, he agreed, and he saw the slight relaxation in the set of the old man's shoulders.

Mater, he thought, I will talk to Mater, and then, with intense frustration, If only I could do it myself, if only I could say what must be done. And then it dawned upon him that this was what his mother had meant when she spoke of power. The ability to charge and direct the orders of existence that surrounded him.

Power, he whispered to himself. One day I will have power. Enormous power. The work in the mill house was more exacting and interesting. The friable weathered ore was loaded into the bins and mg.

then fed through the hoppers into the rollers which crushed it to the correct consistency for the washing gear. The machinery was massive and powerful, the din almost deafening as the ore tumbled out of the hoppers into the feed chute and was sucked into the spinning steel rollers with a continuous roar. One hundred and fifty tons an hour; it went in one end as chalky lumps the size of ripe watermelons and poured out the far end as gravel and dust.

Annalisa's brother, Stoffel, who had on Shasa's last visit to the H'ani adjusted the timing on his old Ford and who was also the skilled mimic of bird calls, was now an apprentice in the mill house. He was delegated to show Shasa around, and undertook the assignment with gusto and relish.

You have to be goddamned careful with the mucking settings on the rollers or you crush the bloody diamonds to powder. Stoffel emphasized his newly acquired manliness and authority with oaths and obscenity.

Come on, Shasa, I'll show you the grease points. All points have to be grease-gunned at the beginning of every shift. He crawled under the bank of thundering rollers, shouting into Shasa's ear to make himself heard. Last month one of the other apprentices got his fucking arm in the bearing. It pulled it off like a chicken's wing, man. You should have seen the blood. Ghoulishly he pointed out the dried stains on the concrete floor and galvanized walls. Man, I tell you, he squirted blood like a garden hose. Stoffel climbed the steel catwalk like a monkey and they looked down on the roller mill tables. 'One of the Ovambo kaffirs fell off here, right smack into the ore bin, there wasn't even a scrap of bone bigger than your finger left of him when he came out the other end of the rollers. Ja, man, it's a bloody dangerous job, he told Shasa proudly. You've got to keep on your mucking toes all the time. When the mine hooter blew the lunch hour he led Shasa around to the shady side of the mill house and they perched comfortably on the ventilator housing. Under the sanction of the. work place they could associate quite openly, and Shasa felt grown-up and important in his blue workman's overalls as he opened the lunch box that the chef at the bungalow had sent down for him.

Chicken and tongue sandwiches and jam roly-poly, he checked the contents. Do you want some, Stoffel? No, man. Here comes my sister with my lunch. And Shasa lost all interest in his own lunch box.

Annalisa was pedalling down the avenue on a black-framed Rudge with the nest of canteens dangling from the handlebars. It was the first time that he had seen her since the meeting at the pumphouse, though he had looked for her each day since then. She had tucked her skirts into her bloomers to keep them clear of the chain. She stood up on the pedals and her legs pumped rhythmically as she came through the gates of the mill house and the wind flattened the thin stuff of her dress against the front of her body.

Her breasts were disproportionately large for her slim brown limbs.

Shasa watched her with total fascination. She became aware of him, sitting beside her brother, and her entire bearing changed. She dropped back onto the saddle and squared her shoulders, lifting one hand from the handlebars to try and smooth the windblown tangle of her hair. She braked the Rudge, stepped down off the pedals and propped the machine against the bottom of the ventilator housing.

What's for lunch, Lisa? Stoffel Botha demanded.

Sausage and mash. She handed the canteens up to him.

Same as always. The sleeves of her dress were cut back and when she lifted her arms Shasa saw the bush of coarse blond hair in her armpits tangled and wet with perspiration and he crossed his legs quickly.

Sis, man! Stoffel registered his disgust. It's always sausage and mash! Next time I'll ask Ma to cook fillet steak and mushrooms. She lowered her arms and Shasa realized he was staring but could not stop himself. She pulled the opening at the neck of her blouse closed and he saw a faint flush under the suntanned skin at her throat, but she had not yet looked directly at him.

Thanks for nothing, Stoffel dismissed her, but she lingered.

You can have some of mine, Shasa offered.

I'll swop you, Stoffel offered generously, and Shasa glanced into the canteen and saw the lumpy potato mash swimming in thin greasy gravy.

I'm not hungry. He spoke to the girl for the first time.

Would you like a sandwich, Annalisar She smoothed the skirt over her hips and looked directly at him at last. Her eyes slanted like a wild cat's, and she grinned slyly.

When I want something from you, Shasa Courtney, I will whistle for it, like this. She pouted her lips into a rosy cupid's bow and whistled like a snake charmer, at the same time slowly raising her forefinger in an unmistakably obscene gesture.

Stoffel let out a delighted guffaw and punched Shasa's arm, Man, she's got the hots for you! While Shasa blushed scarlet, and sat speechless with shock, Annalisa turned away deliberately and picked up the bicycle. She went out through the gates standing on the pedals and swinging the Rudge from side to side under her so that her tight round buttocks oscillated with each stroke.

That evening as he turned Prester John onto the pipe track Shasa's pulse started to gallop with anticipation, and as he approached the pumphouse he slowed the pony to a walk, afraid of disappointment, reluctant to turn the corner of the building.

Yet he was still not prepared for the shock when he saw her. She was draped languidly against one of the stanchions of the pipeline, and Shasa was speechless as she came slowly upright and sauntered to the head of his pony without looking up at the rider.

She held the cheek strap of his halter and crooned to the pony. 'What a pretty boy- The pony blew through his nostrils, and shifted his weight. What a lovely soft nose. She stroked his muzzle with a lingering touch.

would you like a little kiss then, my pretty boy. She pursed her lips, pink and soft and moist, and glanced up at Shasa before she leaned forward and deliberately kissed the pony's muzzle, slipping her arms around his neck. She held the kiss for long seconds and then laid her cheek against the pony's cheek. Beginning to sway, humming softly in her throat and rocking her hips gently, she at last looked up at Shasa with those sly slanting eyes.

He was struggling to find something to say, confused by the rush of his emotions, and she moved slowly to the pony's shoulder and stroked his flank.

So strong. Her hand brushed Shasa's thigh lightly, almost unintentionally, and then came back more deliberately and she was no longer looking at his face. He could not cover himself, could not hide his violent reaction to her touch, and suddenly she let out a shocking screech of laughter and stood back with both hands on her hips.

Are you going to camp out, Shasa Courtney? she demanded, and he was puzzled and embarrassed. He shook his head dumbly.

Then what are you putting up a tent for? She hooted, gazing shamelessly at the front of his breeches and he doubled up awkwardly in the saddle. With a disconcerting change of mood, she seemed to take pity on him and she went back to the pony's head and led him along the track, giving Shasa a chance to recover his composure.

What did my brother tell you about me? she asked, without looking round.

Nothing, he assured her.

Don't believe what he says. She was unconvinced. He always tries to make out bad things about me. Did he tell you about Fourie, the driver? Everybody at the mine knew how Gerhard Fourie's wife had caught the two of them in the cab of his truck after the Christmas party. Fourie's wife was older than Annalisa's mother, but she had blackened both the girl's eyes and torn her only good dress to tatters.

He didn't tell me anything, Shasa reiterated stoutly, and then with interest, What happened? Nothing, she said quickly. It was all lies. And then, with another change of direction, Would you like me to show you something? Yes, please. Shasa answered with alacrity.

He had an inkling of what it might be.

Give me an arm. She came to his stirrup and he leaned down and they hooked elbows. He swung her up and she was light and strong. She sat behind him astride the pony's rump and slid both arms around Shasa's waist.

Take the path to the left. She directed him and they rode in silence for ten minutes.

How old are you." she asked at last.

Almost fifteen. She stretched the truth a little and she said, 'I'll be sixteen in two months. if there had been any doubts as to who was in charge, this declaration effectively settled it. Shasa deferred to her and she felt it in his carriage.

She pressed her breasts to his back as though to emphasize her control and they were big and rubbery hard and burned him through his thin cotton shirt.

Where are we going, he asked after another long silence.

They had by-passed the bungalow.

Hush up! I'll show you when we get there. The track had narrowed and become rougher. Shasa doubted anybody had passed this way in months, other than the small wild beasts that still lived this close to the mine.

Finally it petered out altogether against the base of the cliff, and Annaliss slid down from the pony's back.

Leave Your horse here. He tethered the pony and looked around him with interest.

He had never been so far along the base of the cliffs. They must be three miles from the bungalow at least.

Below them the scree slope plunged downwards at a steep angle, and the ground was Tiven with gorges and ravines, all of them choked with rank thorny undergrowth.

Come on, Annalisa ordered. We haven't got Much time.

A it will be dark soon. She ducked under a branch and started down the slope.

Hey" Shasa cautioned her. You can't go down there.

You'll hurt Yourself.

"You're scared, she mocked.

I am not. The taunt goaded him onto the rock-strewn slope and they climbed downwards. Once Annalisa paused to pluck a spray of yellow flowers from a thorn bush, then they went on, helping each other over the bad places, crouching under the thorn branches, teetering on the boulders and hopping across the gaps like a pair of rock rabbits until they

reached the bottom of the ravine and paused to catch their breath.

Shasa bent backwards from the waist and stared up at the cliff that towered above them, sheer as a fortress wall, but Annalisa tugged his arm to gain his attention.

It's a secret. You have to swear an oath not to tell anybody, especially not my brother. All right, I swear. You have to do it properly. Lift your right hand and put the other on your heart. Solemnly she led him through the oath, and then took his hand and drew him to a lichenvered pile of boulders. Kneel down! He obeyed, and she carefully pulled aside a leafy branch that screened a niche amongst the boulders. Shasa gasped and pulled back, coming half to his feet. The niche was shaped like a shrine. There was a collection of empty glass jars arranged on the floor but the wild flowers in them had withered and turned brown. Beyond the floral offering a pile of white bones had been carefully arranged in a small pyrafind and Surmounting this was a human skull, with gaping eye sockets and yellow teeth.

Who is it" Shasa whispered, his eyes wide with superstitious awe.

The witch of the mountain. Annalisa took his hand. I found her bones lying here, and I made this magic place. How do you know she's a witch? Shasa had a bad attack of the creeps by now, and his whisper shook and cracked.

She told me so. That raised such frightful images that he did not question her further; skulls and bones were creepy enough, voices from beyond were a hundred times worse, and the hairs at the back of- his neck and along his arms itched and stood erect. lie watched while she changed the withered flowers for the fresh yellow acacia blossom and then sat back on her ankles and took his hand again.

The witch will grant you one wish, she whispered, and he thought about it.

What do you want? she tugged his hand, Can I wish for anything? Yes, anything, she nodded, watching his face eagerly.

Staring at the bleached skull his awe faded; he was suddenly aware of a new sensation. Something seemed to reach out to him, a sensation of warmth and familiar comfort that he had known before only as an infant when his mother held him to her bosom.

There were still small pieces of dried scalp attached to the dome of the skull, like brown parchment, and tiny peppercorns of black hair, soft furry little balls like those on the head of the tame Bushman who herded the milk cows at the way station on the road from Windhoek.

Anything? he repeated. I can wish for anything? Yes, anything you want. Annalisa leaned against his side, and she was soft and warm and her body smelled of fresh sweet young sweat.

Shasa leaned forward and touched the skull on its white bony forehead, and the sense of warmth and comfort was stronger. He was aware of a benign feeling, of love, that was not too strong a word, yes, of love, as though he were being overlooked by someone or something that cared for him very deeply.

I wish, he said softly, almost dreamily, I wish for enormous power. He imagined a prickling sensation in the fingertips that touched the skull, like the discharge of static electricity, and he jerked his hand away sharply.

Annalisa exclaimed in exasperation and pulled her body away from him at the same time. That's a silly wish. She was dearly piqued, and he could not understand why. You are a stupid boy, and the witch won't grant a stupid wish like that. She flounced to her feet and drew the screening branch over the niche. It's late. We must go back. Shasa did not want to leave this place, and he lingered.

Annalisa called from up the slope. Come on, it will be dark in an hour. When he reached the path again she was sitting propped against the rock wall of the cliff facing him.

I've hurt myself. She said it like an accusation. They were both flushed and panting from the climb.

I'm sorry, he gasped. How did you hurt yourself? She pulled the hem of her skirt halfway up her thigh. One of the red-tipped wait-a-bit thorns had rowelled her, raising a long red scratch across the smooth buttery skin of her inner thigh. It had barely broken the skin, but a line of blood droplets had welled up, like a necklace of tiny bright rubies.

He stared at it as though mesmerized and she sank back against the rock, lifted her knees and spread her thighs, holding the bunch of her skirts into her crotch.

Put some spit on it, she ordered.

Obediently he knelt between her feet and wet his forefinger.

,your finger is dirty, she admonished him.

what shall I do then? He was at a loss.

With your tongue, put spit on it with your tongue. He leaned forward and touched the wound with the tip of his tongue. Her blood had a strange salty metallic taste as he licked it.

She placed one hand on the nape of his neck and stroked the dense dark curl of his hair.

Yes, like that, clean it, she murmured. Her fingers twisted into his hair and she held his head, pressing his face to her skin, and then deliberately directed him higher, raising her skirt slowly with her free hand as his mouth travelled upwards.

Then peering between the spread of her thighs, he saw that she was sitting on a piece of her clothing, a scrap of white cloth printed with pink roses, and with a tingle of shock he realized that in the few minutes that she had been alone she must have removed her panties and spread them as a cushion on the soft moss-covered earth. She was naked under the skirt.

Shasa woke with a start and he could not think where he was. The ground was hard under his back and a pebble was digging into his shoulder, there was a weight across his chest making it difficult for him to breathe. He was cold, and it was dark. Prester John stamped and snorted and he saw the

4i pony's head silhouetted against the stars.

Suddenly he remembered. Annalisa's leg was thrown over his and her face was against his throat; she sprawled half across his chest. He pushed her off so violently that she woke with a cry.

It's dark! he said stupidly. They'll be out looking for us by now! He tried to stand but his breeches were around his knees.

He remembered vividly the practised way that she had unbuttoned them and worked them over his hips. He yanked them up and fumbled with his fly.

We've got to get back. My mother- Annalisa was on her feet beside him, hopping on one leg as she tried to find the opening of her panties with her bare foot. Shasa looked at the stars. Orion was on the horizon.

It's after nine o'clock, he said gloomily.

You should have stayed awake, she whined, and put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself. My Pa will lather me. He said next time he'd kill me. Shasa shrugged off her hand. He wanted to get away from her yet he knew he could not.

It was your fault. She stooped and grabbed her panties at the ankles, hoisted them to her waist and then settled her skirts over them. I'm going to tell Pa. that it was your fault.

He'll take the sjambok to me this time. Oh! he'll whop the skin off me. Shasa unhitched the pony and his hands were shaking. He could not think clearly, he was still half asleep and groggy.

I won't let him. His gallantry was half-hearted and unconvincing. I won't let him hurt you. It seemed only to infuriate her. What can you do? You're only a baby. The word triggered something else in her mind.

What will happen if you've given me a baby, hey? It will be

a bastard; did you think of that while you were sticking that thing of yours into me? she demanded waspishly.

Shasa was stung by the unfairness of her accusation. You showed me how. I wouldn't have done it if you hadn't. A fat lot of good that's going to do us., She was weeping now. I wish we could just run away., The notion held a definite appeal for Shasa, and he discarded it only reluctantly. Come on, he said, and boosted her up onto Prester John's back and then swung up behind her.

They saw the torches of the search parties down on the plain below them as they turned the shoulder of the mountain. There were headlights on the road also, moving slowly, obviously searching the verges, and faintly they heard the shouts of the searchers, calling for them as they moved about in the forest far below.

My Pa's going to kill me this time. He'll know what we've been doing, she snuffled and sobbed and her self-pity irritated him. He had long ago given up trying to comfort her.

How will he know? he snapped. He wasn't there. You don't think you were the first one I've done it with, she demanded, seeking to injure him. I've done it with plenty of others, and Pa has caught me twice. Oh, he'll know all right., At the thought of her performing those strangely marvelous tricks of hers with others, Shasa felt a hot rush of jealousy which was gradually cooled by reason.

Well! he pointed out. If he knows about all the others, it isn't going to do you much good to try to put the blame on me. She had trapped herself and she let out another brokenhearted sob, and was still weeping theatrically when they met the search party coming on foot along the pipe track.

Shasa and Annalisa. sat on opposite sides of the bungalow's drawing-room, instinctively keeping as far from each other as possible.

As they heard the Daimler pull up outside in a flare of headlights and crunch of gravel, Annalisa began to weep again, snuffling and rubbing her eyes to work up a few more tears.

They heard Centaine's quick light tread across the verandah, followed by Twenty-man-jones more deliberate storklike steps.

Shasa stood up and held his hands in front of him in the attitude of the penitent as Centaine stopped in the doorway.

She was dressed in jodhpurs and riding-boots and a tweed hacking jacket, with a yellow scarf knotted at her throat.

She was flushed, and relieved and furious as an avenging angel.

Annahsa saw her face and let out a howl of anguish, only half acting.

Shut your mouth, girl, Centaine told her quietly. Or I'll see you get good reason to blubber. She turned to Shasa.

Are either of you hurt? No, Mater. He hung his head.

Prester John? Oh, he's in good fettle. So, that's it then. She did not have to elaborate. Dr Twenty-man-Jones, will you take this young lady down to her father? I have no doubt that he will know how to deal with her. Centaine had spoken briefly to the father only an hour before, big and bald and paunchy with tattoos on his muscled arms, belligerent and red-eyed, reeking of cheap brandy and opening and closing his hairy paws as he mouthed his intentions towards his only daughter.

Twenty-man-Jones took the girl by her wrist, pulled her to her feet and led her snivelling towards the door. As he passed Centaine, her expression softened and she touched his arm.

What ever would I do without you, Dr Twenty-man-jones? she asked quietly.

I suspect that you would get along very well on your own, Mrs Courtney, but I'm glad I could help. He dragged Annalisa from the room and they heard the whirr of the Daimler's engine.

Centaine's expression hardened again and she turned back to Shasa.

He fidgeted under her scrutiny.

You've been disobedient, she told him. I warned you away from that little poule. Yes, Mater. She's been with half the men on the mine. We'll have to take you to a doctor when we get back to Windhoek. He shuddered and glanced down at himself involuntarily at the thought of a host of disgusting microbes crawling over his most intimate flesh.

Disobedience is bad enough, but what have you done that is truly unforgivable? she demanded.

Shasa could think of at least a dozen trespasses without really extending himself.

You've been stupid, Centaine said. You've been stupid enough to get caught out. That is the worst sin. You've made a laughing stock of yourself with everybody on the mine.

How will you ever be able to lead and command when you cheapen yourself like this? I didn't think of that, Mater. I didn't think of anything much. It just all sort of happened. Well, think of it now, she told him. While you are taking a long hot bath with half a bottle of Lysol in it, think hard about it. Goodnight. Goodnight, Mater. He came to her and after a moment she offered her cheek. I'm sorry, Mater. He kissed her cheek. I'm sorry I made you ashamed of me. She wanted to throw her arms around him and pull his beautiful beloved head to her and hold him hard and tell him that she would never be ashamed of him.

Goodnight, Shasa, she said, standing cool and erect until he left the room and she heard his footsteps drag disconsolately down the passage. Then her shoulders slumped.

Oh, my darling, oh my baby, she whispered. Suddenly, for the first time in many years, she felt the need for an opiate. She crossed quickly to the massive stinkwood cabinet and poured cognac from one of the heavy decanters and took a mouthful. The spirit was peppery on her tongue and the fumes brought tears to her eyes. She swallowed it down and set the glass aside.

That isn't going to help much, she decided, and crossed to her desk. She sat down in the wingbacked buttoned leather chair and she felt small and frail and vulnerable. For Centaine, it was an alien emotion and it frightened her.

It's happened, she whispered. He is becoming a man. Suddenly she hated the girl. The dirty little harlot. He isn't ready for that yet. Too early she has let the demon out, the demon of his de Thiry blood. She was intimate with that same demon, for it had plagued her all her life. That wild A passionate de Thiry blood.

Oh my darling. She was going to lose some part of him now, had already lost it, she realized. Loneliness came to her like a ravening beast that had lain in ambush for her all these years.

There had only been two men who might have assuaged that loneliness. Shasa's father had died in his frail machine of canvas and wood while she had stood by helplessly and watched him blacken and burn. The other man had placed himself beyond her reach for ever with one brutal senseless act. Michael Courtney and Lothar De La Rey, both dead to her now.

Since then there had been lovers, many lovers, brief transient affairs experienced only at the level of the flesh, a mere antidote for the boil of her blood. None of them had been allowed to pass into that deep place of her soul. But now the beast of loneliness burst through those guarded portals and laid waste her secret places. 1A If only there was someone, she lamented as she had done only once before in her life, when she lay upon the child-bed on which she have given birth to Lothar De La Rey's goldheaded bastard. if only there was somebody I could love and who would love me in return. She leaned forward in the big leather chair and picked up the silver-framed photograph, the photograph that she carried with her wherever she travelled, and studied the face of the young man in the centre of the group of fliers.

For the

first time she realized that over the years the picture had faded and yellowed and the features of Michael Courtney, Shasa's father, had blurred. She stared at the handsome young face and tried desperately to make the picture clearer and crisper in her own memory, but it seemed to smear and recede even further from her.

Oh Michael! she whispered. It was all so long ago. Forgive me. Please forgive me. I have tried to be strong and brave.

I've tried for your sake and the sake of your son, but She set the frame back upon the desk and crossed to the window. She stared out into the darkness. I'm going to lose my baby, she thought. And then one day I will be alone and old and ugly, and I'm afraid. She found she was shivering, hugging her own arms, but then her reaction was swift and unequivocal.

There is no time for weakness and self-pity on the journey that you have chosen. She steeled herself, standing small and erect and alone in the silent darkened house. You have to go on. There is no turning back, no faltering, you have to go on to the end. Where is Stoffel Botha? Shasa demanded of the mill house supervisor when the mine hooter blew to signal the beginning of the lunch hour. Why isn't he here? Who knows? The supervisor shrugged. I had a note from the main office saying he wasn't coming. They didn't tell me why. Perhaps he has been fired. I don't know. I don't care, he was a cocky little bastard, anyway. And for the rest of the shift Shasa tried to suppress his feeling of guilt by concentrating on the run of ore through the thundering rollers.

When the final hooter blew, and the cry of Shahile! It has struck! was shouted from one gang of black labourers to the next, Shasa mounted Prester John and turned his head towards the avenue of cottages in which Annalisa's family lived. He knew he was risking his mother's wrath, but a defiant sense of chivalry urged him on. He had to find out how much damage and unhappiness he had caused.

However, at the gates of the mill house he was distracted.

Moses, the boss-boy from the weathering grounds, stepped in front of Prester John and took his head.

I see you, Good Water, he greeted Shasa in his soft deep voice.

Oh Moses. Shasa smiled with pleasure, his other troubles forgotten for the moment. I was going to visit you. I have brought your book. The Ovambo handed the thick copy of History of England up to him.

You couldn't possibly have read it, Shasa protested. Not so soon. it took even me months. I will never read it, Good Water. I am leaving the H'ani Mine. I go with the trucks to Windhoek tomorrow morning. Oh no! Shasa swung down out of the saddle and gripped his arm. Why do you want to go, Moses? Shasa feigned ignorance out of a sense of his guilt and complicity.

It is not for me to want or not to want. The tall boss-boy shrugged. Many men are leaving on the trucks tomorrow.

Doctela has chosen them, and the lady your mother has explained the reason and given us a month's wages. A man like me does not ask questions, Good Water. He smiled, a sad bitter grimace. Here is your book. Keep it. Shasa pushed it back. It is my gift to you. Very well, Good Water. I will keep it to remind me of you. Stay in peace. He turned away.

Moses Shasa called him back and then could find 1, nothing to say. He thrust out his hand impulsively and the Ovambo stepped back from it. A white man and a black man did not shake hands.

Go in peace, Shasa insisted, and Moses glanced around almost furtively before he accepted the grip. His skin was strangely cool. Shasa wondered if all black skin was like that.

We are friends, Shasa said, prolonging the contact. We are, aren't we? I do not know.

What do you mean? I do not know if it is possible for us to be friends. Gently he freed his hand and turned away. He did not look back at Shasa as he skirted the security fence and went down to the compound.

The convoy of heavy trucks ground across the plains, keeping open intervals to avoid the dust thrown up by the receding vehicle. The dust rose in a feathery spray, high in p the still heated air like the yellow smoke from a bush fire burning on a wide front.

Gerhard Fourie, in the lead truck, slumped at the wheel with his belly hanging into his lap; it had forced open the buttons of his shirt, exposing the hairy pit of his navel. Every few seconds he glanced up from the road to the rearview mirror above his head.

The back of the truck was piled with the baggage and furniture of the families, both black and white, that had been laid off from the mine. On top of this load were perched the unfortunate owners. The women had knotted scarves over their hair for the dust; they clutched their young children as the trucks bounced and swayed over the uneven tracks. The elder children had made nests for themselves amongst the baggage.

Fourie reached up and readjusted the mirror slightly, centring the image of the girl behind him. She was wedged between an old tea chest and a shabby suitcase of imitation leather. She had propped a blanket roll behind her back and she was dozing, her streaky blond head nodding and lolling to the truck's motion. One knee was slightly raised, her short skirt rucked up and as she fell asleep so her knee dropped to one side and Fourie caught a glimpse of her underpants, patterned with pink roses, wedged between those smooth young thighs. Then the girl jerked awake and closed her legs and rolled on her side.

Fourie was sweating, not merely from the heat; drops of it glinted in the dark unshaven stubble that covered his jowls. He took the stub of cigarette from between his lips with shaky fingers and inspected it.

Saliva had soaked through the rice-paper and stained it with yellow tobacco juice. He flicked it out of the side window and lit another, driving with one hand and watching the mirror, waiting for the girl to move again. He had sampled that young flesh, he knew how sweet and warm and available it was, and he wanted it again with a sickness of desire. He was prepared to take any risk for just another taste of it.

Ahead of him the clump of grey camel-thorn trees swam out of the heat mirage. He had travelled this road so often that the journey had its landmarks and rituals. He checked his pocket watch and grunted. They were twenty minutes late on this stage. But then the trucks were all overloaded with this throng of newly unemployed and their pathetic possessions.

He pulled the truck off the track beside the trees and climbed stiffly out onto the running-board and shouted: All right, everybody. Pinkie pause. Women on the left, men on the right. Anybody who isn't back in ten minutes gets left behind. He was the first back to the truck, and he busied himself at the left-hand rear wheel, making a show of checking the valve but watching for the girl.

She came out from amongst the trees, smoothing her skirts. She looked petulant and hot and grubby with floury dust. But when she saw Fourie watching her, she tossed her head arid swung her tight little buttocks and ostentatiously ignored him.

Annalisa, he whispered, as she raised one bare foot to climb over the tailboard of the truck beside him.

Your mother's, Gerhard Fourie! she hissed back at him.

You just leave me alone, or I'll tell my Pa! At any other time she might have responded more amiably, but her thighs and buttocks and the small of her back were still crisscrossed with purple weals from where her father had lambasted her. Temporarily she had lost interest in the male sex.

,I want to talk to you, Fourie insisted.

Talk, ha! I know what you want. Meet me outside the camp tonight, he pleaded.

Your bollocks in a barrel. She jumped up into the truck and his stomach turned over as he saw the full length of those slim brown legs.

Annalisa, I'll give you money. He was desperate; the sickness was burning him up.

Armalisa paused and looked down at him thoughtfully.

His offer was a revelation that opened a chink into a new world of fascinating possibilities. Up to that moment it had never occurred to her that a man might give her money to do something which she enjoyed more than eating or sleeping.

How much? she asked with interest.

A pound, he offered.

It was a great deal of money, more than she had ever had in her hand at any one time, but her mercenary instinct was aroused, she wanted to see how far this could be taken. So she tossed her head and flounced, watching him out of the corner of her eye.

Two pounds, Fourie whispered urgently, and Annalisa's spirits soared. Two whole pounds! She felt bold and pretty and borne along by good fortune. The stripes across her back and legs were fading. She slanted her eyes in that sly knowing expression that maddened him and she saw the sweat start on his chin and his lower lip trembled.

It emboldened her even further, and she drew breath and held it, and then whispered daringly: Five pounds! She ran the tip of her tongue around her lips, shocked by her own courage in naming such an enormous sum. It was almost as much as her father earned in a week.

Fourie blanched and wavered. Three, he blurted, but she sensed how close he was to agreement and she drew back affronted.

You are a smelly old man. She filled her voice with scorn and turned away.

All right! All right! he capitulated. Five pounds. She grinned at him victoriously. She had discovered and entered a new world of endless riches and pleasure.

She put the tip of her finger in her mouth. And if you want that too, it will cost you another pound. There were no limits to her daring now.

The moon was only days from full and it washed the desert with molten platinum, while the shadows along the ravine walls were leaden blue smudges. The camp sounds carried faintly along the ravine, somebody was chopping firewood, a bucket clanged and the women's voices at the cooking fires were like bird sounds heard from afar. Closer at hand a pair of prowling jackal cried, the odours from the cooking pots exciting them into their wild, wailing, almost agonized chorus.

Fourie squatted against the wall of the ravine and lit a cigarette, watching the ravine along which the girl must come. The flare of the match illuminated his fleshy unshaven features and he was so intent that he was totally unaware of the predatory eyes that watched him out of the blue moon shadows close by. His whole existence centred on the arrival of the girl and already he was breathing with eager little grunts of anticipation.

She was like a wraith in the moonlight, silvery and ethereal, and he heaved himself to his feet and crushed out the cigarette.

Annalisa! he called, his voice low and quivering with the need of her.

She stopped just out of reach before him, and when he lunged for her she danced away lightly and laughed with a mocking tinkle.

Five pounds, Meneer, she reminded him, and drew nearer as he fumbled the crumpled bank notes out of his back pocket. She took them and held them up to the moon. Then, satisfied, tucked them away in her clothing and stepped boldly up to him.

He seized her around the waist and covered her mouth with his wet lips. She broke away at last, laughing breathlessly, and held his wrist as he reached under her skirt.

Do you want the other pound's worther It's too much, he panted. 'I haven't got that much. Ten shillings, then, she offered, and touched the front of his body with a small cunning hand.

Half a crown, he gasped. That's all I have got. And she stared at him, still touching him, and saw she could get no MOre out of him.

All right, give it to me, she agreed, and hid the coin before she went down on her knees in front of him as though for his blessing. He placed both hands on her curly sun-streaked head and drew her towards him, bowing his head over her and then closing his eyes.

Something hard was thrust into his ribs from behind with such force that the wind was driven from his lungs and a voice grated in his ear.

Tell the little bitch to disappear. The voice was low and dangerous and dreadfully familiar.

The girl leaped to her feet, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. She stared for an instant over Fourie's shoulder with wide terrified eyes, then whirled and raced up the ravine towards the camp on long flying legs.

Fourie fumbled clumsily with his clothing and turned to face the man who stood behind him with the Mauser rifle pointed at his belly.

De La Rey! he blurted.

Were you expecting somebody else? No! No! Fourie shook his head wildly. It's just, so soon. Since last they had met Fourie had had time to repent of their bargain. Cowardice had won the long battle over avarice, and because he wanted it so he had convinced himself that Lothar De La Rey's scheme was like so many others that he had dreamed about, merely one of those fantasies with which those for ever doomed to poverty and futile labour consoled themselves.

He had expected, and hoped, never to hear of Lothar De La Rey again. But now he stood before him, tall and deadly with his head shining like a beacon in the moonlight and topaz lights glinting in those leopard eyes.

Soon? Lothar asked. So soon? It's been weeks, my old and dear friend. It all took longer to arrange than I expected. Then Lothar's voice hardened as he asked, Have you taken the diamond shipment into Windhoek yet? No, not yet, Fourie broke off, and silently reviled himself. That would have been his escape. He should have said Yes! I took it in myself last week. But it was done, and miserably he hung his head and concentrated on fastening the last buttons of his breeches. Those few words spoken too hastily might yet cost him a lifetime in prison and he was afraid.

When will the shipment go in? Lothar placed the muzzle of the Mauser under Fourie's chin and lifted his face to the moon. He wanted to watch the man's eyes. He did not trust him.

They have delayed it. I don't know how long. I heard some rumour that they have to send in a big package of stones. Why? Lothar asked softly, and Fourie shrugged.

I just heard it will be a big package. As I warned you, it's because they are going to close the mine. Lothar watched his face carefully. He sensed that the man was wavering. He had to steel him. 'It will be the last shipment, and then you will be out of work. just like those poor bastards you have on your trucks. Fourie nodded glumly. Yes, they have fired them. It will be you next, old friend. And you told me what a good family man you are, how much you love your family. Then no more money to feed your children, no money to clothe them, not even a few pounds to pay the little girls for their clever tricks. Man, you mustn't talk like that., ,YOU do what we agreed and there will be all the little girls you want, any way you want them. Don't talk like that. It's dirty, man. You know the arrangements. You know what to do just as soon as they tell you when the shipment is going in. Fourie nodded but Lothar insisted. Tell me about it.

Repeat it to me. And he listened while Fourie reluctantly recited his instructions, correcting him once on a detail, and at last smiled with satisfaction.

Don't let us down, old friend. I do not like to be disappointed He leaned close to Fourie and stared into his eyes, then quite suddenly turned and slipped away into the moon shadows.

Fourie shuddered and stumbled away up the ravine towards the camp like a drunkard. He was almost there before he remembered that the girl had his money but had not completed her part of the bargain. He wondered if he could talk her into doing so at the next camp, and then morosely decided that his chances were not very good. Yet somehow it didn't seem so urgent now. The ice that Lothar De La Rey had injected into his blood seemed to have settled in his loins.

They rode through the open forest below the cliffs, and their mood was carefree and gay with anticipation of the days that lay ahead.

Shasa rode Prester John, with the 7mm Marmlicher sporting rifle in the leather scabbard under his left knee. It was a beautiful weapon, the butt and foregrip in choice selected walnut and the blue steel engraved and inlaid with silver and pure gold: hunting scenes exquisitely rendered and Shasahs name scripted in precious metal. The rifle had been a fourteenth birthday present from his grandfather.

Centaine rode her grey stallion, a magnificent animal. His hide was marbled with black in a lacy pattern across his shoulders and croup, while his mane and muzzle and eye patches were also shiny jet black, in startling contrast to the snowy hide beneath. She Called him Nuage, Cloud, after a stallion that her father had given her when she was a girl.

Centaine wore an Australian cattleman's wide-brimmed hat and a kudu-skin gilet over her shirt. There was a yellow silk scarf knotted loosely at her throat, and a sparkle in her eyes.

,oh, Shasa, I feel like a schoolgirl playing hookey! We've got two whole days to ourselves. Race you to the spring! he challenged her, but Prester John was no match for Nuage and when they reached the spring Centaine had already dismounted and was holding the stallion's head to prevent him bloating himself with water.

They remounted and rode on deeper into the wilderness of the Kalahari. The further they went from the mine the less had been the intrusion of human presence, and the wild life more abundant and confident.

Centaine had been trained in the ways of the wild by the finest of all instructors, the wild Bushmen of the San, and she had lost none of her skills. It was not only the larger game that engaged her. She pointed out a pair of quaint little bat-eared foxes that Shasa would have missed. They were hunting grasshoppers in the sparse silver grass, pricking their enormous ears as they crept forward in a pantomime of stealth before the heroic leap onto their formidable prey.

They laid their tell-tale ears against their fluffy necks and flattened against the earth as the horses passed.

They startled a yellow sand-cat from an ant-bear burrow, and so intent was the big cat on its escape that it ran headlong into the sticky yellow web of a crab spider. The animal's comical efforts to wipe the web from its face with both front paws while at the same time continuing its flight had them both reeling in the saddle.

Once in the middle of the afternoon they spotted a herd of stately gemsbok trotting in single file across the horizon.

They held their heads high, the long straight slender horns transformed by distance and the angle of view into the single straight horn of the unicorn. The mirage turned them into strange long-legged monsters and then swallowed them up completely.

As the lowering sun painted the desert with shadow and fresh colour, Centaine picked out another small herd of spring-bok and pointed out a plump young ram to Shasa. We are only half a mile from camp and we need our dinner. Eagerly Shasa drew the Mannlicher from its scabbard.

Cleanly! she cautioned him. It troubled her a little to see how he enjoyed the chase.

She stayed back and watched him dismount. Using Prester John as a stalking horse, Shasa angled in towards the herd.

Prester John understood his role and kept himself between Shasa and the game, even pausing to graze when the springbok became restless, only moving closer when they had settled down again.

At two hundred paces Shasa squatted and braced his elbows on his knees, and Centaine felt a rush of relief as the springbok ram dropped instantly to the shot. She had once seen Lothar De La Rey gut shoot one of the lovely gazelle. The memory still haunted her.

When she rode up she saw that Shasa had hit the animal cleanly behind the shoulder, and the bullet had passed through the heart. She watched critically as Shasa dressed out the game the way Sir Garry had taught him.

Keep all the offal, she told him. The servants love the tripes. So he wrapped it in the wet skin and bundled the carcass up onto Prester John's back and tied it behind the saddle.

The camp was at the foot of the hills, below a seep well m the cliff which provided water. The previous day Centaine had sent three servants ahead with the pack horses and the camp was comfortable and secure.

They dined on grilled kebabs of liver, kidneys and heart, larded with laces of fat from the springbok's belly cavity.

Then they sat late at the fire, drinking coffee that tasted of wood smoke, talking quietly and watching the moon rise.

in the dawn they rode out, bundled in sheepskin jackets against the chill. They had not gone a mile before Centaine pulled up Nuage's head and leaned far out of the saddle to examine the earth.

What is it, Mater? Shasa was always sensitive to every nuance of her moods, and he saw how excited she was.

Come quickly, cheri. She pointed out the tracks in the soft earth. What do you make of these? Shasa swung down from the saddle and stooped over the sign.

Human beings? He was puzzled. But so small. Children? He looked up at her, and her shining expression gave him the clue.

Bushmen! he exclaimed. Wild Bushmen. Oh yes, she laughed. A pair of hunters. They are after a giraffe. Look! Their tracks are overlaying those of the quarry., Can we follow them, Mater? Can we? Now Shasa was as excited as she was.

Centaine agreed. Their spoor is only a day old. We can catch them if we hurry. Centaine rode on the spoor with Shasa trailing behind her, careful not to spoil the sign. He had never seen her work like this, taking it at a canter over the bad places where even his sharp young eyes could see nothing.

Look, a Bushman toothbrush. She pointed to a fresh twig, the end chewed to a brush, that lay discarded beside the spoor and they rode on.

This is where they first spotted the giraffe. How do you know that? They have strung their bows. There are the marks of the butts. The little men had pressed the tips of their bows against the earth to arch them.

Look, Shasa, now they have begun stalking. He could see no change in the spoor and said so.

Shorter and stealthier paces, weight forward on the toes, she explained, and then, a few hundred paces farther, Here they went down on their bellies, snake-crawling in for the kill. Here they went up on their knees to loose their arrows, and here they leapt to their feet to watch them strike. Twenty paces farther on she exclaimed, See how close they were to the quarry. This is where the giraffe felt the sting of the barbs and started to gallop, look how the hunters followed at a run, waiting for the poison of the arrows to take effect. They galloped along the line of the chase until Centaine rose in the stirrups and pointed ahead.

Vultures! Four or five miles ahead the blue of the heavens was dusted with a fine cloud of black specks. The cloud turned in slow vortex, high above the earth.

Slowly now, chgri, Centaine cautioned him. It could be dangerous if we frighten and panic them. They brought the horses down to a walk and rode up slowly to the site of the kill.

The giraffe's huge carcass, partly flayed and dismembered, lay on its side. Against the surrounding thorn bushes crude sun-shelters of thatch had been erected, and the bushes were festooned with strips of meat and ribbons of entrails set out to dry in the sun, the branches bowed under their weight.

The area was widely trodden by small feet.

They have brought the women and children to help cut up and carry, Centaine said.

Phew! It pongs terribly! Shasa screwed up his nose.

Where are they, anyway? Hiding. Centaine said. They saw us coming probably from five miles away. She stood up in the stirrups and swept the broad-brimmed hat from her head to show her face more clearly, and she called out in a strange guttural clicking tongue, turning slowly and repeating the message to every quarter of the silent brooding desert that encompassed them.

It's creepy. Shasa shivered involuntarily in the bright sunlight. Are you sure they are still here? They're watching us. They aren't in a hurry., Then a man rose out of the earth so close to them that the stallion shied and nodded his head nervously. The man wore only a loincloth of animal skin. He was a small, yet perfectly formed, with elegant and graceful limbs built for running. Hard muscle lay flat down his chest and sculpted his naked belly into the same ripples that the ebb tide leaves on a sandy beach.

He held his head proudly, and though he was clean-shaven, it was evident he was in the full flowering of his manhood.

His eyes had a Mongolian slant to the corners and his skin glowed with a marvelous amber colour seeming almost translucent in the sunlight.

He lifted his right hand in a greeting and a sign of peace and he called, birdlike and high, I see you, Nam Child, using Centaine's Bushman name, and she cried aloud for joy.

I see you also, Kwi! Who is with you? the bushman demanded.

This is my son, Good Water. As I told you when first we met, he was born in the holy place of your people and O'wa was his adopted grandfather and H'ani was his grandmother. Kwi, the Bushman, turned and called out into the empty desert. This is the truth, oh people of the San. This woman is Nam Child, our friend, and the boy is he of the legend.

Greet them Out of the seemingly barren earth against which they had hidden rose the little golden people of the San. With Kwi there were twelve of them; two men, Kwi and his brother Fat Kwi, their wives and the naked children. They had hidden with all the art of wild creatures, but now they crowded forward chirruping and clicking and laughing and Centaine swung down from the saddle to meet and embrace them, greeting each of them by name and finally picking up two of the toddlers and holding one on each hip.

How do you know them so well, Mater? Shasa wanted to know.

Kwi and his brother are related to O'wa, your adopted Bushman grandfather. I first met them when you were very small and we were developing the H'ani Mine. These are their hunting grounds. They passed the rest of that day with the clan, and when it was time to leave Centaine gave each of the women a handful of brass 7mm cartridges and they shrieked with joy and danced their thanks. The cartridges would be strung with ostrich shell beads into necklaces that would make them the envy of every other San woman they met in their wandering. Shasa gave Kwi his ivory-handled hunting knife and the little man tried the edge with his thumb and grunted with wonder as the skin parted, and he displayed the bloody thumb proudly to each of the women.

What a weapon I have now. Fat Kwi got Centaine's belt, and they left him studying the reflection of his own face in the polished brass buckle.

If you wish to visit us again, Kwi called after them, we will be at the mongongo tree grove near O'chee Pan until the rains break. 'They are so happy with so little, Shasa said, looking back at the tiny dancing figures.

They are the happiest people in this earth, Centaine agreed. 'But I wonder for how much longer. Did you truly live like that, Mater? Shasa asked. Like a Bushman? Did you really wear skins and eat roots? So did you, Shasa. Or rather you wore nothing at all just like one of those grubby little scamps. He frowned with the effort of memory. Sometimes I dream about a dark . place, like a cave with water that smoked. That was the thermal spring in which we bathed, and in which I found the first diamond of the H'ani Mine. I would like to visit it again, Mater. That isn't possible. He saw her mood change. The spring was in the centre of the H'ani pipe, in what is now the main excavation of the mine. We dug it out and destroyed the spring. They rode on in silence for a while. It was the holy place of the San, and yet, strangely, they did not seem to resent it when we, she hesitated over the word and then said it firmly, when we desecrated it. I wonder why. I mean if some strange race turned Westminster Abbey into a diamond mine. A long time ago I discussed it with Kwi. He said that the secret place belonged not to them but the spirits and if the spirits had not wanted it so they would not have let it happen. He said the spirits had lived there so long that perhaps they were bored and wished to move on to another home, just like the San do. I still cannot imagine you living like one of the San women, MatCT. Not you. I mean it just goes beyond imagination. it was hard, she said softly. It was hard beyond the telling of it, beyond imagination, and yet without that tempering and toughening I would not be what I am now. You see, Shasa, Out here in the desert when I had almost reached the breaking point I swore an oath. I swore that I, and my son, would never again be so deprived. I swore that we would never again have to stiffer those terrible extremes. But I was not with you then. Oh yes, she nodded. Oh yes, you were. I carrier] You within me on the Skeleton Coast and through the heat of the dune lands and you were part of that oath when I made it. We are creatures of the desert, my darling, and we will survive and prosper when others fail and fall. Remember that. Remember it well, Shasa, my darling. Early the next morning they left the servants to break camp, load the pack horses and follow them as they turned their horses regretfully in the direction of the H'ani Mine. At noon they rested under a camel-thorn tree, lying against their saddles and lazily watching the drab little weavers above their heads busily adding to their communal nest that was already the size of an untidy haystack. When the heat went out (if the sun they caught the hobbled horses, tip-saddled and rode along the base of the hills.

Shasa straightened in the saddle suddenly and shaded his eyes with one hand as he looked up at the hills.

What is it, cheri? He had recognized the rocky gorge to which Annalisa had led him.

Something is worrying you, Centaine insisted, and Shasa felt a sudden urge to lead his mother up the gorge to the shrine of the witch of the mountain. He was about to speak when he remembered his oath and he stopped, teetering uneasily on the brink of betrayal.

Don't you want to tell me," She was watching the struggle on his face.

Mater doesn't Count. She's like me. It's not as though I were telling a stronger, lie justified himself and burst out before his conscience could overtake him. There is the skeleton of a Bushman in the gorge tip there, Mater. Would you like me to show you," Centaine paled under her suntan and stared at him. A Bushman? she whispered. 'How do you know it's a Bushman? The hair is still on the skull, little Bushman peppercorn curls, just like Kwi and his clan. How did you find it? Anna, he broke off and flushed with guilt.

The girl showed you out Centaine helped him.

Yes. He nodded and hung his head.

Can you find it again? Centaine's colour had returned, and she seemed eager and excited as she leaned across and tugged his sleeve.

Yes, I think so, I marked the place. He pointed up the cliffs. 'That notch in the rocks and that cleft shaped like an eye. Show me, Shasa, she ordered.

We will have to leave the horses and go up on foot., The climb was onerous, the heat in the gorge fierce and the hooked thorns snatched at them as they toiled upwards.

It must he about here. Shasa climbed up on one of the tumbled boulders and orientated himself. Perhaps just a little more to the left. Look for, pile of rock with a mimosa growing below it. There is a branch covering a small niche.

Let's spread out and search. They picked their way slowly tip the gorge, moving a little apart to cover more ground and keeping in touch with whistles and calls when scrub and rocks separated them.

Centaine did not respond to Shasa's whistle, and he

4:

stopped and repeated it, cocking his head for her reply and feeling a prickle of concern in the silence.

Mater, where are you! Here! Her voice was faint, wracked with pain or some deep emotion and he scrambled over the rock to reach her.

She stood small and forlorn in the sunlight, holding her hat against the front of her hips. Moisture sparkled on her cheeks. He thought it was sweat, until he saw the soft slow slide of tears down her face.

Mater? He moved up behind her and realized that she had found the shrine.

She had drawn the screening branch aside. The small circle of glass jars was still in place, the floral offering brown and withered.

Annalisa said the skeleton was a witch, Shasa breathed with superstitious awe as he stared over Centaine's shoulder at the pathetic pile of bones and the small neat white skull that surmounted it.

Centaine shook her head, unable to speak.

She said the witch guarded the mountain and that she would grant a wish. H'ani. Centaine choked on the name. My beloved old mother. Mater! Shasa seized her shoulders and steadied her as she swayed on her feet. How do you know? Centaine leaned against his chest for support but did not reply.

There could be hundreds of Bushman skeletons in the caves and gorges, he went on lamely, and she shook her head vehemently.

How can you be certain? It's her. Centaine's voice was blurred with grief. It's H'ani, the chipped canine tooth, the design of ostrich shell beads on her loincloth. Shasa had not noticed the scrap of dry leather decorated with beads that lay beneath the pile of bones, half buried in dust. I don't even need that proof. I know it's her. I just know it. Sit down, Mater. He lowered her to sit on one of the lichen-covered boulders.

I'm all right now. It was just such a shock. I've searched for her so often over the years. I knew where she must be. She looked around her vaguely. O'wa's body must be somewhere close at hand. She looked up at the cliff that seemed to hang over them like a cathedral roof. They were up there trying to escape when he gunned them down. They must have fallen close together. Who shot them, Mater? She drew a deep breath, but even then her voice shook as she said his name. 'Lothar. Lothar De La Rey! For an hour longer they searched the bottom and sides of the gorge, looking for the second skeleton.

It's no good. Centaine gave up at last. We will never find him. Let him lie undisturbed, Shasa, as he has all these years. They climbed down to the little rock shrine, and as they returned they plucked the wild flowers along the way.

,MY first instinct was to gather her remains and give them a decent burial, Centaine whispered as she knelt in front of the shrine, 'but H'an i wasn't a Christian. These hills were her holy place. She will be at peace here. She arranged the flowers with care and then sat back on her heels.

I'll see that you are never disturbed, my beloved old grandmother, and I will come to visit you again. She stood up and took Shasa's hand. She was the finest, gentlest person I have ever known, she said softly. And I loved her so. Still hand in hand they went down to where they had tethered the horses.

They did not speak again on the ride home, and the sun had set and the servants were anxious by the time they reached the bungalow.

At breakfast the next morning Centaine was brisk and brittly cheerful, though there were dark bruised smudges beneath her eyes and the lids were puffed from weeping.

This is our last week before we must return to Cape Town. I wish we could stay here for ever. For ever is a long time. You have school waiting for you, and I have my duties. We will come back here, you know that. He nodded and she went on. I have arranged for you to spend this last week working in the washing plant and sorting rooms. You'll enjoy that. I guarantee it. She was right, as usual. The washing plant was a pleasant place. The flow of water over the wiffle boards cooled the air, and after the unremitting thunder of the mill plant it was blessedly quiet. The atmosphere in the long brick room was like the cathedral calm of a holy place, for here the worship of Mammon and Adamant reached its climax.

Shasa watched with fascination as the crushings from the mill plant were carried in on the slowly moving conveyor belt. The oversize rubble had been screened off and returned for another crushing under the spinning rollers. These were the fines. They dropped from the end of the moving belt into the puddling tank, and from there were pushed by the agitating arms of the revolving sweep down the sloping boards of the wiffle table.

The lighter materials floated away and were run off to the waste dump. The heavier gravels, containing the diamonds, were carried on through a series of similar ingenious separating devices until there remained only the concentrates, one thousandth part of the original gravels.

These were washed over the grease drums. The drums revolved slowly, each of them coated with a thick layer of heavy yellow grease. The wet gravel flowed easily over the surface, but the diamonds were dry. One of the diamond's peculiar qualities is its unwettability. Soak it, boil it as long as you wish, but it remains dry. Once the dry surface of the precious stones touched the grease they stuck to it like insects to fly paper.

The grease drums were locked behind heavy bars and a white supervisor sat overlooking each of them, watching them constantly. Shasa peered through the bars for the first time and saw the small miracle occur only a few inches from his nose: a wild diamond captured and tamed like some marvelous creature of the desert. He actually witnessed the moment when it flowed out of the upper bin in a wet porridge of gravel, and he saw it touch the grease and adhere precariously to the slick yellow surface, causing a tiny V-shaped disturbance to the flow like a rock in the ebb of the tide. It moved, seeming to lose its grip in the grease for an instant, and Shasa wanted to thrust out his hand and seize it before it was for ever lost, but the gaps between the steel bars were too narrow. Then the diamond stuck fast and breasted the gentle flood of gravel, sitting up proudly, dry and transparent like a blister on the yellow skin of a gigantic reptile. it left him with a feeling of awe, the same feelings as he had experienced when he witnessed his mare Celeste give birth to her first foal.

He spent the entire morning passing from one to the other of the huge yellow drums and then back again down the line, watching the diamonds sticking on the grease more an d more thickly with each hour that passed.

At noon the washroom manager came down the line with his four white assistants, more than were necessary, other than to watch each other and forestall any opportunity for theft. With a broad-bladed spatula they scraped the grease from the drums and collected it in the boiling pot, then meticulously spread each drum with a fresh coating of yellow grease.

in the locked de-greasing room at the far end of the building the manager placed the steel pot on the spirit stove and boiled off the grease until finally he was left with a pot half full of diamonds, and Dr Twenty-man-Jones was there to weigh each stone separately and record it in the leather-bound recovery book.

of course you will notice, Master Shasa, that none of these stones is smaller than half a carat. Yes, sir. Shasa had not thought of that. What happened to the smaller ones? The grease table is not infallible, indeed the stones must have a certain minimum weight to get them to adhere. The others, even a few large valuable stones, pass across the table. He led Shasa back to the washroom and showed him the trough of wet gravel that had survived the journey over the drums. We drain all the water and reuse it. Out here water is precious stuff, as you know. Then all the gravel has to be hand picked. As he spoke two men emerged from the door at the end of the room and each scooped a bucket of gravel from the trough.

Shasa and Twenty-man-jones followed them back through the doorway into a long narrow room well lit with glass skylights and high windows.

A single long table ran the length of the room, its top clad in a polished metal sheet.

On each side of the table sat rows of women. They looked up as the two men entered and Shasa recognized the wives and daughters of many of the white workers as well as those of the black boss-boys. The white women sat together nearest the door and, with a decent and proper distance between them, the black women sat separated at the far end of the room.

The bucket boys dumped the damp gravel onto the metal table top and the women transferred their attention back to it. Each had a pair of forceps in one hand and a flat wooden scoop in the other. They drew a little of the gravel towards them, spread it with the scoop and then picked over it swiftly.

It's a job at which the women excel, Twenty-man-Jones explained as they passed down the line, watching over the stooped shoulders of the women. They have the patience and the sharp eyes and the dexterity that men lack. Shasa saw that they were picking out tiny opaque stones, some as small as sugar grains, others the size of small green peas, from the duller mass of gravel.

Those are our bread and butter stones, Twenty-man-Jones remarked. 'They are used in industry. The jewellery grade stones that you saw in the grease room are the strawberry jam and the cream. When the mine hooter signalled the end of the day shift, Shasa rode down with Twenty-man-Jones in the front seat of his Ford from the washing gear to the office block. On his lap he carried the small locked steel box in which was the day's recovery.

Centaine met them on the verandah of the administration building and led them into her office. Well, did you find it interesting? she asked, and smiled at Shasa's hearty response.

It was fascinating, Mater, and we got one real beauty.

Thirty-six carats, it's a jolly great monster of a diamond! He set the box on her desk and when Twenty-man-Jones unlocked it he showed her the diamond as proudly as if he had mined it with his own hands.

It's big, Centaine agreed, but the colour isn't particularly good. There, hold it to the light. See, it's as brown as whisky and soda, and even with the naked eye you can see the inclusions and flaws, those little black specks inside the stone and that tear through the middle. Shasa looked crestfallen that his stone was so denigrated and she laughed and turned to Twenty-man-Jones. Let's show him some really good diamonds. Will you open the vault please, Dr Twenty-man-Jones? Twenty-man-jones pulled out the bunch of keys from the fob pocket of his waistcoat and led Shasa down the passage to the steel grille door at the end. He opened it with his key and relocked it behind them before they went down the stairs to the underground vault. Even from Shasa he screened the lock with his body as he tumbled the combination and then used a second key before the thick green Chubb steel door swung ponderously aside and they went into the strongroom.

The industrial-grade stones are kept in these canisters., He touched them as he passed. But we keep the high-grade stuff separately. He unlocked the smaller steel door set in the rear wall of the vault and selected five numbered brown paper packages from the crowded shelf.

These are our best stones. He handed them to Shasa as a mark of his trust, and then they went back again, opening and re-locking each door as they passed through.

Centaine was waiting for them in her office, and when Shasa placed the packages in front of her she opened the first and gently spread the contents on her blotter.

Golly gee! Shasa goggled at the array of large stones glittering with a soapy sheen. They are gi-normous! Let's ask Dr Twenty-man-jones to give us a dissertation, Centaine suggested, and hiding his gratification behind a sombre countenance, he picked up one of the gem stones.

Well, Master Shasa, here is a diamond in its natural crystalline formation, the octahedron of eight faces, count them. Here is another in a more complicated crystalline form, the dodecahedron of twelve faces, while these others are massive and uncrystallized. See how rounded and amorphous they are. Diamonds come in many guises. He laid each in Shasa's open palm, and not even his prim monotonous recital could dull the fascination of this shining treasure. The diamond has a perfect cleavage, or as we call it "grain", and can be split in all four directions, parallel to the octahedral crystal planes. That's how the cutters cleave a stone before polishing, Centaine cut in. 'During your next holidays I will take you to Amsterdam so you can see it done. This rather greasy sheen will disappear when the stones are cut and polished. TWentyman-jones took over again, resenting her intrusion. Then all their fire will be revealed as their very high refractive power captures the light within and dispersive powers separate it into the spectral colours. How much does this one weigh? 'Forty-eight carats. Centaine consulted the recovery book.

But remember it may lose more than half its weight when it is cut and polished. Then how much will it be worth? Centaine glanced at Twenty-man-Jones.

A great deal of money, Master Shasa. Like the true lover of any beautiful object, gem or painting, horse or statue, he disliked placing a monetary value upon it, so he hedged and returned to his lecture. 'Now I want you- to compare the colours of these stones,- Darkness fell outside the windows, but Centaine switched on the lights and they huddled over the small pile of stones for another hour, meeting question with answer and talking quietly and intently until at last Twenty-man-Jones swept the stones back into their packages and stood up.

"Thou hast been in Eden, the Garden of God," he quoted unexpectedly, "'every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz and diamond.... Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire." He stopped and looked selfconscious. Forgive me. I don't know what got into me. Ezekiel? Centaine asked, smiling fondly at him.

Chapter 28, verses thirteen and fourteen. He nodded, trying not to show how impressed he was by her knowledge.

I'll put these away now. Dr Twenty-man-Jones, Shasa stopped him. You didn't answer my question. How much are these stones worth? Are you referring to the entire package? He looked uncomfortable. Including the industrials and boart still in the strong room? Yes, sir, how much, sir? Well, if De Beers accepts them at the same prices as our last package they will fetch considerably in excess of a million pounds sterling, he replied sadly.

A million pounds, Shasa repeated, but Centaine saw in his expression that such a figure was incomprehensible to him, like the astronomical distances between stars that must be expressed in light years. He will learn, she thought, I will teach him.

Remember, Shasa, that is not all profit. From that sum we will have to pay all the expenses of the mine over the past months before we can figure a profit. And even from that we have to give the tax collectors their pound of bleeding flesh. She stood up behind the desk and then held out her hand to prevent Twenty-man-Jones leaving the room as an idea struck her.

As you know Shasa and I are going in to Windhoek this coming Friday. Shasa has to return to school at the end of next week. I will take the diamonds into the bank with me in the Daimler, Mrs Courtney! Twenty-man-jones was horrified. I couldn't allow that. A million pounds worth, good Lord alive. It would be criminally irresponsible of me to agree. He broke off as be saw her expression alter; her mouth settled into that familiar stubborn shape and the lights of battle glinted in her eyes. He knew her so well, like his own daughter, and loved her as much, he realized that he had made the grievous error of challenging and forbidding her.

He knew what her reaction must be and he sought desperately to head her off.

I was thinking only of you, Mrs Courtney. A million pounds of diamonds would attract every scavenger and predator, every robber and foot-pad for a thousand miles around. It was not my intention to bruit it abroad. I will not broadcast it a thousand miles around, she said coldly.

The insurance, inspiration came to him at last, the insurance will not cover losses if the package is not sent in by armed convoy. Can you truly afford to take that chance a loss of a million pounds of revenue against a few days saved? He had hit upon the one argument that might stop her.

He saw her thinking about it carefully, a chance of losing a million pounds against a minimal loss of face, and he sighed silently with relief when she shrugged.

Oh, very well then, Dr Twenty-man-jones, have it your own way.

Lothar had carved the road to H'ani Mine through the desert

with his own hands and sprinkled every mile of it with the sweat of his brow. But that had been twelve years before, and now his memory of it had grown hazy. Still he remembered half a dozen points along the road which might serve his purpose.

From the stage camp where he had intercepted Gerhard Fourie's convoy they followed the rutted tracks south and west in the direction of Windhoek, travelling at night to save them from discovery by unexpected traffic on the road.

On the second morning, just as the sun was rising, Lothar reached one of the points he remembered and found it ideal.

Here the road ran parallel to the deep rocky bed of a dry river before looping down through the deep cutting that Lothar had excavated to cross the riverbed and climb out the far side through another cutting.

He dismounted and walked out along the edge of the high bank to study it carefully. They could trap the diamond truck in the gut of the cutting, and block it with rocks rolled down from the top of the bank. There was certain to be water under the sand in the riverbed for the horses while they waited for the truck to show up; they would need to keep in condition for the long hard journey ahead. The river-bed would hide them.

Then again this was the remotest stretch of the road, it would take days for the police officers to be alerted and then to reach the ambush spot. He could certainly expect to establish an early and convincing lead, even if they chose the risky alternative of following him into the hard unrelenting wilderness across which he would retreat.

This is where we will do it,he told Swart Hendrick.

They set up their primitive camp in the sheer bank of the river-bed at the point where the telegraph line took the short cut across the loop in the road. The copper wires were strung over the river-bed from a pole on the near bank that was out of sight of the road.

Lothar climbed the pole and clipped on his taps to the main telegraph line, then led his wires down the pole, tacking them to the timber to avoid casual discovery, and then to his listening post in the dug-out that Swart Hendrick had burrowed into the bank of the river.

The waiting was monotonous, and Lothar chafed at being tied to the earphones of the telegraph tap but he could not afford to miss the vital message when it was flashed from the H'ani Mine, the message which would give him the exact departure time of the diamond truck. So during the dreary hot hours of daylight he had to listen to all the mundane traffic of the mine's daily business, and the distant operator's skills on the keyboard were such that they taxed his ability to follow and translate the rapid fire of dots and dashes that echoed in his earphones. He scribbled them into his notebook and afterwards translated the groups and jotted in the words between the lines. This was a private telegraph line and therefore no effort had been made to encode the transmission, the traffic was in the clear.

During the day he was alone in the dugout. Swart Hendrick took Manfred and the horses out into the desert, ostensibly to hunt, but really to school and harden both the boy and the animals for the journey that lay ahead and to keep them out of sight of any traffic on the road.

For Lothar the long monotonous days were full of doubts and foreboding. There was so much that could go wrong, so many details that had to mesh perfectly to ensure success.

There were weak links, and Gerhard Fourie was the weakest of these. The whole plan hinged on the man, and he was a coward, a man easily distracted and discouraged.

Waiting is always the worst time, Lothar thought, and he remembered the fears that had assailed him on the eve of other battles and desperate endeavours. If you could just do it and have done with it, instead of having to sit out these dragging days. Suddenly the buzz of the call sign echoed in his earphones and he reached quickly for his notebook. The operator at the H'ani Mine began to transmit and Lothar's pencil danced across the pages as he kept up with him. There was a curt double tap of acknowledgement from the Windhoek station as the message ended, and Lothar let the earphones drop around his neck as he translated the groups: For Pettifogger Prepare Juno's private coach for inclusion in the Sunday night express mail-train to Cape Town Stop Juno arriving your end noon Sunday Ends Vingt Pettifogger was Abraham Abrahams. Centaine must have selected the code name when she was annoyed with him, while Vingt was a pun on TWentyman-jones name; the French connotation suggested Centaine's influence again, but Lothar wondered who had selected Juno as Centaine Courtney's code name and grimaced at how appropriate it was.

So Centaine was leaving for Cape Town in her private coach. Somehow he felt guilty relief that she would not be close at hand when it happened, as though distance might lessen the shock for her. To reach Windhoek comfortably by noon on Sunday, Centaine must leave the H'ani Mine early on Friday, he calculated quickly; that would bring her to the cutting here on the riverbank on Saturday afternoon. Then he deducted a few hours from his estimate; she drove that Daimler like a demon.

He sat in the hot, stuffy little dugout and suddenly he felt an overwhelming desire to see her again, to have just a glimpse of her as she passed. We can use it as a rehearsal for the diamond truck, he justified himself.

The Daimler came out of the shimmering distances like one of the whirling dust devils of the hot desert noons.

Lothar saw the dust column from ten miles or more and signalled Manfred and Swart Hendrick into their positions at the top of the cutting.

They had dug shallow trenches at the key points, scattering the disturbed earth and letting the dry breeze smooth and blend it with the surroundings. Then they had screened the positions with branches of thorn scrub until Lothar was satisfied that they were undetectable from further than a few paces.

The rocks with which they would block both ends of the cutting had been gathered laboriously from the river-bed and poised on the edge of the bank. Lothar had taken great care to make them seem natural, and yet a single slash with a knife across the rope that held the prop under the rock pile would send them tumbling down onto the narrow track at the bottom of the cutting.

This was a rehearsal, so none of them were wearing masks.

Lothar made one last hard scrutiny of the arrangements and then turned back to watch the swiftly approaching column of dust. It was already close enough for him to make out the tiny shape of the vehicle beneath it and hear the faint beat of its engine.

She shouldn't drive like that, he thought angrily. She'll kill herself. He broke off and shook his head ruefully. I'm acting like a doting husband, he realized. Let her break her damned neck, if that is what she wants. Yet the idea of her death gave him a painful pang, and he crossed his fingers to turn the chance away. Then he crouched down in his trench and watched her through the screen of thorn branches.

The stately vehicle rocked and bounced over the tracks as it swung onto the loop of the road. The engine beat strengthened as Centaine changed down and then accelerated out of the turn, using power to pull out of the incipient skid as the floury dust clutched at the front wheels. it was done with elan, he thought grudgingly, as she hit the gears again and bore down on the head of the cutting at speed.

Merciful God, is she going to take it at full bore? he wondered.

But at the last moment she cut the throttle and used the gearbox and the drag of the clinging dust to pull up at the top end of the cutting.

As she opened the door and stepped out onto the running-board with dust billowing around her, she was only twenty paces from where he lay, and he felt his heart banging against the earth. Can she still do this to me? he wondered at himself. I should hate her. She has cheated and humiliated me and she has spurned my son and denied him a mother's love, and yet, and yet, He would not let the words form, and he tried deliberately to harden himself against her.

She's not beautiful, he told himself, as he studied her face; but she was much more. She was vital and vibrant, and there was an aura about her. Juno, he recalled the code name the goddess. Powerful and dangerous, mercurial and unpredictable, but endlessly fascinating and infinitely desirable. She looked directly towards him for a moment and he felt the strength and resolve flow out of him at the touch of those dark eyes, but she had not seen him and she turned away.

We will walk down, cheri, she called to the young man who stepped out of the opposite side of the Daimler, to see if the crossing is safe. Shasa seemed to have grown inches in the short time since Lothar had last seen him. They left the vehicle and went side by side down the track below where Lothar lay.

Manfred was in his trench at the bottom end of the cutting. He also watched the pair come down the track. The woman meant nothing to him. She was his mother but he did not know that and there was no instinctive response within him. She had never given him suck or even held him in her arms. She was a stranger, and he glanced at her without any emotion, then turned all his attention to the youth at her side.

Shasa's good looks offended him. He's pretty as a girl, he thought, trying to scorn him, but he saw the new breadth to his rival's shoulders and fine muscle in his brown arms where he had rolled his sleeves high.

I would like another bout with you, my friend. The almost forgotten sting and humiliation of Shasa's left fist hurt again like a fresh wound, and he touched his own face with his fingertips, scowling at the memory. Next time I won't let you do your little dance. And he thought about how hard it had been to touch that pretty face, the way it had swayed and dipped just beyond his reach and he felt the frustration anew.

The couple reached the foot of the cutting below where Manfred lay and stood talking quietly for a while, then Shasa trudged out into the wide river-bed. The roadway through the sand had been corduroyed with branches of acacia, but the wheels of heavy trucks had broken them up. Shasa rearranged them, stamping the jagged ends into the sand.

While he worked Centaine turned back to the Daimler.

There was a canvas water bag hanging on the bracket of the spare wheel and she unhooked it, raised it to her lips and took a mouthful. She gargled softly and then spat it into the dust. Then she slipped off the long white dust-jacket that protected her clothing and unbuttoned her blouse. She soaked the yellow scarf and wiped the damp cloth down her throat and over her bosom, gasping with pleasure at the coolness on her skin.

Lothar wanted to turn his head away, but he could not; instead he stared at her. She wore nothing under the pale blue cotton blouse. The skin of her bosom was untouched by the sun, pale smooth and pearly as fine bone china. Her breasts were small, without any puckering and sagging, the tips pointed and still clear rose-coloured as those of a girl, not of a woman who had borne two sons. They bounced elastically as she drew the wet scarf over them and she looked down at them as she bathed the gleam of perspiration from them. Lothar moaned softly in his throat at the need of her that rose freshly and strongly from deep within him.

All set, Mater, Shasa called as he started back up the track, and quickly Centaine rebuttoned the front of her blouse.

We've wasted enough time, she agreed and slipped back behind the wheel of the Daimler. As Shasa slammed his door she gunned the big motor down the track, kicking up sand and splinters of acacia in a spray from the back wheels as she crossed the river-bed and flew up the far bank. The rumble of the engine dwindled into the desert silence and Lothar found he was trembling.

None of them moved for many minutes. It was Swart Hendrick who rose to his feet first. He opened his mouth to speak and then saw the expression on Lothar's face and remained silent. He scrambled down the bank and set off back towards the camp.

Lothar climbed down to the spot where the Daimler had stopped. He stood looking down at the damp earth where she had spat that mouthful of water. Her footprints were narrow and neat in the dust, and he felt a strong urge to stoop and touch them but suddenly Manfred spoke close behind him.

He is a boxer, he said, and it took Lothar a moment to realize that he was talking about Shasa. He looks a real sissy, but he can fight. You can't hit him. He put up his fists and shadow-boxed, shuffling and dancing in the dust, imitating Shasa.

Let's get back to the camp, out of sight, Lothar said, and Manfred dropped his guard and thrust his hands into his pockets. Neither of them spoke again until they reached the dugout.

Can you box, Pa? Manfred asked. Can you teach me to box? Lothar smiled and shook his head. I always found it easier to kick a man between his legs, he said. And then hit him with a bottle or a gun butt. I would like to learn to box, Manfred said. Someday I will learn. Perhaps the idea had been germinating there all along but suddenly it was a firm declaration. His father smiled indulgently and clapped him on the shoulder.

Get out the flour bag, he said. And I will teach you to bake soda bread instead.

Oh, Abe, you know how much I detest these soirees! Centaine exclaimed irritably. Crowded rooms filled with tobacco smoke, exchanging inanities with strangers. This man could be very valuable to know, Centaine. I will go further than that, he could be the most valuable friend you'll ever make in this territory. Centaine pulled a face. Abe was right, of course. The administrator was in fact the governor of the territory with wide executive powers. He was appointed by the Government of the Union of South Africa under the powers of mandate conferred on it by the Treaty of Versailles.

I expect he is another pompous old bore, just like his predecessor was. I haven't met him, Abe admitted. He only arrived in Windhoek to take up his appointment within the last few days and will not be sworn in until the first of next month, but our new concessions in the Tsumeb area are on his desk at this moment, awaiting his signature. He saw her eyes shift and he pressed the advantage. 'Two thousand square miles of exclusive prospecting rights worth a few hours of boredom? But she wouldn't give in that easily, and she counterattacked. We are due to hook onto the express that leaves this evening. Shasa must be back at Bishops on Wednesday morning. Centaine stood up and paced the saloon of her coach, stopping to rearrange the roses in the vase above her desk so she did not have to look at him as he deflected her thrust.

The next express leaves Tuesday evening. I have made arrangements for your coach to hook on. Master Shasa can leave on this evening's express, I have booked a coupe for him. Sir Garry and his wife are still at Weltevreden, they would meet him at Cape Town station. It needs only a telegraph to arrange it. Abraham smiled across the saloon at Shasa. I'm sure, young man, you can make the journey without anyone to hold your hand? Abe was a cunning little devil, Centaine conceded, as Shasa rushed indignantly to take up the challenge.

Of course I can, Mater. You stay here. it's important to meet the new administrator. I can get home on my own.

Anna will help me pack for school. Centaine threw up her hands. 'if I die of boredom, Abe, let it be on your conscience for as long as you live! She had at first planned to wear her full suite of diamonds, but decided against it at the last moment. After all, it's only a little provincial reception, with fat farmers wives and petty civil servants. Besides, I don't want to blind the poor old dear. So she settled for a yellow silk evening dress by Coco Chanel. She had worn it before, but in Cape Town, so it was unlikely anybody here had seen it.

It was expensive enough to bear two wairings, she consoled herself. Too good for them, anyway. She settled on a pair of solitaire diamond ear studs, not too large to be ostentatious, but around her neck she wore the huge yellow diamond the colour of champagne on a platinum chain. It drew attention to her small pointed breasts; she liked the effect.

Her hair was a worry, as always. It was full of electricity from the dry desert air. She wished Anna was here, for she was the only one who could manage that lustrous unruly bush. In despair she tried to make a virtue of its disorder, deliberately fluffing it out into a halo and holding it up with a velvet band around her forehead.

That's enough fuss. She didn't feel like a party at all.

Shasa had left on the mail train as Abe had planned and already she was missing him keenly. on top of that she was anxious to get back to Weltevreden herself and resented having to stay over.

Abe called for her an hour after the time stipulated on the invitation card that was embossed with the administrator's coat of arms. During the drive Rachel, Abe's wife, regaled them with an account of her recent domestic triumphs and tragedies, including a detailed report of her youngest offsprings 'bowel movements.

The administrative building, the Ink Palace, had been designed by the German colonial administration in heavy Gothic imperial style; when Centaine swept a glance around the ballroom, she saw that the company was no better than she had expected. It comprised mainly senior civil servants, heads and deputy heads of departments with their wives, the officers of the local garrison and police force, together with all the town's prominent businessmen and the big landowners who lived close enough to Windhoek to respond to the invitation.

Amongst them were a number of Centaine's own people, all the managers and under-managers of the Courtney Finance and Mining Company.

Abe had provided her with an up-to-date bulletin so that as each came forward diffidently to present their spouses, Centaine was able to make some gracious personal comment which had them glowing and grinning with gratification. Abe stood by to make sure that none of them imposed upon her, and after the appropriate interval gave her the excuse to escape.

I think we should pay our respects to the new administrator, Mrs Courtney. He took her arm and led her towards the reception line.

I have been able to get a few facts about him. He is a Lieutenant-Colonel Blaine Malcomess and commanded a battalion of the Natal Mounted Rifles. He had a good war and ended with a bar to his Military Cross. In private life he is a lawyer, and- The police band was belting out a Strauss waltz with zeal and gusto and the dance floor was already crowded. As they came up to the tail of the reception line, Centaine saw with satisfaction that they would be the last to be presented.

Centaine was paying little attention to their host at the head of the line as she moved along on Abe's arm, leaning across him to listen to Rachel on his other arm who was giving her a family recipe for chicken soup but at the same time Centaine was trying to decide just how early she could make her escape.

Abruptly she realized that they had reached the head of the line, the very last to do so, and that the administrator's A.D.C. was announcing them to their host.

Mr and Mrs Abraham Abrahams and Mrs Centaine de Thiry Courtney. She looked up at the man who stood before her and involuntarily she dug her fingernails into the soft inside of Abraham Abrahams elbow with such force that he winced. She did not notice it, for she was staring at Colonel Blaine Malcomess.

He was tall and lean, and he stood well over six feet. His bearing was relaxed without any military stiffness and yet he seemed to be balanced on the balls of his feet as though he could explode into movement at any moment.

Mrs Courtney, he offered her his hand, I am delighted you were able to come. You were the one person I particularly wanted to meet. His voice was a clear tenor, with a faint lilt to it that might have been Welsh. An educated and cultivated voice, with modulations which lifted a little electric rash of pleasure on her forearms and at the nape of her neck.

She took his hand. The skin was dry and warm, and she could feel the restrained strength of his fingers as they pressed hers gently. 'He could crush my hand like an eggshell, she thought, and the idea gave her a delicious little chill of apprehension. She studied his face.

His features were large, the bones of his jaw and cheek and forehead seemed weighty and massive as stone. His nose was big with a Roman bridge to it, his brow was beetling and his mouth was big and mobile. He reminded her strongly of a younger more handsome Abraham Lincoln. He isn't yet forty, she estimated, so young for the rank and

the job.

Then she realized with a start that she was still holding his hand, and that she had not replied to his greeting. He was leaning over her, studying her as openly and intently as she was him, and Abe and Rachel were looking from one to the other of them with interest and amusement. Centaine had to shake her hand lightly to free it from his grip, and to her horror she felt the hot rush of blood up her throat into her cheeks.

I'm blushing! It was something she had not done in years.

I have been fortunate enough to be associated with your family before this, Blaine Malcomess told her, His teeth also were large and square and very white. His mouth was wide, even wider when he smiled. A little shakily she smiled back.

Have you? She realized that it wasn't the most sparkling conversational gambit, but her wits seemed to have deserted her. She was standing there like a school-girl, blushing and gawking at him. His eyes were a most startling shade of green. They distracted her.

I served under General Sean Courtney in France, he told her, still smiling. Somebody had cut his hair too short at the temples, it made his large ears stick out. That irritated her, and yet the sticking-out ears made him endearing and appealing.

He was a fine gentleman, Blaine Malcomess went on.

Yes, he was, she replied and upbraided herself, Say something witty, something intelligent, he'll think you a clod. He was wearing dress uniform, dark blue and gold with a double row of medal ribbons. Since girlhood uniforms had always affected her.

I heard that you were at General Courtney's headquarters in Arras for a few weeks in 1917. I was still in the line then; I didn't go on his staff until the end of that year. She took a deep breath to steady herself and at last managed to get control again. What turbulent days those were, with the universe crashing in ruins about us, she said, her voice low and husky, her French accent emphasized a little, and she thought, What is this? What's happening to you, Centaine? This is not the way it is supposed to be.

Remember Michael and Shasa. Give this man a friendly nod and pass on. It seems that I have performed my duties for the moment, Blaine Malcomess glanced at his A.D.C. for confirmation and then turned back to Centaine. May I have the honour of this waltz, Mrs Courtney? He offered his arm, and without a moment's hesitation she laid her fingers lightly in the crook of his elbow.

The other dancers veered away, leaving them an open space as they walked out side by side onto the floor. She turned to face Blaine and stepped into the circle of his arm.

He didn't have to move, merely the way he held her told her that he would be a marvelous dancer. Immediately she felt light and dainty and fleet of foot, and she arched her back and leaned out against the circle of his arm while his lower body seemed to meld with hers.

He took her on one spinning whirling circuit of the floor, and when she matched his every move feather light and swift, he began a complicated series of dips and counter-turns, and she followed him without conscious effort, seeming to skim the ground, yet totally under his control, responding to his every whim.

When at last the music ended with a crashing chord and the musicians fell back in their seats sweating and panting, Centaine felt unreasonable resentment towards them. They had not played long enough.

Blaine Malcomess was still holding her in the middle of the floor and they were laughing delightedly at each other while the other dancers formed a ring around them and applauded.

Unfortunately that seems to be it for the moment, he said, still making no effort to release her, and his words roused her. There was no longer any excuse for physical contact and she stepped back from him reluctantly and acknowledged the applause with a small curtsey.

. I do think we have earned a glass of champagne. Blaine signalled one of the white-jacketed waiters and they stood at the edge of the dance floor and sipped the wine and watched each other's eyes avidly as they talked. The exertion had raised a light sheen of sweat on his broad forehead and she could smell it on his body.

They were alone in the centre of the crowded room. With a subtle inclination of her shoulders and head Centaine dissuaded the one or two bolder souls who approached as if to join them, and after that the others stayed back.

The band, refreshed and eager, took their seats on the bandstand once more and this time launched into a foxtrot.

Blaine Malcomess did not have to ask. Centaine set her almost untouched champagne on the silver tray that the waiter proffered and lifted her arms as Blaine faced her.

The more sedate rhythm of the foxtrot enabled them to continue talking, and there was so much to talk about. He had known Sean Courtney well, and held him in affection and admiration. Centaine had loved him almost as much as she had loved her own father. They discussed the dreadful circumstances in which Sean Courtney and his wife had been murdered, and their mutual horror and outrage at the deed seemed to draw them still closer together.

Blaine knew the beloved northern provinces around Arras in her native France, and his battalion had held a section of the line near Mort Homme, her home village. He remembered the burnt-out ruins of her family's chateau.

We used it as an artillery observation post, he told her.

I spent many hours perched up in the north wing. His description induced a pleasant nostalgia, a fine sadness to heighten her emotions.

He loved horses as she did, and was a twelve-goal polo player.

Twelve goals! she exclaimed. My son will be most impressed. He has just been rated a four-goal man. How old is your son? 'Fourteen. Very good for a youngster of that age. I'd like to see him in action. That would be fun, she agreed, and suddenly she wanted to tell him all about Shasa, but again the music ended and cut her short, and this time he frowned also.

They are playing very short pieces, aren't they? Then she felt him start and he released her waist. Though she kept her hand on his arm, the strange elated mood which had gripped them both shattered, and something dark and intrusive passed like a shadow between them. She was not sure what it was.

Ah, he said sombrely. I see she has returned. She really wasn't at all well this evening but she always was a plucky one. To whom are you referring? Centaine asked. His tone had filled her with foreboding and she should have been warned by it, but still the shock of it made her flinch when he said softly: MY wife. Centaine felt quite giddy for a moment, and she only kept her balance with an effort when she let her hand fall from his arm.

I would like you to meet my wife, he said. May I introduce you to her? She nodded, unwilling to trust her voice, and when he offered his arm again she hesitated before she took it, and this time laid her fingertips only lightly upon it.

He led her across the floor towards the group at the foot of the main staircase, and as they approached Centaine searched the faces of the women, trying to guess which one it would be. Only two of them were young and none was beautiful, none could compete with her in looks or strength or poise or talent or wealth. She felt a surge of confidence and anticipation replace the momentary confusion and despondency that had thrown her off balance. Without thinking about it she knew she was going into a desperate contest, and she was buoyed up with battle lust and the enormity of the prize at stake. She was eager to identify and assess her adversary and she lifted her chin and set her shoulders as they stopped before the group.

The ranks of men and women opened respectfully, and there she was, looking up at Centaine with lovely tragic eyes. She was younger than Centaine and possessed of a rare and exquisite beauty. She wore her gentle nature and goodness like a shining cloak for all to see, but her sadness was in the smile she gave Centaine as Blaine Malcomess introduced them.

Mrs Courtney, may I present my wife Isabella? You dance exquisitely, Mrs Courtney. I have been watching you and Blaine with great pleasure, she said. He does so love dancing. Thank you, Mrs Malcomess, Centaine whispered huskily, while inside she raged. Oh, you little bitch. It's not fair.

You aren't fighting fair. How can I ever win now? Oh God, how I hate you. Isabella Malcomess sat in a wheelchair with her nurse behind her. The ankles of her thin paralysed legs showed under the hem of her evening dress. They were pale and skeletal and her feet seemed fragile and vulnerable in their sequined dancing pumps.

He'll never leave you. Centaine felt herself choke on her grief.

He's that kind of man, he'll never desert a crippled wife. Centaine awoke an hour before dawn and lay for a moment wondering at the strange sense of well being that possessed her. Then she remembered and threw back the sheets, eager for the day to begin. With both bare feet upon the floor she paused, and her eyes instinctively went to the framed photograph of Michael Courtney on the bedside table.

Michael, I'm sorry, she whispered. I love you. I still love you, I always will, but I can't help this other thing. I didn't want it. I didn't look for it. Please forgive me, my darling.

It's been so long and so lonely. I want him, Michael. I want to marry him and have him for myself. She took up the frame and for a moment held it to her bosom. Then she opened the drawer, laid the photograph face down upon her folded lace underwear, and closed the drawer again.

She jumped to her feet and reached for the yellow Chinese silk dressing-gown with the bird of paradise embroidered down the back. Belting it she hurried through to the saloon of the coach and seated herself at her desk to compose the telegraph to Sir Garry in their private code, for the message would be transmitted over the public fines.

Please urgently forward all intelligence on Lieutenant-Colonel Blaine Malcomess, newly appointed administrator of South West Africa. Reply in code. Love Juno.

She rang for her secretary and chafed while she waited for him. He came through in a flannel dressing-gown, owl-eyed and unshaven.

Get that off right away. She handed him the flimsy. Then get me Abraham Abrahams on the telephone. Centaine, it's six o'clock in the morning, Abe protested, land we didn't get to bed until three o'clock. ,Three hours is enough sleep for any good lawyer. Abe, I want you to invite Colonel Malcomess and his wife to dine with me in my coach this evening. There was a long weighty silence, and the static hissed on the line.

You and Rachel are invited, of course. She filled the silence.

It's much too short notice, he said carefully, obviously choosing his words with precision. The administrator is a busy man. He won't come. Get the invitation to him personally. Centaine ignored the protest. Send your messenger round to his office and see he gets it. Under no circumstances let his wife receive the invitation first. He won't come, Abe repeated stubbornly. At least I hope to God he won't come. What do you mean by that, she snapped.

You are playing with fire, Centaine. Not just a little candle flame, but a great raging bush fire. She pursed her lips. Mind your own business, and I'll mind mine, she started, and he broke in on her.

Kiss your own sweetheart, and I'll kiss mine, he finished the childhood law for her, and she giggled. He had never heard Centaine Courtney giggle before; it took him by surprise.

How appropriate, dear Abe. She giggled again, and his voice was truly agitated when he told her, You pay me an enormous retainer to mind your business for you. Centaine, you set a hundred tongues wagging last night, the whole town will be agog this morning. You are a marked woman, everybody watches you. You just cannot afford to carry on like this. Abe, you and I both know that I can afford to do any damned thing I choose. Send that invitation, please! She rested that afternoon. It had been a late night and she was determined to look her best for the evening. Her secretary woke her a little after four o'clock in the afternoon.

Abe had received a reply to the invitation. The administrator and his lady would be pleased to dine with her that evening.

She smiled triumphantly, then turned to decode the telegram from Sir Garry which had also arrived while she was asleep.

For Juno stop. Subject's full names Blaine Marsden Malcomess born Johannesburg 28 July 189W So he is nearly thirty-nine years old, she exclaimed, and he is a Leo. My big growly lion! She returned eagerly to the cable: Second son of James Marsden Malcomess lawyer and mining entrepreneur, chairman Consolidated Goldfields and director numerous associated companies, deceased 1922. Subject was educated St John's College Johannesburg and Oriel College Oxford. Academic honours include Rhodes scholarship and Oriel scholarship. Sporting honours include full blue cricket and half blues athletics and polo. Graduated MA (Hons) Oxon 1912. Called to the Bar 1913. Commissioned 2nd-Lieutenant Natal Mounted Rifles 1914. Service in South West Africa Campaign. Mentioned in despatches twice. Promoted Captain 1915.

France with BEF 1915. Military Cross August 1915. Promoted Major and Bar to MC 1916. Promoted Lieutenant-Colonel O.C. 3rd Battalion 1917. Staff of General Officer Commanding 6th Division 1918. Versailles Armistice negotiations on staff of General Smuts. Partner in law firm Stirling & Malcomess from 1919. Member Parliament for Gardens 1924. Deputy Minister justice 1926-9. Appointed Administrator South West Africa I May 1932. Married Isabella Tara n6e Harrison 1918. Two daughters Tara Isabella and Mathilda Janine.

That came as a further shock to Centaine. She had not thought about children.

At least she hasn't given him a son. The thought was so cruel that she assuaged the prickle of guilt by calculating the age of his daughters. I expect that they look like their mother. Horrible little angels that he dotes on, she decided bitterly, and read the few comments with which Sir Garry had ended the long cable.

Enquiries addressed to Ou Baas indicate that subject is considered a rising force in law and politics. Cabinet rank a strong probability when SA Party returns to power. Centaine smiled fondly at the mention of General Jan Christian Smuts and then read on: Wife thrown from horse 1927. Extensive spinal damage.

Prognosis unfavorable. Stop. Father James Marsden left estate probated E655,000 in equal shares to two sons. Stop.

Subject's present financial circumstances not ascertained, but estimated as substantial. Stop. Presently rated 12 goals polo. Captained SA team versus Argentine 1929. Stop.

Hope and expect your query businesslike. If not implore you exercise restraint and caution as consequences highly prejudicial all parties. Stop. Shasa safely ensconced Bishops. Stop. Anna joins me in sending all love. Ends. Ovid.

She had selected Sir Garry's code name out of affection and respect for his craft, but now she threw the telegraph flimsy down on her desk angrily.

Why does everybody know what's best for me, except me? she asked aloud. And why isn't Anna here to help me with my hair? I look an absolute fright. She looked in the mirror over the mantel for confirmation that it was not true.

Then she dragged her hair back from her face with both hands while she studied her skin for blemish or wrinkles.

She found only the faintest hairlines at the corners of her eyes yet they made her discontent extreme.

Why is it that all the most attractive men are already married? And why, oh why couldn't that silly little nambypamby have stuck in the saddle instead of falling on her pretty little backside.

Centaine had contrived to make a great deal of fuss over

Isabella? "Malcomess reception and the transfer of her wheelchair from the platform to the balcony of the coach. She had four of the coach attendants and her secretaries standing by to assist.

Blaine Malcomess waved them away irritably, then he stooped over his wife. She slipped both her arms around his neck and he lifted her as though she were as light as a little girl. with their faces almost touching he smiled at her tenderly and then went up the steps onto the balcony as though he were unburdened. Isabella's legs dangled pathetically from under her skirts. They were wasted and lifeless and Centaine experienced an unexpected and unwelcome rush of sympathy for her.

I don't want to pity her, she thought fiercely as she followed them into the saloon.

Blaine set her down, without asking Centaine's permission in the chair that subtly dominated the saloon and was naturally the focus of all attention, the chair that was always and exclusively reserved for Centaine herself. Blaine went down on one knee before his wife and gently arranged her feet, setting them neatly side by side on the silk carpet.

Then he smoothed her skirt over her knees. It was obvious that he had done all this countless times before.

Isabella touched his cheek lightly with her fingertips, and smiled down on his head with such trust and adoration that Centaine felt entirely superfluous. Despair overwhelmed her. She could not intervene between these two. Sir Garry and Abe were both right. She had to relinquish him without a struggle, and she felt an almost saintly sense of righteousness.

Then Isabella looked up at Centaine over the head of her kneeling husband. Against the fashion she wore her hair long and straight. It was so fine and silky that it formed a thick sheet, lustrous as watered satin, that flowed down over her bare shoulders. Her hair was the colour of roasted chestnuts, but it flickered with glowing red stars and highlights each time she moved her head. Her face was round as a medieval madonna's, and lit with serenity. Her eyes were brown and starred with rods of gold that fanned out from the luminous black pupils.

Isabella looked at Centaine across the full length of the saloon, then she smiled, a slow complacent possessive smile, and the light in her brown and gold eyes changed.

She stared into Centaine's dark wild honey eyes and she challenged her. It was as clear to Centaine as if she had stripped off one of her elbow-length gloves with its embroidered seed pearls and struck Centaine in the mouth with it.

You silly little thing, you shouldn't have done that. All Centaine's noble resolutions crumbled before that gaze. I was ready to let you keep him, I truly was. But if you want to fight for him, well then, so do U And she stared back at Isabella and silently took up her challenge.

The dinner was a resounding success. Centaine had carefully vetted the menu but had not trusted her chef with either the dressing for the rock lobster or the sauce for the roast sirloin and had prepared both of these with her own hands. They drank champagne with the lobster and a marvelous velvety Richebourg with the sirloin.

Abe and Blaine were relieved and delighted that Isabella and Centaine were being so utterly charming and considerate to each other. It was obvious that they would become close friends. Centaine included the crippled girl in almost every remark she made, and was solicitous of Isabella's comfort, herself arranging cushions at her back or feet.

Centaine's stories were self-mocking and entertaining as she made light of how she had survived the dreadful crossing of the dune lands, widowed and pregnant, with only wild Bushmen as companions.

How brave of you. Isabella Malcomess got the point of the story.

I am sure there are very few women who would have had your resourcefulness and strength. Colonel Malcomess, can I prevail on you to carve the roast. Sometimes being a woman alone does have its drawbacks. There are things that only a man does well, wouldn't you agree, Mrs Malcomess? Rachel Abrahams sat quietly and apprehensively. She was the only one apart from the two principals who understood what was happening, and her sympathy was all with Isabella Malcomess, for she could imagine her own little nest and nestlings being threatened by a circling predator.

You have two daughters, Mrs Malcomess? Centaine asked sweetlv. 'Tara and Mathilda Janine, such pretty names. She let her rival know that she had done her researches thoroughly. But you must find it difficult to cope, girls being always much more of a handful than boys? Rachel Abrahams, at the end of the table, winced. With a single light flick oi the blade Centaine had pointed up Isabellas disability and her failure to provide a son and heir for her husband.

Oh, I have plenty of time to devote to my domestic duties, Isabella assured her, not being in trade, as it Were.

And the girls are such darlings, they are devoted to their father, of course.

Isabella

was a skilled duellist. Trade was a word that made Centaine's aristocratic blood seethe behind her concerned smile, and it was a master stroke to link the girls so securely to Blaine. Centaine had seen his doting expression at mention of them. She turned to him and changed the subject to Politics.

Recently General Smuts was a guest at Weltevreden, my Cape home. He is deeply concerned by the growth of secret militant societies amongst the lower classes of Afrikaner-dom. In particular the so-called Ossewa-Brantlwag and the Afrikaner Broederbond, the best translation of which would be the "Nightguard of the Wagon Train" and the "Afrikaner

Brotherhoods. I also feel they are highly dangerous and prejudicial to the nation's best interests. Do you share this concern, Colonel Malcomess? Indeed, Mrs Courtney, I have made a special study of these phenomena. But I do not think that you are correct in saying these secret societies include the lower classes of Afrikanerdom. quite the opposite. The membership is restricted to pure-blooded Afrikaners in positions of potential or actual influence in politics, government, religion and education. However, I agree with your conclusions. They are dangerous, more dangerous than most people realize, for their ultimate aim is to gain control of every facet of our lives, from the minds of the young to the machinery of justice and government, and to prefer their members above all consideration of merit or worth. In many ways this movement is the counterpart of the rising wave of National Socialism in Germany under Herr Hitler. Centaine leaned across the table to enjoy every nuance and inflection of his voice, encouraging him with question or shrewd sharp comment. With that voice, she thought, he could sway me and a million voters. Then she realized that the two of them were behaving as if they were the only ones at the table and she returned quickly to Isabella.