Rough Diamond

Prologue February 1887

There are other blink klippies, other shining stones, besides diamonds. The reflection of light from a gold nugget caught in a stream, the glint of gold peeping from a band of quartz, the glimmer of a gold strain peering from a stratum of rock…

Men have searched for gold throughout recorded history and before, and they have searched for it in every corner of the earth. The legend of Jason and the Golden Fleece was supposedly based on a true expedition that took place a millennium and more before the birth of Christ, to find gold washed down from the rivers of what is now Armenia, gold particles that were caught from the rushing waters by the fleece of skinned sheep. Gold brought the Conquistadores to Mexico and Central and South America; it brought the covered wagons to California and the dogsleds to Alaska. Gold has been sought and found in almost every country, nor was South Africa an exception.

At a place called Pilgrim’s Rest, in the Boer Republic of the Transvaal, there was a flurry of mining for gold as far back as the early eighteen-seventies, and Pilgrim’s Rest enjoyed a brief moment in the sun, only to disappear as a town when the single seam of gold-bearing rock ran out. A decade later, some distance farther to the east in the De Kaap Valley but still in the Transvaal, gold was discovered in the small town of Barberton. Once again men poured in with their picks and shovels; hotels were quickly constructed, brothels and bars hastily established, claims offices sprang up, homesite speculation was rife — until the gold at Barberton also ran out and the town soon became a deserted monument to the evanescent character of that most elusive but enticing of metals.

Then, early in the year 1886, an itinerant down-at-the-heels miner named George Harrison came wandering up from Kimberley with his ox wagon and supplies, to a part of the Transvaal known as the Witwatersrand, or White Water Ridge, about thirty miles south of Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal Republic. Harrison was admittedly a failure, partly — as he would have put it — because of bad luck, but largely, it seemed, because he was a nomad at heart. He liked to move on, nor could success in any mining venture keep him in one place. He had found diamonds in Kimberley early in the game, not many but enough to have kept a less restless digger at work, but he had forgone his claim in the Dutoitspan hole to visit Pilgrim’s Rest. He had returned to Kimberley to abandon a claim in the Bultfontein mine and try his luck with gold once again at Barberton, only to return for the third time to Kimberley when the bonanza was over. This time his departure from Kimberley was to bring him to the Witwatersrand, or the Rand, as it became more familiarly known. Here, on the farm of the widow Oosthuizen, Harrison found an outcropping that showed gold, and which eventually would have made him a very rich man, but the wanderlust called again and he sold his claim for ten pounds to a couple of brothers named Struben, who had been prospecting in the area without luck. Not only were the Struben brothers content to remain and work the rich claim, but they were not averse to advertising the fact that gold existed on the Rand, and apparently in large quantities. Whatever happened to George Harrison remains a mystery, but he never returned to the goldfield he had accidentally discovered, nor was he ever seen again in Kimberley.

The propaganda of the Strubens bore rapid fruit, for had they mentioned the presence of gold on the Rand for the purpose of gaining companionship they were eminently successful. Within a few months over three thousand miners were digging away at outcroppings they could easily expose with a little pick-and-shovel work on the rolling hillsides, shalelike strata that could easily be crushed with relatively simple equipment and washed in crude rockers to extract the retained gold. And the three thousand diggers became ten, and the ten thousand diggers became thirty, and they spread themselves across the Reef — not the barren reef of the diamond mines, the edge that was nonproductive and that could and often did fall in on the diggers below and kill them — but the Reef! It was the main lode, the center of the seam, the backbone of the goldfields, the spine that ran for thirty miles from east to west and was several miles wide, and nobody even dared to dream how deep it might be. A mountain beneath the surface, and all of it gold! George Harrison had stumbled on the major gold deposit of the world.

And in a short time the place resembled Kimberley as Kimberley had been fifteen or eighteen years before, a city without ever having been a town or even a village, a city mainly of tents or corrugated iron shanties, a scattering of miserable dwellings over miles of barren soil with neither a tree nor a bush to break the monotony; with the same sanitation pits to be covered when full, if time were found from the endless digging, from the constant search for wealth; with the seemingly same dogs fighting over the offal of slaughtered oxen or cattle, with all the sickening odors and miasma of the earlier Kimberley, and with none of the amenities of decent life that Kimberley had managed to carve out for itself from its diamonds. And in December of 1886 they named the place Johannesburg in honor of a man all of the diggers hated profoundly, the President of the Republic of the Transvaal, Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger.

But while the Reef was demonstrably full of gold, the easily worked outcroppings ran out, and the crude equipment of the individual digger no longer served to bring the metal to the surface and drag it from the rock in which it was imbedded so tenaciously. And so slowly the miners were forced to admit failure; they packed their gear and moved on; and then some of the hotels began to close, and a good portion of the brothels were without custom and soon without girls, and the least secure bar owners nailed boards across the door and packed their kegs and their bottles into wagons and left. For not only were the easily worked outcroppings disappearing, but the gold brought up from the depths was in hard rock, and even when this rock was finally crushed, only a small fraction of the gold it contained could be recovered. And it appeared that, like Pilgrim’s Rest and Barberton, the town of Johannesburg was doomed to disappear into the mists of mining history; and everyone agreed that it was a bloomin’ pity, because the gold was actually there. Except nobody knew how to get it out.

And in this situation, with the gold-mining industry of Johannesburg in a profound depression, and with no solution in sight that anyone could see, Barney Barnato arrived back from England. He had been away almost five years and while Fay had enjoyed the refinements of England, and the meeting of Barney’s family, the miscarriage she had suffered there, losing what both Barney and Fay had hoped would be their first child, had put a pall over the trip that the Grand Tour of the continent had failed to remove. Now both were pleased to be back in South Africa and on their way back to Kimberley. Fay was once again pregnant, and Barney was sure that here at home, among friends and in the country they both loved, there would be no further trouble in the childbearing business.

And Barney was also sure that it was time to be getting back to work. They were saying that the gold business was finished up in Johannesburg, that people were selling out, and that the city would soon die as Pilgrim’s Rest and Barberton had died. It was precisely the type of challenge that Barney Barnato enjoyed; this business of gold, apparently, needed looking into…

9 March 1892

The driver of the new and expensive trap that Barney had acquired was at the stable harnessing the four horses that would draw the trap on the first stage of the long and tiresome five-day trip to Johannesburg; the outriders who had been selected to accompany the trip were in the corral behind the stable selecting the horses that would be taken along as replacements. The railway from Cape Town to Kimberley had been finished and in operation for over seven years, but the stubborn Paul Kruger refused permission for the line to be extended into Transvaal territory. It would, he said, bring in more Uitlanders and further despoil what had been a moral and religious land before the hated foreigners had brought in their brothels and their whores and their gaming and their greed and all the rest of their verdoem vices. It was bad enough that some Uitlanders were already there, but he had no intention of encouraging their sins by allowing a railway to be built that would bring in thousands more. Let them travel by carriage or oxcart over the rough roads and trails; it might even make them think twice before coming to Johannesburg in the first place.

Barney stopped by the Paris Hotel to see that the trap was supplied with a wicker basket well filled with whiskey and sandwiches for at least the first part of the journey. He and Fay no longer lived at the hotel; during their absence in Europe a large home had been built to Barney’s specifications as a surprise gift to Fay upon their return, but the Paris Hotel still drew him to it for entertainment, nor had he ever been tempted to sell it. It was a visible sign to him of where he had come from, of the poverty with which he had arrived in Kimberley, and he never wished to forget either those conditions or those days. Besides, it was here he had bedded his beloved Fay for the first time, and he knew he would never forget the early days of their marriage, enjoyed in this very building.

He gave the proper instructions to the barman as to his wants for the wicker basket, and while waiting turned to see who might be around. And then Barney was grinning his broadest grin at sight of a large hulking figure in the dining room having breakfast. Barney walked over.

“Andries!”

The large man looked up, his bronzed, deeply lined face wrinkling in a broad smile of pleasure. “Barney!” The smile faded. “I mean, Mr. Barnato. You remember me?”

Barney drew up a chair and motioned to the waitress. When she came over he ordered a bottle of the house’s best brandy, always the favorite drink of the Boer, even for those who, like Andries, drank sparingly. He sat down and moved the chair to face the other. “I’ll never forget you,” he said simply. “And what’s this Mr. Barnato nonsense?”

Andries looked embarrassed. “You’re known all over the country, Mr. — I mean—”

“Barney!” Barney said firmly.

“Barney, then. They say you’re a friend of the new Premier, Mr. Rhodes. And they say you’re the richest man in the country.”

“I suppose I am,” Barney said with no attempt at false modesty. “I’ve been lucky. Luckier than you know. D’you remember that girl—” He paused as the waitress brought a bottle and two glasses to the table. He poured two large drinks and pushed one across to Andries. “To your health.” They drank and then Barney went on. “D’you remember that girl we met on the trail? Fay Bees? Her mother died and we buried her up on the Orange?”

“I remember. A very pretty girl.”

“A beautiful girl!” Barney said fervently. “We’re married.” He could not keep the pride of possession from his voice. “We’re going to have a baby very soon.” He considered Andries gravely. “D’you know, when I think of Fay and how I met her, I owe you a great deal. More than you can imagine.”

Andries shook his head. “You owe me nothing.” He looked around, purposely changing the subject. “This is the first time I’ve been to Kimberley in many years. It’s certainly improved since I first dropped you off — in front of this very hotel, I believe.”

“That’s right. And the town has improved, thanks to a lot of work by a lot of people. We think it’s a fine town now. But what brings you to Kimberley now?”

“A load for Johannesburg. No railway, you see. I loaded up at the goods shed; the load came up from Cape Town by train.” Andries smiled a bit ruefully. “When they have railways all over the country, it will be a different world…”

Barney made up his mind on the spot, as he usually did. “Andries, can you get another driver, someone down at Market Square, to take the load? In your wagon — or in theirs, if they prefer?”

“Why should I do that?” Andries said, puzzled by the request.

“Because I want you to come with me. I’m going to Johannesburg, leaving today, going by trap. You could take the place of my driver. As a matter of fact,” he added, struck by the neatness of the solution, “my driver could take your wagon up there. He’s completely reliable. And it would give us a chance to talk.”

Andries studied the still-young face looking at him so earnestly.

“And what would we talk about?” he asked gently. “Let us be honest with each other, Mr. — I mean, Barney. We’re miles apart; we have nothing in common. I’m an old drover; you’re a rich man. What would we talk about?”

“We have two of the most important months of my life in common,” Barney said with conviction. “We can talk of many things. You said yourself that eventually the railway will cover this country. What will you do then, when ox wagons are just a curiosity in some museum?”

Andries finished his drink and put his glass down. Barney reached for the bottle, but Andries laid one of his huge hands over the glass.

“No, that is enough. What will I do when ox wagons are just a memory?” He shrugged lightly. “Then I’ll find a small piece of land and grow my own vegetables, raise a few cattle, watch my oxen graze. Watch them grow old. And, in time, watch them die. Or they’ll watch me die, one or the other.”

“How old are you, Andries?”

“Sixty-two, or maybe sixty-three. Old enough.”

“If you want to sit around on a piece of ground,” Barney said, trying to get the other to see reason — as usual, once his own mind was made up he had difficulty understanding why everyone didn’t see things his way — “they say the land around Johannesburg is good for cattle. I’m going up there to see what else the town is good for; I’ve waited too long as it is. Come with me. We’ll find something we can do together.”

Andries raised his bushy eyebrows. “Why together?”

Barney leaned a bit closer. “Andries, I was a stupid boy twenty years ago; I was an innocent. I thought the five quid for the trip-five quid you never even collected — included keep, as well. Grub. I know better today; I know what you did for me. In a way I owe you more than I can ever repay you.”

“You owe me nothing,” Andries said evenly. “You earned your keep on the trek. I was a fool to take on a load that heavy and try to take it over the mountains by myself. Without you I could never have made it. And the time you stopped those men from robbing the wagon. No, you owe me nothing. Actually,” he added dryly, “you owe me less than nothing. If I had had my way, I would have talked you out of staying in Kimberley. I would have talked you into coming back to Cape Town to work with me; I tried, if you remember. And today you’d be driving an ox wagon, like me.”

“And, except for Fay, probably as happy if not happier,” Barney said. “But I’m ready to work with you now,” he added with a grin, “but not as a driver. Maybe as a rancher. Come on! What d’you say?” He came to his feet as if the matter had already been decided. “Where’s your wagon?”

Andries hesitated; then he said, almost reluctantly, “At the goods shed next to the railway station.”

“And my driver is at the stable practically next to it,” Barney said, as if the proximity of the stables and the goods shed made his argument that much more sensible. The waitress brought over a wicker basket, placing it on the table. Barney thanked her and looked at Andries. The big man slowly came to his feet. “Fine!” Barney said. “Let’s go.”

“Wait. I haven’t paid—”

“I own this place,” Barney said firmly. “You don’t pay at my wagon any more than you let me pay at yours.”

And it had to be an omen, Barney thought as he led the way from the hotel, this running into Andries again after all the years, an omen that Johannesburg would prove as good to him as Kimberley had, especially when he rode into it with the big man at his side…

The crowd before the crude Stock Exchange in Simmonds Street in Johannesburg was quiet and glum; the prices constantly being changed on the board outside of the Exchange — a service for those who could not crowd into the small room inside — were being changed in a downward direction, as they had been for many months, and there was every indication this downward trend would not only continue but accelerate. For many of those watching, the changing figures meant little: what shares they had once owned had been lost long since, sold at any price for food. For these, as well as for many others watching, the entire exercise was simply one of entertainment; they were there to be in a crowd, to be with people, which had to be better than bring alone in a tent, or in a small room someplace with four bare walls and nothing to do but sit and stare, wondering how to meet the rent.

Barney and Andries, weary from the long and tiresome trip — far more tiresome, oddly enough, than walking beside a slow-moving ox wagon — at the moment wanted nothing more than to find a decent hotel and rest. But first, Barney said, they should find the office Solly Loeb had rented in Fox Street, wherever that was, and advise him of their arrival. They had stopped in the Market Square to ask directions, leaving the outriders there, and now they turned from Market Street into Simmonds, crossing Commissioner, and then pulled up, frowning at the sight of chains that blocked the road, and the crowd that was gathered behind the chains, wondering what had caused the congregation. But the board outside the building and the prices being chalked on it explained everything, at least to Barney. He was about to indicate to Andries to turn and take another street when somebody in the crowd recognized him.

“Hey! It’s Barney! Barney Barnato!”

The crowd turned their attention to him; he was, after all, the richest man in Africa while at the moment there were, among them, undoubtedly some of the poorest. They moved from the relatively unexciting listing of prices to crowd against the chains behind which, in a very ornate trap albeit covered with the dust of the trip, was the far more glamorous and enviable Barney Barnato. Many had never seen him, but everyone there had certainly heard of him. Barney, never too tired to take a bow before an audience, smiled and stood up, resting one hand on Andries’ shoulder for support. He looked down at the faces surrounding the trap, searching for a familiar face but unable to find one.

“Hey, Barney, when did y’get back from Merry Ol’ England?”

“Just a few weeks ago,” Barney said, and then added, from lack of anything else to say, “How’s the market?”

This was greeted by a bitter laugh from the crowd. “Don’t ask!” someone shouted.

Then someone else called out. “Hey, Barney, want to buy a gold mine?”

This brought an even louder laugh from the crowd.

“Hey, Barney, how about a choice piece of ground? Make a fine site for a block of office buildings. You can have it cheap. It’s right in the heart of Jo’burg. I’m serious.”

“That’s if you can find anyone to rent them afterwards!” someone else shouted.

“Hey, Barney, you used to pick and shovel, didn’t you? Well, I got me a fine pick and shovel, both. Hardly used. Lately, that is—” That brought another laugh.

Barney held up a hand for quiet.

“You want to know what I want to buy?” he called out when relative silence had fallen. “Well, I’ll tell you — everything!” He held up his hand again to settle the buzz that had broken out from the crowd. “Hold it, boys! I’m serious. Anyone who has anything to sell, come and see me tomorrow. Our offices are at Forty-five Fox Street, if anyone can tell us where that is—”

“Just around the corner,” someone said, and pointed.

“Thanks,” Barney said, and sat down. Andries started to turn the team from the chains, but with a shout the men in the crowd loosened the chains and dropped them at both ends of the block that had been set aside before the Exchange, and then shoved back to give Andries room to pass. The trap moved around the corner, leaving a stunned crowd.

“You think he’s serious?”

“Maybe he thinks he is, but he don’t know Jo’burg,” someone else said.

“He may know diamonds, but he don’t know shit from shaving soap about gold.”

“He may be the richest man in Africa right this minute, but if he buys everything in this town somebody’s got for sale, like he says, then he’s going to be the poorest man in Africa before you can say Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger—”

“That’s his worry, the way I see it. It don’t take no skin off’n a man’s behind just to drop in that office of his tomorrow and see if he really meant what he said.”

“Why, you got something to sell, Joe?”

“I’m down to me virtue, is all—”

The crowd slowly drifted back to the chalkboard and the man still scribbling on it.

Solly Loeb looked at the crowd that filled the outer office of their new rooms and wound itself down the stairs to the street below with what he considered justified resentment. If he was supposed to be in charge of the Johannesburg office, if he was supposed to make the decisions, if he was supposed to make the recommendations as to what to buy — which at this moment in time positively should be nothing at all in this depressed town — then what was Barney doing coming up here and, for all intents and purposes, taking over? And in so doing making a fool of himself, and by association, a fool of Solly Loeb as well? Already, in one short month, Solly was almost ashamed to show himself at the Rand Club, sure the other members were laughing at him behind those suave and supposedly sincere smiles. As he saw one more indigent petitioner — for that was how Solly saw them — leave Barney’s inner office and as he resignedly waved another one to enter, Solly tried to calculate how much money Barney Barnato had already thrown down the drain, but the figure he came up with was too staggering even to be contemplated without making him sick. If it kept up like this, the Barnato Investment Company would go stony, and with it the value of the shares Solly held in it.

What had his maniac uncle bought in the short matter of four weeks? Well, he had bought about any land offered in downtown Johannesburg that had clear title, land which had to be worth less than a tenth of what he had paid for it, if Solly was any judge. And who should be a better judge? He, Solly, had been here several months before Barney showed up, and he hadn’t wasted his time, either, in learning the facts of the place, facts that Barney seemed to prefer to disregard. And not satisfied with buying half of the town itself, he had gone ahead and bought land outside of the city, a huge tract, more land than Solly could imagine, an area the idiot intended to stock with cattle — to feed the coming city of Johannesburg, he had said. What coming city of Johannesburg? The way things were going, there wouldn’t be a Johannesburg in five years! And what he had paid for that — that — that pasture could have been purchased for pennies a few years back! Oh, they had seen him coming, all right! His smart uncle, Barney Barnato!

What else? Oh, yes, the waterworks! Water was essential for the mines as well as for the people, Barney had said. What mines? What people? This town would be another Barberton in a year! Oh, yes, and speaking of mines and gold stocks, Barney had, of course, bought gold mines and gold stocks — mines that had gold in them, nobody denied that, but gold that could be taken from those mines at a break-even cost only, and you had to be pretty smart to even do that. The fact was it cost as much to get an ounce of gold from that retentive rock as the cost of just about bringing it to the surface, let alone the cost of crushing the rock in those expensive batteries, and the cost of labor and supervising the damned Kaffirs and the cost of the tools and the machinery and the freight, since because of the damned Kruger there were no railways to the damned place, and God alone knew what else!

Solly had said as much to the reticent Andries the day the large Boer had driven him out in the trap to inspect the land Barney had bought for the ranch, a ranch Andries was to run on a fifty-fifty partnership basis.

“He’s lost his mind!” Solly had said hopelessly. “I don’t believe he has the slightest idea of what he’s doing. Or how much he’s spending.” It wasn’t because Solly particularly wished to confide his thoughts to Andries; to begin with he was a stranger, and a Boer, and besides he was obviously an uneducated peasant, a nobody. But there wasn’t anyone else around; it was almost like talking to oneself. “Over two million pounds. Two million pounds! In less than a month! Can you imagine? Do you have any idea how much money that is, two million pounds?”

Andries properly considered that the question needed no answer from him, and held his silence.

“And if it was only all his own money!” Solly had gone on bitterly. “He seems to forget, or maybe he prefers to forget, that there are other shareholders in the company! He doesn’t even ask their opinion; he just plows on!” He seemed to suddenly realize he was expressing his personal views before a man Barney had just recently introduced into the picture, a new factor in the equation. The people Barney managed to pick up! Like stray dogs! A driver of an ox wagon, for God’s sake, just because they’d once made a trek together! “Of course, that’s just my opinion…” He looked up, the look itself on that haughty patrician face demanding an answer, a commitment.

“Ummm…,” Andries had said diplomatically.

“Yes,” Solly had said shortly with a shake of his head and a sidelong glance at the other man, as if to warn him he had been eavesdropping, for all practical purposes, and not to forget it; and fell silent.

He came back to the present as a man came from Barney’s office and approached his desk, holding out a chit upon which Barney’s scrawled signature was clearly evident. Solly studied it balefully for several moments and then looked up.

“What’s this for?”

“Sold ’im a share o’ a claim.” The man sounded as if the money represented by the chit had been found in the street.

“And where’s this claim?” Solly asked sardonically. “Market Square?”

The man bridled. “Hit’s a good claim, an’ ’e bought hit square! An’ you pay me me money raht now, you ’ear?”

“Don’t take that tone with me! You watch your tongue!”

“Watch me tongue, eh? You watch yer throat, lad! I signed the papers all proper, an’ ’e signed the chit! Now I wants me money!”

Solly gritted his teeth. He wrote the check, signed it, and handed it over, coming to his feet immediately afterward, fuming. This was too much! He marched into Barney’s office, forestalling a rather well dressed elderly man who had moved to the door and had merely been waiting for Solly’s permission to enter. He did not look like the usual run of petitioner waiting to cash in on a worthless claim, or a claim that was, at the very least, profitless; on the contrary he looked rather distinguished, but Solly was well aware that merely looking distinguished did not prevent a man from taking as much advantage of Barney as one who looked disreputable. In any event, Solly pushed past the man brusquely, entering the office and closing the door firmly behind him. Barney looked up curiously.

“Yes, Solly?”

Solly drew up a chair and sat down opposite his uncle. He took a deep breath and began. “Barney,” he said, trying to sound as calm as his uncle looked, “do you know what you are doing?”

“I think so,” Barney said mildly.

“D’you know how much money you’ve put out? In a month?”

“About two million pounds, I believe. Why?”

Solly was speechless, but only for a moment.

“Why? Why? Because most of it if not all of it is money down the drain, that’s why! Sure, there’s gold in the Reef; there’s gold in people’s teeth, too! But what good is the gold in the Reef if nobody can get it out at a profit, eh? The mines that are still working are barely breaking even. Look at the Simmer & Jack mine! They know as much about getting gold out of the rock with mercury amalgam as anyone in the world, and they’re barely making expenses! Look at Robinson! He’s added the new chlorination process to try and squeeze an extra tenth of an ounce per ton of rock, and I doubt if he’s even paid for the new equipment he added! My God, Barney, there’s probably more gold in the slag heaps than there is being extracted and poured, practically. What kind of a business is that to be pouring money in, endlessly? And the mining stocks you insist upon buying, stocks even in mines that have been shut down and will probably never reopen—”

“Solly,” Barney said quietly, interrupting. “There were diamonds in the blue ground, as you may remember, and we had to figure out how to get them out. The answer was in power equipment, steam-driven equipment, and we had to even bring the coal by ox wagon over half of South Africa to fire the boilers. I don’t know what the answer is going to be to get the gold from the rock, but there’s going to be an answer and somebody’s going to find it. And if power is needed and steam to produce that power, at least the coal is within a few miles of here. I know this: there’s gold in the Reef! They calculate there’s more gold here than in any other place in the world. Where there’s that much gold, somebody is going to figure out how to recover it. And at a profit, too. And when they do, I expect to be ready.”

“And if they don’t figure out how to recover it — at that profit you’re talking about — for the next hundred years?” Solly asked sardonically. “What then?”

“Then I guess we wait a hundred years,” Barney said philosophically. He looked at his nephew steadily. “But we wait.”

Solly shook his head in frustrated desperation. “But, damn it, Barney! Even so! The prices you’re paying for everything! The market keeps going down and you keep buying!”

“Solly,” Barney said quietly, “if the basic proposition is good, the time to buy is on a falling market. Let a rising market take care of itself. In the long run you’ll come out far ahead. People lose opportunities waiting for a market to bottom; they lose money because they’re afraid to lose it. I’ve never been afraid to lose money and that’s why I’ve got what I’m spending today.” Solly stared at him hopelessly. “Now,” Barney said briskly, getting back to business, and avoiding Solly’s baleful glance, “who’s next out there?”

“A chap dressed to the nines,” Solly said a bit vengefully. “And I only hope you don’t buy the Cape Town breakwater from him, or either Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace!”

“I didn’t know they were for sale,” Barney said with a smile, “but if they are I promise to bid low.” He watched Solly stamp from the room to be replaced by a gray-haired gentleman dressed in the latest fashion. The door closed behind him. Barney motioned the man to a seat and waited until he had been made comfortable. Barney leaned back in his chair, relaxing. “And exactly what do you have to sell?” he asked politely.

The man smiled broadly. “Position,” he said evenly. “Possibly even fame, although I can’t guarantee it. Possibly notoriety, although I can’t guarantee that, either. Recognition, certainly, although you do not require that, being who you are. And all at a reasonable price. My rates are usually sixpence a line, but as an old friend — and one who should be hurt by your failure to remember me, although I am forced to recognize that time works its havoc whether we wish it or not — I have come to offer my services for what they might be worth. Possibly nothing. Possibly a bit more.”

Barney frowned across the desk. This was far different from the normal approach he had become used to in the past month, although he had to admit he had faced more than one ingenious ploy. “I beg your pardon?”

“For not recognizing me?” The man carefully rucked one trouser leg several inches upward before crossing his legs; he glanced down to satisfy himself there were no creases that might provide future and unsightly wrinkles, and then looked up with a slightly accusatory frown, although his eyes were twinkling. “I suppose you should be forgiven, considering the lapse of time. I can only gather that you are not in the habit of saving calling cards, my young Mr. Isaacs. Actually, I don’t myself. They take up so much room in filing cabinets, and when you run across them years later you say to yourself — with much the frown you have on your face at present — who the devil was that? Why did the dreadful bore give me his card in the first place? And then, quite properly, you tear it in shreds and throw it away.”

Barney stared. “I’m afraid—”

“Cape Town,” the man said, smiling. “A large area next to the Castle. People milling about like mad, and a young boy trying to figure out how to get to Kimberley on a rather restricted budget, I imagine—”

Barney came to his feet, beaming. “Mr. Breedon!”

“Well, at least the name made an impression,” Breedon said, and smiled across the desk. “In all honesty, my young friend, I’m more than gratified that you remember me at all. After all, our conversation lasted only a few moments. And it’s been — what? — twenty years?”

“Mr. Breedon!” Barney hurried around the desk, his hand out to greet the elderly man. “It’s truly good to see you! My first good word in this country came from you. And I’ve never forgotten!”

“Nor have I. Nor your Shakespearean recitations.” His eyebrows rose humorously. “Your accent has improved. Or at least changed.”

Barney grinned broadly and went into his old Cockney. “Eee, I married a ’ard woman, y’can take me word fer it!” He put away the Cockney. “The Bard said, in Hamlet, ‘Frailty, thy name is woman!’ Well, he didn’t know my Fay, and that’s the truth.” He dropped his light tone. “I’m glad you’re here, Mr. Breedon. You offered money to an absolute stranger, a young boy you knew you might never see again.”

“A loan the boy refused.”

Barney shook his head. “That makes no difference.” He returned to his chair and leaned back in it, considering Breedon across the wide desk. “I’ve never forgotten that. And whatever I can do for you, in Johannesburg or Kimberley, will be done. Just say the word.”

Breedon looked a bit embarrassed. “Well, to tell the truth, I do need a favor of sorts to ask—”

“Just name it! Do you need money?”

Breedon laughed. It was a laugh of such enjoyment, such pleasure, that Barney stared at him. Breedon shook his head.

“I suppose I should be more flattered than anything else at your offer, since I try very hard to maintain my privacy. While it is undoubtedly true I am not as rich as Barney Barnato, I’m afraid the wolf comes to my door, sniffs a bit, and then wanders off a trifle discouraged. No, Barney, I came to ask you for something more precious, possibly, than your money. I came to ask you for your time.”

Barney frowned, now thoroughly confused. “My time?”

“Yes. I came to ask you to run for the Cape Assembly.”

Barney’s frown turned to puzzlement.

“There are no Assembly representatives from Johannesburg, I’m sure you know that. We’re part of the Transvaal, not the Cape Colony.” He smiled faintly, but there was little humor in his smile. “I doubt that Oom Paul Kruger would be pleased to have us think otherwise; his Boer commandos would be at the voting booths and they wouldn’t be there to vote, at least not with ballots. Bullets, maybe.”

“I’m quite aware of that, of course,” Breedon said, his eyes sharp on Barney’s face. “But Kimberley is still a part of the Cape Colony, and I understand you still have a home there, as well as many friends, and a great many interests.”

Barney looked at the man thoughtfully. “Mr. Breedon,” he said at last, “your name is not as unknown to me as you may think. I do know something about you. When I offered you money a few moments ago, I thought possibly you might have fallen upon temporary hard times; it happens to the best. They tell me publishing is a risky business at best; it’s one of the reasons I’ve stayed out of it. But still, as I understand it, your principal interests are in Cape Town—”

“And in Bloemfontein and in Pretoria, and although it is not generally known — nor need it be — I also own a good share of the local newspaper here in Johannesburg. No, Mr. Barnato — Barney — I am a newspaper publisher and I have interests in all parts of South Africa, and major ones in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. I am also of Dutch parentage. And I feel that a strong voice in the Cape Assembly will be needed very shortly, a voice with reputation and influence, to counteract, if you will, the influence of certain parties who seem intent upon fostering trouble between the Boers and the English.”

Barney stared at the man, his face expressionless. “And what makes you think I disagree with — these certain parties?”

Breedon smiled gently. “You insult me, Barney. I am a newspaper publisher and it’s true I spend most of my time behind a desk, but I am also a newspaper reporter, and if I say so myself a rather good one. I did not come to see you without having done a decent amount of investigating. I am as sure you agree with my point of view as I am that I am sitting here. Otherwise, I assure you I would not be sitting here.”

Barney swung his chair to stare from the window. In the distance he could see the long low but rising yellow slag heaps that dotted the landscape of the Reef, and the peaceful rolling hills beyond, touched with light fleecy clouds. It was an idyllic scene and one he knew could change radically in a very short time. He knew exactly what Breedon was talking about; he heard the hotheads of the so-called Reform Committee spouting their talk of possible revolution or even outright war every day in the Rand Club, and had argued often enough with them. But politics was not his game, mining and finance were. And what could or would one voice matter in the Cape Assembly if these rash fools were to insist upon trouble?

On the other hand it undoubtedly would be an honor to run for the Assembly and to be elected; he was sure Fay would enjoy the time spent in a civilized town like Cape Town during the Assembly sessions as a welcome respite from the dirt and filth of the growing Johannesburg; besides, it would be near her hometown of Simonstown and would give her a chance to see old friends. And it would be good to have an excuse to get back to Kimberley again for the campaigning, and to meet old friends and see the old familiar sights. Oh, there would be advantages, there was no doubt of that, not the least being that he would be able to tell these hot-tempered idiots just how foolish they were.

But on the other hand, Fay was close to her time, and was in no condition to be traveling anywhere, not even to Kimberley and not even in the most comfortable means of travel; the roads and carriages of the day were not for women in labor. And it would be unfair for him to be away when the baby was born. Unfair? It would be unthinkable, especially after they had waited so many years for this baby. And, without being crass, he had just spent over two million pounds of his Barnato Investment Company’s money, and while a good part of it was his own money, at the same time the stockholders were entitled to his close attention to sums that great. And he also had a responsibility to his family and the unborn baby to see that the Barnato fortune was not treated cavalierly through what would, at the moment, merely represent a form of vanity on his part. Solly was a capable assistant, Barney knew that, but he strongly suspected that it was precisely people like Solly and Cecil Rhodes that Breedon had been referring to as wishing to foster trouble between the Boers and the English. And, to be truthful, the best place to be to keep an eye on Solly and the other members of the so-called Reform Committee was in Johannesburg and the Rand Club, not in Cape Town.

In some ways it was a hard decision, but basically it was an easy one. Barney swung back to his guest.

“Mr. Breedon,” he said earnestly, “I appreciate your coming to see me, and I’m flattered you wish me to run for a seat in the Assembly. But this isn’t the time, at least not for me. In two or three years, when the next election takes place, possibly. But not now.”

Breedon sighed and came to his feet. He was a pragmatist, a man who recognized the futility of an argument with a man of Barnato’s caliber once his mind had been made up.

“Then it is possible that I shall be back in two or three years, if it is not too late by then,” he said, and smiled. “Newspapermen are notoriously patient; after all, we have no choice. We must wait each day for something to happen to give us our headlines and our columns. Impatience doesn’t help.” He held out his hand; Barney came to his feet and gripped it strongly. “Newspapermen can also be helpful at times,” Breedon added quietly. “If there is ever anything I can do…”

Barney grinned, his old gamin grin. “As a matter of fact, there is,” he said. “That young chap who was in here before you is my nephew. I’d appreciate it if you could tell him, on your way out, to send in the next one…”

In a suburb of Glasgow, in a small laboratory behind the surgery of two brothers who were doctors, three men labored, the third being a self-taught chemist. The three had been intrigued for a long time with the problem of extracting the last grain of gold from the ore-bearing rock. Not only would the solution to the age-old problem make them rich and famous — and permit them, possibly, to mount a decent laboratory instead of the poor one in which they worked — but it would have a profound effect on the economy of many countries, and principally South Africa and the gold Reef of the Rand.

Up until that time the major method of extracting nonalluvial gold — gold that was not found in a free state, washed down some river from a mother lode above — was through the mercury process. Here mercury was used to form an amalgam with the precious metal once the rock containing it had been crushed; the mercury was then boiled off and condensed for reuse. But the amalgam process recovered at most 50 per cent of the precious gold, and since the Johannesburg Reef contained on an average approximately between one half and one ounce of gold per ton of rock, even a 50 per cent recovery rate — as Solly Loeb had pointed out — was barely profitable considering the huge expenses involved in equipment and labor. The addition of the chlorination process, as installed at the Robinson mine, had raised the recovery rate from 50 per cent to between 65 and 70 per cent, but the additional cost involved made the increased recovery little more profitable than the original amalgam process. The challenge of knowing that the largest deposit of gold-bearing rock in the world, practically an underground mountain of gold, would soon be merely an oddity, a curiosity, its riches forever locked away from mankind merely because of the economics of recovery, drove the three men to work hard to find a proper solution to the problem.

“If the rock could be crushed fine enough,” said one of the doctor brothers one day — his name was William Forrest — “then it seems logical that the gold could be combined with another element, a cheap-enough and recoverable-enough element to make the process worthwhile. In that combination we might be able to precipitate the gold in some fashion.”

“The fineness of the crushing should be no great problem,” said his brother, Robert Forrest. Robert, while weaker in chemistry than the others, was by far the most mechanically minded. “Some of the big presses down at the John Brown Shipyards along the Clyde can bend and form a four-inch-thick steel plate; they certainly ought to be able to crush rock. And if we want it any finer, we can use the type of ball mills they use for pigments, and some of them, like the phthalocyanine greens and blues, are pretty hard,” he added with conviction. “We can get the rock to as fine a powder as we wish. The only thing is, combining crushed rock with another element is basically what the mercury amalgam process does. And the recovery is barely half.”

“I don’t mean mercury,” William said, irritated at his brother’s intransigence. “I mean something more effective!”

“Like what?” Robert asked innocently.

The three of them laughed. They were having lunch at a small pub not far from their laboratory in the industrial section of Rutherglen. John Stewart MacArthur, the third of the group and the self-taught chemist, had learned his profession at a company that specialized in the treatment of refractory minerals from all over the world. With a sudden faraway look in his eyes, he bit into his meat pie, chewed, swallowed, and washed the entire bit down with a draft of his beer.

“Speaking of the phthalocyanine blues and greens,” he said, setting down his stein, “Farraday experimented with sodium cyanide in an exhibition at the Albert Hall almost twenty-five years ago, showing it had an extraordinary affinity for gold.”

“But it was never proven as being practical on an industrial scale,” Will said. “I know what you mean. There was a Julio Rae who even got a patent in America on treating either gold or silver ores with potassium or sodium cyanide, but nothing ever came of that, either.”

“Maybe they didn’t go far enough,” MacArthur said. He pushed aside his meat-pie dish and was wiping the table dry before applying his pencil to it. A horrified serving maid hurried up, sliding a piece of paper under his pencil before he could mar the polished surface of the wood; apparently the staff of the pub were accustomed to Mr. MacArthur and his habits, and were prepared for them.

“Really, Mr. MacArthur!”

MacArthur grinned sheepishly. “Sorry, Kitty.” He bent over the paper, putting down symbols. “Au + NaCN—” He looked up. “Farraday used water, too, as I recall, to obtain sodium hydroxide as a by-product. To reduce the sodium.” Both Will and Bob Forrest were watching him carefully.

“You’d get a faster reaction if you were to bubble pure oxygen through the solution,” Will Forrest pointed out, wishing to contribute.

“Pure oxygen is expensive,” his brother pointed out, his Scottish heart automatically rejecting the suggestion. “We’re trying to save money, not spend it.”

“Use air then,” Will said. “That isn’t expensive. The oxygen in the air will do the trick, and the nitrogen, I’m sure, won’t do any harm.”

“We hope,” MacArthur said, and crossed out his first attempt, starting a second formula. “Au + NaCN + H₂O + O₂—”

Will Forrest reached over, putting his hand over the paper.

“We’re going about this the wrong way,” he said quietly. “Let’s consider what we want to end up with, and then backtrack to see how to get there. What we want is sodium hydroxide and the gold-cyanide solution—”

MacArthur shook his head stubbornly.

“It isn’t that simple or someone would have done it years ago.” He went back to his scribbling, crossing out, adding, a frown on his face. At last he looked up. “We’re going to have to have enough sodium not only for the sodium hydroxide but for a combination of gold and sodium cyanide. Then we can work on the gold-sodium cyanide and separate out the gold. A number of metals might do the trick, leaving the sodium cyanide.” He pushed over the paper. “I think this is probably where we should start.”

The formula read: “4Au + 8NaCN + O₂ + 2H2O.”

Will frowned. “You mean we start with sodium cyanide and we end with sodium cyanide?”

“That’s how these things sometimes work,” MacArthur said cheerfully.

Bob Forrest was interested in another problem. “Why four gold and eight sodium cyanide?”

“Because I’m the chemist and you’re only doctors,” MacArthur said with a grin, “and because chemistry is a funny thing, as you should know by now. You only get out what you put in, only in a different form.” He bent back to his paper, muttering to himself as he did computations in his head, and then completed his formula. “—= 4NaAu(CN)₂+ 4NaOH.”

Will Forrest studied the paper, frowning, and then looked up. “It looks simple enough, but will it work?”

MacArthur shrugged. “It’s easy enough to find out. All we have to do is try it.”

“Cyanides are dangerous to work with,” Bob Forrest objected, always the pessimist.

“The concentration doesn’t need to be very high,” MacArthur said, not at all bothered by the statement. “Farraday worked with a one per cent solution, I believe. We can start even weaker than that. Start with a tenth of one per cent and work our way up, if need be.”

“But would a solution that weak work?”

“We’ll only find out trying. Besides,” MacArthur said with a broad smile, “it seems to work in this pub for the beer. That certainly can’t be any stronger than one tenth of one per cent alcohol, and they don’t seem to have any trouble getting rid of it.” He watched his companions finish their meat pies and empty their steins. “Well, shall we go back to work and see if the great Michael Farraday knew what he was talking about twenty-five years ago? Not to mention the ubiquitous but less famous Julio Rae, whoever he was?”

Bob Forrest frowned as he came to his feet, looking down at MacArthur. “And if the formula works, what then?”

“Then we take our little gold-sodium cyanide and start combining it with every known metal — except gold, of course — working alphabetically, which is the scientific method, until something happens. With our luck,” he added with pretended mournfulness, “the one that finally works will probably turn out to be zinc!”

He stood up and started to lead the way from the pub, anxious to get to his test tubes and his formula.

“Mr. MacArthur! Gentlemen! Your bill!”

MacArthur turned back, smiling, reaching for his wallet.

“Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!” he said reproachfully, handing her a note. “Don’t you know that the first sign of pure genius in a scientist is his forgetfulness?”

Leah Primrose Barnato was born on March 16, 1892, and a prouder father than Barney Barnato would have been hard to find. Leah Primrose was a beautiful, healthy child who Barney was pleased to see was going to resemble his wife’s side of the family, rather than his own, and Barney could hardly wait to take his daughter around Johannesburg and show her off. It took all of Fay’s strong will and persuasion to hold him back for at least the first few months of the child’s life, but after that it was impossible. It was quite commonplace to see Barney Barnato come wheeling Leah’s pram to the Sunday races and point out to the punters, often interrupting their betting, just how lovely his daughter was; or find him pushing the pram into the Stock Exchange and — waving away any who dared bend over the child with a cigar in his mouth — hold up the chalking of prices while he expounded on her virtues. Or see him march proudly into the Rand Club, lift Leah from her pram and set her on the bar, and beam at the other patrons as he bought a round of drinks, heisting his glass in a toast to “the prettiest, cleverest, strongest, most intelligent baby in the world” and practically daring anyone in the place to disagree.

And it was on a day when he was doing exactly that in the Rand Club — Leah had begun to show signs of teething, which Barney seemed to think was something no other child on earth had ever done before, certainly not at her age — when Solly Loeb burst into the club and raced down the bar to Barney’s side. Barney frowned. In the first place, overt exercise on the part of his nephew Solly was quite unusual; in the second place, any sudden motions seemed to upset little Leah, especially at the moment. Solly’s face was red; he was gasping.

“Barney! Barney!” Solly suddenly seemed to realize he was causing a bit of a scene, that his obvious agitation was drawing attention that was precisely the last thing he wished. But his news was so momentous it was difficult to appear calm. Still, he forced himself into an approximation of composure, and dropped his voice. “Barney, let’s get out of here. I’ve got to talk to you. It’s important.”

Barney merely nodded. He finished his drink, carefully placed Leah Primrose in her pram, waved to the others along the bar, and walked out, pushing the pram before him. Solly sidled alongside him, bursting with his news. Once they were in the street and Barney had covered the open portion of the pram with a netting against the dust of Commissioner Street, Solly could hold out no longer.

“Barney, d’you remember those two fellows from Scotland? Forrest and MacArthur? Who said they had a process for the extraction of a hundred per cent of the gold from the rock?”

“I remember. They claimed they had proven their process in Australia and America. We gave them the use of our laboratories for them to prove it here.”

“Well, by God, they proved it! They actually proved it! You know, when they first came down here—”

“—you wanted to throw them out of the office.”

Solly waved this away as being unimportant. “I admit I didn’t believe them. Why would they have come to South Africa last? Well, I was wrong, I admit it.” Barney looked at him; for Solly to admit he was wrong was a major event. “I just came from the laboratory, Barney! It works! The process really works!”

“I was sure it would.”

Solly stopped short, eyeing his uncle disbelievingly. “Oh, come on! How could you be sure it would work?”

“I wasn’t sure their particular process would work,” Barney said calmly, “but I was sure that one or another, theirs or someone else’s, would work. It had to.” He looked out toward the low hills that surrounded the city, and the growing mountains of yellowish slag that covered a good part of the landscape. “There’s just too much gold out there in the Reef for one process or another not to work.”

Solly said, still almost in a state of shock at the unexpected fortune that had befallen them, “They won’t give us an exclusive on the process, but they’ll set up our plant first and won’t begin any other negotiations until we’re in full production. It’ll be on a royalty basis, but it’s dirt-cheap at the price. We’ll have the edge on every other mining company in the Rand! Our stocks will go right through the roof!”

“I was talking to them when they first came,” Barney said, recalling the incident, “and more out of curiosity than anything else. They said they spent most of their time playing with different metals until they found the best one to bring out the gold from their chemical solution. Which one was it that did the trick?”

“Zinc,” Solly said, and chortled to think of their good luck. Solly Loeb had no idea of what zinc was, other than being a metal that people sometimes used in sheet form for rooftops, but if it wasn’t gold at least it made gold possible, and to Solly Loeb, that was all that mattered.

But Solly’s tone was different when he spoke to Andries Pirow over a drink at the Rand Club. Speaking with Andries was perfectly proper now; Andries was a respected and established rancher, as well as being a member of the Rand Club — one of its very few Boer members, and one whose membership had been demanded and won by Barney Barnato. Andries Pirow was also a member of the Volksraad, the Transvaal Parliament, easily elected from the Johannesburg District by his many friends he had made in his years of hauling into the area. It seemed hard, at times, for Andries to realize the profound change in his life that had come about because of his chance meeting with Barney that day in the Paris Hotel in Kimberley; it was something he often thought about and it was what he was thinking about as Solly went on with his speech. Andries was well aware that to Solly it was still the same as if he were speaking to himself to address Andries.

“Luckiest man in the world, Barney Barnato!” Solly said bitterly, almost as if a good portion of his own fortunes were not intimately bound up with Barney’s. He lifted his drink and sipped gloomily before putting his glass down. “Buys when nobody else is buying, pays prices nobody else would dream of paying, buys things nobody in his right mind would touch with a barge pole, does things that would put any other man in the world in the poorhouse; and then has the incredible, unbelievable, inconceivable fortune to get the first go at the cyanide process for the Rand! If he fell into a cesspool, he’d come out dripping with diamonds!”

“Ummm,” said Andries.

“When they first came into the office, Barney was about to throw them out, but luckily — another example of his incredible luck — I talked him out of it. ‘Give them a chance,’ I told him. ‘After all, they say they’ve installed the process in Australia and America and that it works there. Why shouldn’t it work here? And what’s the point of our having laboratories if we don’t use them?’”

“Ummm.”

“But it’s not as if I envy Barney, or that I’m jealous of him, or anything like that, I want you to understand,” Solly said loftily. “Don’t think that for a moment. After all, we’re relations, and I owe everything I’ve got to Barney. Just as he owes a lot of what he’s got to me. And besides, I own a fair bit of Barnato Investment Company stock myself.”

“Ummm.”

“But still, you can’t deny that he’s luckier than a man with the only beer license for the entire Karroo. Lucky, that’s the only word for Barney Barnato,” Solly said glumly, repeating himself.

“Ummm,” said Andries.

10 October 1893

Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, President of the Transvaal Republic and known to both friend and enemy as Oom Paul-Uncle Paul — killed his first game when he was seven years old; he was taken by his parents on the Great Trek from the Cape to the interior, then an uncharted wilderness, when he was ten. He killed his first Kaffir at the age of eleven when their wagon train was ambushed on the trail, and slew his first lion when he was fourteen. Now in his sixties, tough as a rhinoceros, mean as a wounded water buffalo, and with a hatred of the British dating from his earliest childhood memories of being uprooted from land in the Cape Colony which had been settled by his ancestors, and with a deep suspicion and almost equal dislike for the native blacks with whom he had fought innumerable battles in the establishment of the Boer Republic in the midst of what had been Matabele territory, Paul Kruger was not a man to compromise.

Now, presiding over a small group of the Volksraad in the living room of his home in Pretoria, he was propped up in a huge chair to accommodate his large body, swathed in blankets and with a cup of hot tea laced with brandy at his elbow. His wife, hoping to manage a word that might get her stubborn husband to return to his four-poster and combat his cold sensibly — a cause she knew before she started was hopeless — finally sighed at the definite look of dismissal in his eyes, and picking up a full ashtray as if to prove her entrance had been with purpose, retired to the kitchen. Kruger returned his attention to the meeting. It was far from even being a quorum of the membership; it contained only a few of the cabinet, but it was all the important members Paul Kruger had been able to reach by messenger upon hearing news he considered warranted such a meeting.

“You say it’s a new process?” He was addressing a member of the Raad named Kaspar Enslin; as a graduate of the Cape University, Enslin was the most educated and was therefore considered an expert on anything beyond the experience of the others in the room. He also made his home in the city of Johannesburg and was therefore also considered an expert on anything pertaining to that city. It was not a position Enslin enjoyed; basically he was a most modest person, and knew that he was wrong as often as he was right.

“Yes,” Enslin said. “It seems to promise the total recovery of the gold from the rock.” They spoke Afrikaans. Although most of them could manage well enough in English, the use of the hated language was almost forbidden in the Kruger presence.

“What chemical is it?” This was from Frans Scholtz, and was said most eagerly. Scholtz was a major trader and held the concession for the importation of all dynamite into the Transvaal, dynamite essential to the very existence of the mines. It was claimed that if one placed a shilling under a rock in the Simmer & Jack mine, and put Scholtz in the Robinson mine, miles away, he could tell by merely smelling which side of the shilling showed the old Queen. Kruger raised a hand, cutting off this portion of the discussion. He knew he would have to return to it, for Scholtz would never allow the matter to be dropped so easily, but Kruger had more important matters than Scholtz’s convenience or profits on his mind in calling the meeting.

“Later!” Kruger said in a tone that ended, or at least postponed, the matter, and fell silent, thinking. The others in the large room waited. There were eight men present in addition to the President, the only ones Kruger had been able to reach with the little notice he had upon hearing what to him had been dread news. He looked around, his small, beady eyes passing from man to man, from face to face, assessing them from beneath his bushy graying eyebrows. At last he spoke. “You all realize what this will mean?”

Scholtz, for one, knew it could mean a’ fortune for whoever gained the concession for the chemical, whatever it was, that was essential to the new process, but he also knew that Kruger’s question had been rhetorical. Scholtz, therefore, properly kept his silence. Contrary to the thoughts of many, Scholtz was no fool.

“It will mean the influx of thousands upon thousands of diggers, Uitlanders, outsiders, foreigners, strangers!” Kruger said heavily. His big hands gripped the edge of the large chair. “Most of them will be English, with a few Americans. It will mean all the people who left in the last few years will be coming back to the Transvaal, bringing with them all their vices, their filth, their gambling, their whores—” He paused without mentioning their bars and their liquors, and took a sip of his brandy-laced tea, wiping his lips afterward on the back of his large hand, as if to punctuate his statement.

“I don’t think so,” Enslin said slowly.

Kruger’s bushy eyebrows rose dramatically. “You don’t think so? With more gold in sight? You don’t think they’ll come flocking in like vultures over a dead bokram?”

Enslin shook his head. “No, sir. The diggings have changed, Meneer President. The small digger, the individual miner, no longer has the force, the financial strength, to become involved in the mining of gold. It is now in the hands of the big companies, the corporations, the stock companies, a lot of them with Kimberley money, and there is no longer room for the digger the way there was when they dug the outcropped tailings and washed them in a rocker pan. It’s a different business, and will be even more different with the new process. Now they will use mostly Kaffir labor. I do not see any great increase of the Johannesburg population, at least not of English. Of Kaffirs, yes, but I am sure the whites will keep them under the same strict control they use in the diamond fields.”

“But this new process does not require skilled labor? White labor?”

Another man spoke up, Theunis Leyds, a farmer from just outside Johannesburg, a man who provided many of the fresh vegetables the city used, and therefore made frequent trips there.

“I do not believe so,” he said. “I think Kaspar is right.” He spoke slowly, as he did all things slowly, as if after a considerable amount of thought, although this was not always the case, as Kruger well knew. Leyds puffed on his pipe a moment, as if considering his words, and then removed it from his thin lips to continue. “They are building compounds at all the mines for the blacks as they did in Kimberley, for while the gold is more difficult to steal than the diamonds were, apparently with this new process it is not impossible. And they are saying that while the chemical fumes are bad for white men, and the chemicals burn the skin, this is not true for the Kaffirs, that the chemicals have no effect on the skin or lungs of the blacks. So it will be the Kaffirs, in the main, who will handle the chemicals in the new process, I imagine.”

It was a long speech for Leyds, and for once it made sense to Kruger. The President smiled, a humorless smile.

“How like the English! They are the ultimate hypocrites. I remember as a child — they sold us the slaves and then came around saying the slaves were free — after taking our money. Slaves, incidentally, we treated well, considering the admonitions of the Bible against all the sons of Ham, condemning them to be servants for all their lives and the lives of all the generations to follow. And then they lock the blacks in compounds, feed them worse than animals, treat them worse than even the Matabele treated their captives, and now they are going to poison them, as well!”

“We might pass a law forbidding it.” The man who spoke allowed his thoughts to trail to silence. It was the Reverend Karl Hofmeyr, the pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church in Pretoria.

Kruger waved the notion away; he was sure the reverend felt the same on the subject as he did; how could he feel otherwise in view of the strictures of the Good Book?

“I care not what the English do with their Kaffirs. Let them starve them, poison them, do what they will with them. The English are fools; when they finish exploiting the black, they send him home with a gun in his hands. Someday they will face those guns. No, what happens to the Kaffirs is out of our hands; what happens to the English is what interests me.” He turned to look at Andries Pirow, who had been sitting silently during the discussion. “You, my old friend, are much in touch with these English. Do you agree with Kaspar and Leyds? Do you think the English will increase in number because of this new process, whatever it is?”

Andries Pirow paused before replying, thinking. At last he shrugged and spoke. In Afrikaans he was much more articulate than he had ever been in English.

“My President, I think the two who spoke before are wrong. I think the English will increase. Not just because of the gold, but because with the gold, Johannesburg is bound to grow, and they will come for the commerce. Johannesburg is already a growing city; it will grow faster. Men will come to build more buildings, to build houses, others to make bricks for those houses, and to dig the clay for those bricks. Others to build roads to reach the houses. Others to bake the bread these people will need, or weave the cloth for their clothes. I saw it happen in Durban, where there was no gold; I saw it happen in Bloemfontein, where there were only farms. It is the way of the world.”

“And the newcomers will be Uitlanders,” Hendryk Rensburg said sourly.

“I agree with both Hendryk and Andries,” Jan Snijman said. He was a trader who traveled widely in the Republic. “It isn’t even a question of will they come, my President; they are coming. I see them every day. And not just to Johannesburg, which — as Andries quite correctly says — will grow because of the gold. They are coming to Springs and places like it, where the coal is, because they need the coal for the gold mines. One thing leads to another. No,” he added with a shake of his head, “they will come. They are coming. Kaspar and Theunis are wrong; the new process will merely make them come faster.”

“I agree,” said Herman Shoemann, the eighth of the group, a successful farmer from Roodepoort on the far side of Johannesburg and one well familiar with the problem because of his proximity to that city. “In a few years the English will outnumber the Boers in our own republic if they don’t already. And they will start to want the vote, the franchise; they already want it and they do not want to wait fourteen years as residents to get it, as the law is now. I hear talk of the franchise every time I go to Johannesburg! And then where will we be? Back on another Great Trek?”

There was the sudden sound of Kruger’s big hand smashing down on the table beside him. His tea sloshed, almost spilling. The short beard that edged his large angry face was bristling with rage.

“No!” Kruger said in a thundering voice. “There will be no more Great Treks! Not if they depend on the Uitlander getting the vote, except as the law allows. This is still our land, our republic, our country! We fought for it, against the Matabele, against the English, and we won it! Have they so soon forgotten eighteen-eighty and eighteen-eighty-one? Have they forgotten Laing’s Nek? Have they forgotten Majuba Hill? How many English dead do they need to convince them that this is our land and we run it as we wish, not as they wish? Do these vermin think they can just walk in and take it away from us with the franchise, just like that? The Volksraad still controls and rules this state, and the Volksraad will never consent to the Uitlander having the vote except under the conditions that were established at the Treaty of Pretoria, not as long as I am President! Nor, I am sure,” he added in a more subdued tone of voice, “long after I am no longer President.”

Andries Pirow cleared his throat. “My President—”

Kruger turned to him, his temper slowly cooling. “Yes, my old friend?”

“My President, may I speak freely?”

Kruger smiled. “When have you ever failed to, my friend?”

“Seldom, I admit,” Andries said, returning the smile. Then the smile disappeared. “But now I may offend you.”

Kruger’s smile also disappeared. “Then offend me. But not with evasions.”

Andries nodded. When he spoke his voice was cool, expressionless; his eyes were fixed on Kruger’s face as if to be able to judge the President’s reaction to his words.

“My President, the question of the franchise — the vote — for the Uitlanders under more reasonable conditions than those established in the Treaty is not so easily avoided, I am afraid. It is like the rain on the mountains when you are trying to haul a heavy wagon over them and God seems to be against you. You can pray or you can curse, you can demand or you can beseech, but in the long run you outspan your oxen and block your wheels and try to keep dry as best you can. You have no choice.”

“What are you trying to say? So far you have failed to offend me.”

“I am trying to say that it is easier to say we will deny the Uitlander the vote than to actually deny him the vote. When we first came to this land as Voortrekkers, were we given the vote by the Zulus as we crossed the Karroo? Were we given the vote by Moselekatse when we established the Transvaal Republic in what had been his Matabeleland? No; we won by force of arms. Nor were we the majority at all; the Matabele were, as the Zulus were in the Karroo.”

“And we were never given the vote by the British, when they forced their control over us, even though we were the majority, then,” Kruger retorted, his face getting red. “Again we won our rights by force of arms. Are you saying the Uitlanders might try to obtain what they consider their rights by force of arms? That they learned nothing at Majuba Hill? That bunch of effete, whoring, gambling scum?” He smiled grimly. “Well, let them try!”

“What I am really trying to say,” Andries replied patiently, “is that there is such a thing as compromise. The Uitlander is unhappy with the conditions that exist. I think you should talk to them.”

“I have talked to them. I spoke to their Premier, is he a big enough man? Cecil John Rhodes. He tried to get on my good side. ‘What you need,’ he said to me, ’is an outlet to the sea. A place like Delagoa Bay, in Portuguese East Africa.’ I said to him, ‘I agree we need such an outlet to the sea, and we’ve spoken to the Portuguese, but they won’t sell the land.’ And he said to me, ‘Then simply take it; you’re strong enough. You took land from the Matabele, take it from the Portuguese.’ That’s the kind of man he is. He couldn’t see the difference between taking land from black savages and taking land from white men. I told him such land would carry God’s curse on it. I’m sure he thought I was crazy.”

“Rhodes is just one man—”

“Oh, I’ve talked to their delegations, too. They send up these mealymouthed men who have never worked a day in their lives, never held a gun in their lives, never killed either a man nor an animal in their lives. And they talk of wanting to build railways, and of voting, of wanting to be good citizens of the Transvaal, and how the vote can give them this opportunity, and how much we Boers would gain if all the English were allowed to become good citizens. Good citizens! They want to become good citizens!” Kruger leaned over and spat into a spittoon. “That’s what I think of their wanting to become good citizens!”

“Good citizens or bad citizens,” Andries said quietly, “the fact is the bulk of our income, the largest part of our treasury, comes from taxes on their production of gold. And taxes on the dynamite they use. And taxes on almost everything that crosses the border into the Transvaal. Without the Uitlander we would have no treasury. That is the truth. Fighting with them is no answer. What would we win?”

Kruger nodded as if in full agreement.

“I agree that fighting is no answer. As you say, what could we win that we do not already have? We have control of our country, and that is a control we shall continue to hold as long as the Uitlander is not given a chance to take it away from us. With the franchise, for example. The law states — as a result of the Treaty, I might mention, a Treaty that would never have been signed had I been President at the time — that the Uitlander can vote after fourteen years as a resident. And even that isn’t long enough, in my view. He’ll be the same man in fourteen years as he is today-worthless scum aching to take the Transvaal from us!”

“Fourteen years is still a long time,” Andries said mildly.

“Not too long to wait to get what they want!” Kruger said flatly. “Andries, Andries! Think! Why do they want the vote and want it today? They want to control the Volksraad as they control the Cape Assembly, so they can make the laws to suit themselves. And what laws would they make? First they would see to it they could mine their gold without paying a penny of those taxes you spoke of before; they would make laws that would give them control of all imports, tax-free. They would milk the Transvaal of all its riches and not pay a pound for the privilege, all in the name of good and fair democracy, the rule of the majority.” He raised a finger and laid it against his nose. “And who would pay the necessary taxes? The farmers; the Boers. And you expect me to agree to this?” He shook his head. “No. Giving them the vote at all was a mistake, even after fourteen years’ residency. But to reduce it? To change it? That would be suicide for the Boer.”

“There are reasonable men among the Uitlanders,” Andries said, still keeping his tone moderate. “Forget the delegations that have come up here; forget Cecil Rhodes. Speak to the people themselves. The Boer and the Uitlander need each other; that is the first thing to recognize. Go to Johannesburg; I know you have been invited by the Miner’s Committee. Accept their invitation, my President. Stand up before the people and say what you have said here; what you have said here makes sense. This is a Boer state and must remain a Boer state, but there is a place here for the Uitlander. The answer has to lie in compromise of some sort, or I promise you there will be trouble. There will be fighting. And nobody will win.”

Kruger sighed. “Andries, you fought beside me when we were young. I know you have spent much time with the English, but I also know you are a Boer and I trust you. If it makes you happy, I will go to Johannesburg and speak with the people there. But I think I will be wasting my time.” He finished his brandy-laced tea and stood up. “And now, my friends, I am tired. I am going to my bed. I thank you all for coming at such short notice, but I think our discussion has been useful.”

“But about this new chemical—” Scholtz said desperately.

“The Boers shall control its import, I can assure you of that,” Kruger said, eyeing the man coldly.

“But—”

“We will discuss the means of control at the next full meeting of the Volksraad,” Kruger said, dismissing the matter, and walked from the room, dragging his blankets behind him.

Four men sat about a campfire inside a fort called Fort Salisbury in the newly formed state of Rhodesia, named for the Premier of the Cape Colony and firmly under the control of the British South Africa Company, a chartered company under the British flag that Cecil Rhodes had formed for the purpose of both expanding British influence in central Africa, and exploiting the territory’s riches. The land had been two areas under the control of a chieftain named Lobengula, areas named Mashonaland, and the balance of what had been Matabeleland, and although a treaty of friendship had been signed between Lobengula and the representative of the British Government, a small army under the leadership of Dr. Leander Starr Jameson nevertheless had invaded the territory and taken it over, with Lobengula fleeing his kraal to die shortly thereafter in the bush.

Now, the area secure, the four men were talking about the second purpose in acquiring the land. The night was chilly and the campfire welcome, but the news that Cecil Rhodes was hearing from one of the men was not.

“There is no gold here that we have been able to find,” said the man. He was John Hays Hammond, an American mining engineer employed by Rhodes and a man whose word Rhodes respected. “Nor the slightest sign of diamonds, either.”

“Even if there were diamonds here,” Charles Rudd said, “we already have an ample supply from De Beers to control the world market. We were hoping for gold. There’s no limit to the market for gold. Or silver. Or any of the precious minerals.”

“We found no sign of anything valuable,” Hammond said. “And we looked. I’ve had good men searching, in every part of the territory.”

“If we want to keep the Chartered Company going, Cecil,” said the fourth man, Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, “it’s going to have to be financed from the Rand. Or any railway you plan to connect the Cape with Fort Salisbury or go any further. It will have to be done by increasing the production and the income from the gold of the Rand. And there’s only one way to do that, and we all know what it is.”

“Get rid of Kruger, you mean,” Rhodes said slowly, staring into the fire.

“Of course,” Jameson said, surprised at Rhodes’ tone. “We’ve talked about it long enough; it’s time to do something about it. The Reform Committee in Jo’burg has simply been waiting for someone to take the bull by the horns and show them how. All we need is some pretext to start the ball rolling.”

“Finding a pretext is no problem,” Rudd said with a short laugh. “The fact that they paid the taxes but didn’t have any representation was all the cheeky Americans needed to fob off dear old King George. And the taxes they objected to would be lost in your eye compared to what we have to hand over each month — or each shipment of goods — to dear old King Kruger.”

“That’s not exactly a pretext,” Rhodes said slowly. “No, what we need is something far stronger. Suppose the women and children were threatened in some way, and the good citizens of the Reform Committee were to ask for help—”

“Which would be forthcoming from the Cape?” Rudd asked.

Cecil Rhodes shook his head. There was a faint smile on his face.

“No,” he said, “or, rather, not officially. From someplace in Bechuanaland nearest Johannesburg, a rescue party of outraged citizens of Rhodesia, joined by any volunteers from the Cape Colony — without the knowledge of the authorities, of course-would respond to that touching plea for help and ride to Johannesburg to bolster the morale of the citizens there in any way they could. And this band of citizens, led by this almost military force at its head, would rise in revolt, taking their arms from the rafters of their homes, from the springhouses, from their many hiding places, and take control of the city of Johannesburg.”

“And under these conditions, I imagine, the Government of the Cape Colony would be forced, in the name of Peace and Order, to step in.”

“To protect its citizens? Obviously,” Rhodes said.

“And this rescue party, of course, would be under the leadership of Captain Leander Starr Jameson,” Jameson said, a grin on his face. The doctor’s small war against Lobengula had whetted his appetite for battle; his success had made him realize for the first time the excitement, the actual fun of killing as opposed to curing; the pleasures of war. Then his grin disappeared. Despite his profound agreement with the plan being discussed, the good doctor was no fool. “There would have to be a letter — undated — from the Reform Committee asking for this help,” he said. “Signed by at least some of the leaders of the committee.”

“Of course,” Rhodes said smoothly. “And it would be logical for you to lead the rescue party, since you won Rhodesia and the men respect you. And for a second in command? In case you — ah, might be harmed in any way?”

“Not your brother Frank!” Jameson said hastily. “He was visiting Johannesburg not too long ago and I sent a messenger asking him to come to a rather important meeting of the Reform Committee, and he replied by messenger that he couldn’t make it as he had promised to give some lady a bike lesson!”

Rhodes shrugged a bit unhappily. “Yes, Frank likes women. Then who?”

“Oh, I’ll find someone. We had quite a bunch of adventurers come with us when we went up against Lobengula. One of them in particular impressed me. Chap by the name of Carl Luckner. Damned good fighter. Terrible temper, but that’s what you want in battle, of course.”

“Luckner?” Rhodes frowned as if he had never heard the name before. “From the Cape?”

“I don’t know where he came from last, but I recall him when he was in Kimberley. He was the manager of the Paris Hotel there for a while. Had a run-in with Bamato, as I recall, and left the place. I was out of town at the time. But he showed up here, in Salisbury, when we were taking up volunteers and he turned out to be a fine soldier. Why?”

“I remember Luckner from the Paris Hotel,” Rudd said. “I wasn’t out of town at the time. The man’s completely insane. He kicked Mrs. Barnato’s father to death. The old man had pulled a sort of knife on him, or Luckner would have hung. Still,” Rudd added, as if thinking about it, “maybe crazy men are what you need. How many d’you think you can raise for this so-called rescue attempt?”

“I should say fifteen hundred easily,” Starr said confidently. “At least a thousand from Rhodesia, and then there’s the Bechuanaland Police; they’ll all come along for a price.”

“And these guns that the uprising citizens are supposed to find in their rafters or their springhouses?” Rudd went on, ever the pragmatist. “How are they to get there to be found?”

“It will take planning, of course,” Rhodes said. “We’ll get the guns into Jo’burg some way.”

“I can handle that end from Kimberley,” Hammond said. “That’s no problem.”

“There’s only one real problem,” Rhodes said quietly, evenly.

“What’s that?”

“It better not fail,” Rhodes said flatly, and came to his feet, ready for his tent and bed.

The visit of Oom Paul Kruger to Johannesburg for the purpose of addressing the people of the newly formed town was one that would remain an integral part of the legends that grow up around any city’s early days.

“Bloody tyrant!” Solly Loeb said bitterly as he stood in the Market Square with several other members of the Reform Committee awaiting the President’s arrival. The Market Square had been cleared of ox wagons for the occasion and a large platform had been erected to seat the Miner’s Committee and serve as the dais for the President’s speech. To one side a flagpole had been planted, and flying from it was the Vierkleur, the four-colored flag of the Transvaal Republic. Solly eyed the crowd gathering, crowding in toward the still-empty platform. “Ought to be the other way around,” he said sourly. “Instead of riding into Jo’burg, he should be ridden out. On a rail. With a nice coat of tar and feathers to keep him warm.”

“He will be, one of these days,” Lionel Phillips predicted.

“And a lot sooner than he suspects,” Colonel Frank Rhodes said. Colonel Rhodes was the Premier’s brother, visiting Johannesburg from Cape Town. He turned to Solly. “I suppose now that cyanide is an important adjunct for the gold-mining business, it’s all in the hands of the Boers?”

“D’you even need to ask? Of course it is. And the duty to bring it in is ridiculous. By the time bloody old Kruger gets through with us, with all his bloody taxes, we might as well go back to the amalgam process! We get all the gold from the rock, it’s true, but the taxes eat up most of the additional profits. The man is a bloody maniac!”

“Well,” Phillips said philosophically, “I suppose we at least ought to listen to the man. It may be the last time we get to hear him, if your plans go through,” he added with a smile.

“They’ll go through,” Solly said with assurance. “God! To think of Jo’burg without Kruger, and the Volksraad a thing of the past, together with their tax laws and imposts and anything else the damned man can think to hang around our necks!” Solly enjoyed being in the presence of such important men as his two companions, and was happy to agree to their principles, as well as having them listen to his opinions and undoubtedly respect them.

“I say,” Frank Rhodes said, changing the subject, “isn’t that your uncle, Barney Barnato, over there? With a baby in his arms and a striking beauty beside him? Don’t tell me anyone that lovely—” He broke off in some confusion.

“That’s him and his wife,” Solly said contemptuously. “My aunt Fay. She’s my age. And you don’t have to be careful about what you say about Barney to me. God knows what Fay ever saw in Barney Barnato. He certainly isn’t one of nature’s more handsome specimens.”

“He’s rich, though,” Phillips said.

“As I hear it, he wasn’t always rich,” Colonel Rhodes said, eyeing Fay admiringly. “Chap must have something…”

“He has luck,” Solly said shortly. “He also has a contempt for the Reform Committee.”

Rhodes frowned at the statement. “You mean he enjoys paying the excessive taxes?”

“No, he doesn’t like the taxes, but he’s a great believer in not rocking the boat. He says, ‘We’re making money. What the devil do you need the vote for?” he says. He forgets we could and should be making a devil of a lot more money than we are.”

Colonel Rhodes looked at Phillips a moment and then back at Solly. “What does your uncle think of… of… our plan?”

Solly stared at the man as if he were mad.

“He doesn’t know a thing about it, of course! Good God! Barney would be at Kruger’s doorstep with it in five minutes after he heard it. He would be violently against anything that might mean the slightest trouble. I know Barney better than anyone in the world, and I can tell you he’s far from being as smart as people give him credit for. He’s just been lucky. Oh, I’m sure he’ll be happy once it’s over and we have control of the Transvaal, when we’re a part of the Cape, but before then? He’d be the last man in the world to be told anything!”

“Then let’s just hope he doesn’t hear anything,” the colonel said, and turned to view Fay from a better angle.

Not far from the colonel, and completely unaware of his wife’s being scrutinized so carefully, Barney stood and waited for the arrival of President Kruger. He held Leah Primrose in his arms, and with Fay at his side was aware that he was standing with one outstanding beauty nuzzling his cheek, and the other holding his arm, and he was proud to be here with the two of them, to be seen with them, much rather than with the important people Solly chose to associate with. Barney was also anxious to hear what the President had to say. Contrary to Solly’s opinion, Barney was quite aware of the trouble brewing through some scheme or other of the Reform Committee, and while he knew nothing of the exact plans, nor did he particularly care to know, nor did he know of the depth of Solly’s involvement with the plans, he did know of the committee’s resentment against Kruger and the Volksraad. And he also felt that nothing good could possibly come from this sort of active opposition to the old man. Andries had told him of the meeting in Kruger’s living room, and Barney could only hope that Kruger was coming to Johannesburg with some concessions that would cool down the heated heads of the committee.

There was a parting of the crowd at the edge of the square, a wave that communicated itself through the crowd as people pressed back. Barney stood on tiptoe to see who was coming. It was President Paul Kruger, alone, handling the reins of an ancient oxcart, drawn by an aging and swaying span of oxen. He should have come by coach, Barney thought critically; while it was only thirty miles from Pretoria to Johannesburg, the old man probably took at least two days to make it and looked as if he had slept the night before in his clothes. Or if not by coach, he could at the least have come by trap, with outriders along, and a proper driver. It was undignified for the President to appear in that ancient oxcart. He was making a poor impression on the crowd, who were sniggering as the cart slowly made its way toward the platform, with Kruger sitting impassively in the center of the warped seat, holding the worn reins steadily with the middle fingers of his crippled left hand. But possibly he doesn’t care, Barney suddenly thought. Possibly he came by oxcart purposely, to show these people what he thought of them, what he considered proper protocol for them.

The Miner’s Committee had hurriedly gathered themselves together from the gossip they had been exchanging with friends in the square while awaiting Kruger’s arrival; they hurried up the steps to the platform and formed a welcoming line on it, ready to greet the President. Then, just as the President came to the platform and began to descend from the vehicle, one of the oxen spread his legs and decided to relieve himself. The sniggering grew to a roar of laughter as Kruger had to move quickly to avoid getting his trousers splashed. Someone in the crowd called out, “By God, the ox is political!” and the laughter rose even higher. Kruger’s face reddened, his big jaw under his chin-curtain beard tightened, but he held his temper and otherwise showed no reaction as he climbed the steps of the platform slowly and easily. He shook the hands extended to him by the committee one by one, the beady eyes on each side of his large squashed nose examining each face before him as if to memorize it for future use, or to estimate its sincerity. His crippled left hand — crippled when his four-pounder exploded as he shot at a charging rhinoceros when he was young — was held politely behind him, the fingers curled about the space where the thumb had been, hiding the grisly scar. He then stood a moment, looking contemplatively at the Vierkleur waving in the breeze, before taking the seat to which he was shown by the spokesman for the Miner’s Committee. The man, Carter Wellman, held up his hand for silence, waited while the sniggers diminished, and when the silence reached a point to permit speech, spoke.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Wellman said, his powerful voice clearly heard across the wide square, “we are honored today with the presence of the President of the Republic in which we live, a man we all know as Uncle Paul, and the man for whom our proud and great city has been named. It is needless for me to explain who Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger is, nor what his great contribution has been to the development of the Transvaal in the more than fifty years that he has lived here, or the more than eleven years since he was first elected President. So, without wasting any more of your time, may I present the man you all came here to hear, the Honorable Paul Kruger, President of the Republic!”

There was the briefest smattering of applause as Kruger came to his feet; the Miner’s Committee all rose, clapping as hard as they could, but the comparison between the applause on the platform and the applause from the audience only made the embarrassment worse, and the committee sat down abruptly. Kruger walked to the edge of the platform, took a large red kerchief from a bulging pocket and blew into it noisily; the crowd reacted with another shout of laughter. He took a pinch of snuff, sneezed loudly, and then looked down at the faces grinning delightedly at his exhibition of uncouth behavior, his small eyes exuding suspicion and hatred. But he forced himself to calmness; he was, after all, the President of this unruly mob, and the speech he had prepared was the one he would give despite all provocation.

“Burghers, vriende — en ander, waarvan ek seker is dat daar baie hier vandag — hoor my woorde. Ek kom vriendelik om my stand te verduidelik. Julle sê dat julle die reg om te stem wil hê, en maar julle wil nie daarvoor viertien jaar wag nie. Julle sê dis ’n lank tyd; laat ek julle vertel hoe lank ons Boere daarvoer gewag het — en van die moeite intussentyd—”

“Speak English!” The cry came from far back in the crowd, but it was immediately taken up by other members of the Reform Committee scattered throughout the square. “Speak English! Speak English!” The crowd took it up, shouting it with rhythm, as at a football match.

“Stil maak!” Kruger held up both hands, the torn left hand waving in their faces as if to chill them. “Skurke! Skelms! Blikskottels! You wish me to speak English? Very well! Let me address you so: Thieves, murderers, gamblers, whores, rogues, filth!” He spat. “I have had enough!”

He climbed down the steps from the platform, getting into his cart, cracking the sjambok over the oxen’s ears so that the tip almost touched some of the bystanders. People pushed hastily back as the cart swung around, the oxen lumbering at a faster and faster rate as the whip continued to crack in their ears, the crowd moving away from the enraged Kruger and the frightened span of oxen. There was a moment’s stunned silence as the oxcart reached the edge of the square and veered around a corner, disappearing, with old Paul Kruger half standing in the cart, continuing to wield the sjambok. Then a near-riot broke out. Men swarmed over the platform, pushing aside the efforts of Wellman and the other members of the Miner’s Committee to control them. They took the chair where Kruger had been seated and ripped it to pieces as others tore the Vierkleur from its standard and proceeded to put a lit match to it, holding it up triumphantly as it burned. Someone began to sing “God Save the Queen” and the song quickly took hold and swelled to a paean as it rose from the hundreds of throats.

Barney thrust little Leah Primrose into her mother’s arms and began to fight his way through the crowd toward the platform, his jaw hardened, his eyes narrowed. Fay, knowing his probable objective, did not try to stop him; to begin with, there was no stopping Barney in that mood, and besides, Fay was sure she knew what he was going to do and was in full agreement. She held Leah Primrose, now whimpering in excitement, shushing the child quietly, and watched.

Barney had managed to get to the platform steps; he climbed them quickly, pushing aside a few who were trying to tear the very platform to bits, and stood at the front, holding up his arms for silence, whistling loudly between his teeth to gain attention, alternating the whistling with loud and insistent, if incoherent, shouts. The singing slowly eased as the crowd turned to stare. What was their old friend Barney Barnato so excited about? What did he feel necessary to say at this moment of — well, of jubilation, practically? After all, Barney was almost the only one who had shown faith in the Rand just a few short years ago; he had saved many of them from desperation if not from starvation; now that their enemy, Kruger, had got his proper comeuppance, what did Barney seem to be so angry about? Surely he must have been aware that the demonstration had been planned by the Reform Committee? Even those who were not members of the committee — and that was the large majority of those there — had been aware of that. Surely he must have known that the committee had counted on Kruger losing his temper to hear himself laughed at, him being the President and all. The Boers were a proud people, and Paul Kruger was the proudest of the lot. Barney must have known that just the cry of “Speak English!” was enough to start old Kruger off; and the results were the proof that the tactic had been eminently correct. Old Oom Paul had scooted with his tail between his legs! What was the matter with Barnato, anyway? Slowly the crowd calmed down and let the man speak.

“Yer a fine bunch, I must say,” Barney said almost conversationally, although there was a biting, scornful tone to his voice. The silence grew deeper as he went on. His Cockney, seemingly lost these many years, was back in full force, apparently returned automatically. “A fine bunch — but o’ what? Hate t’ say, in front o’ women. Tell th’ truth, th’ lot o’ you — he called y’ rogues an’ rascals, an’ that’s what y’are! Most o’ you couldn’t bully yer way out o’ a paper bag, an’ yet y’ stand there and jeer an’ laugh at a man what’s ten times bigger than y’are or ever will be! Where were any o’ you when Paul Kruger was winnin’ this land yer livin’ in? Suckin’ yer ma’s tit, if y’could find it! Or pullin’ yer pud, if y’could find that! Where were y’ when the Matabeles were killin’ anyone what came inside a mile o’ where yer standin’ right now? Y’were sittin’ in some pub as far from danger as y’could get, suckin’ on a substitute fer yer momma’s tit, a gin bottle, most likely. Yer lucky Paul Kruger didn’t stop and take y’ on one by one; he’d o’ gone through the lot o’ you in ten minutes!”

He took a deep breath, looking over the startled, now completely silenced crowd with disgust.

“Yer enough to make a man give up his supper, that’s what y’are. You an’ yer cryin’ fer the vote! When was the last time y’ ever voted when y’ lived in the Cape? When was the last time y’ voted when y’ lived in England, fer that matter? Y’ really think Paul Kruger’s a fool? Well, I can tell y’ where t’ look if it’s fools yer wantin’. Try lookin’ over yer left or right shoulders. Or in a mirror! I come here to South Africa when I was eighteen year old, an’ I worked me bloody arse off to get where I am, an’ if anyone thinks they can take it from me jus’ like that, they better think twice! Well, Paul Kruger was born in South Africa, an’ he worked his arse off to get where he is, an’ if anyone here thinks y’ can take it away from him jus’ like that, y’ better think twice, too. I come here to Johannesburg to make money, an’ I thought most o’ you come fer the same reason. But I guess not. You and yer bloody vote! Y’ want concessions from the President, that’s what y’ want, or at least that’s what y’ should really want. Y’ think yer goin’ t’ get concessions from the man actin’ like y’ did today? You an’ yer bloody politics! Y’ make me sick! Yer blind, the lot o’ you!”

He stamped off the platform and pushed his way back through the crowd to Fay’s side, taking Leah Primrose from her and putting his face against her soft and slightly fuzzy skin as he led the way through the crowd to their trap in the next street. Men scowled at him with hatred as he marched along, but nobody dared put a finger on him, nor was it due to the fact that he was holding a baby that prevented them from doing so. It was the look in his eye and the hard set of his jaw, and the known fact that even though he was almost forty years old, Barney Barnato would tackle anyone, anytime, anywhere, and probably beat the daylights out of him, if he thought he or any of his family were being threatened in any way. And there was no doubt from the way Barney had just spoken that he felt the crowd’s actions that afternoon, that the objectives of the Reform Committee, had set back any hopes of concessions from Pretoria for a long time to come, and that Barney considered that fact a threat.

Andries stepped from the crowd to walk alongside Barney. He tipped his hat politely to Fay, smiled at Leah Primrose, who smiled back in delight at her uncle Andries, and then turned back to Barney.

“That was quite a speech you made back there,” Andries said mildly.

Barney stopped abruptly, staring at Andries, making up his mind on the spot as he so often did. Then he continued marching along, a frown on his face, but now talking.

“Andries, I want to meet Kruger. Face to face. I want to talk to him. You can arrange it, I know.”

Andries looked doubtful. “I doubt the President would be in any mood to talk to any Englishman at the moment, Barney.”

“Put him in the mood,” Barney said stubbornly. “You can do it. I’m not like most of those idiots here today, but all the blame isn’t on their side, either; Kruger and the Volksraad rate their share. The crowd acted like bloody fools today, there’s no doubt, but this thing is working itself up into what could become a major confrontation, and when it comes to that, we’re all of us going to lose.”

“Exactly my words to the President.”

“Then set up a meeting with him for me. I’ve got to talk to him. I’m sure he knows who I am, but I’m equally sure he doesn’t know how I feel about things. Unless you’ve told him. Have you?” He glanced sideways at Andries.

“Just that there were some Uitlanders who weren’t fools. And that the Boer and the Uitlanders need each other here in the Transvaal.”

“Exactly! That’s why I have to talk to him. I don’t claim that my stand on things is the same as everyone else’s in Johannesburg, but I know there are plenty of people in town who agree with me. The Reform Committee is spoiling for trouble, you know that, and they won’t be happy until they get it. Somebody has got to stop this thing. Trouble is no answer.”

They had come to the trap with the driver waiting patiently on his seat. Andries helped Fay get in and waited as Barney handed the baby up to her and then climbed in to seat himself beside her. Andries nodded.

“I’ll do my best, Barney.”

“That’s all I can ask. And thanks, Andries. It’s important.”

The heavy-set Boer watched the trap move from the curb under the driver’s whip. Then he sighed mightily. It would not be easy to convince Kruger that a meeting with an Englishman — any Englishman, even Barney Barnato — could do anything at this point except possibly make matters worse. Especially an Englishman like Barney Barnato, who had taken as much gold from the ground of the Transvaal as any other man, and a man whom Kruger was sure to consider one of the leading exploiters of the Republic’s riches.

Then Andries suddenly smiled. He had thought of the one way that just might do it, to get Kruger to agree to meet Barney; and once they had met to hope they used the opportunity to also discuss matters that could, in turn, help the situation. It was a long shot, but it was worth the attempt…

Barney Barnato, if truth were to be told, was quite surprised to actually be granted an audience with the President of the Transvaal. Despite his feeling that an audience with the President might somehow help resolve the state of growing tension between the Uitlanders and the Boers, and despite his knowledge that Andries Pirow and Paul Kruger were old comrades-in-arms, he was also as aware as Andries as to how Kruger had to feel about any outsider after the reception he had received at their hands in the Johannesburg Market Square. But the plain fact was that Barney had been granted an audience, and although it was now January of 1894, three months after his request, at least it had been granted, and Barney hoped to make the most of it.

Alone, he drove a small and unpretentious trap, rented for the occasion, well aware of Kruger’s distaste for and distrust of ostentation. As a result he climbed down before the long low white Kruger home on the southern edge of Pretoria fairly well covered with dust. He had worn some of his oldest clothes — unusual for Barney, as he had tended to become something of a dandy once he had been able to afford it — but again his costume had been calculated. He certainly did not want to be better dressed than the President, and both Andries and Fay had advised him well in this matter, for President Paul Kruger was awaiting him on the front stoep, sitting heavily in a large rocking chair, wearing house slippers rather than shoes, and with an old shawl wrapped about his massive shoulders. There was no expression at all on his meaty face as he watched Barney secure the trap and then slap dust from his trousers and jacket before letting himself through the low front gate. Kruger did not deign to rise; instead he merely motioned to the top step of the porch, inviting Barney to seat himself there, and Barney realized that the fact that there was no second chair had been as calculated as his own means of transportation and costume, as he was sure was the absence of any other participants in their conference. It was to be a meeting unofficial in every sense.

Barney nodded cordially and did not offer his hand to be shaken; he was not sure it would be accepted, and to be rejected would be a poor way to start the meeting. Instead, he sat down on the indicated top step and looked up at Kruger. Kruger remained impassive; he appeared to be waiting for Barney to speak first, so Barney obliged.

“Mr. President,” he said in Afrikaans, glad now that Fay had been so insistent upon his learning the language properly, “I wanted very much to see you and talk to you, but in all honesty I didn’t think you’d see me. Do you mind telling me why you are?”

Kruger’s thick eyebrows rose fractionally; it was as close as he came to demonstrating astonishment. “You speak our language, Mr. Barnato? How is that?”

Barney shrugged. “When I first came to South Africa twenty-two years ago, I came with Andries Pirow from Cape Town to Kimberley, Mr. President. We both walked beside the ox wagon for two months. I was a boy of eighteen. At night, after we’d had our supper and done our chores, Andries started to teach me the language. Then I married a Boer, my wife, Fay. She insisted that I learn the language better. She taught me.”

“Your wife is a Boer?”

“Yes, sir. From Simonstown.”

“Tell her for me that she is a good teacher. You speak very well.”

“Thank you, sir. She will be pleased.”

“Yes. Now,” Kruger said, changing the subject and beginning to rock his chair very slowly, “you wish to know why I agreed to see you. It was not to hear the complaints of the Uitlanders once again, I assure you; I have heard enough of those as it is.” He paused in his rocking momentarily, his small eyes fixed upon Barney’s face, and then began rocking again, now starting to stroke his chin whiskers as he did so. “No, Mr. Barnato. The reason I agreed to talk to you is that Andries tells me you once fought the man they called the Angolan Giant, or Angolan Monster, I forget which. And that you beat him. Is this true?”

Barney stared, astonished. What a reason for a man to grant a presidential audience! “Yes, Mr. President, it’s true. But that was many years ago.”

“I know when it was. I saw the Angolan when he fought here in Pretoria before he went to Bloemfontein and then to Kimberley. When he was here he beat one of our strongest and biggest men. I would have hesitated to fight him myself, even had I been twenty years younger at the time. How is it possible that a small man like you…”

Barney sighed, thinking back to the day of the fight, remembering every moment, including waking in the Scotch cart with his head in Fay’s lap. “I had to beat him,” he said simply. “I had bet everything in the world I had that I would—”

“You gambled?”

Barney grinned ruefully. “I didn’t think it was a gamble, not until the first time he hit me. And I needed the money from the bets to get ahead in the world. There was this girl—” He stopped. After all the years he could still scarcely believe or understand his incredible luck in winning Fay. But the President wouldn’t be interested in that. “Anyway,” he went on quietly, “I knew I was faster than he was, and I’d had a lot of experience in boxing, and I was fairly sure he hadn’t. I felt a man that big had to be awkward. But I had no idea he was as strong as he was. I was very lucky. His attention was distracted a moment and that’s when I hit him. Otherwise he probably would have killed me. As it was I broke my hand with that punch and it took a month to heal. Not to mention the fact that I had a headache for a week.”

“Andries tells me you later hired the man.”

“Yes, sir. Armando is now in charge of the production in the Kimberley Mines; they’re the largest of the four De Beers properties in Kimberley. Armando is a very fine person, and a lot more intelligent than people think. We’re very good friends. He’s become quite an expert on deep shafts and has been most valuable to us.”

“And the girl?” So the President had been interested in that. “Was she the Boer?”

“Yes, sir. We were married the day after the fight.”

“Broken hand and all?”

Barney grinned. “You don’t know my Fay, Mr. President. I would have married her with both arms and legs broken.” Barney’s grin disappeared as he remembered something. “If you’ll pardon me, sir, they tell me you once swam the Vaal at high flood when even the ferryman refused to cross, just to reach the girl you later married.”

Kruger nodded as if pleased to have the incident known and remembered by an Uitlander. “Yes, I was young and strong in those days. More important, like you, I was motivated.” He shook his head in sad memory. “Poor Maria! Her name was Maria du Plessis. She died a little over a year after we were married, in childbirth. The child died, too. It was a tragedy. She was so young! But God was good to me and I found another good woman quickly.” He rocked a few moments, staring at the floor of the stoep in silence, and then sighed and brought his head up. “I wanted to meet the man who had beaten the Angolan Giant. I have heard of you through Andries, of course, Mr. Barnato, as well as through your financial interests, and I have seen your picture often in the newspapers. I would have imagined you much larger to have won that fight. I doubt if I could have done so.”

“I know I couldn’t have swum the Vaal at high flood, Mr. President, or at any other time. Not even for my Fay.” Barney grinned. “I can’t swim.”

“Ah, but you see, I can fight.” Kruger stopped his rocking, leaning forward, looking at Barney steadily. “All right, Mr. Barnato. You now know why I wanted to see you. Why did you want to see me?”

Barney took a deep breath before he answered. It was a question he knew he would face and one he intended to answer honestly, but he still wanted to choose his words carefully.

“Mr. President,” he said slowly, “there are differences between the outsiders and the Boers, and those differences are leading toward trouble in which both sides will stand to lose a great deal. I had hoped to talk to you about some means by which this trouble could be abated, reduced, if not eliminated altogether.”

“Do you have any suggestions?” Kruger raised a hand; his tone became gently sardonic. “Other than those I have already heard — that we allow the Uitlander to vote me out of power, and with me the Volksraad, and then take over control of the Transvaal?”

“I am not so much interested in the franchise, Mr. President, as I am in a few of the objectives the people of Johannesburg have in mind when they ask for them. I agree with you that if the Uitlanders were the majority in the Transvaal at present, it would be foolish from your point of view to allow them the vote. It would mean the end of the Boer state. But, in the first place, I do not believe they are the majority—”

Kruger interrupted, his eyes shining, brightly and deceptively mild, as if he were enjoying the intellectual give-and-take of the discussion.

“Would you take that chance, Mr. Barnato, if you were in my shoes?”

“No, Mr. President. But you know as well as I do the length of time an outsider remains in the Transvaal under the conditions that would allow him to eventually become a citizen. Two years is a long time; three years is an eternity. Either he becomes settled and makes money, which a few do; or he fails to make money and he leaves — which is true of the vast majority — and he is replaced by Kaffir labor. Were you to agree, for instance, to reduce the fourteen years necessary for citizenship in the Republic to, say, seven years, you would have put a big hole in the arguments of the Reform Committee, without in any way threatening your control of the state. At least that is my honest belief.”

“And if you were wrong in your honest belief, Mr. Barnato? Who would lose the Transvaal in seven years? You or me?”

“You, of course, Mr. President. But I do not believe I am wrong, nor do I believe you believe I am wrong.”

“I see. Anything else, Mr. Barnato?”

“Yes, Mr. President. There’s the matter of taxes—”

“Ah!” Kruger leaned farther forward in his rocking chair, planting his slippered feet firmly on the floor to keep the chair from moving while he fixed Barney with eyes alight with understanding. He laid one thick finger against the side of his bulbous nose. “Now we come to it! You are a rich man, Mr. Barnato. Naturally you oppose taxes.”

“I oppose unreasonable taxes, Mr. President,” Barney said calmly, not at all intimidated by either Kruger’s mien or tone. “But I have never opposed any reasonable taxes that I know of, nor have I ever failed to pay them, whether I like them or not.” Barney smiled. “Nobody likes taxes, Mr. President, but that was not what I was going to say. I was about to say, Mr. President, that for the taxes that are paid — which I must argue are not slight — the citizens of Johannesburg receive very little to show for their considerable contribution. Take street lighting, for example. Kimberley has had lit streets for many years, yet we in Johannesburg lack this vital necessity. Take the matter of a proper sewage system, or the fact that while many of the Uitlanders are English, and most of the others are Americans, the schools — the few we have — are all taught in Afrikaans—”

Kruger held up a hand. “This is a Boer republic, Mr. Barnato.”

“But certainly if the English and the Americans wish their children to be taught in their own language—”

Kruger moved his upheld hand; Barney obediently stopped.

“Mr. Barnato, we were discussing before if the Uitlander or the Boer were in the majority in the Transvaal, yet the true majority is the Kaffir, as he is in the Cape Colony and in Kimberley. Do you teach your children in Bantu in Kimberley, Mr. Barnato, just because the majority of your population is either Zulu or Matabele? Of course you do not, and to expect you to would be ridiculous! Just as to expect us in the Transvaal to teach our schools in English. No. It is bad enough the Uitlander keeps coming in and keeps wanting to take control of our state. I certainly have no intention of helping him by having English taught in schools where Boers may also learn it!”

Barney sighed, sure that it was a point on which Kruger would not move. “Well, Mr. President, then there’s the matter of a railway—”

“Ah!” Kruger looked up once again; there was the look on his face of a cat about to pounce on a mouse. “Now we come to the railway! How many times have I heard it! A railway from Kimberley to Johannesburg to allow the Uitlander, if he isn’t the majority yet, to become the majority in a very short time! What then, Mr. Barnato? Tell me, will you give me a job in one of your many enterprises to support myself and my family when I am no longer President of the Transvaal? When the majority, all speaking English, votes me out of office, according to the other demands you are making? This majority brought here by your railway?”

“I am not making demands, only suggestions, Mr. President,” Barney said calmly. “I am suggesting that the franchise is not at the heart of the unrest of the Uitlander, and if concessions are made on some of the other points, there will never be a threat to your Presidency. I know the mind of the Johannesburger, Mr. President. Of course there are some hotheads, but the large majority do not want trouble. They want something for their taxes; they want to have their children speak their native tongue, as you do; they want a railway to hurry shipments of supplies from Kimberley and to get them home for visits to their families in the Cape without taking weeks to do so. Their requests are not remarkable in any way. With them, or some of them, I am sure this unrest would disappear in a hurry.”

“Ummm…”

“Besides which,” Barney said, as if it were an afterthought, “I wasn’t thinking of a railway from Kimberley to Johannesburg. I was thinking of a railway from Kimberley to Pretoria…”

Kruger leaned forward, frowning. “To Pretoria? Not to Johannesburg?”

Barney shrugged lightly. “Oh, I suppose a spur track from the main line to Johannesburg might be of use to you, Mr. President, since it would connect the two principal cities in your republic and save your burghers much time and expense in getting from one to the other. And, of course, it would also be a link between the capital of the Transvaal and the capital of the Cape Colony.”

Kruger stared a moment and then for the first time, laughed outright.

“Mr. Barnato,” he said, his small eyes twinkling, “you amuse me!” He considered Barney’s placid face as if judging the man’s sincerity. At last he seemed to come to a conclusion. “But you also interest me. A railway to Pretoria, not to Johannesburg…” He began to rock again, stroking his chin whiskers, speaking almost as if to himself, but including Barney in the conversation. “They are working on a railway from Delagoa Bay in Portuguese East Africa to Pretoria, but they are a long way from completing it; there are difficulties with the terrain—”

“A line from Kimberley to Pretoria could be completed in a year,” Barney said quietly. “The terrain is very favorable.”

Kruger continued as if Barney had not spoken. “And Delagoa Bay is not such a port as Cape Town.” He frowned down at the floor of the stoep. “A railway from Kimberley to Pretoria… It might be possible…”

“With a spur from the railway line to Johannesburg,” Barney said evenly.

Kruger smiled and leaned forward in his rocking chair, for the first time extending his large hand for Barney to shake.

“We shall get along, Mr. Barnato,” he said, and clasped his large hand around Barney’s smaller one, surprised but somehow also pleased by the strength of the smaller man’s response. He released Barney’s hand and came to his feet, tightening the shawl about his shoulders. “You will forgive me, but it is time for my rest. Do not get old, Mr. Barnato. It will prevent you from handling men like the Angolan Giant — or even men like me. But you handled me well. You have given me something to think about. Our Volksraad meets in a week. I shall bring up the matter of your — ah, ideas. Your suggestions. I think maybe some of them can be considered…”

Barney had come to his feet with Kruger. “Thank you very much for listening to me, Mr. President.”

Kruger paused on his way into the house. He stood there, a large, hulking man leaning forward a bit, his feet splayed out in his frayed carpet slippers, his rather worn shawl a bit out of place against the elegance of the stoep of the well-kept house, but an impressive figure for all of that. His small eyes were alert as he studied his visitor.

“It never hurts to listen, Mr. Barnato,” he said slowly, as if he were not the most stubborn of men, and with a brief nod of his head he turned and walked into the house, leaving a thoughtful Barney Barnato to climb into his trap and turn his horse’s head back in the direction of Johannesburg.

11 November 1895

A few miles north of Warrenton, at the border checkpoint on the newly completed railway between Kimberley and the Transvaal, the train was stopped for the usual customs check by the Transvaal authorities. This was always an onerous delay for any shipper or traveler, for the taxes imposed on each load varied greatly and had to be calculated and paid at the moment, but at least this time the calculation had to be easier, as each of the three wagons in question contained exactly the same load, sixty drums of oil. And each of the freight cars was also accompanied by a separate guard, which did not surprise the border officials, since the stealing from the railway wagons was not unknown.

Still, the size of the shipment was unusual: a total of one hundred and eighty drums of oil, all consigned to the Consolidated Gold Fields of Africa Ltd. To the customs officials this seemed rather excessive, since most of the steam produced at the mines to run their donkey engines and their winches was produced by coal, and oil was a luxury used by those who could afford to keep lamps burning late, or small heaters to keep out the chill of the Witwatersrand winter. But this was November, approaching the hottest months of the year here below the equator, and the customs officials were suspicious by nature. Besides, they had been instructed quite recently by Pretoria to be overly cautious in what they permitted to pass their station, especially from the Cape, as guns had been discovered under loads of hay, and beneath piles of potatoes up to the roof of the cars carrying them, and gunrunning, or even the owning of guns by anyone other than Boer burghers was strictly prohibited. The officials’ suspicions were further aroused by the fact that all the guards were, or sounded like, Americans, and these were rarely used in such menial labor as loading and unloading heavy objects, yet there were no Kaffirs along to handle that phase of the transport.

So the customs authorities asked to have a few of the drums unloaded and opened to see if their cargo was indeed oil. The lead guard complained bitterly in his poor Afrikaans that not only were the drums heavy and difficult to lift without proper hoisting equipment, since each drum weighted in excess of three hundred pounds, but their baas would think they had drained a little oil from each drum, a ploy not unknown, since it would reward each guard with a sum of money greater than his pay for the journey. But the customs men were only amused by these excuses and became more adamant than ever, so, with a sigh at the unexpected vicissitudes of the job, the guards wrestled down a few drums from each railway wagon as specified by the customs men and set them heavily on the ground. The customs officials then proceeded to open the bottom bung on each of the selected drums and then stared as oil began to gush from each opening. The guards cried in anguish at this senseless waste of their boss’s oil, and hurriedly shut the taps. The drums were then finally wrestled back in place on the wagons, the total duty calculated and paid by the lead guard — who also demanded and received a proper receipt, as any other procedure would have been suspicious — and the car doors were closed and the train permitted on its way up the newly laid spur track toward Johannesburg.

In the warehouse that had been selected for the purpose since it was the closest to the center of Johannesburg and therefore the most accessible when the time came to gather there and arm themselves and the other citizens of the city for their revolution, the heads of the Reform Committee — less Captain Leander Starr Jameson, who was already in position on the border — considered the opened oil drums. Colonel Frank Rhodes, in charge of the city’s actions in the uprising, shook his head.

“So far we’ve gotten in roughly thirteen hundred rifles and maybe forty thousand rounds of ammunition,” he said mournfully. “That’s less than thirty-one rounds per gun. Our experience in the British Army is that a foot soldier on the average causes one casualty for every eight hundred and fifty rounds that he fires. And those are experienced troops with target training, not inexperienced diggers or draper’s clerks. On that basis we’ll be lucky to stop the greengrocer on the corner, let alone the Johannesburg Police, never mind any Boer commandos old Kruger may throw at us.”

“We still have time to bring in more,” Phillips said consolingly.

“Do we?” Colonel Rhodes looked at Phillips almost pityingly. “More than half of the arms we’ve shipped here from Kimberley have been confiscated at the border. Do you really think that Kruger is a complete idiot? Do you think he doesn’t hear of this? Do you think he figures that somebody has been planning a gigantic hunting expedition that was supposed to leave from the Transvaal? Believe me, anything coming in now will be searched from top to bottom, including oil drums, and a few drops of oil from a bung isn’t going to stop them from being opened. Plus the fact we’ll be lucky if he doesn’t have the police here in Jo’burg do a thorough search of the town itself, and come up with what we’ve got here!”

“He won’t,” Phillips said, although with less assurance than before. “I’m sure the raid of Captain Jameson, as well as the arms we have here, is still a secret—”

“Are you? And if they are,” the colonel said witheringly, “how long do you suppose it will remain a secret when Jameson keeps sending those telegraphs of his in that idiot code of his that wouldn’t fool a ten-year-old child? ‘The veterinarian is getting impatient. His four hundred horses are almost ready to race and are champing at the bit.’ From Pitsani, for God’s sake, where an elephant would be happy to trade his tusks for a week’s vacation from the place! A great place to train horses!”

“If there had been any suspicion,” John Hammond said mildly, “don’t you suppose Kruger would already have done something about it?”

“Old Kruger is no fool,” the colonel said, his voice irritated. “They say that before he ambushed our boys once, during the ’eighty — ’eighty-one affair, when he was being pushed to act faster, he was supposed to have said, ‘When you’re after killing a tortoise, wait until it puts its head out before you cut it off.’ We don’t know how much he knows or how much he doesn’t know; that’s one of our problems. And when I think that Jameson thinks he can obtain his objective with four hundred untrained men, rather than the fifteen hundred he promised he could raise! Gentlemen, we are nowhere near being prepared for any military action against the Boers, certainly not yet! Am I the only one to see this very apparent fact?”

“The people of Johannesburg will fight with their hands, if need be, against Kruger’s tyranny—” George Farrar, another of the leading Reformers, began stoutly, but Frank Rhodes interrupted angrily.

“Save me the flag-waving, please, George! The people of Johannesburg talk a lot, but most of them will be hiding under the carpet when the first shot is fired. Maybe if they had proper arms and sufficient ammunition, enough of them could do a proper job, but the fact is they haven’t, and I doubt many of them are martyrs at heart. And as for Jameson and his — well, victims, I suppose the best word for them is they won’t be facing Lobengula’s spears this time. They’ll be facing Boer farmers with rifles, who can take down a running springbok at two hundred yards!”

“Except that nobody is supposed to be aware of the attack, certainly not the Boers,” John Hammond said gently. He had taken on the responsibility of getting the proper arms and ammunition into Johannesburg from Kimberley, past the border guards, and was aware of his failure to do a better job. “The answer to success in this venture isn’t just in arms. It lies, in my opinion, in surprise, and so far, despite your evident fears, Colonel, we still seem to have that on our side.”

“And how long do you think we’ll have it — if we have it at all — once four hundred armed men on horseback start marching toward the city? I know Jameson is supposed to cut the telegraph lines when he starts, but the Boer got his messages back and forth damned quick in ’eighty and ’eighty-one long before the telegraph was installed! Don’t get me wrong: surprise is fine, and we need it, but we also need more men and far more ammunition and rifles. And until we get them, I, for one, suggest we postpone this entire venture!”

“I don’t know if Jameson will wait,” Farrar said worriedly. “You know how impatient he is—”

Colonel Rhodes stared at him. “This is a military operation, sir! Jameson is a soldier in it, and that’s all he is, like you and me and the others involved! The commander in chief is my brother, Cecil, in Cape Town. Jameson will do what he is told; he will obey orders! For myself, I intend to go to Cape Town and discuss this matter with Cecil. And I suggest that you, sir,” he added, turning to Hammond, “increase your efforts to bring in ammunition in sufficient quantities, as well as more rifles and several larger weapons, if possible. No, sir, not if possible. They must be brought in!”

There were several moments of silence, all eyes on the colonel.

“Then we’ve said all that needs to be said,” the colonel concluded. “Let’s get somebody in here to get these rifles out of these drums and properly serviced so at least something will be ready, though God knows for what! I will return from the Cape as soon as I can. In the meantime, Jameson will simply have to cool his heels in Pitsani. I suggest that you, Farrar, inform him of that fact, trying to be a bit more subtle in your telegraphic codes than Jameson has been in his. ‘Veterinarian getting impatient!’ My God!” He snorted. “You might also add that the veterinarian would do well to use some of that time to recruit the number of men he promised when this matter was first discussed!”

He turned and stumped from the room, consulting his pocket watch. He was late for his date with a young widow to teach her the rules of the new game bezique, but there was still time before the train left for Kimberley, where he could change for Cape Town. It was a long and tiresome journey, but possibly he might convince the young widow to travel with him…

At Groote Schuur, the beautiful home of the Premier of the Cape Colony, set down and back from the road behind Table Mountain, Barney Barnato was waiting for Cecil John Rhodes, the Premier, to appear for the meeting that had been requested and confirmed by telegraph. The rumors that were beginning to become more and more overtly discussed in Johannesburg regarding the possibility of some direct action by the Reform Committee against the Boer authorities had brought Barney to forsake all other duties and hurry to Cape Town to try to do his best to avert what he was sure could only result in disaster for all concerned. As he waited, looking out at the flowering gardens of the sprawling house, with the rear of Table Mountain rising sharply across the distant road, he wondered how much Cecil Rhodes was involved with the Reform Committee and their prospective action, or whether it was merely another rumor that Rhodes was behind the entire scheme. It was certainly in Rhodes’ interest to try to add the Transvaal to the growing British Empire. Still, it could do no harm to talk to the man; they certainly knew each other well enough by this time. Barney wondered if things might have been different had he taken up Mr. Breedon’s suggestion and run for the Kimberley seat in the Assembly, but he was sure it would have made little difference.

His thoughts were interrupted as the door opened and Rhodes came into the room. Rhodes had aged greatly since he had become Premier, it seemed to Barney; his disappointments in the mineral wealth — or, rather, lack of it — in Rhodesia, together with the responsibilities of running the affairs of the large Cape Colony, seemed to have weighed on Rhodes to an unusual degree. His big body, always tending to slouch, was now bent more than ever, his complexion was pasty as if it missed the sun of Kimberley, and he looked unwell, as if the illnesses of his youth had returned multiplied by the intervening years. Yet, as Barney knew, the man was only forty-two years of age, a year younger than Barney himself.

Rhodes merely brushed Barney’s outstretched hand and sank into an upholstered chair, looking at Barney broodingly, as if the meeting were taking his time from things more important.

“Well, Barney, you said your mission was urgent. Has it anything to do with the mines or their output?”

Barney disregarded the question entirely. He sat down in a chair across from Rhodes. “You know there’s trouble in Johannesburg, Cecil,” he said without attempting to beat about the bush. “There has been for years, but it’s coming to a head. The Reformists are looking for a fight, and if they’re not careful they’ll get one. And it may well be one they won’t like. I don’t know how much you’ve kept up to date on the activities of the Reform Committee—”

“Johannesburg is in the Transvaal,” Rhodes said with a faint smile, interrupting. “This is the Cape Colony. This is where I’m Premier.”

“—or what your involvement with it might be,” Barney went on, quite as if Rhodes had not spoken, “but if you have any influence with its members, I think there are a few things you ought to consider. As you know, I met with Kruger almost two years ago—”

“When you got him to agree to the railway,” Rhodes said. “That was well done,” he added almost grudgingly. “But that’s ancient history.”

Barney shook his head. “Look, Cecil, I’m a lot closer to the thing than you are, stuck down here in the Cape and getting your information — or often misinformation — by telegraph. I tell you the Reform Committee is going about this thing the wrong way. The way to work on Kruger is certainly not to antagonize him. He came around on the railway thing; he’ll come around on other things as well.”

“He hasn’t come around on the franchise,” Rhodes said, a stubborn set to his thin lips, “and as I understand it, that’s the main complaint of the Reform Committee.”

Barney snorted. “If Kruger gave the Uitlanders the vote right now, he’d be crazy, and one thing Paul Kruger is not is crazy! Johannesburg is almost as advanced as Kimberley, now. We’ve got streetlights, they’re working on a sewage system, it’s already bigger than Kimberley. He has given in on things; give him time and he’ll give in on more. What I’m trying to say is that this is no time for the Reform Committee to do anything foolish.”

“I see. Well, let me think it over. As I said before,” Rhodes said, “the Transvaal is out of my province. I have enough on my hands with the Cape. However, I do know some members of the Reform Committee, and I suppose it would do no harm to discuss this matter with them—”

He paused as the door to the room opened and his brother Frank poked his head in. The colonel frowned to see Barney Barnato sitting there. Cecil Rhodes turned back to Barney.

“Is there anything else you wished to discuss, Barney? I don’t wish to be rude, but I have a rather full schedule, and I would like to spend a little time with my brother—”

Barney stood up. “No, I think I’ve said what I came to say, Cecil. I just hope you fully understood what I was trying to say. Nobody really gains from trouble,” he added, as much for Colonel Frank Rhodes’ sake as for the Premier’s. “It can only cost money. Your money and my money.” He nodded and walked through the door that Frank Rhodes had been holding open for him; the door closed behind him. Neville Pickering was sitting at a desk beyond the door; he nodded stiffly. A butler was waiting to escort Barney to his rented carriage in the drive that would take him back to the railway station.

As he climbed in and gave the necessary directions, he wondered why he had taken the trouble to come to Cape Town. It was evident that whatever was being planned was well along its way. Certainly all his arguing in the Rand Club in Johannesburg had only led to losing him friends, as well as cutting him off from any information as to what was being planned. Even Solly, whom he had treated as well as a brother, hedged when asked about the Reform Committee, although it was evident the man was deeply involved. It was also evident that Cecil Rhodes not only had a finger in the pie, but undoubtedly was up to his elbows in it. “The Transvaal, of course, is not in my province, but I do know some members of the Reform Committee… ”What drek!

Well, maybe it was all talk. Most of the members of the Reform Committee, including his nephew Solly, tended more to talk than to action. At least it was something “devoutly to be wish’d for,” he thought with a faint smile, recalling his Hamlet. He had his own problems with the deepening of the mine shafts in Johannesburg; he’d stop and pick up Armando in Kimberley, borrowing his talents for a while.

He leaned back and watched the scenery.

In the room Barney had just left, Colonel Frank Rhodes was staring down at his seated brother, a frown on his face. “What was Barnato doing here?”

Rhodes laughed. “Apparently our Reform Committee is not as circumspect as it, or they, should be. Barnato seems to sense that there is trouble brewing; his Jew nose is twitching. Two years ago he got Kruger to agree to the extension of the railway to Johannesburg and Pretoria, so now he thinks he knows the old man. It’s his idea that Kruger will bend and, if we wait long enough, maybe break, for all I know. At which point the Reform Committee would have nothing to do but pick up the pieces.” He waved away the matter of Barnato and his dreams with a flick of the wrist. “Don’t pay any attention to Barnato and his hallucinations. He has no idea of what’s really going on. What brings you here, Frank?”

Frank Rhodes seated himself in the chair Barney had been occupying.

“I hate to say it, Cecil, but in one respect I agree with Barnato.”

Rhodes frowned. “I beg your pardon? You think Paul Kruger is going to fold? Give us what we want without a fight?”

“No, no! I don’t mean we should wait to pick up any pieces I don’t think are going to fall from any nonexistent table. What I’m trying to say is that I agree with Barnato that this is not the time to act. We’re simply not ready for it. Jameson is up at Pitsani with fewer than five hundred men, not the fifteen hundred he so blithely promised he could raise, and even that number, in my opinion, would be none too many. Plus a few Bechuanaland Police who are supposed to join him when he leaves — eighty of them, to be exact, rather than the three hundred he was sure would go along — and none of them, by the way, very enthusiastic. And Jameson sending those idiot telegraph messages every five minutes in a code that must be making Kruger laugh himself sick, and you know his sense of humor!”

Rhodes smiled, but he was listening closely. “I’m familiar with Jameson’s telegraph messages; I’ve had a few. But I don’t believe Kruger is aware of what’s going on. If he were he would have done something about it before now. I keep a pretty close eye and ear on Pretoria, and I’m sure I would have heard if Kruger was onto the Reform Committee’s plans.”

“I just hope you’re right.” Frank Rhodes sounded far from convinced. “But let me go on. We have exactly thirty-one rounds of ammunition per rifle in Johannesburg at the moment, and this is supposed to be issued to totally inexperienced men for the most part. And the committee, when they are in full session, fight more with each other than I promise you they ever will against the Boer, unless they get a lot more organized than they are at present! The Americans don’t particularly want the Vierkleur replaced with the Union Jack, and believe it or not, neither do a lot of the British. The lot of them feel they’d simply be replacing Kruger’s taxes with Queen Vic’s taxes and they don’t feel this is worth getting shot for. And the fact is that despite the noise the Reform Committee is making, I believe that nine out of ten of the people we’re asking for support in this so-called spontaneous uprising in Jo’burg don’t give a tinker’s dam for the vote! They want to bring in dynamite free, and cyanide free, and everything else they use they want to bring in free. They don’t care if Kruger is President, or you, or me, or Barney Barnato! They want to make more money, that’s all. And I agree with them, but most of them feel that when these concessions are taken from the Boer, they’ll simply be given to some other one who will gouge their pockets as much as the Boer did!”

Cecil Rhodes’ eyebrows rose. When he spoke his voice was cold.

“Frank, are you changing your mind about our objectives?”

“No, dammit! But if you ever want to reach your objectives, listen to what I’m trying to tell you! You asked me to handle the Jo’burg end of this affair, and how do you argue with people who feel that way? How do you convince them to pick up a gun and fight? I’m trying to tell you the truth of the matter, but you don’t seem to want to listen! How do you convince a man to fight when you give him a bloody thirty-one rounds of ammunition and tell him that’s the lot, go out and wipe out the Boers with it, take over their country?” He shook his head decisively. “It would be a massacre, a needless massacre, and I’m not talking about the Boers, either. And what would that gain? Certainly not the overthrow of Kruger, if that’s what you’re aiming for.”

Cecil Rhodes considered his brother for several moments. When he spoke his voice was more sympathetic than anything else.

“Frank, I know that organizing Johannesburg for this uprising has not been an easy job, and I’m sure you’ve done your best. But there’s still time to bring in more arms and ammunition. Possibly if you had paid a bit more attention to it, put a bit more time into it, a bit more effort—”

Frank Rhodes held up a hand quickly, almost commandingly.

“Now, you listen to me, Cecil Rhodes! I know your opinion of me — I like women and you don’t. I drink a lot of whiskey and lately you’ve been drinking almost none. I like a lot of things and do a lot of things you don’t approve of! But don’t blind yourself to one simple fact: I’m the only one in your whole bloody Reform Committee who knows his arse from a cricket bat when it comes to military experience, and that includes your precious Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, who thinks he’s a soldier because he happened to beat a bunch of natives with spears, when his men had guns! And my military experience isn’t slight, either, as you damned well know! I’m no honorary colonel, Cecil; I’m a colonel promoted in grade in the field, dammit! I’ve had thirty years in the army! When we talk gold or diamonds, I’ll listen to you, but when we talk a military operation you’d better listen to me, or you can take your chances with the diggers and shoe clerks you’re planning to use to scare Kruger into handing you the Transvaal on a platter!”

Rhodes had been listening, his face impassive, but his mind was racing. He had never seen his brother Frank in this mood before. One thing was certain: failure was unthinkable. Failure would damage, if not put an end to, his career, and with it his dream of extending South Africa under British rule even farther north — to Cairo, eventually, hopefully. He looked at his brother.

“Are you suggesting we abandon the project?”

“No, dammit, I’m not! I’m merely suggesting we’re not ready for it, not now. It’s your decision, Cecil, but I’m telling you this: Call off this losing operation before it’s too late. Jameson is a fanatic and the ultimate egotist, and this man Luckner he’s picked as second in command is totally unhinged. He’s a bloodthirsty maniac. He kicked a Kaffir to death for spilling some coffee on him, hot coffee. Jameson has fewer than five hundred men under him and while he calls them Rhodesian Police, I’ll wager nine tenths of them are blacksmiths or sailors or ex-breakwater convicts, certainly not trained troops. They’ve each got a horse and a gun; that makes them soldiers! And he was supposed to pick up three hundred Bechuanaland Police, who are trained, but as I said, their number is down to about eighty, and they’d be more enthusiastic if they were being sent out to hunt quail. If you want the truth, they asked if they’d be fighting for the Queen or for Cecil Rhodes’ South African Chartered Company. Now, I’m your brother and I’m trying to help you—”

“Jameson is planning on leaving Pitsani for Johannesburg on the twenty-first of December. That’s just over three weeks away,” Rhodes said, and now his tone was plainly worried. “It may be too late to call it off—”

“Dammit, it’s too late to begin it!” Frank Rhodes retorted. “It has to be postponed, Cecil, for God’s sake! Let Jameson get away from Pitsani before somebody gets the idea of what he’s up there for! Let him get back to Fort Salisbury; let him bring his men up to strength and train them. And let him stop those ridiculous telegraphs before Kruger does know what’s going on, if he doesn’t already know. Let us get proper guns and sufficient ammunition into Johannesburg, and that is going to take time with the border guards as alert as they are these days. With time we can do it, but we can’t do it in any three weeks. And let us have time to convince the people of Johannesburg that it’s to their advantage to be with us one hundred per cent in this thing.” He stared at his brother almost fiercely. “Then, by God, we’d have a chance. We’d have a bloody good chance!”

“How much time are you talking about?”

The colonel shrugged.

“I don’t know. Maybe six months, maybe more. What difference does it make? You want the Transvaal under British rule; it’s been Boer ever since they kicked the shit out of us fifteen years ago, and it was Boer before that. And, I might mention, they did it against the British Army, not against a ragtag bunch of pseudo adventurers playing soldier. So what’s a few more months to ensure success?”

“What do the other members of the Reform Committee think?”

Frank Rhodes waved that away. “I don’t care what they think. If they have any brains, they think the same as I do. Everyone is afraid to admit the truth of what I’ve just told you. Nobody wants to be the messenger bringing bad news, especially to you. But somebody had to do it, and I don’t mind being the one. I’ve given you the truth of the matter: to move now is to invite complete and certain disaster. And if you want my opinion, you won’t get another chance to do it as easily for a long, long time. All you have to do is wait until you’re properly prepared. And you’re not, right now.”

Cecil Rhodes came to his feet and began pacing the floor. At last he paused and looked up.

“It will be hard to hold Jameson back for six months or more. I know the man…”

Frank Rhodes exploded. “Then replace him! What the devil d’you mean, it will be hard to hold him? Is this a military operation, or some bit of anarchy where everyone goes off on his own and does what he wants? If necessary, go up there and tell him yourself, in person, if a telegraph won’t handle the matter. You’re the only one he’ll listen to. He thinks he’s smarter than the rest of us combined. When I pointed out to him on his last visit that four hundred plus men were far from enough, he simply laughed. He said, ‘I can walk into Jo’burg with twenty men and five revolvers anytime I want. You just be ready with your uprising when I get there.’” He snorted contemptuously.

Rhodes sighed. “All right, Frank,” he said, and walked to the end of the room to tug at a pull rope. A moment later his secretary, Pickering, was in the room. Rhodes turned to him. “Send this telegraph to Jameson, at Pitsani. Say, ‘Polo tournament postponed until further notice.’ Get it off at once, and sign it Rhodes.”

“Sign it Cecil Rhodes,” Frank added. “Otherwise he may think I came down to Cape Town just to send it, and he’ll toss it in the campfire.” He waited until Pickering had left the room, and held out his hand for his brother to shake. “That was the wise move, Cecil. Now we’ve got to get busy. Get Jameson back to Fort Salisbury and start doing his job properly. I’ll get to work in Johannesburg.”

“Very well,” Rhodes said, and touched his brother’s hand. Frank Rhodes turned to go. “And thank you, Frank,” Rhodes said sincerely.

Frank Rhodes merely nodded as he left the room, but he had been profoundly surprised. It was the first time since childhood that he could remember ever having heard his brother thank anyone for anything.

12 December 1895

At the single wayside shack that served as a combination telegraph office, restaurant, bar, general store and stable at Pitsani, a place in Bechuanaland near the Transvaal’s western border, where passengers on the Mafeking-Bulawayo coach could take a sorry meal and their drivers change their mules, Jameson and his second in command, Carl Luckner, stood in the shade and read the telegraph message that had just been handed to them. The storekeeper, who, with the help of his wife and daughter, served as hostler, telegraph operator, cook, bartender, and counterman for the tiny outpost, stood and waited for the answer he knew would be forthcoming; every telegraph received by Jameson seemed to require a response, although the storekeeper could not understand why. Most of them made no sense at all to him.

Jameson glowered at the message. “Three weeks ago it was ‘Polo tournament postponed.’ Without a bloody reason! And when I telegraph to tell them we’re ready and any delay would be most injurious, they come back saying that it was absolutely necessary to postpone flotation until we hear from them. And when I complained again, we get this!” He slapped the piece of paper with his gloved hand. “‘I absolutely condemn further developments at present. We cannot have fiasco.’” He looked up, his face flushing with anger. “This is all Frank Rhodes’ work, take my word for it.”

Luckner shrugged. “Whoever’s work it is, we can’t wait much longer. The boys won’t stand for it. They signed up to fight the Boers, not the heat or the damned flies or the plain boredom of this place.” He might have added that the poor grub didn’t help, or the fact that all the decent whiskey was locked up and the men had to do with the cheap stuff in the bar, or the complete dearth of women other than the storekeeper’s wife and daughter, who was practically under lock and key when there were any men around. “We’ve had fifty men desert in the past month.”

“I know that!” Jameson said in irritation. “I know all the arguments against staying here! It’s those idiots who have Cecil Rhodes’ ear, who don’t. Frank Rhodes is afraid of his shadow; how he ever got to be a colonel in the British Army is a mystery to me! I know the people of Jo’burg and how they feel a damn sight better than Frank Rhodes does. Once we enter the city, we’ll have every man, woman, and child on our side, and the Boers will be running for their lives!” He scribbled a message on his pad and handed it to Luckner to read. Luckner read it and handed it to the storekeeper, but his eyebrows raised at the words. “Send that at once,” Jameson said.

The storekeeper read the message for clarity, and shrugged. At least this message made some sense; the other messages about polo, in a country that didn’t have a polo field anywhere in it, let alone at Pitsani; or the flotation of companies when there wasn’t a decent building, let alone a factory or a mine within fifty miles, had been ridiculous. And while this message indicated he would soon be losing custom and therefore revenue, at least it would also mean his daughter wouldn’t have to hide every time a trooper showed up at the bar, but could do her share of the work once again. For the message read: “Unless I hear definitely to the contrary, we shall leave tomorrow night, December 29, signed, Jameson.”

Luckner stared at him. He waited until the storekeeper had nodded and gone back into the shack, then he said, “And just suppose you get a telegraph hearing to the contrary?”

Jameson grinned. “In the first place, this is Saturday and the company offices are closed weekends. By the time anyone receives that telegraph, we’ll be halfway to Jo’burg. And in the second place, we’re going to cut the telegraph wires before we leave, so that handles the matter of return messages in the first place. Don’t worry, Cecil Rhodes will thank me when this is all over.” He became serious. “Issue the men all the whiskey they want today; they won’t be having any drink for a few days, and they’ll want to celebrate leaving this miserable place. They’ll have tomorrow to sober up. We’ll leave at dusk. And assign some men to cut the telegraph wires tomorrow afternoon.”

“Yes, sir!” Luckner said with a happy grin, and got on his horse to ride to camp. The stores of decent liquor that had been held back from the men, forcing them to drink the cheap-grade brandewyn at the bar in the shack, had been another sore subject among the troopers. This complaint, however, would be handled as soon as he got back to camp, and the other squawks, he knew, would be forgotten the minute they were on their way. There might be loot; there even might be women; who knew? But there definitely would be action, and that’s what the men needed more than anything else.

President Kruger was reading his Bible; it was his only reading material and he read it whenever he had time from state business. He looked up at the urgent rapping on his door, marking his place in the Bible with a thick finger. “Yes? Come,” he called.

His aide entered, excited, and gave his report.

“Ummm,” Kruger said thoughtfully. “They’re leaving tomorrow night, you say?”

“Yes, sir,” said his aide. “Our man at Pitsani — the storekeeper — sent us the telegraph exactly as he had sent it to Cape Town. As he has reported all of the exchange so far. He’s not the brightest person in the world,” the aide said condescendingly. “He has no idea of what he’s about, but he’s reliable as far as following orders. Oh, yes,” he added, grinning. “He also said he heard them say something about cutting the telegraph wires before they left. A little late, but sounds like the rest of their planning for this ridiculous affair.”

“Ummm,” Kruger said, and returned to his Bible, motioning his aide to leave the room and leave him alone.

“But, Mr. President,” the aide stammered. “Did you hear me? Jameson and more than four hundred armed troopers are planning to invade the Transvaal, leaving Pitsani tomorrow night. Shouldn’t we—”

“Shouldn’t we — what?” Kruger asked mildly.

“Well, I mean, sir, shouldn’t we do — well, something?”

“We will,” Kruger said, his tone dismissing the puzzled aide, and returned to his Bible.

Trooper Jimmy Parkinson, trying to stand more or less erect while suffering the grandfather of all hangovers and with a headache the equal of which he could not remember having encountered in a lifetime made up largely of headaches, spoke out of the side of his mouth to the man next to him, his friend Trooper Billy Watson.

“Billy,” he said in a mournful undertone, “I should ’ave stuck to the ’orrible muck in the telegraph ’ut. I never did ’ave a ’ead fer decent whiskey. Never ’ad a chance t’ get used to it.”

“You feelin’ rough?” Billy said sympathetically.

“Ain’t you?”

“I ’ad me some cookin’ oil afore I ’it the bottle,” Billy said virtuously. “Never get bashed that way. You really feelin’ bad? We’re ridin’ soon.”

“Me teeth all feel like they got little sweaters on ’em,” Jimmy said, “an’ me ’ead’s got t’be the size of a football. Wit’ a youngster inside beatin’ on a drum. I better tie meself on me ’orse,” Jimmy said, “becos’ I’m goin’ t’fall asleep soon’s we start. Better ride close t’me to make sure I don’t fall orf.” He looked down the wavering line. “Looks like th’ whole company’s in th’ same shape.”

“Ah, well,” Billy said philosophically, “we’ll be in Jo’burg in two, three days and you can do it all over again.”

“Can’t wait,” Jimmy said dryly, and then grimaced painfully as a bugler began blowing assembly, seemingly right into his ear. He tried to straighten up, squinting ahead into the setting sun as Jameson swung himself into his saddle and looked out over the assembled men, the sun at his back casting long shadows over the now-deserted campgrounds. Behind him and a little to one side, Luckner sat easily in his saddle, his face expressionless. A little behind him the company bugler sat, and Lieutenants Willoughby and White sat their mounts, while behind them the mule wagons with the tenting equipment stood waiting to go, their Kaffir drivers paying little attention to the assemblage. Their loads were light. Each trooper had packed one day’s rations, for supplies had been planned to be placed at fifty-mile intervals along the road to Johannesburg.

“Troopers!” Jameson called out in a loud voice. “This is the moment we have all been waiting for! I want to read you a letter I’ve received from the Reform Committee in Johannesburg!”

He reached into the top pocket of his uniform and withdrew the letter he had insisted upon receiving many months before. That afternoon, before packing his gear, he had taken pen and ink and carefully placed the date in the upper right-hand corner, December 29, 1895. The fact that it was December 29 when he penned the date, and Pitsani was a good two days’ hard riding to have been delivered from Johannesburg the same day, meant little to Jameson regarding the fictitious message. He was sure there would never be the slightest reason to ever use the letter beyond the use he was about to put it to. He cleared his throat and began to read.

Jameson raised himself in his saddle, his saber now drawn, raised in the the air, flashing in the last rays of the sun.

“We shall ride into Johannesburg and settle this matter once and for all! Men, are you with me?” There were a few rather embarrassed and drunken yells, but the response seemed to satisfy Jameson. He replaced the saber in its scabbard. “Then — troopers — mount!”

The rescuers of the women and children of Johannesburg were on their way.

The sinking of a shaft for a gold mine, Armando quickly decided, was quite a bit different from sinking a shaft in a diamond mine. The blue ground at Kimberley was a pipe, the core of an ancient volcano, and it ran vertically and therefore its location could be easily calculated and determined. The shaft, paralleling the pipe, was also sunk vertically, and horizontal chambers or tunnels were dug through to the blue ground at whatever level was desired. It was all relatively simple. The gold reef, however, was considerably different from a diamond pipe, for it ran at angles of varying steepness, and shafts had to be sunk through the rock to intercept the diagonal reef at various depths, and the reef mined for the gold-bearing rock in the immediate vicinity before sinking the shaft deeper to intersect another angled reef containing gold farther down. How deep one might go before failing to intercept a diagonal layer of gold-bearing rock nobody knew, but there seemed little doubt that the shafts would end up much deeper than any at Kimberley, and the problems, therefore, of sinking these shafts would be that much more complicated.

The shafts had already reached a depth of a half mile or more, and there was every indication that there still might be major gold deposits even farther down; as far as a mile or even two miles deep. And at those depths, nobody knew if they might not run into gold-bearing quartz that might yield an ounce, or even two ounces of gold per ton of rock. Or possibly three or more. There was no way of telling, but it was always the dream, the goad that drove men to probe deeper and deeper beneath the earth’s surface. And the farther down they went, the greater the problem, Armando knew, for the heat increased proportionately the deeper they went, and there would be the problem, not just of physically building shafts that deep, but of getting air down to cool the workers at those depths. Armando had been assured by the white gold miners that the Kaffir had no problem with heat as he had no problem with the cyanide solution, and while he knew nothing about the resistance of the Kaffir to the heat in gold mines, he knew there was a problem at the lesser depths in the diamond shafts, and he was sure it would be a greater problem here.

But for whatever purpose, the shaft of the mine he was inspecting was poorly constructed for such great depths, and the huge Angolan decided that before greater depths were attempted the shaft would have to be aligned to a far more accurate degree, and the cages in which the workers were dropped to the various levels to dynamite the rock loose would have to be reinforced and constructed of far stronger materials. The same was true of the cables that held the cages in the shaft, and raised and lowered them by use of huge steam-driven geared winches that were mounted above each mine shaft.

The large Angolan stepped from the cage he had been using to inspect the shaft, closing the protective gate behind him, and breathed deeply of the clear, high-altitude air. There was a lot of work to be done if he was going to be responsible for the deepening of the shafts, but it was work he loved and he wondered if he could ever adequately thank Barney Barnato for having rescued him — “rescued” was the only word he could think of — from the circus and the dreary task of having to beat some poor soul into submission several times a week just in order to eat. Now Armando ate as well as he wished, and maintained his strength through honest work, which was the best way. He waved to the donkey-engine operator to indicate his use of the cage was finished for the day, and climbed into his trap, touching the horses with the whip, prepared to go to Barney’s office and make his report. And then pulled up short as another trap appeared around a corner of the narrow dirt road, blocking his passage. He smiled to see the occupants, for they were his boss, Barney, and Barney’s lovely wife, Fay, made even more beautiful, Armando thought, by being several months pregnant. She reminded him of his mother, who, while never being pregnant since he could remember, had been big and soft, and he often missed her and wondered why he had never gone back to Angola to visit her before her death. The reason, of course, had been his father, but those were aimless thoughts. Armando put them aside as he climbed down and walked over to the other trap.

“Hello, Miz Barnato. Hello, Barney. I was jus’ now goin’ to you office to tell you.” While Armando still had a fairly heavy Portuguese accent, his command of the English language was quite good. He shook his head sadly. “No so good news, I am afraid.”

“What kind of bad news?”

Armando shrugged. “It mean lots of work, Barney. I t’ink maybe the shaft too deep now for the cable and the winch. Should already bot’ be bigger, I t’ink, an’ cable should be steel, not rope. Also shaft should be much more straight. I dig a shaft like this in Kimberley, nobody go down. Lucky cage don’ hang up goin’ down. You wanna see? I show you.”

He climbed back into his trap, turned his horse, and returned to the mine shaft, climbing down as Barney drew up beside him and got down.

“I’ll wait here,” Fay said, smiling at both men. “Get a little sun.”

“I won’t be long,” Barney promised, and walked over to the cage beside Armando.

Armando swung open the gate and waited until Barney had entered the mesh-sided, open-topped cage before waving to the donkey-engine operator who handled the cable winch. “Slow, all the way to the bottom,” he shouted and got into the cage, ducking his unusual height under the top crossbeam of the cage, reaching back to swing shut the gate that prevented anyone from falling down the open shaft. When he stood erect his head went above the mesh sides of the cage, almost touching the large iron eye bolt that held the rope cable that raised and lowered the cage. Armando grinned down at Barney. “See shaft a lot easier from up here,” he said, and then swayed slightly as the cage began to descend. But it only went five or six feet before it stopped with a jerk. Both men looked upward with a frown at the daylight just above them. There was the voice of the operator, heard in a faint shout from above.

“Something’s caught. I’ll get it fixed right away.”

There was the ringing of a hammer on metal; Armando had to raise his voice a bit to be heard. “You see, Barney? Winch gears worn—”

He paused as the cage suddenly dropped another two or three feet and stopped again with another jerk. At the sudden stop there was a short snapping sound and one of the rope strands of the cable parted with a sharp report just above Armando’s head. Armando opened his mouth to yell for the operator to stop his hammering and drop them some ropes to secure the cage, when a second strand of the cable snapped. The beating of metal on metal continued from above. The two men looked at each other; then Armando reached up, grasping the slippery cable with one hand, used his enormous strength to raise himself enough to brace his feet under the top crossbeam and then to lift the cage a foot or more, leaving a bit of slack in the cable. His other arm was quickly inserted in the slack, taking a bite. He released his first grip and stood, the cable now wrapped about his other arm, his body stretched with the strain, and looked at Barney.

“You climb over me, get out. Tell operator drop rope. I tie her somehow. Go now. Quick.”

“If he stops that damn hammering we can call him and I can tie the ropes a lot easier while you hold her—”

“He never stop that damn hammerin’! Don’ waste time! In shaft, me the boss! Climb! Dammit, climb!”

Barney hesitated a moment and then went up the wire mesh to the top crossbeam. He stepped up on Armando’s shoulders and then to the top of the big Angolan’s head, reaching up to grip the top edge of the shaft. He drew himself up to the surface, pushing aside the swinging gate, and scrambled to his feet. Fay had come down from the trap, her face registering her concern, but Barney paid no attention to her. The donkey-engine operator, his back to Barney, was still beating against the recalcitrant gearing of the winch with his hammer. Barney ran over and tore the hammer from the man’s hands.

“Ropes!” he roared. “The cable’s breaking at the cage! It’s only a few feet down! Armando’s holding it—”

The operator stared at him in confusion. “Ropes?” he asked in a dazed voice.

“Where d’you keep spare cables? Ropes, damm it—”

There was a sudden clatter from the shaft and both men rushed over, staring down. The last strand of the cable had parted and the cage had dropped away, leaving Armando swinging in the shaft at the end of the rope. Even as the operator, finally understanding, started at a sprint for the rope shed, Armando’s arm began to slip from the greasy cable. He tried to use his other hand to reach up and halt the slide; then attempted to swing to the side of the shaft where he might try for a grip on one of the runners that guided the cage, but it was too late and Armando knew it. He looked up and tried to smile; then he slipped from the frayed cable and disappeared without a sound down the shaft. Barney squeezed his eyes shut in shock, as if to blot out the sight, and then opened them as, after what seemed an eternity, there was the muffled sound of the cage striking bottom, echoing up the shaft walls. He turned away before he could hear any sound of Armando’s body striking, tears suddenly scalding his cheeks, and bent over, vomiting uncontrollably, with Fay’s arms about him, holding him tightly.

The miners from the various levels came up in the buckets normally used for hauling the dynamited rock to the surface; Armando’s body was brought up wrapped in a tarpaulin. He was buried the following day, a closed-casket funeral, in a grave dug beside the shaft in which he died. The stone that was to cover the grave had been ordered by Barney himself, and promised to be one of the most impressive in Johannesburg: a life-sized statue of Armando as he had been twenty years before, bare-chested, in his boxing trunks and boxing shoes, a true giant of a man.

Most of the important people of Johannesburg attended the funeral, partly for Armando, but mainly in deference to Barney, for while they had their differences, primarily regarding the position of the Reform Committee, the name Barnato still meant a great deal in Johannesburg. Besides, in the face of a mine disaster, a disaster that might have overtaken any one of them when inspecting a new seam in one of their mines, they all stood together. And as the priest made his eulogy beside the open grave, the huge casket hastily made the night before waiting patiently to be interred, a trap came tearing into the open space where the mourners were gathered. The driver pulled on the reins hurriedly, as if such commotion was somehow indecent in face of the bared heads and long faces, in face of the very presence of death. He got down quietly, as if attempting to efface himself, but walked quickly, nonetheless, to the side of Colonel Frank Rhodes. He whispered something in the colonel’s ear, and then stepped back at the colonel’s startled exclamation.

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“The idiot! The damned idiot!”

The colonel looked about; the priest droned on, but now everyone was looking toward Frank Rhodes, and that included Barney. But the colonel knew, to his unhappiness, that it was far too late for secrets at this point. Frank Rhodes shouldered his way to the front of the crowd; the priest, aware that something extraordinary was going on, stopped talking as Rhodes mounted the pile of dirt beside the open grave, looking out over the crowd from his vantage point.

“Ladies, gentlemen,” he said gravely, quietly, for there was no need for speaking loudly in that sudden and complete silence, “Jameson is on his way to Jo’burg. The messenger I sent to be sure he did not move met him twenty miles inside of the Transvaal; he had left Pitsani the night before last, Sunday night. I suggest the Reform Committee meet at once to decide on a course of action.” He looked down at Barney, standing quite close to him. “I’m sorry to disrupt the funeral, Barney, but as soon as you are through here, I suggest you join us. We’ll be meeting at the Rand Club. This matter will affect every man in this town.”

He came down from the dirt pile and walked quickly toward his horse, tethered to one side, followed by a good number of the men present, including Solly Loeb. The priest looked at the large coffin resting on the two wooden horses, then at the four Kaffirs, their shovels stabbed in the dirt beside them, waiting to place the heavy coffin in the ground and cover it, then at Barney Barnato and his wife, each with a handful of dirt to cast on the coffin once it was in the ground, in proper Jewish tradition, and finally at the backs of the retreating men and horses.

“Amen,” he said sadly, and closed his Bible.

“They’re that far into the Transvaal?” Kruger asked, as if he were merely curious about the matter. “Where did you get your information?”

“From Commandant Cronje,” his aide said nervously. “They reached Malmani the day before yesterday at noon and camped there overnight. Then they left for Lichtenburg. From there the commandant expects them to head for Vetersdorp. That will bring them almost a hundred miles into our territory, Mr. President!” The aide was wondering what on earth was the matter with his President. Kruger was acting as if it were an everyday event to have the Republic invaded by an army of Uitlanders. They had been in the Transvaal three days, now, and Commandant Cronje had said nothing about attacking the invaders. As if reading the aide’s mind, Kruger spoke up.

“Did Cronje say anything about what action he has taken?”

“No, sir. Sir,” the aide said almost desperately, “they’ll be on the road to Krugersdorp, and that’s just twenty miles or so from Johannesburg…”

“That’s true. Well,” Kruger said, smiling a bit at his aide’s discomfort, “I suppose you’re right. Send a telegraph to Commandant Cronje at Krugersdorp. Advise him the tortoise has finally put his head out sufficiently. He’ll know what you mean; he won’t be surprised. We’ve been in touch. And don’t worry so much.” He waved a hand at his aide to get on with the job, and went back to reading his Bible.

“What d’yer mean, no grub ner no fresh ’orses?” Trooper Parkinson demanded angrily. “There wasn’t no fresh ’orses ner grub at Malmani, neither, but that weren’t so bad; I still ’ad some o’ me own left over. Now there ain’t nothin’ left. Me poor animal is about ready to lay down an’ give up ’is bloody ghost! ’E wasn’t in too good a shape in Pitsani, an’ two days carryin’ me plus double rifles without bein’ spelled ain’t done ’im no world o’ good. ’E needs some oats, not the muck they call grass in this ’ell-’ole! Not there’s a ’ell o’ a lot of even that in this bleedin’ sand! What’s the bloody reason?”

“I didn’t catch all the captain was tellin’ th’ other orficers,” Billy Watson said apologetically. “I don’t rightly suppose I was supposed t’ be listenin’ at all. But they was all talkin’ with this messenger bloke what jus’ rode in from Jo’burg, Major Thompson, I seed ’im afore. Anyway, it seems the bloke responsible fer seein’ our stores an’ fresh ’orses was set up every fifty mile all the way to Jo’burg, was a bloke name o’ Dr. Wolff.”

“So?” Trooper Parkinson said, a trifle dangerously.

“So the way this Major Thompson was tellin’ it, seems this Dr. Wolff allus takes ’is summer ’olidays in December, goes down t’ th’ seaside. Get away from the bloody ’eat, y’ see. Can’t say as ’ow I blames ’im,” Trooper Watson added enviously.

“Wait a bloody minute!” Parkinson said ominously. “Y’mean t’ stand there an’ tell me, the bloke what was responsible fer grub an’ fresh ’orses, took ’is bloody ’oliday when ’e was supposed t’ be settin’ up stores fer us? Is that what yer tryin’ t’ tell me?”

“That’s what th’ major was sayin’. I guess they didn’t figger Captain Jameson was goin’ t’ move when ’e did. Lack o’ communications, they calls it,” Billy said, proud of his greater knowledge in military affairs.

“A balls-up, I calls it,” Parkinson said bitterly.

“Another balls-up,” Billy Watson corrected gently.

“I’ll have Wolff’s hide for this!” Jameson said tightly. “On holiday, for good Jesus’s sake!” He, Luckner, Willoughby, and White were sitting around the dying campfire with Major Thompson, the messenger from Johannesburg who had galloped into the camp a short time before. The major considered Jameson coldly.

“It’s hardly Wolff who was at fault,” he said quietly. “You were given strict instructions not to move until further notice. It would have been both foolhardy and wasteful to stock our caches before they were needed; they could have been discovered and lost when they were most important. We had no idea you had left Pitsani until Cape Town had time to receive your final telegraph. Then they had to inform us. And then I had to ride up here to see exactly what was going on, and that was another two days.” Jameson snorted. Thompson disregarded it, going on coolly. “I can hardly see how you can possibly blame the Reform Committee because you chose to move, without instructions, before the committee was ready.”

Jameson sneered. “The Reform Committee! The Frank Rhodes Personal Committee, they ought to call it! And just why, after all these months, wasn’t your precious Reform Committee ready?”

“For one thing,” Major Thompson said evenly, “we didn’t have enough rifles or ammunition. Oh, I know you were planning on bringing an extra gun for each trooper you brought, but that wouldn’t handle the ammunition problem, and since you were coming with only a little over four hundred men, rather than the fifteen hundred you promised—” He shrugged, but there was a malicious glint in his eye.

Captain Jameson waved that away as merely being an excuse, and a weak one at that. He leaned forward, his thin body almost quivering, his dark eyes gleaming with equal malice.

“And what about the raid on the Pretoria armory? I was told that a handful of men could take the armory in Pretoria anytime they wanted; it was under repair and one entire wall was down, for God’s sake! And it was being guarded by a minimum contingent, because the others were off duty because of the Christmas holidays. There were supposed to be fifteen thousand modern rifles there, and all the ammunition for them you could dream of, piled up to the roof of the place. It could be taken anytime they wanted, the Reform Committee told me. What happened to that great plan?”

Major Thompson reddened a bit. The plan to capture the armory in Pretoria and arm the Johannesburg residents with its contents of guns and ammunition had largely been his.

“Well,” he said slowly, his embarrassment evident, “again it was just one of those things. We sent our boys up there, but only about a week ago, because we had no idea you were planning on moving when you did. And not all the troops there had been relieved as yet for the holidays. However, somebody” — he coughed slightly and then recovered himself — “had forgotten that the Boers celebrate Nagmaal at the end of December — Communion Week — and the Church Square was loaded with outspanned ox wagons. Half the farmers in the north Transvaal must have been there with their vrous, and as you know, they all carry their rifles with them when they travel, in case they run into any game, or any trouble of any kind. We would have been wiped out in minutes if we had started anything. So—” He shrugged again.

Carl Luckner broke into the conversation.

“So there seems to be enough blame to go around, if that’s the purpose of this exercise,” he said harshly. “Let’s get on with it, I say! So the men do without grub for a day or so — so what? I doubt there’s one among them who hasn’t gone more than a day hungry either on the march at some time, or in some brig or other. We’re less than thirty miles from Krugersdorp and Mrs. Varley’s Hotel and her good meals, that’s where we are! A bit of her food in their bellies — a meal the good lady will be glad to prepare and serve, I warrant — and the boys will be riding into Jo’burg like the Palace Guard, with their backs stiff and their tails in the air! We’re talking too much; we ought to be moving. If it’s somebody needed to tell the troopers they won’t be having their supper tonight, I’ll be pleased to be the one to do it, and I promise to handle any complaints personally as well!”

He paused a moment, as if suddenly realizing he wasn’t in command, and then went on in a quieter tone of voice.

“My suggestion, Captain Jameson, would be to have us on our way. We’ve nothing to gain by wasting time here.” He looked at Major Thompson with no attempt to hide his contempt. “It may take some people two days to ride here from Jo’burg, but we can be at Mrs. Varley’s Hotel by dawn, and in Jo’burg by nightfall, full bellies and all.”

“And what about sleep?” Lieutenant White asked a trifle sarcastically. He disliked Luckner intensely, especially after the incident of the hot coffee and the Kaffir’s death; besides, second in command should have fallen to him and not to some ex-sailor.

“All that sleep will do for the men is make them wake up hungrier,” Luckner said a bit contemptuously. “A good night’s quick march will take their minds from their bellies. And if we can stay awake, they can stay awake!”

There were several moments of silence; then Lieutenant Willoughby spoke up. He sounded worried. “What about the Boers we’ve had riding on both our flanks ever since the border?”

Luckner looked at him evenly. “What about them? Have they attacked? They haven’t even sniped at us, other than one or two overanxious youngsters, and they haven’t come within a mile of hitting anything, the poor blind bastards! They’re simply curious as to what we’re up to, and by the time they find out, it’ll be too late for them, the silly sods.” He turned back to Jameson. “What about it, Captain? Sit here and look at each other all night, or be in Jo’burg tomorrow night with one of Mrs. Varley’s stews beneath our belts, and the citizens cheering their bloody heads off?”

Jameson sighed. He was going over all the alternatives in his mind. What Luckner said made sense. The longer they delayed, the further the men would suffer hunger, and they wouldn’t be getting any closer to their objective. And Jameson was quite convinced that the mere entry of his forces into Johannesburg would stimulate the Reform Committee, make them get off their silly arses and get cracking on their revolution. The people would make them, if nothing else did, once he and his forces entered the city.

The Boers on his flanks bothered him not at all. To begin with they were few, and the few he had seen through his field glasses appeared to be, as Luckner had said, youngsters. As Willoughby had said, they had ridden their horses on either side of his column since they had crossed the border, but as Luckner had pointed out, there had been no attack, and the sniping had been sporadic and so erratic as to almost make the Boers’ claim to marksmanship laughable. It seemed fairly obvious that the Boer forces were too weak to do anything but observe their movements and wonder what they were about. As Luckner had also said, the Boers were merely curious. And should their curiosity get out of hand, the fact was he had over four hundred men at his command, all trained and armed, and besides, he had eight Maxims and three machine guns, weapons the Boers had probably never seen or heard of in their lives, and whose devastating firepower the Boers could not even imagine. Besides, as Major Thompson had said himself, most of them were probably celebrating Nagmaal in one church square or another throughout the region, and it was only their kids who were riding his flanks.

Still, damn Wolff, anyway! Had the caches of food and the fresh horses been available at the places they were supposed to be available, none of these problems would have arisen, minor though they were. Jameson looked up, making up his mind.

“We go on. Now,” he said quietly.

“Good-o!” Luckner said, pleased. “I’ll have one of the men skin up a pole and tap into the wires. We’ll telegraph Mrs. Varley to expect five hundred hungry troopers for food at dawn!” He came to his feet, prepared to have the telegraph sent and to get the men on their feet and then on their horses, and equally prepared to handle any arguments about the orders he gave the men. Willoughby and White came to their feet more slowly, brushing the dirt from the seat of their uniform jodhpurs.

Captain Jameson looked at Major Thompson. “And what about you?”

“I’ll ride with you,” the major said bravely, “if you can furnish me with a fresh mount.”

“You’ll have to ask Dr. Wolff,” Jameson said expressionlessly. “If I could furnish anyone with a fresh mount, it would be me.” And he stood up.

They came upon the swampy ground just outside of Krugersdorp, just as the morning sun was breaking over the low ridge that separated them from the town. In silhouette they could see Boers strung out along the crest of the ridge, most probably those who had trailed them and who had somehow gotten ahead of them in the night through superior knowledge of the area. Their horses were no longer in sight, but the men themselves could be easily seen, standing almost at rest, their rifles in their hands, watching the column approach. Jameson raised his hand to bring his column to a halt. His advance scouts had already reported the Boers apparently finally seemed ready for a stand to prevent them from advancing any farther. Jameson smiled faintly at this presumption on the part of the enemy, and spoke over his shoulder.

“The Maxims and the machine guns,” he called out. “I want them to shell that ridge clear. The Boers have been asking for a battle ever since we crossed the border. Well, let’s give it to them!”

The eight two-man-operated Maxims and the three single-man-operated machine guns were quickly unloaded and set up; the troops assigned to them fell to their knees, their eyes blurred with sleeplessness, and aimed their weapons in the general direction of the ridge crest. Upon orders they commenced their barrage, the rapid stuttering of the guns making the horses shy, the gunners weaving the muzzles of the guns back and forth across the ridge. Bodies there seemed to be flung to the ground; a few minutes of the rapid fire and the defenders had all been scattered, some lying in deathlike attitudes, others tossed like mealsacks back behind the ridge. Jameson attempted to keep track of the effectiveness of the barrage through his field glasses, but the enemy had had the sun at his back, and the reflection of the low rays in Jameson’s glasses made any true assessment of the situation impossible. The captain waved for the deadly barrage to cease and called for his scouts. They rode up sleepily, saluted, and awaited their orders, biting back yawns, while their weary horses trembled under them.

“Let’s get up there and see how many of them are left,” Jameson said curtly.

“Sor!” said the lead scout, an Irishman and a sergeant, saluting, and wheeled his horse, followed by the others.

The scouts splashed through the swampy ground before the ridge and then rode their tired mounts slowly toward the top, taking precautions not to present a broad profile to be fired at, keeping their heads low behind the ears of their mounts. But to their surprise there was no attempt to attack them, and the reason for this soon became clear. Ahead of them, on the crest of the ridge, there appeared to be no sign of life. In the distance they could see a few men fleeing on horseback, but ahead of them the carnage seemed complete. There seemed to be several hundred of the bodies sprawled there, their rifles flung at arm’s length, their twisted corpses in all the grotesque forms and shapes of unexpected death. The sergeant motioned his men to remain where they were while he rode forward a bit, his mount stepping daintily among several of the most advanced bodies; then he turned and led his men somberly down the ridge, walking the horses slowly through the swampy ground.

“The few what escaped, sor,” the sergeant reported, “are runnin’ fer they lives. But the rest,” he said, still amazed at the accuracy of the barrage, which could only be accounted for by the stupidity of the Boers standing there to be cut down like bloody idiots, “all look deader’n hell, if you’ll pardon me, sor.”

“I’ll pardon you anything for a report like that, Sergeant,” Jameson said with satisfaction. “That may teach them to argue with Maxims and machine guns. Poor bloody buggers didn’t know what hit them.” He turned and waved his arms in signals, indicating he wanted the troopers to spread into two parallel lines, prepared to ride over the ridge in a charge. Luckner, at his side, frowned at the unexpected maneuver. Jameson noted the frown. “Those running away will be spread out,” he said, giving Luckner the benefit of his greater military experience and knowledge. “I don’t want any of them to escape. Also, there may be some up there who are merely wounded and they would be scattered. We haven’t lost a man yet, and I don’t expect to lose one in a minor skirmish such as this. Besides,” he added, smiling, “the men could use the experience of the maneuver and the charge.”

He turned in his saddle to watch his men wheel their horses into position and then turn them to form the double line, proud of the easy manner in which both men and animals obeyed his orders. He could see that the men nearest him were drooping in their saddles, and that more than one horse stumbled slightly as it came into formation. Still, the charge would build up the adrenalin in the men, and a good meal for both men and horses was just a few miles away, just beyond the ridge, and they’d be there in half an hour at the most. He looked at his men, stretched out in the long double line, waiting, and felt a touch of pride, a recognition of his contribution to history. He raised his arm, his saber high.

The bugle blew.

The arm came down, the saber flashing in the sun.

“Charge!”

One of the Boers who had been faking death on top of the ridge rolled over, keeping his head down, and pulled his rifle to him slowly, making sure the grass did not ripple. “Damn hoer’s horse near stepped on me, the one come up close,” he said in an undertone, complaining in Afrikaans to a companion, and brought his rifle into position, waiting for the orders to fire. “Could have hurt me!”

“Not if he stepped on your head,” the other replied with a grin, and also snaked his rifle to him, making sure no motion on his part could be seen from below. “Can you imagine! Not a drop of blood among the lot of us and the blind bastard goes off as if we were all dead. And the others just stand there looking lost.” He glanced around. “Did anyone get hit?”

“I doubt,” said the first, and watched the twin lines below splash across the swampy ground and start up the ridge, their horses toiling in almost total weariness, fighting for each step. The troopers could be seen in detail now as they came closer to the top of the ridge; they were urging their horses on with a combination of kind words and cruel rowels, but with little enthusiasm. Five hundred yards, four hundred yards, three hundred, two hundred. The Boers on top of the crest wondered at the delay; each of them could take down a fleeing wildbok at four hundred yards. One hundred and fifty yards, one hundred yards—

“Skiet!”

The shots rang out from the top of the ridge in almost perfect unison. “Some bloody charge, at a bloody walkin’ pace—” Trooper Parkinson had been saying sardonically to Trooper Watson, when a rifle ball took him through the forehead, flinging him from his horse, dead before he struck the ground. The charge faltered under the sudden, unexpected, withering fire. The troopers attempted to return the fire but there seemed to be nothing at which to aim, and the toll of the fire could be seen in the falling bodies and the terror of their inexperienced mounts. Horses and men twisted as the charge broke, the troopers wheeling their horses and trying to escape down the ridge and across the swampy ground to the safety of the other side, but there were Boers on both edges of the swamp, hidden in the tall reeds, having waited there for hours, patiently uncomplaining of the whining mosquitoes or the possibility of water moccasins, no move or sound on their part revealing their presence. Now their deadly fire into the mass of fleeing men and frightened horses turned the retreat into a complete rout. The horses, now come alive from their fatigue by the continuous sound of gunfire from all sides and further terrified by the high, piercing neighing, the shrieking of dying horses about them, bolted in terror back across the swamp with or without riders. Jameson, trying desperately with yells and arm-waving to bring some sort of order out of the chaos, now wished he had had the horses trained to gunfire during his long wait at Pitsani, rather than accepting whatever mounts could be obtained in the barren wastes of Bechuanaland and leaving it at that. The bugler, trying his best to bugle the calls that Jameson at his side kept telling him to bugle, changing his mind every few seconds, merely added to the confusion and the noise.

It was a complete disaster, and Jameson, staring about him, his mind in shocked confusion, knew it, especially when he saw a hand on his bridle and felt himself being led at a fast gallop back across the swamp to be released out of sight of the melee on the slopes and in the swamp. Luckner had pulled him from the calamity and now rode beside him in silence as they led the remains of their forces back along the trail. A mile or so from the scene of the fiasco they pulled up at a large expanse of open land that gave ample view in all directions so they could not be followed and attacked without warning, although there was no evidence of the Boers attempting to take advantage of the rout they had inflicted upon Jameson and his forces. Luckner set guards, put the surgeons and their helpers to work on the wounded who had escaped, put Lieutenant Willoughby to the task of determining their casualties, and then squatted down beside the silent and shaken Captain Jameson, and the equally silent but angry Lieutenant White. Major Thompson had not survived the battle. The troopers in the meantime had nearly fallen from their exhausted mounts and were lying on the ground, panting, their eyes closed in total collapse.

Luckner put away both the intriguing and intruding thought of Mrs. Varley’s Hotel and the meal they had missed, and tried to concentrate on the problems facing them. He looked at Jameson. “Well, Captain?”

Jameson merely stared back at him, still in shock from the unexpected rout of his men.

Lieutenant White broke into the silence, his voice bitter. “Our mistake was in not giving the men and the animals proper rest at our last camp,” he said, looking at Luckner accusingly. “Men can go without food for days, even without water, but they can’t fight without sleep—”

“Our mistake,” Luckner said, staring at White with no expression at all on his face, although he could feel the old fury rising in him and knew in his bones that one day he’d have to teach the lieutenant a lesson with his boots, “was in trusting the report of those lying scouts. Nothing more. They should be court-martialed and shot. Someone paid them to lead us into that ambush, and I guarantee I’ll find out who did!”

“You’re insane! They were trying to do their job without rest. They were at a point of exhaustion where they couldn’t properly report. They were blind for sleep,” White said angrily, “and with the sun in their eyes—”

“I agree with Luckner,” Jameson suddenly said, forcing himself to come out of the fog that seemed to have taken control of his brain, compelling himself to once more assume command. “Fatigue is no excuse for reporting lies. But what will happen to the scouts is a matter to be determined in the future after investigation. We don’t even know if they came out of the battle alive. At the moment our problem is in getting to Johannesburg, because it’s obvious we’re not going to get to Krugersdorp.” The mere act of speaking, of making decisions once again, seemed to help bring him from his hazy state, to bring back partial control of himself. “We’ll stay here until dusk, resting the men and the animals, and then bypass Krugersdorp in the darkness. We’re only about twenty miles from Jo’burg and we’ll just have to make it under forced conditions.” He looked at each man in turn. “Do either of you know the way around Krugersdorp and back on the road to Jo’burg?”

There was silence from the two. Then Luckner cleared his throat.

“Granted the men and horses could use rest at this point,” he said quietly, “but the longer we remain here, the longer the Boers have to bring up fresh horses and fresh men. They know full well the losses they’ve inflicted on us; all they have to do is count the bodies on the ridge and in the swamp. I know the men need rest, but I don’t believe they need all that much rest. It’s barely eight in the morning, Captain; by noon the men should have had ample rest. The fact is, we’ve been badly beaten, but there’s no need for Jo’burg or the Reform Committee to ever know about it, or at least not until after the revolution, and then it really won’t matter. I estimate we still have at least three hundred men, and that’s plenty to put over the revolution, or at least to stiffen the backs of the committee. But only if we get there quickly. Why not let the men rest until noon, and then let’s get on our way? I’ll find the road around Krugersdorp somehow.”

Jameson frowned, thinking. White kept silent. Luckner clinched his argument.

“If we don’t know the road, or if it’s unfamiliar to us, then trying to push through to Jo’burg in darkness, is insane. Besides, the Boer will be expecting us to march at night; we’ve been doing it all along. He’ll probably be sleeping this afternoon.”

“That’s true,” Jameson conceded, and forced himself to make a decision. He looked at White. “Tell the men they have until noon to rest. Then we ride for Jo’burg.” His head swiveled to Luckner. “And you find the road.”

“Right,” both men said, and came to their feet. Jameson stayed where he was, staring at the ground, waiting for Lieutenant Willoughby and his casualty report, although the captain knew it was going to be bad…

The two boys were apparently tending geese, sitting on the ground beside the shallow pan with bits of sedge grass between their teeth, talking idly, watching the goslings waddle down the shallow bank and follow their parents into the water, paddling along behind them bravely, ducking their heads for food as their parents did, trying to raise their necks impressively as their parents did, but failing conspicuously. Luckner drew up his mount, looking down at the boys with no expression on his scarred face, while his horse drank thirstily from the edge of the pan, the geese and goslings hurrying away from the puffling sound. Luckner had come back along their trail the night before for several miles before he had spotted the boys; there had been no other possible road that might lead them out of their position and around Krugersdorp. Luckner studied the frightened faces. Too young to bear arms, he thought, but they’ll grow up to be as vicious as any other Boer, I’ll warrant! Still, they were probably also too young to lie, although he was sure from their nervous expressions that he could frighten them out of any tendency to lie in any event. The two had stopped talking and had scrambled to their feet at his approach, staring at him, influenced, he could see, by his hard, scarred face, and by his trooper’s uniform.

“Boys,” he said, “do either one of you know the way around Krugersdorp to hit the road to Jo’burg to the south?”

The boys remained silent, looking first at each other and then back at the man seated on the horse.

“Now, boys,” Luckner said, smiling a humorless, a dangerous smile, “I asked you a question. It isn’t polite not to answer. Didn’t your pa ever tell you that? Or your ma?”

One of the boys finally found his voice. He pointed off to the left. “There’s a kopje about three miles from here,” he said, trying to keep his voice from trembling. “Actually, two kopjes, maybe fifty yards apart, maybe a hundred yards high. You can’t miss them. They look like a woman’s tits.” The two boys giggled a bit nervously at this apt description, and then straightened their faces to see the waiting man remain with graven face. The one boy swallowed and went on. “They got trees on them, mostly sneeze-wood. You go between them and about a mile on you’ll see another pan like this one, only a little bigger. Skirt it to the left and you’ll run into the road from Krugersdorp to Johannesburg.”

Luckner scowled at the boys, his face as hard as he could make it look.

“You boys wouldn’t lie to me, would you? Because if that was the case, I’d be coming back this way, and I wouldn’t be pleased. And when I’m not pleased, I hurt people.” His voice was threatening. His one hand reached back to touch the whip he had coiled at the pommel of his saddle, and then slid to rest on the hilt of his saber a moment. “I hurt them bad.”

“Oh, no, sir!” the boy said hurriedly. He pointed again, as if to confirm his first information. “My pa took me to Johannesburg once. That’s the way we went. It’s got ox-wagon tracks you can’t miss. It’s the way lots of people from north of Krugersdorp go, to miss the town.”

“Well,” Luckner said, “in that case, thank you.” He sounded anything but thankful. He remained seated on his horse, towering over the boys, thinking. He considered the possibility that the boys might report his questioning to some adults and that, in turn, the Boer commandos might hear of it, but if they did it would be too late for them to do anything about it. And if he killed the boys and Jameson ever heard of it — and word was bound to get around, even to Johannesburg — the captain, in his lily-livered way, would probably raise all sorts of hell over the matter, knowing who had gone back to ask around and locate the road. And if Captain Jameson didn’t, then that bastard White would. The boys were staring at him a bit fearfully, as if they might have read his mind. Luckner leaned over, giving the boys a closer look at his scarred face. “And you two keep quiet about my asking you any questions, hear? Or I’ll come back and cut off your little puds, and then you’ll never enjoy a woman, tits or no tits!”

He turned and wheeled his horse, returning in the direction of their temporary campsite, intent upon getting Jameson to reduce the rest period even further, and get them on the road as soon as possible. The one boy looked at the other, his eyes twinkling.

“Nasty man, isn’t he?”

“They’re all nasty men,” the second said contemptuously. “Not very smart, but nasty. Still,” he added, thinking about it, “we’d better get away from here before they come through.”

“Why? We don’t have to get away before they come,” the first boy pointed out. “Our staying will prove we didn’t lie to the man. It’s the way their heads work.” He grinned. “Besides, I’d like to see what they look like after the swamp and the ridge.”

“A lot better than they’ll look after the twin kopjes,” the other boy predicted, and also grinned. “You’re right. Let’s get a look at them,” and he settled down again, reaching for a new bit of sedge grass. The geese marched steadily across the pond, obediently followed by the goslings.

Jameson compromised on leaving the rest area at eleven in the morning, to the satisfaction of Luckner and the profound disgust of Lieutenant White. Forty-two men had died on the ridge and in the swamp; sixty-seven had been wounded, and of these, thirty-five were too badly injured to ride their mounts at the fast pace necessary to reach Johannesburg as quickly as possible. That left the captain with three hundred and four able-bodied troopers, plus thirty-two who could ride but would be of limited use in case of any running battle with the Boer commandos as they galloped along the road to Johannesburg. Still, Jameson thought, it might have been worse. At least they did have a way around Krugersdorp, thanks to Luckner. Otherwise they would have had to pause in their ride to Jo’burg to raid one or more farms for food for the men and feed for the animals, and that delay might well have proven fatal to the revolution. Now it was just a matter of time, a matter of hours.

He rode at the head of his men with Luckner beside him to point out the trail, and with his bugler and Lieutenant White behind him, and Willoughby halfway down the column of twos, beside the one surgeon they were taking, accompanying the riding wounded. The other surgeons had been left behind, to be rescued when and if possible, together with the many more seriously wounded; a flag with a prominent white cross on it had been placed in a very visible position before the abandoned campsite, and tents, similarly marked, had been set up for a hospital.

The troop was galloping at a pace that Jameson realized could not be maintained for long by the jaded horses, but once they were below Krugersdorp and well on the way to Johannesburg, he felt they could ease their pace, for they would be in territory too close to Johannesburg and the armed men there for the Boers to seriously consider an attack without threat to themselves. They turned from the trail at the shallow pan, galloping into the trail that Luckner pointed out. The two boys, Luckner was pleased to see, were still there and watching them; he felt a touch of pride that his fierce appearance had served to seal their lips where harsher methods might have failed. More than one man in the column stared at the swimming geese with more than a touch of hunger as they swept by them, but then they set their faces resolutely ahead. They had endured too much to be deterred from their goal now. They were on their way to Johannesburg, within hours of their target, and with no bloody Boer standing between them and the town. The scouts — the new scouts — had ridden past the twin kopjes and all the way to the connection with the Jo’burg road and had reported all was quiet.

It was hot, the full heat of a South African summer at high noon, and the heavy uniforms caught the perspiration of the troopers, weighing them down; the dust ate its way through the damp cloth to attack the skin beneath. It coated the dry lips and caked the edges of their eyes; it clogged their noses and abraded their ears; it worked its way into their jodhpurs and chafed the skin of their legs and thighs. The sweat of their horses made their knees slide along the flanks of their mounts, acting almost as spurs to the weary animals; they rode in a swarm of flies. They were an army of last resort, but determined to finish their dash from Pitsani in proper style and complete their mission of saving Johannesburg from the wicked Boer. They were troopers saving the Queen, and if they were saving Cecil Rhodes and his ambitions instead, it was too late to think about that.

They came around a curve in the trail, and there, less than a thousand yards away, as the two boys had promised and as the new scouts had confirmed, they could see the rounded twin kopjes with a scattering of sneezewood trees atop them, rising from the flatness of the plain. Like hairy warts on a woman’s tits, indeed, Luckner thought, grinning, and put his spurs to his mount to keep up with Jameson. The last few hours of the long three days was almost in sight; the clear road to Johannesburg lay just to the left of the pan he knew they would soon sight once they had cleared the narrow valley between the twin hills.

The leaders were well into the small valley, the troopers crowding behind, praying for sight of the final trail, the road they would ride down with pride, their shoulders back despite their hunger and their privation, into Jo’burg to face the cheering of the residents. Each man could taste his meal that evening, piled before him in unlimited quantities and enjoyed as no meal had been enjoyed before; each man disregarded the galling of his gritty uniform against his sweaty legs as he felt the bitter tang of hops in his throat at the thought of the beer he would drink that night; each man could almost feel the soft arms of one of the town’s so-called loose women thrown about him in appreciation of his having protected her virtue. And then, even as they spurred their tired horses to even greater effort, digging spurs into already blood-flecked flanks, each man froze in his saddle as he heard, above the pounding of his horse’s hooves, what he had heard once before on that fateful day.

“Skiet!”

From the rounded, breastlike hills on either side of the narrow trail on which they found themselves, the two kopjes seemed to burst into flame and smoke as the Boer commandos, waiting for them in their ambush, each rose to his knees from behind some rock, or edged his gun from behind some tree, to pour a wave of rifle fire down on the entrapped troopers. Each end of the small valley was suddenly closed as Boers took position there, down in the deep sedge grass, unable to be seen, adding additional firepower into the panicked troopers, their mounts now frenzied beyond endurance or control, churning dust as they wheeled meaninglessly in the confined space, neighing in terror, stumbling over the bodies of fellow animals down with bullet wounds in their bodies, stepping on shot troopers, trying desperately to escape the withering fire. It was chaos. Jameson found himself, almost without volition, turning to his bugler, screaming above the bedlam.

“Give me your undershirt!”

“Sir?”

Jameson pulled his horse next to the puzzled man. He leaned across his pommel, pulling the other man’s outer shirt away, ripping the undershirt from the man’s body, hastily tying it to his saber. He drove his spurs deep into his horse’s flank, forcing the terrified animal up the side of the nearest kopje, waving the saber frantically in the air.

“Staak skiet!”

As quickly as it had come, the firing ceased. The troopers stared about themselves in a daze, unable as yet to comprehend the sudden attack and the equally sudden ending of it, looking down in shock at the bodies of their comrades lying broken beneath the hooves of their mounts, and the unbelievable sight of their captain waving the flag of surrender, unable as yet to understand the totality of the disaster that had struck. The surviving horses jerked their heads against the reins, trembling uncontrollably at the sudden silence, their flanks wet with perspiration, their mouths frothing, their eyes wild.

A figure appeared on a horse atop one of the kopjes; a hand was raised and men appeared on both kopjes, coming from behind the trees and up from the tall grass, waiting silently, looking down with dour expressionless faces at the results of their ambush, their rifles at their sides but ready. Jameson dismounted and slowly climbed the hill, the white flag trailing at his feet as his arm drooped. His mind was a blank, refusing at first to accept the fact that he had actually surrendered; then it tried to take what satisfaction it could from the fact that he had been forced to surrender, had had no choice but to surrender. But it was bitter medicine for the doctor. With each step he took he knew that the revolution had failed because of his failure. He knew that his best friend, Cecil Rhodes, would have been put in an untenable position as Premier of the Cape because of his failure. Bitter medicine indeed…

He came to stand beside the mounted man, looking up in the face of a tall, bearded man dressed in overalls, with farm boots on his feet, and who wore a wide-brimmed, leather trekker’s hat. The man looked as if he had been called from a day’s work on his farm at a moment’s notice, not at all like the neatly uniformed troopers who had left Pitsani in such high spirits. Jameson wet his lips and spoke. It seemed to him as if he were standing to one side, listening to some stranger say the words.

“We are your prisoners, sir. We have left wounded behind. My men have not eaten for over two days…”

The ill-fated Jameson raid was over.

13 January 1896

The cells were airless, filthy, and the vermin had free run of the place. There were no cots; the prisoners slept on the floor when they slept at all. A trickle of water running down a gutter in the yard was their only means of washing themselves; the heat of the South African summer was at its unbearable maximum. Three buckets, emptied only every second day, served as their privy. Most of the line troops involved in the ill-fated expedition had been freed, sent back across the border to Bechuanaland with the admonition never to enter the Transvaal again, but the leaders had been held and the members of the Reform Committee had been rounded up and also jailed, held for trial on the charges of treason and the distribution of arms. Jameson himself had been turned over to the Cape authorities to be sent to England for trial by his own government. It was a decision that Paul Kruger regretted as soon as Jameson had crossed the border into the Cape.

Barney Barnato, entering the prison after the many weeks it had taken him to get permission for the visit, wrinkled his nose at the smell. It was worse than anything he could recall, worse than the rancid, fetid odors in the slums of the East End where he had been raised, worse than the stench of offal and human waste that had greeted him when he had first come to Kimberley. Yet Solly Loeb, as well as most of the other prisoners he saw, seemed to be in a rather cheerful frame of mind. Solly was far from his usual dapper self, but the open-necked shirt and trousers dirty from the weeks in the jail did not seem to perturb him at all.

“You get used to not changing clothes every day,” he said, smiling. “You also — fortunately — even get used to the smell.”

“How about the food?” Barney asked.

Solly’s smile broadened. “Some of the wives have been, given permits to visit. My own wife brought in a box of cigars and a roasted duckling under her bustle; Grey’s wife came with a sausage wrapped around her waist. And money is a wonderful thing. A pound note here and a fiver there and we can get anything we want. The jailers are more like valets than warders. Not all of them, of course,” he added. “Du Plessis, the head warder, is a monster. He has Kaffirs beaten so we can hear them scream. It’s supposed to intimidate us, to make us frightened. He’s a fool.” He said it contemptuously.

Barney studied his nephew. Solly seemed a lot braver than Barney could ever recall. “Well, I must say you’re taking it well.”

Solly shrugged. “It’s just one of those unfortunate occurrences. The lawyers say the trial will take place in a week or so, and once that nonsense is over with and out of the way, we’ll be out of here.”

Barney stared at him in surprise. “And just what makes you think you’ll be out of here once the trial is over? You can’t possibly hope to be let go without any punishment whatsoever.”

Solly’s look was superior. It was, after all, one more example of his uncle’s innocence.

“Our lawyers told us that all old Kruger wants is an admission of guilt. The old man doesn’t want our blood; what would he do with it? If we admit we were naughty boys, he’ll slap us on the wrist, make us pay something into that ever-hungry treasury of his, and tell us to behave in the future. It’s as simple as that.”

“What!” Barney was shocked. “You’re insane! And so are your so-called lawyers! They had you plead guilty? Guilty? To a charge of treason? Whatever made them, or you, think Kruger would free you, especially after an idiot plea like that?”

Solly looked at him almost with condescension. “Look, Barney. I know you’re on speaking terms with old Kruger, but that doesn’t make you an expert on everything he says or does. Our lawyers know the old man, too, and what’s more important, they know the prosecuting attorney as well. Be reasonable! What would it gain old man Kruger to make us sit in this stinking hole for a few extra weeks or even months? We wouldn’t be making money, and that means we wouldn’t be paying his taxes, or bribing his officials, or all the hundreds of other things we do every day that keeps the economy of his precious Transvaal from falling to pieces. Half the mines on the Rand have shut down during all this brouhaha. D’you think old man Kruger hasn’t felt the effect of that when he pats his pants pockets? Of course he has! The old man isn’t totally insane, you know.”

“No, but you and your so-called lawyers are! Let me get you proper counsel—”

“No!” Solly’s face got ugly. “Barney, I suppose you mean well, but we’re quite satisfied with the counsel we have now. They were selected by Lionel Phillips, and he knows his way around the corner as well as you do. This is no time to be rocking the boat. Our lawyers have made a deal.” He dropped his voice although there was nobody near who might have overheard. “We plead guilty and we get off with a fine and a slap on the wrist. That’s the deal. Don’t interfere.”

Barney considered Solly for long seconds. He looked around the barren prison yard, seeing the men there, some playing cards, some laughing over some incident. Fools! he thought, and looked back at his nephew. “If that’s the way you want it. Is there anything I can get you?”

“Not a thing.”

“Well… In that case, I’ll be going. Is there anything you’re involved in at the office that needs handling?”

“No, my boys have everything under control.” Solly smiled. “I get regular reports, even in here.”

“The Pretoria branch of the Rand Club, eh? Well, in that case…” Barney nodded his head rather abruptly and walked from the yard where he and Solly had been talking, his prison pass pressed tightly between his fingers. How like Solly to believe anything a man like Lionel Phillips said, or the lawyers that Phillips had selected! How could a nephew of his, flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood, be that damnably stupid? What a pity Solly had been born a Jew! Solly would probably have given everything he possessed to be able to sew that foreskin back in place and take his rightful position among the elite of Johannesburg and the Rand Club, among the machers, the big people, the respectable Christians! He must get down on his knees every night and thank God he wasn’t born with a big hooked nose, or tight, curly hair! Still, the boy was his sister’s son, and he had to do everything possible to save him from his own foolishness. But what could be done in face of such stubbornness?

Behind him as he left the yard, Solly watched his uncle’s back with a look of disdain on his handsome face. Barney Barnato offering him advice! What a joke! If Barney knew one half of what went on in Jo’burg, even as far as his own businesses were concerned, he’d be a lot wiser man than he was. A lot unhappier, too. But the fact was that Barney Barnato was not half as bright as he thought he was, or Solly Loeb would not have been able to feather his own nest so comfortably. And Barney didn’t even have a suspicion! And now he wanted to interfere in something he understood even less than he did business. With a sneer Solly put Barney and Barney’s worries from his mind and started back toward his cell. There was a bottle of bubbly there, as well as half of the roast duckling his wife had brought — if the rats hadn’t eaten it while he was wasting his time with his uncle Barney…

Judge Gregorowski had been called in from Bloemfontein in the Free State to preside at the trial of the sixty members of the Reform Committee, as well as the four men considered the ringleaders in planning and executing the raid: Colonel Frank Rhodes, John Hays Hammond, Carl Luckner, and Lionel Phillips. The trial was scheduled to be held at the Pretoria Town Hall, since the courthouse was considered too small for the large number of defendants and the crowd that was expected to attend. Barney, sitting in the first row of spectators with Fay at his side, gritted his teeth to see the defendants, on benches before him, with Solly among them, laughing and joking among themselves, chatting away quite as if they were merely passing time waiting for the next race at the racecourse, rather than facing trial on a most serious charge.

“Idiots!” he muttered angrily. “Suicidal idiots!”

Fay reached over and took his hand, squeezing it. “Relax, darling.”

“Relax! How can I relax? Can you imagine pleading guilty on a charge of treason. Treason? They’re insane! No proper court in the world would even permit such a plea!”

There was the bang of a gavel, a momentary hushing of the large crowd, and Judge Gregorowski entered and took his place on the bench. The four ringleaders, standing in the movable dock that had been put in place by the black-uniformed warders, turned to face him; the other defendants lounged to their feet as if bored by the entire proceedings. Gregorowski was a large heavy-set man without a hair on his head, and with a huge hooked nose and small beady eyes that looked at the crowd as if suspecting that they, too, probably should have been in the dock as well as the four. After a brief inspection of his audience, he motioned to the prosecuting attorney to begin the proceedings. The prosecutor came to his feet and began reading from a paper, droning the names of the defendants one by one. When he had finished this portion of the indictment, he came to the charge. The crowd fell silent. He spoke in Afrikaans, which most of the defendants could not understand.

“These men,” he said, his tone almost contemptuous, “combined to plan the overthrow of the Government of the Republic of the Transvaal. They freely admit they planned the deed; I have no doubt they even bragged about it among themselves, or at least before they were arrested. They could scarcely do less than admit their guilt, since we are in possession of a letter signed by the four in the dock, found in the possession of a certain Lieutenant White in his dispatch case when the so-called raid of Captain Jameson and his troopers met its deserved end at the twin kopjes of Doornkop outside of Krugersdorp. We consider these four men, therefore, guilty of high treason and ask that they be sentenced accordingly.”

He swung about, facing the other defendants crowded on the benches between Judge Gregorowski and the spectators. Several of the defendants yawned openly. They did not understand a word of Afrikaans and they only wished the wordy bastard would get on with whatever he was trying to say so they could pay whatever fines were going to be imposed and then go home. Fun was fun, but they had wasted enough time in the stinking Pretoria prison, and it was time to get the affair over and done with and get back to work. The prosecutor’s voice became even more contemptuous.

“These other men, these sixty, we simply consider lackeys, fools — dangerous fools who sadly need a lesson, parlous fools had their plan worked, but fools. Dupes. Look at them, Your Honor. They live in our country. Most of them have become prosperous, even wealthy in our country. And yet they planned to overthrow a government that has permitted them the freedom to take the gold from our ground, given them the freedom to build themselves large enterprises, to own huge tracts of land, to exploit our country in every conceivable way, to rob us of our riches, to be more precise. But the State is merciful and does not charge them with high treason. The charge we bring against them, however, is still a serious one. The charge is the distribution of arms, which is proscribed for Uitlanders in our republic. We shall now proceed to prove these charges, Your Honor, although the defendants, both those on the benches before Your Honor and those in the dock, have freely admitted their guilt through their lawyers. They have also agreed not to press any defense but to abide by the decision of this court. We leave to the judgment of Your Honor the punishment for the fools before you, but for the four in the dock, the State requests — nay, demands — the sentence of—”

There was deathly quiet in the large room; people leaned forward on their benches, heat forgotten. Barney’s one fist was clenched tightly; his other hand was squeezing Fay’s hand painfully, but she said nothing. Even the defendants who did not understand the Afrikaans language were suddenly aware that the prosecutor had said something, or was about to say something, of importance. The words came out, flatly, solemnly.

“—hangen by den nek—”

There was a startled gasp from all the defendants as well as from most of the spectators, although there were also some satisfied smiles from others; these words were easily understood whether one spoke the language or not. Angry glares and mutterings broke out among the defendants. It was not possible! A deal had been made, a promise had been broken! Barney stared in bitter anger at the prosecutor, although he knew his fury should have been directed against Lionel Phillips and the idiot lawyers who thought they could make a deal with Paul Kruger after trying to throw him out of his own country. The prosecutor was continuing.

“Your Honor, to begin I should like to present in evidence the letter which these four men in the dock signed, and which was used by Captain Leander Starr Jameson as the excuse for his criminal — and deservedly ill-fated — invasion of the Transvaal territory…”

The following day it was the turn of the defense lawyers, but it was a lost cause and they acted as if they knew it. Barney, listening to them, wondered how anyone that stupid could end up with a university degree and be taken seriously in his profession. The lawyers did their best to undo the damage of their having advised their clients to plead guilty, but their hesitant, stammering words and weak arguments plainly conceded defeat long before they were finished. To state before the court that a deal had supposedly been made with the prosecutor was manifestly impossible; in any case they were sure the only effect of such a statement would have been to make Judge Gregorowski even more intransigent, since he was bound to consider such a deal as being in direct defiance of the law and the authority of his court. And that would undoubtedly result in sentences even more severe. With a final plea for clemency, but with neither fact nor logic to support it, the ashen-faced lawyers sat down, unable to face their clients.

There were several moments of complete silence in the courtroom. Then Judge Gregorowski cleared his throat.

“If the ladies would please absent themselves from the court…”

It was an ominous sign. The wives of the defendants, many of whom did not even speak nor understand Afrikaans, looked about themselves wonderingly, but the movement of the other women in starting to make their way toward the aisles and then toward the rear of the room made the meaning of the judge’s words evident. Some of the women began to cry; other women comforted them as best they could. The warders, dressed all in funereal black, offered aid to the more stricken, while still urging them in the direction of the large doors leading from the room. Fay, with a final squeeze of Barney’s hand and a brave smile for him, made her way from the room with the others. The men remained, silent, waiting.

Judge Gregorowski waited until the warders had closed the doors on the last of the women; then he turned to face the large group of defendants, now standing, who crowded the space before him.

“You men have pleaded guilty to the charge of distributing arms in an attempt to overthrow the Transvaal Republic. It is therefore the sentence of this court that you each be fined the sum of two thousand pounds, that furthermore you each be imprisoned for a period of two years at hard labor, and that following your imprisonment you be banished forever from the Republic of the Transvaal.”

The men stared at him blankly, unable at first to comprehend what to them seemed the enormity of the sentence for such a minor crime. Distributing arms, for heaven’s sake! Who didn’t have arms among the Boers? Children had their own guns when they were seven! Besides, all they had been trying to do had been to assure themselves of their rights as citizens, as any right-thinking Englishman would have done. Besides, what about the deal that had been made? Certainly Gregorowski had to know about it. Why wasn’t he taking that into consideration? The thing had only been a prank, basically, and now they were being sent to serve two years at hard labor, and then banished from their homes afterward, for life? It wasn’t fair! It certainly wasn’t just!

The judge bit back a cruel smile of satisfaction at the perturbation he could see on the faces before him, the sentence by now having been translated in whispers to those who had not understood; then Gregorowski straightened his lips. He reached beneath the bench and brought forth a small square of black silk. He placed it on his bald head and turned to consider the four men facing him white-faced in the makeshift dock; the movement caused the silk to slip on the smooth skin of the judge’s head and only a quick fumbling movement on his part retrieved the cloth and kept it from falling. At any other time the gesture might have appeared comical, but there was no sign of a smile on any face in the room at that moment. The judge spoke, his voice harsh.

“For the crime of high treason against the Transvaal Republic, it is the sentence of this court that you four men be taken to the place of execution and there be hanged by the neck until you are dead.” He drew a deep breath. “May Almighty God have mercy on your souls…”

President Paul Kruger looked up from the papers he was studying as his aide entered the room and cleared his throat hesitantly for attention. Had his aide been anyone except his wife’s nephew he would have been dismissed long since. Kruger sighed.

“Yes? What is it?”

“Mr. Barnato is here. He would like a few minutes of your time.”

“Oh?”

“He… he’s dressed all in black, in mourning, and he has crepe around his hat. I… I imagine it’s in regard to the trial.”

“I imagine it is,” Kruger said briskly, surprised at his aide’s perception. Maybe something could be done with the boy yet. “Where is he?”

The aide appeared a bit puzzled. “He didn’t come in, sir. He went back and sat down on the top step of the stoep—”

Kruger’s face did not change expression a bit. “Tell Mr. Barnato I will see him in here. He will understand. This is not a friendly visit. No, don’t tell him that last part!” he added with irritation as he saw the aide silently repeating his words after him. Maybe nothing could be done with the boy, after all. “Idiot!” he muttered as his aide left the room, and put aside the papers he had been working on.

Barney came into the room and stood, crepe-banded hat in hand, before the seated Kruger as the aide withdrew, closing the door softly behind him. It was evident from the aide’s words and looks that this was going to be quite different from the meetings he had had with Kruger in the past. Kruger considered him for several moments, his fleshy face almost granitelike, and then gestured a trifle formally toward a chair. Barney seated himself, placing his hat on the floor beside him. He recognized that Kruger was being distant to avoid making any concessions to him, but he also recognized that the situation was far too serious to be put off by minor dramatics.

“Mr. President—”

Kruger waved a hand abruptly, interrupting. “Mr. Barnato, I can imagine why you are here. I’m very busy, but in view of our past relationship, I have granted you a few minutes of my time. Let me save you time. The trial is over; the sentences passed. There is nothing I can do.”

“Mr. President, there are many things you can do!” Barney was leaning forward, his eyes fixed on Kruger’s unbending face, his voice urgent in its force. “You can commute the sentences, you can cancel them altogether. You can declare the trial a farce, which it was. Whoever heard of pleading guilty to a charge of treason? It’s the same as taking a gun to your head and pulling the trigger! Whoever heard of putting your defense aside and leaving it up to the court to give you whatever sentence it decides on? Don’t tell me there isn’t anything you can do!”

Kruger’s voice was cold. “Perhaps I mean there is nothing I wish to do. Nothing I intend to do. Tell me, Mr. Barnato,” Kruger went on, his voice remaining expressionless, “suppose this raid had succeeded? Suppose the people of Johannesburg, without reason but incited by these dangerous fools, suppose they had risen in revolt at the successful entrance of Jameson and his troopers into the city? Suppose the attack on the arsenal here in Pretoria had been successful — oh, yes, we were fully aware of the intention long before your Captain Jameson became impetuous and started ahead of his instructions — suppose, in brief, that the revolution had been a success? What would your Colonel Frank Rhodes, or your John Hays Hammond, or your Carl Luckner, or your Lionel Phillips — what would these gentlemen have done with old Oom Paul Kruger?” He made a gesture, one hand drawn across his throat.

“No, sir! They would never have harmed you! They are civilized men—”

Kruger laughed, a harsh laugh.

“Civilized men? Who? Your Captain Jameson, who made a peace pact with the Matabele and then went in with his troopers when Lobengula was unprepared and slaughtered his tribesmen and sent him to die in the bush? Who? Your Carl Luckner, who kicked your own father-in-law to death with his boots for nothing at all? We know of these things, Mr. Barnato; we know our enemies. These are civilized men who rode into our Transvaal Republic, a country at peace with the world, with hundreds of armed troopers with the intention of taking over our country, and of killing anyone in their way? Civilized men! They sent their wives just yesterday to plead with my wife to intercede with me for mercy. My wife, Sanne, said, ‘And if they had had their way, what would they have done to my husband?’ And they said nothing, Mr. Barnato; they had nothing to say. Women know, Mr. Barnato; they know. Ask your own wife, she’ll tell you.” He shook his head. “No, Mr. Barnato. If you let a lion live after he tries to kill you, will he appreciate it? In the Bible it says that Daniel aided a lion and the lion remembered, but Daniel was a prophet, and we are not prophets, Mr. Barnato. Daniel was a holy man, but we are not holy men, Mr. Barnato. No; if you let a lion live after he tries to kill you, he will simply think you are weak or that you are stupid and he will strike you down at the next opportunity. Although,” he added with contempt, “what we are talking about here are not lions, but jackals.”

“Mr. President,” Barney said, fighting down the feeling that he was wasting his time with the arguments he was using, “believe me when I tell you I know these people. It would have been a bloodless — a bloodless—”

Kruger smiled humorlessly at the other man’s hesitation.

“A bloodless what, Mr. Barnato? A bloodless revolution? Other than hanging poor old Oom Paul Kruger, and who would worry about that except old Kruger himself, and maybe his family? A bloodless revolution, Mr. Barnato? Was there ever such a thing?” He leaned forward a bit, his jaw hard. “Let me tell you something! They killed twelve of our people, and for that they should all be hanged, not just those four! True, they lost more than that themselves, many more, but they killed twelve innocent Boers — twelve innocent men and boys! Killed! Men and boys who only wanted to be left alone to tend their farms and their flocks and their herds!” Kruger leaned back, his face rigid. “You know these people, you say? I never met them, but I know them better!”

Barney took a deep breath and changed his tactics. “Mr. President, look what you have gained from this affair—”

“Gained?” The bushy eyebrows went up. “Gained what? Twelve dead men and boys? Boer mothers who look to me to protect their husbands and sons, and now come to me crying?”

Barney looked Kruger in the eye. “Cecil Rhodes has resigned as Premier of the Cape because of this fiasco. I know how you feel about Rhodes as well as I know how he has always felt about you. You and he have been enemies for years. He’s a sick man and now, beyond that, he’s finished politically because of this raid. Surely that’s a gain for you. You can afford to be merciful.”

Kruger considered him almost sadly as he slowly shook his head.

“Mr. Barnato, you are a businessman, not a politician or a soldier. Stay with your businesses and leave politics and soldiering to others. The resignation of Cecil Rhodes will not help the Transvaal a bit. Eventually, probably — almost assuredly — it will mean further tension between the Boers and the British. It may in time, in a very short time, lead to war. Rhodes may have resigned because he had no choice after encouraging, even organizing, an attack on a friendly neighbor, but he will never give up his ambitions as long as he breathes. Nor, unfortunately, will England. We are a small people and Britain is a very large empire. The failure of Jameson’s raid will not end anything; most probably it will only begin something.”

He looked at Barney a moment, his forehead wrinkling as he asked the question.

“Tell me something, Mr. Barnato. What is your interest in this? I know you opposed the Reform Committee. I know you were opposed to any action against my government. What is your interest in saving these lives? In saving men like Carl Luckner, for example?”

“Carl Luckner is just a name, one man; he means nothing,” Barney said evenly, “but lives and living mean a great deal. I originally brought John Hays Hammond to this country. I will not see him hanged. Frank Rhodes has many faults, but he is a soldier and he thought he was doing his duty to his country. I cannot see him hanged. Solly Loeb is my nephew, my sister’s son. I will not see him in prison for two years. You are speaking of hanging four men. You are speaking of taking another sixty men and putting them in one of your prisons for two years at hard labor. Some of these men are not strong enough to stand two years in one of your prisons, Mr. President. For them the sentence is also a death sentence. I cannot stand by and see this happen.”

“They should have considered all that when they planned their revolt,” Kruger said coldly. “Our prisons are not meant to be holiday reports; they are meant to punish. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, says the Bible.” He came to his feet, indicating the interview was over. “I believe in the Bible, Mr. Barnato. I believe in the law. So I can only repeat what I said before. There is nothing I can do.”

Barney came to his feet as well. “I do not accept that statement, Mr. President,” he said, now fighting down his anger. “You have the power to commute those insane sentences, and we both know it. Well, I have power, too. If you do not commute those sentences within the next two weeks — and I mean no hangings, no prison with or without hard labor, no banishment, but any reasonable fine you wish — I will shut down every property I own or control in the entire Transvaal! I will put out of work over twenty thousand white men and over one hundred thousand Kaffirs! Your economy will lose the fifty thousand pounds my companies spend in your republic every week; you will lose the taxes I pay that keep your republic running! D’you want to ruin your precious republic just for the satisfaction of getting revenge on a bunch of fools?”

Kruger’s usually ruddy face whitened. “Mr. Barnato, sir, are you threatening me?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. President. I’m threatening the existence of the entire Transvaal and its economy. I’m threatening what you have worked for all your life. And it’s a threat I can carry out. If you doubt me, read the newspapers tomorrow morning!”

He snatched up his hat and stormed from the room, not taking the time for the usual amenities with the President of the Republic. Kruger stared after him, trying his best not to let the anger that swept him either voice itself or affect his judgment. He was, after all, the President of a country, and he should be above anger. But it was difficult, for he knew Barney Barnato well enough to realize the man’s threat had not been an idle one. And without the revenues from the Barnato properties, the Transvaal would, indeed, suffer. He sighed. It was a decision that would have to be taken to the Executive Committee, although he knew in the long run the decision would have to be his. What would Abraham have done? What would Isaac have done…?

Barney Barnato, followed by all the newspaper reporters in Johannesburg that he had been able to contact, began putting up the notices of the closing of the mines and his other properties himself that very night. One of the reporters, John Ryan of the Rand Daily Mail and an old acquaintance, paused in his scribbling to trot alongside Barney as Barney climbed into his trap and prepared to move on to his next objective. Ryan put his hand on the horse’s bridle, preventing it from moving, and dropped his voice, not wishing to share any information he might be able to garner.

“Come on, Barney! Be a pal. What’s this promotion really all about?”

Barney stared down at the man. “Johnny, didn’t you hear what I said to all the boys before?”

“I heard it, but who gives up a fortune just to stop a few men from going to prison? The chances are that Kruger isn’t going to hang the four. There’d be too much noise around the world if he did. He’s just giving them a skrik, a fright. Then he’ll give them prison sentences like the others. And who’s going to close all his mines and other businesses to save men from doing a few years in quod, especially men he was in open disagreement with? Men who weren’t particularly his friends? Men who, in many countries, would probably have been shot for what they did, instead of getting off with a mere two years on the rock pile? Who would throw away a fortune for them?”

“I would, that’s who. Now, let the horse go.”

“Look, Barney, I know you too well—”

“Let the horse go, or you’ll get the whip!”

The reporter released the horse but stepped up into the trap next to Barney. Barney hesitated a moment and then reluctantly slid to one side, letting Ryan enter the vehicle, rather than waste any more time. There was a chorus of complaining yells from the other reporters, but Ryan waved them away. Barney shook the reins, putting the trap in motion.

“Now, look, Barney,” Ryan said, trying to sound reasonable, “there’s a story in this, and you know me well enough to know I’ve got to get it. Why these notices you’re posting? And give me the real reason, this time. It’s not to save Carl Luckner’s hide, I’m sure.”

Barney spoke without looking at the man. “How about saving my sister’s son, Solly Loeb, from two years at hard labor in one of Kruger’s hell-hole prisons?”

The reporter looked at him in utter disbelief. “To save Solly Loeb? I should have thought you’d have paid to have him put away! I’ve wondered for the past year why you didn’t, but I figured you knew your business. Now I’m beginning to wonder.”

Barney frowned. He turned to stare at the man. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ryan still could not believe it. “You mean you don’t know?”

“Know what?” Barney was beginning to lose his temper. “Look, Johnny, start talking before I toss you out of the rig! Know what?”

“Know that your precious Solly Loeb has been cheating you for a long, long time!”

“What!” Barney’s hand jerked at the reins; the horse skittered and then recovered. Barney glared at Ryan. “You’re a liar!”

Johnny Ryan sighed. “Barney, reporters don’t lie. They may exaggerate, sometimes, but they don’t lie. And in any event, this isn’t even an exaggeration. You know, Barney, you’re a bright guy and I like you, but sometimes you’re a damn fool. You can’t see what’s under your nose, and most people are afraid to tell you. I know you’re a busy man, what with the new playhouse you’re building, and the improvements in the racecourse, and everything else you’re involved in, but it wouldn’t hurt you to pay some attention to your business every now and then.”

“What are you talking about?”

“For example,” Ryan said, quite as if Barney had not interrupted him, “have you heard of a new company in Jo’burg? The Reef Investment Company? A little over a year old. And going strong.”

“I’ve heard of it, of course. They’re competitors. Tough competitors, Solly tells me.”

Ryan snorted. “Solly tells you, does he? Well, he should know: he owns it.”

“What!”

“That’s right. Lock, stock, and barrel. He’s taken a good number of Barnato investors along with him to Reef — all the while running Barnato. Running it into the ground, that is. I thought at first it was a ploy of yours, but I’ve done some checking around. You’re just the innocent babe in the woods, waiting for the robins to come along and cover you with leaves.”

Barney pulled up the reins; the horse obediently stopped. Barney considered Ryan with dangerous quiet. “I don’t believe you.”

“Then you’re the only one in town who doesn’t. They’ve been laughing at you, Barney. One half the town’s been laughing at you. The other half has been praying you’d be taken down a peg or two. They resent you not taking a part in this revolt thing. They resent your success. They resent your money. They resent your being a Jew. They resent your friendship with Kruger, who they hate like poison. Maybe I’m foolish for telling you all this, but it’s high time somebody did. You’re throwing away a fortune, if what you told the boys is true, for men who don’t deserve it.”

“Then I guess I’m going to throw it away,” Barney said without expression, and whipped the horse up again. “Reach behind you for another poster, Johnny. We’ll be at the Primrose shaft in a few minutes.”

The reporter stared at him a moment. Barney returned the stare imperturbably. Johnny Ryan sighed and then, with a shrug of nonunderstanding, reached behind the seat for another notice of closure. One thing he knew, though: whether Barney Barnato was being a damned fool or not, it was going to be one hell of a story.

Paul Kruger had donned his most formal dress; across his barrel chest ran a new and lustrous blue-green silk sash of office, and although he was seated indoors on his favorite chair in the front sitting room of his home, a new tophat graced his large head, quite as if he were presiding over the Volksraad. Barney, shown into the presidential presence, stood almost at attention before the impressive-looking man.

“You sent for me, Mr. President?”

Kruger waited until his aide had withdrawn, closing the door behind him, and then looked at Barney. His hands, bent arthritically around the curved lions’ heads at the end of the chair’s arms, were clenched about the ornate wood tightly; there was the pain of defeat in his old eyes.

“Mr. Barnato, I have asked you here to give you the decision of the Executive Committee of the Volksraad. It is a decision made with mercy. The sentences of those involved in the attempt to overthrow the Transvaal Republic have been commuted. The four ringleaders, upon payment of a proper fine, will be freed and deported, banished for life from the Transvaal. There can be no discussion on this point. The sixty other men involved in the so-called Reform Committee will be freed upon payment of a proper fine, but not deported nor banished from the Transvaal.”

No muscle moved in Barney’s face at this triumph. “Thank you, Mr. President.”

“In return, I expect the notices of closure on your properties will be removed.”

“By nightfall, Mr. President.” He hesitated as Kruger remained silent. “Is there anything else, Mr. President?”

“Yes. One thing.” There was a moment’s silence before Kruger continued. When he did there was a touch of sadness in his voice, but the rigid hardness of steel as well. “You will not be welcome in this house again, Mr. Barnato.”

“I’m sorry to hear it, Mr. President.” It was an unfortunate thing, Barney knew, but he could understand it. He wondered if, under the same circumstances, he could have voiced the same dictum with the same composure. He bent his head a fraction and this time, in deference to the old man sitting there so majestically, while at the same time so helplessly defeated, Barney Barnato slowly backed from the room, his head remaining bent in recognition of having been in the presence of a great man, a man he had been privileged to know as a friend, a man he had bested for others who were, in effect, far more his enemies than the old man sitting so rigidly in the gloom of the rococo room.

“England,” Barney said to Fay with a broad smile, and patted her growing stomach affectionately. “You’ll have Jason, or Michelle, or whoever, there. Would you like that? A proper doctor, with proper nurses, in a proper hospital if you want — everything proper and the best for our second kind. What d’you say?”

Fay smiled at him a bit mischievously. “Kinder, most likely. What if I have two Jasons, or two Michelles? I’m getting awfully big, you know. Could they handle that in England?”

Barney waved the question away majestically. “Lydy, us’ns can ‘andle anythin’ in ol’ Lunnon Town! Bybies er men folk. Er women folk, fer all o’ that.” He dropped the atrocious and nearly forgotten accent and grinned at Fay. “We’ll be able to see Harry and his family again, and my folks who are still alive, thank God, and I’ll show Leah the King of Prussia where her uncle Harry was a bouncer and her daddy used to do his first juggling act, and I’ll stand her a ginger beer and you a regular beer just for putting up with me all these years — if the King is still there, of course. How would you like that?”

“If that’s what you want, darling—” She saw some of the joy leave his face and added swiftly, softly, “It’s what I want, too, darling. When I say I want what you want, it isn’t just to make a concession to you. It’s because what pleases you pleases me. And going to England again will please both of us. Besides,” she added, as if to put a touch of logic into the discussion, “Leah Primrose should meet her cousins, get to know her family. I love the idea. When do we leave?”

“In a month. I’ve booked us passage on the Scott; it’s an all-steam ship,” Barney said, spirits restored. God, after all the years one word from Fay could still raise him to heaven or devastate him! “We can stop on the way to the Cape and spend a few days in Kimberley, see old friends, look in on the Paris Hotel, drop by Dutoitspan, remember when and where we first met.” He looked at Fay, serious now. “D’you remember those days?”

She reached for him, taking his hand, squeezing it tightly.

“They’re rather hard to forget, darling. I sat in that tent with my pa, cutting cloth for miners’ pants, basting for Pa to sew, wondering what on earth I’d done on the trail to keep you away from me, to make you forget me so soon, or to want to forget me.”

“And I went from sorting shed to sorting shed with old Rhodes, wondering how on earth I could get up the nerve to tell you that a nobody like me was in love with a beautiful girl like you—”

Fay smiled. “You mean, in love with a beautiful, rich, well-dressed” — her smile faltered a bit at the memory — “shy, silly, terribly frightened girl like me, with ugly hands.” She looked down at her hands and then pulled Barney to her, holding him tightly. “Oh, Barney, we’ve been so lucky!”

“We’ll always be lucky,” Barney said, and meant it. He paused as there was a discreet tap on the open door; a servant was there, waiting for their attention. “Yes?”

“Your nephew is here.”

Fay looked at him questioningly. “Solly? For dinner?”

“No, just for a few minutes. I asked him to drop in before dinner. He’ll be coming to England with us.” He turned to the servant. “In the living room.”

“Oh?” Fay said. “That’s nice. I’ll have some tea made.”

“I think he may prefer whiskey tonight,” Barney said enigmatically, and walked into the living room, forming the words in his mind he intended to use, although he had considered them in detail for some time. When Solly appeared, debonair as usual, Barney nodded to him pleasantly and walked over, shutting the door. Solly sat down in an easy chair and brought out a large cigar, lighting it, leaning back comfortably.

“You wanted to see me, Barney?”

“Yes.” Barney sat down opposite him. “I’m going to England, taking Fay and Leah Primrose with me. I thought it would be good for Fay to have the baby there with decent care and everything. And it’s about time for Leah to meet her family, anyway.”

Solly nodded. “It’s a good idea. Everything here will be handled. Not to worry.”

“I’m not worried,” Barney said, and smiled. “I’m sure, in your usual manner, you have everything organized quite well. So well, in fact, that I’m suggesting you come with me.”

“I’m afraid that would be rather difficult at the moment, Barney. There are so many things going on—”

“I’m sure. Still,” Barney said smoothly, “I want you to come with me. I’m positive the stockholders in the Barnato Investment Company would like to have a firsthand report from the man who has practically been running the company for the past few years.”

“I’d like to come,” Solly said with as much sincerity as he could muster. “I honestly would. But with the investment business in the state it’s in, especially after the Jameson affair and the trial and all, I think it would be far better for me to stay here and keep an eye on things. Once things settle down,” he added, making a concession, “I’ll be very happy to join you in London and give as many reports as you wish.”

Barney sighed. He looked at his nephew almost pityingly.

“I don’t believe you understand, Solly,” he said gently. “I’m not asking you. I’m ordering you to come with me.”

Solly looked up, his surprise genuine. “Ordering me?” He laughed. “Barney, slavery has been abolished in South Africa for a long, long time. You should read your history books.” He puffed on his cigar a moment and then set it down in an ashtray, sitting a bit more erect, frowning at his uncle. “Now, just what brought all this on?”

“Many things,” Barney said, and shrugged. “I’ll admit I’ve been derelict in my duty to our clients in that I left many decisions in your hands, allowed you a free hand, as a matter of fact, while I played around with other things that interested me. But lately I’ve been taking a greater interest in the business, checking things out for myself.”

“And?”

“And I ran into a company called the Reef Investment Company.”

“What about the Reef Investment Company?” Solly asked, and now his tone was wary.

“You own it,” Barney said calmly. “Under a dummy, but you own it nevertheless. And you’ve been using it to hurt Barnato Investment. Turning customers from Barnato to Reef. I can only assume you sold your shares in Barnato without informing the company before you started Reef. Very clever.”

Solly sighed and leaned over, crushing out his cigar. He came to his feet, looking down at Barney. When he spoke there was a touch of regret in his voice, but it was not regret for anything he had done to his uncle.

“I suppose it had to come to an end sometime, but I’m just sorry it had to come out before I’d finished the job I was doing on Barnato Investment. I imagine for the sake of your precious stockholders you’ll want my resignation in writing. You’ll have it in the morning.”

Barney looked up at the standing man. Solly was considering him with a glint of humor on his dark, handsome face. Barney returned the look imperturbably. “Sit down, Solly.”

“Why? Is there more?”

“A little more. Sit down.” There was something in Barney’s tone that Solly could not understand. He hesitated a moment and then with a shrug reseated himself. Barney smiled at him, a cold, humorless smile. “Sometimes, Solly, you have a tendency to underestimate people. Now, you know as well as I do that what you did with the Reef Investment Company was immoral, if not actually illegal. I’m sure you’re smart enough to have covered your tracks in that direction. But the fact is that to all intents and purposes you took money from the Barnato Investment Company’s stockholders. In effect, you robbed them. I think it’s only right that you come to London with me and explain to these same stockholders at a board meeting — which I’ve already asked Harry to call — exactly how and when you plan on returning that money to them.”

Solly looked at his uncle with amusement, and then made a motion as if to rise again. “If that’s all you have to say—”

“Not quite. I took you from the London slums and made you. By the same token I can break you and put you right back there again, fancy speech, fancy clothes, fancy bank account, fancy friends, and all. I’m a good friend but a bad enemy; you should have learned that much about me after all these years. You will either come back to London with me or sit here and wonder what I plan to do to ruin you. But believe me, on my mother’s life, I’ll ruin you if it costs me every penny I have.”

Solly had settled back, looking at his uncle with slightly widened eyes.

“That’s right,” Barney said approvingly. “Think about it. It’s something to think about. You know I can do it and you know I will, and the fact that you’re my sister’s boy will make no difference. There are a hundred ways, and I’m sure you know most of them as well as I do. I will make your name stink in the nostrils of every investor in the Transvaal, in the Cape Colony, in the Orange Free State. I will see to it that you’re not allowed within fifty yards of any stock exchange or brokerage house in all South Africa. I will guarantee you that before I’m through with you, your dear friends in the Rand Club will spit at hearing your name. I can and will break you into little, tiny pieces.” He paused and shrugged. “Or, you can come to London with me and face the music. Maybe even retrieve something. I don’t know.”

Solly wet his lips. “Does… does Harry or any of the others in the family know any of this?”

“Nobody in the family knows any of this,” Barney said contemptuously. “Not even Fay. I don’t make a practice of advertising my mistakes. But I imagine everyone in South Africa knows I’ve been made a fool of by you. Still, think of the pleasure you’ll get when you face the board of directors and let them in on the secret most of South Africa has been sharing for quite some time.” He watched Solly come to his feet and walk a bit unsteadily to the sideboard, pour himself a large whiskey, and down it in a single gulp. Barney’s voice remained expressionless. “Well?”

“I’ll… I’ll come to London with you…”

“Fine,” Barney said, and came to his feet. “We sail on the Scott a month from now. Your cabin has already been reserved. And don’t bother to come to the office to clear your desk. It’s being cleared right now.” He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for my dinner.”

14 June 1896

From the front stoep of his summer cottage at Muizenberg, some ten miles from Groote Schuur in distance over the winding mountain road, but a million miles from it in influence and power, Cecil John Rhodes sat, wrapped in a shawl, and stared bleakly out over the ocean. Beneath him the road that rimmed the sea leading from Cape Town east to Port Elizabeth and Durban was busy with morning traffic, but neither the wagons that passed along the twisting highway, raising dust, nor the many small pleasure craft that beat their way either into or out of Vaalsbai before him, held his attention. His mind was far from the beauty about him. God! Forced to resign the premiership at his young age, and to be in his poor state of health at that same young age? There was no possible chance of ever coming back to power; his dream of a British Africa stretching from Cape Town to Cairo undoubtedly smashed, if not for all time, certainly for the few years he had remaining in his disease-racked body! It would have been better for everyone concerned had he died while still at Groote Schuur, still in power, before his old friend Jameson had stupidly been able — admittedly with the best of intentions — to ruin his career and with it his plans. How could the man have possibly made that ill-considered invasion of the Transvaal against all orders? At least had he died while still at Groote Schuur he would never have known of the fiasco. Had he died it was even possible that Jameson might have delayed while more intelligent men set a new course for the Reform Committee, and for the plan to add the Boer territory to the British Empire. To Rhodes, his own life was unimportant; the life of the empire was all that counted.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted. A trap had turned into the narrow entranceway leading from the main road below, up the slope to the front of the small cottage, a most unusual event. Tradesmen came to the rear of the house, and visitors were rare since he was no longer in power and practically hidden away in Muizenberg. Neville Pickering had come from the house at the sound of the trap and stood beside him on the stoep, one hand on his shoulder as if for support, also watching the small vehicle make its way to the end of the entranceway and stop. The driver’s identity was not immediately discernible, his face being hidden by a wide-brimmed hat as he came down and started to climb the remaining distance to the elevated cottage. Pickering frowned.

“Who do you suppose that could be?”

Rhodes had recognized the man as he came closer. He made a grimace. “Luckner.” He reached back with one hand to pat the hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right, Neville. I know the man. I can handle him. I’d rather handle him alone, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course.” Pickering went back into the house as Luckner mounted the steps to the stoep. The mustached, scarfaced man pushed his hat to the back of his head and stood, staring down at the seated man, studying the drawn face, noting the obvious signs of ill health. So much for the high and mighty! Luckner thought with an inner sneer, but his voice was properly respectful when he spoke. Disrespect was no way to gain favors.

“Hello, Mr. Rhodes.”

“Mr. Luckner. What brings you here?”

Luckner looked around, saw a chair, pulled it up, and sat down a few feet from Rhodes, facing him. “Why shouldn’t I come here? After all, if you want to look at it fairly, it’s because of you that I’m not allowed in the Transvaal any longer.” Might as well establish the conditions of responsibility at the very start, Luckner thought, and reached into his pocket for a cigar, lighting it and leaning back.

Rhodes’ lips quirked in a humorless smile. “I might say, with far more justice, that because of Jameson and you I’m not allowed at Groote Schuur anymore. At least you’re welcome in the Cape Colony, and I’m barely welcome here. Or, of course, you’re perfectly free to go back to Bechuanaland, or Rhodesia.” He drew his shawl a bit tighter about his shoulders. “With my poor state of health, I probably wouldn’t make it there if I wanted to go.”

“I’ve about had all of bloody Bechuanaland or Rhodesia that I want,” Luckner said harshly. “All that I ever had there, or anywhere else as far as that goes, is hard cheese. Bad luck.”

“I’d say you had rather good luck in Pretoria,” Rhodes said, wondering where the conversation was leading. “Thanks to Barney Barnato. I hate to give the man credit for anything, but he did save a few necks from stretching. Including my brother’s. And yours.”

Luckner cursed. “That miserable bastard Jew! He wanted to save that worthless nephew, so he had no choice but to save the rest of us, your brother included, as far as that goes! If that little sheeny nephew of his, Solly Loeb, hadn’t been involved, your precious Barney Barnato would have left the rest of us hang, and even been happy to drop the trap himself, don’t worry!” He grinned cruelly. “Which is a joke in its own way. Solly Loeb has been robbing him blind for years, is what I hear, and the damned fool just got wise a while ago—”

Rhodes considered the man curiously. “You don’t appear to have a very grateful attitude for a man whose life has been saved, it seems to me—”

Luckner sneered. “Grateful? For what? To who? That lying, cheating little kike? If it hadn’t been for him cheating me out of my rightful share of the Paris Hotel, and then throwing me out when he knew it was throw me out or pay me what I rightfully had coming — and he certainly had no intention of ever paying me — if it wasn’t for Barney Barnato, I’d never been in your bloody army in Rhodesia, or up in Pitsani with Jameson, in the first place!”

Rhodes was staring at him. The paranoid maniac actually believes what he’s saying! Rhodes thought with wonder. Luckner was going on.

“Why would I have been there? I had nothing to do with politics. Never. I don’t give a bucket of piss who runs the damned Transvaal, or the Free State or the bloody Cape, either. I’m off to England.”

He suddenly seemed to remember the purpose of his visit. His voice dropped in volume, became more respectful.

“That’s what I wanted to see you about, Mr. Rhodes. The Scott sails on the tide this evening. I don’t have the money for passage. I—” He suddenly held up his hand. “Wait! I’m not asking for money, Mr. Rhodes. I never begged in my life. There aren’t any cabins left, anyway. I tried to sign on as crew, but they said they were full. I’m a good sailor, Mr. Rhodes. And I’m sure that a note from you to the captain and he’d manage to find room for me on the crew somehow.”

Rhodes considered the man for several moments. Then, with a sigh, he nodded. At least it would remove a very disagreeable person from South Africa, be it the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, the Cape Colony, or anywhere else. And probably save some innocent person in South Africa from being booted to death sometime in the future. A note to his old friend the captain of the Scott was a small price to pay for such a rich dividend. He only hoped his friendship with the captain would not be impaired by some act of idiocy or violence on the part of Luckner during the voyage, but that was a chance he was willing to take. It did seem a shame, though, to inflict a man like Luckner on his beloved England; but one thing was sure: no Barney Barnato would be able to save him from the penalty of his next capital offense. In England he’d probably be swinging from a gibbet in a matter of months. He raised his hand. Pickering, who had been watching from a window as Rhodes had been sure he had, was at his side in seconds.

“Sir?”

“Paper, and a pen and ink.”

“Yes, sir.”

Pickering was back in moments. He pulled up a table for Rhodes to write upon, placed down the articles he had brought, and disappeared into the house. Rhodes scribbled for several seconds, blotted the ink, reread what he had written, and handed it over. Luckner read the note, smiled, folded the paper, and tucked it into his pocket. He came to his feet and started down the steps, and then paused, turning.

“I imagine you wrote this just to get me out of Africa, eh?”

Rhodes looked at him without expression. “Yes,” he said.

Luckner chuckled and went on down to his trap. As he climbed in and started to turn his horse, the chuckle died in his throat. A grim look came to his face. What old Rhodes didn’t know was that Barney Barnato and his family were also sailing on the Scott. If he had, and knowing how Luckner felt about the man, would he still have written that note? Probably, Luckner thought, dwelling on the heady feeling of revenge he would extract from Barnato for having ruined his life with his cheating, and remembering how Rhodes had once hired him in an attempt to put the little Jew on the Cape Breakwater as an illegal diamond trader. Had he known Barnato was sailing on the Scott, would Rhodes still have written that note? Not probably, Luckner thought, giving another the worst of intentions, as always; undoubtedly.

His chuckle returned as he whipped his horse back toward Cape Town.

Fay was belowdecks in their cabin, directing their stewardess and steward in the unpacking of their luggage for the long trip. Leah Primrose, now a grown-up four years of age, had taken her maid by the hand and was dragging her all about the ship, getting in everyone’s way but not worrying about it particularly, exploring the wonderful vessel with its odd corners and narrow, steep steps, its strange odors and queer passageways. Solly Loeb, unpacking his bags himself — for he never trusted servants with his finery — had come upon a bottle of whiskey in one of his suitcases and had paused in his unpacking to sample it. Barney Barnato, on deck, was leaning on the rail of the ship still anchored in Table Bay, remembering the first time he had seen the sight now spread out before him.

There had been changes in Cape Town, undoubtedly, but far from as many changes as there had been in himself, he knew. He tried to picture himself as he had been twenty-five years before, a callow boy of eighteen, dragging his two heavy cardboard suitcases from that doss house down by the docks to the Parade and then to Riebeeck Square, his clothes an outrage, his speech a disaster, his knowledge of anything the little he had picked up in his short years, the street wisdom of survival, and little else. He had been most fortunate in having run into Andries Pirow in Riebeeck Square, and fortunate that Andries not only had been going to Kimberley but had taken him along. And taught him so much. At least Barney had the satisfaction of knowing he had at least partially repaid that debt, for Andries was now a successful and respected member of the Volksraad, held a seat on kruger’s cabinet, and was a successful rancher. But he had been more than fortunate in having met and eventually married Fay. He tried to imagine what life might have been without her, but found it completely impossible.

He stared up at Table Mountain, there as always, and he suddenly knew that regardless of how landscapes changed, or cities changed, or people changed, a part of them remained the same from the beginning, never changing, and these were the things that counted. There must have been something within him, something inherited from his parents as they had inherited it from their parents, that he carried and which he had passed on to Leah Primrose as he would to the future Jason or Michelle; his small contribution to the endless flow of life that was as vital to the formation of a person as the genes that colored one’s eyes or determined the shape of one’s nose, as important to that person as the beating of his heart or the flow of blood along his arteries.

He felt a hand about his waist and turned his head to face Fay. There must have been an introspective look on his face, for Fay frowned slightly, and said, “What are you thinking?”

He smiled. “How lucky I’ve been all my life.”

“We’ve both been lucky.”

“But I’ve been luckier. I’ve got you, and all you have is me.” He squirmed as she dug her fingers into his ribs, laughing. “All right, we’ve both been lucky. We have Leah Primrose and we’ll soon have Jason or Michelle.”

“Or both at the same time,” she added, smiling.

“Or both at the same time,” Barney agreed cheerfully. “We have money, we have our health. That’s luck.” He pointed out across the water of the bay, toward the land. “We have Table Mountain, we have Cape Town, we have Kimberley, we have Johannesburg. We have friends. That’s luck.” We also have enemies, he thought bitterly, considering Solly Loeb in his cabin below, and then forced the disagreeable thought away. Time enough for that unpleasantness when they reached London. The trip was to enjoy.

Fay removed her hand from his waist and leaned on the railing, looking at the tiny white buildings that edged the city, considering them pensively. “It’s a pity we can’t have all those things forever.”

Barney shrugged. “Forever is only so long as you have something. Forever is simply all the time there is, if it’s a day or a thousand years. If a man dies at — say — forty-two, he’s lived forever; the same as if he died at ninety-nine. Or if he died at ten.”

Fay looked at him and smiled, but it was a doubtful smile. “My husband the philosopher.”

“Your husband the luckiest man alive, just because he is your husband,” Barney said, and reached for her hand, squeezing it.

The first glass of whiskey had eased some of the tension from Solly Loeb; the second had furthered that relaxation. He well knew that Barney Barnato could be vindictive; look what Barney had done to J. R. Robinson’s Central Mine properties in Kimberley when his cousin Jack Joel had had to leave town to avoid prosecution as an illegal diamond dealer. Others might doubt that Barney had a hand in that explosion at the Big Hole, and Barney might deny it even within the family until he was blue in the face, but Solly was sure. No, Barney Barnato could be very vindictive when he wanted to be, there was no doubt of that.

But on the other hand, look what else Barney had done in that very same instance: he had smuggled Jack out of the country, not only at the cost of the considerable bail he had deposited with the court, but undoubtedly also at a considerable loss of influence in the community, because the stigma of illicit diamond dealing still stuck faintly, even after all these years. So there was no doubt that Barney Barnato had a very soft spot in his heart where family was concerned; it had been demonstrated a hundred times. No; before the journey to England was over, Solly was sure that Barney would have changed his mind about dragging Solly’s name in the dirt. Solly’s mother was, after all, the eldest of the Isaacs children, while Barney was the youngest, and Barney had always shown that Solly’s mother was his favorite of them all. Would Barney hurt his sister by harming her only child, the apple of her eye? It was difficult to imagine. No; all of Solly’s previous worries were needless. His uncle was simply trying to give him a skrik, a fright, to teach him a lesson. Once this was all over, Barney would probably suggest a combine, an amalgamation between Barnato Investment and Reef…

Of course. Of course! That was what Barney had been after all along! How foolish of Solly not to have seen it before! Barney wasn’t interested in punishing him; his prime reason for all this foolishness wasn’t even to give him a fright. It was to get control of Reef Investment as easily and as cheaply as possible! Foxy old Barney Barnato! Well, old foxy would find it wasn’t all that easy, wresting control of his company from him; he hadn’t exactly been born yesterday. They would dicker, of course; it was the East End Jew in Barney that made dickering a vital part of any negotiation, Solly thought with an inner sneer, whether the dickering was essential to the outcome or not. Well, when the dickering was over, old Foxy Barnato would have discovered he had met not only his equal but his superior where dickering was concerned. Properly handled, he, Solly, could even end up ahead, possibly not only in control of Reef, but of Barnato Investment, as well. Oh, there would have to be concessions made, that was obvious, and possibly even a major concession for him having been smart enough to milk Barnato Investment while establishing Reef Investment. But really, the stockholders ought to give him a medal for that, rather than condemning him. Maybe, when the full story came out, and the profits from the combine were made public in the form of dividends, they would at that. He smiled at the thought.

Should he go to Barney’s cabin at once, invite him up to the saloon bar for a drink, and put the entire matter to the other man? Bring it out in the open? There was no sense in spending the entire voyage under the strain of pretending that Barney was serious in his threat to expose Solly, to ruin him, to make him pay back huge sums of money. They might as well discuss it early on, make their deal consolidating the two companies, and then both of them would be able to relax and enjoy the voyage. He could picture the embarrassed smile on Barney’s face when he learned that his ploy had been properly analyzed and interpreted; it might teach him a bit more respect for his nephew and his ability in matters relating to business.

But it might be better to wait awhile. Solly recognized that he had had a few drinks, and that his thinking, while still excellent — as witness his analysis of Barney’s motives — might not be as clear as it ought to be for serious bargaining. I’ll hit him up in a week or so, Solly thought, once I get my sea legs. I’ll go to him after lunch one day; Barney is always more mellow with a good meal under his belt. I’ll take him into the bar, sit him down in a corner where we can talk privately, get him a proper brandy, tell him I know exactly what he’s thinking as far as Reef Investment is concerned — leading up to the subject carefully, of course, which should prove to him I’m no child in these matters — and see what he says. There’s very little he can say if he wants Reef as badly as I’m sure he does. And after that, it’ll be my terms or there won’t be any deal. I’ll admit he had me frightened there for a few days, but only for a few days, until I had the time to think it over. Now that I think about it, it should have been obvious from the start what his purpose was. No; Barney Barnato seldom met his match, but on the other hand he seldom had an opponent as intelligent as Solly Loeb. And to think the foxy old bastard really had me wondering there for a bit! I won’t say worrying, because I wasn’t really worried at all; but it’s only fair to admit I did wonder…

Solly Loeb smiled at the thought of his coming victory, and poured himself another drink.

Carl Luckner, stripped to the waist and wearing a seaman’s cap pulled low over his brow, was working forward near the anchor-chain capstan, greasing the heavy chain as it took a bight about the capstan and then dropped into the chain well belowdecks as the steam-driven capstan slowly raised the dripping anchor. The single-screw of the steam launch Scott churned the water sluggishly as the captain on the bridge waited for the anchor to be firmed against the ship’s prow and the chain stored before signaling the engine room for more power to send them on their way.

Above the crew working forward, lining the rail, the passengers watched the ship prepare to leave the roadstead, studying the customs men in their small hand-propelled dinghy pull for shore, seeing the beauty of Cape Town as the ship finally turned and steamed for England, the white buildings slowly receding against the evening dusk, leaving majestic Table Mountain, at last, as the lone shadow on the night sky. Luckner finished the final links of the now stationary chain, rubbing the grease through the links still on the capstan, and then glanced up. From under the peak of his concealing cap he could see Barney Barnato standing at the rail just above him, Fay beside him, neither paying the slightest attention to the men working below; the two were taking in the last of Cape Town as it slowly faded into the night, the last of its lights flickering into oblivion. Let the bastard enjoy himself, Luckner said to himself with a cruel twist to his lips. Let him go on thinking he’s king of the hill for a few more days, anyway. Him up there with everything his fortune can buy — some of which money is rightfully mine — and me down here as broke as a sixty-year-old tart with the pox, mucking about in filthy grease! And her, his wife, big as a house with the coming kid, but not a bad piece for all of that. Beautiful face with golden hair a man’d want to run his fingers through, blue eyes to drive a man crazy, a wide mouth made for kissing, and lovely tits for nursing a baby or exciting a man!

He wiped his hands on a bit of waste, unconsciously flexing his muscles as he did so, and climbed down the companionway to the ’neath-decks and further chores connected with the sailing. The mills grind slow, he reminded himself, but they grind exceeding fine. Well, the day was coming, and not too far away, when Barney Barnato was going to learn the bitter truth of that old saying. And maybe, in England after the kid was born and Barney long forgotten, that lovely Fay will realize the difference between a real man and a short, runty, half-blind Jew, and decide to be sensible for the first time in her life…

It was a week into the voyage when Solly Loeb decided it was time to do something to bring matters to a head, to resolve the problem for all time. He had seen Barney occasionally on his strolls about the deck, but Barney had failed to even nod on these occasions. You’d think I hadn’t been instrumental in a large part of his success! Solly thought resentfully the first time it happened; but then he smiled to himself. It’s all part of his scheme, he thought. Well, Reef Investment isn’t going to be all that easy to steal, not with empty threats nor with a cold shoulder when passing on a deck stroll.

Solly occasionally stopped for a brief word with Fay when she was alone or with Leah Primrose on deck, and Barney was elsewhere. It was apparent on those occasions that Fay knew nothing of the reason for the obvious differences between the two men and was completely puzzled by it, but Solly knew Fay to be sufficiently loyal a wife never to question one of Barney’s decisions. Besides, it had to be obvious to Fay that the coolness between the two men was due in some way to business, and Solly knew that Fay left business exclusively to Barney. When they met on deck and Solly ruffled Leah’s hair or picked her up and nuzzled her cheek, Fay made sure the conversation dealt with innocuous subjects, leaving anything connected to business aside. To Solly, this was more than satisfactory; the more Barney thought he had been taken in by Barney’s ploy, the greater the surprise when he advised the foxy little man that he had known his intentions from the start. And the better deal he undoubtedly could make for himself in those circumstances.

It was as the Scott was leaving Walvis Bay after a half day’s pause there for fuel and to replenish a few food supplies, that Solly decided the time was ripe. He had seen that Barney was in a good mood after taking Leah Primrose and Fay for a visit to the town and a shore lunch there; the sea was smooth, the sky was clear, and apparently Leah Primrose had behaved in exemplary fashion ashore. As the anchor was being raised and the ship trembled slightly from the pulsing of the new steam engine, Solly watched Barney kiss the child before her nurse collected her for her nap; then watched Barney step into the saloon bar and seat himself at a corner table. The privacy was perfect; it almost seemed to Solly to be an omen of his success. He sat down beside Barney.

“Barney,” he said.

Barney turned. “Ah. Solly.”

The very friendliness — or at least lack of open enmity — in his tone encouraged Solly to continue, convinced that he had indeed picked the proper time for the meeting.

“Barney,” Solly said in man-to-man fashion, “may I buy you a drink?”

“I’ve already ordered,” Barney said pleasantly, and proceeded to deny his words by turning to the steward waiting patiently beside their table. “A brandy, please.”

Solly held back his temper. He was fully aware in his mind of what Barney was attempting to do. Making a man lose his temper was a sure way of putting him at a disadvantage. It was a smart move when it worked, but Solly determined that it would not work with him. Instead, Solly also ordered a brandy and turned back to Barney once the steward had left, his voice suave.

“Barney,” he said, “I think it’s time we had a talk.”

“Oh?” said Barney, as if rather surprised by the suggestion. “About what?”

“About Reef Investment Company.”

“What about Reef Investment Company?”

To his own complete surprise, Solly heard himself blurt out words he had figured would not be spoken until much further along in the discussion. “You want to buy it, don’t you?”

To Solly’s amazement, Barney laughed in what appeared to be honest and pure enjoyment. “And why would I want to do that?”

Despite his best effort and despite his sworn resolution, Solly could feel himself losing his temper.

“Because it’s a damned good buy!” he said angrily, “and you damned well know it! Have you seen its books?”

“Nobody offered to show them to me,” Barney said a bit sardonically, “but I did take a look at Barnato Investment books — a trifle late, but better late than never — and I must say you did a fair job on the company.” He cocked an eyebrow. “I assume that Barnato’s losses are Reef’s gains, if that’s what you’re trying to say.”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to say,” Solly said, trying not to sound vicious. “So therefore you know that Reef is a damned strong company! And you can no more avoid trying to get hold of any strong company where you think you have an edge, especially when that company is a competitor, than you can avoid breathing! I know you, Barney!”

Barney waited until the two brandies had been served and the steward had withdrawn. Then he sipped a portion of his brandy and set his glass down. When he looked at Solly there was pity in the glance, but his voice was conversational when he spoke.

“Solly,” he said gently, “you are a fool. So you think my whole plan in confronting you with the Reef situation was simply to try and put myself in a strong position to get control of the company from you? And as cheaply as possible, of course. No doubt you thought that a brilliant negotiator such as you, with a strong company such as Reef behind you, could easily tie poor old Barney Barnato in knots, and end up possibly even controlling both companies, Reef and Barnato Investment.” He shook his head almost sadly. “My dear nephew, I have been trying to put you in a position where you might pay an honest debt — a dishonest debt, really, but never mind — and still escape with some semblance of respect, as well as possibly a small portion of your fortune. When I get finished with your precious Reef Investment Company, I’ll be able to buy their shares for a shilling on the pound, if that. Out of love for your mother and in consideration of our family name, I was not intending to attack the company until after you had made proper restitution to Barnato Investment, and had severed all connections with Reef. However, you tempt me strongly to ask the captain to put in to the first port with telegraphic facilities and to wire Harry explaining matters and leaving it to him to begin to raid Reef Investment at once. One consideration in not doing so is that it probably would not leave you enough money to pay back Barnato Investment by the time we dock; but if that’s what you really want, I’ll be glad to accommodate you and Barnato will simply take the loss. Is this what you really wish?”

Solly had grown increasingly pale as Barney had gone on. Barney, rightly considering his question rhetorical, went on.

“If that’s what you want, just say so, and by the time we dock in London I promise you that Reef shares will have fallen to a point where I can picture some of your stockholders waiting for you at the Thameside pier with tar and feathers.” Solly was staring at him as if he were hypnotized. Barney shook his head sadly. “Solly, you were stupid. You were also greedy, as well as vicious. You bit the hand that fed you, a hand that was of your own flesh and blood yet, of your own family. You cheated the people who made you what you are. What kind of a person are you? Do you think I would forgive a person like you, or forget what you did, for the control of ten companies like Reef? You are going to pay your debt to Barnato Investment, to Barnato Brothers, to the Isaacs family, to me personally, and to everything you have disgraced, to the last penny; and if you think being my sister’s son is going to make the slightest difference, you are living in loony heaven!” He finished his drink, signed the chit on the table, and came to his feet. “And now, if you’ll pardon me, I have better things to do with my time than explaining the facts of business ethics to someone like you.”

Barney nodded pleasantly in the general direction of the bartender and walked calmly from the saloon. Solly sat and stared at his drink for several seconds and then finished it with shaking hands. He rose and left the saloon rather unsteadily, and climbed down the companionway, making his way to his cabin. He closed the door behind him and automatically reached for the whiskey bottle, pouring himself a large drink.

He sat down on his berth, sipping the whiskey, thinking furiously. One thing was certain: Barney had to be made to change his mind before the ship docked, before, in fact, the ship made port anywhere that had a telegraph, in case the miserable little runt changed his mind and cabled Harry the facts, starting a raid on Reef at once. Damn, damn, damn! Why had that damnable uncle of his ever discovered the truth about Reef? Why couldn’t he at least have waited to discover the truth until Barnato Investment was completely finished? Then he might not have been strong enough to raid Reef successfully and would only have gotten his fingers burned in trying. Or — a sudden hopeful thought came to Solly — or maybe Barney wasn’t strong enough to raid Reef successfully right now! But it was an extremely dangerous hope, and Solly knew it. He was certainly in no position to test that wild possibility, certainly not before Barney could act.

No. There was only one solution to the problem. Barney had to be stopped, somehow, before the ship docked anywhere. That was the tragic fact…

“No!” Fay said. She was sitting at her dressing table in her chemise, putting on her makeup. Barney, standing behind her and trying to tie his white tie, could not keep his eyes from straying to her décolletage and then to the beauty of her face in the mirror, with the result that the ends of the tie kept coming out uneven.

“Yes,” Barney said pleasantly, and finally concentrated on the tie, managing at last to make a reasonable bow out of it.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“My darling,” Fay said, turning on the small bench and looking up at him imploringly. “Do you want to embarrass Leah Primrose and myself in front of all those people?” She turned back to the mirror, applying lip rouge. “I still say no.”

“Yes,” Barney said, and bent to kiss the top of her head.

“But does it have to be Mathias in The Bells again?”

“I’m a bit old for Romeo and Juliet,” Barney said logically, smiling at Fay’s image in the mirror, “especially Juliet. And I’m just getting to the proper age for Mathias. Besides, it won’t be ‘again’ for the crowd on the Scott. They never heard it before.” He struck a pose and went into Cockney. “It’ll lay ’em in th’ bloomin’ aisles! Knock ’em orf their bloomin’ chairs! Get ’em singin’ ’God Syve ’Er Bloomin’ Majesty’!”

“Get them singing ‘What’ll We Do with a Drunken Sailor,’” Fay said with a grin. “‘Toss Him in a Longboat Till He’s Sober.’ Just don’t expect me to rescue you.”

“My darling,” Barney said reasonably, “tonight is just the first of the two ship’s concerts. When we have the second, the night before we dock in London, I promised the captain some Shakespeare. I was thinking of doing something from The Tempest.”

Fay stared. “The Tempest? At a ship’s concert?”

“Sure. We’ll be in the channel and it’ll be appropriate. Gets pretty rough there at times.” Barney laughed; he was feeling good. “I was just joking, darling. I’ll probably do somethin’ from ’Amlet. ‘T’ be er not t’ be, that’s th’ stumper what gravels me—’”

“You are mad,” Fay said complacently, and came to her feet to put on her dress.

“I’ll go up on deck and have a cigar while you finish getting ready,” Barney said, and leaned forward to kiss her cheek, respecting the job she had just done on her cosmetics. “You are beautiful.”

“And you are mad,” Fay said, and leaned forward to kiss him again, this time on the lips, disregarding her makeup, holding him tightly. She looked at herself in the mirror. “Now see what you’ve done! I’ll have to do it all over again—”

“All me bloomin’ fault,” Barney acknowledged airily, and let himself from the room, wiping the lip rouge away with a handkerchief, smiling proudly. It was going to be quite an evening, and he knew he was going to enjoy doing Mathias, whether the crowd liked it or not. But he was sure they would like it. Of course, it was some time since he had done it, although he had done it once for Leah Primrose on her fourth birthday, and she seemed to have enjoyed it, crowing and clapping, although admittedly she had been both a prejudiced and a captive audience. He laughed at the memory and went up on deck, taking a cigar from his pocket case and lighting it in the passageway before making his way to the windier deck.

Yes, yes, I have crossed the fields! Here is the old bridge, and there below, the frozen rivulet! How the dogs howl at Daniel’s farm — how they howl! And old Finck’s forge, how brightly it glows upon the hillock!

It all came back to him as he spoke the words softly under his breath. He remembered the first time he had recited those words for Fay on the trail, with Andries and old Gustave Bees sitting and watching him curiously, the oxen grazing quietly, paying no attention, the campfire fading, and Fay laughing at his atrocious accent. Barney paused in the shadow of a lifeboat. The moon was a knife thrust through the curdled clouds; the light it imposed came and went as the heavy clouds scudded before the growing wind. The lifeboat stirred and creaked slightly on its overhead lowering davits as the wind, increasing in strength, took the smoke from Barney’s cigar, sending it swirling into the darkness.

Kill a man — kill a man! You will not do that, Mathias — you will not do that! Heaven forbids it! Barney began to pace the darkened, deserted deck beneath the creaking lifeboats above; his voice had unconsciously risen, dramatic, intense. You are a fool! Listen, you will be rich, your wife and child will want for nothing! The Jew came; so much the worse — so much the worse. He ought not to have come! You will pay all you owe; you will no more be in debt—

There was a movement in the shadow of the deck-mounted davit, the sound of a foot scraping. A hoarse voice, unidentifiable, came in a harsh whisper. “You’ll pay, all right…”

“What—”

A form came out of the darkness. The clouds parted long enough for the glint of moonlight to reflect itself from steel. There was a thrust, a gasp, a harsh screaming cry. Then there was the mixture of shadows in confused array; the final glimmer as light from a stateroom caught the bit of steel as it fell into the water to disappear. Then the hurried labor as something heavy was lifted to the top of the railing…

Fourth Officer W. T. Clifford was tired. The duties of seeing that the provisions obtained in Walvis Bay were brought aboard had fallen to him, and no more had he seen to their storage to the satisfaction of the principal chef than he had been called upon to verify the arrangements for the ship’s concert that night. He lay back in a deck chair on the windy and deserted deck and reviewed the program for the evening, satisfied that the decorations in the large saloon were adequate, at least for such short notice. The fat lady — whatever her name was — would begin the evening with several songs; he only hoped the orchestra had rehearsed them with her. Then there was to be an exhibit of amateur magic by the passenger from Cabin 16; Clifford only hoped no animals would be involved, as the last time animals had appeared in a ship’s concert, one of them had committed a nuisance. It was something he really ought to check — but later. Then Mr. Barnato was scheduled to do a recitation. It was said that Mr. Barnato at one time had been an acrobat, and a juggler; possibly he could be talked into doing a little juggling, afterward, or even some acrobatics—

He sat up suddenly with a frown; had he heard the cry of “Murder”? There seemed to be a scuffling sound in the area and he came to his feet wondering, now, if he had indeed heard the word “Murder” or whether it had been his imagination. There seemed to be some sort of a disturbance over in the shadows beneath the lifeboats; then he heard — and this cry was clear and tinged with the edge of hysteria — “Man overboard!”

Clifford immediately raised his own deep voice in repeating the cry, and ran for the rail. Two men were there, a second seeming to have just joined the first; the newcomer was staring down into the water and Clifford recognized him as one of the crew, a seaman named Luckner. The other man had turned his back to the rail and, hands cupped about his mouth, was screaming “Man overboard!” at the top of his voice in the direction of the bridge. Solly Loeb, Clifford thought automatically, and pushed his way between the two men, staring down. In the lights cast by the stateroom portholes he could see a man being swept away from the ship’s side in the rough sea. Clifford wasted no time; he tore off his uniform jacket, threw aside his cap, and sprang over the rail, landing in the water feet first. He came to the surface and struck out for the body, now barely seen in the darkness as the waves between them crested and then fell away.

The waves whipped at him; above him the ship’s decks were now alight with flares. People were coming from within the ship to line the rails. He could imagine the davits beginning to lower a lifeboat, almost hear the creaking of the cables as he forced himself through the rough sea. Then, almost to his own amazement, he topped a wave and saw the body before him, face downward in the water. He reached out and turned it over, staring in shock at the face of their most famous passenger, Barney Barnato; then he put one arm about the flaccid body and began towing it back to the ship. He paused to tread water once, looking over his shoulder toward the ship, and then shook his head, clearing water from his eyes. One davit had stuck, the lifeboat was tilted sharply, almost unshipping its crew, and there it seemed to remain. Clifford felt himself growing weaker, the weight of his uniform dragging him down; the waves seemed to be drawing him farther from the ship. He paused again, gulping air and drawing in a bit of water at the same time. A paroxysm of coughing overtook him; he loosened his grip on the body momentarily to take a better hold. The sea responded with a higher wave, and Clifford found himself alone, the body he had been towing swept from his sight.

He tried to tread water and get a better view, but a cloud now covered the moon and in the darkness all he could see was the ship ablaze with lights and the bareness of the water between him and it. He swam a few sluggish strokes farther from the ship, trying to spot the body, but then he knew it was hopeless. If he wanted to save himself he would have to forget the search until the lifeboat was in the water. He turned back to the ship and saw the problem with the faulty davit had been corrected; the lifeboat was in the water and pulling in his direction. He was just able to get a hand on the gunwale; then men pulled him in as he lost consciousness.

Clifford was assisted up the ship’s ladder and sent to the hospital. The lifeboat returned to the search and searched the waters in the vicinity of the ship for several hours before the captain of the Scott conceded defeat and gave orders for the ship to proceed, and as the screw began to push the vessel on its way once again, he wrote in his log: June 14, 8 P.M., Lost at sea, a passenger, B. Barnato. And that night, instead of the gala ship’s concert, the saloon was used for an official inquiry into the tragedy.

Fay Barnato sat unhearing, her face pale, her eyes slightly unfocused, for the ship’s surgeon had given her a large dose of laudanum to ease some of the pain and shock of the unexpected blow. The words of the inquiry seemed to come to her as from a distance, through a buzzing as if the room were full of insects.

Fourth Officer Clifford was testifying. He was still pale from the ordeal of the sea. “I was dozing off in a deck chair, and I heard a scream. I thought what I heard was—” He hesitated and wet his lips.

The captain’s eyes were upon him, steady, his voice calming. “You thought you heard what?”

“I heard — at least I thought I heard — someone scream the word” — he glanced at Fay apologetically, as if disliking to use the word in her presence — “I thought I heard the word… ‘Murder’… sir.” He shrugged deprecatingly. “I must have been wrong.”

Fay sat unmoving, her mind blank to the proceedings.

“And then?” the captain prompted.

“Then, when I got to the rail, there were two men there, sir. Luckner, a crew member, and Mr. Loeb.” His eyes went to each man in turn as he mentioned their names. “I looked down and saw a man in the water, and I… I went in after him.”

“You deserve great credit for that, Mr. Clifford, especially in that sea,” the captain said approvingly. “And then?”

“I… I had him, but I… I lost him, sir. But” — again there was the apologetic look in Fay’s direction — “but I’m pretty sure he was already dead when I reached him…”

Fay suddenly spoke. It was if the words were forced from her subconscious without her volition. “Barney couldn’t swim,” she said, and returned to her impassive, stunned state.

The captain glanced at her sympathetically, and then back to the fourth officer. “Thank you, Mr. Clifford. Your actions this evening shall be reported to the proper authorities together with my commendations. I wish to thank you personally for your efforts.” He turned his head. “Mr. Loeb?”

Solly Loeb, pale and with his hands twitching, took the chair abandoned by Officer Clifford. “Sir?”

“What can you tell us of this tragedy, Mr. Loeb?”

“He — my uncle — Barney, that is—” He wet his lips, avoiding looking at Fay. “I don’t know what happened, Captain. It seems to me a plain case of suicide. He’s been, well, depressed, lately. The condition of the market, certain business reversals, the possiblity of war in South Africa between the Boers and the English, the end of his friendship with President Kruger of the Transvaal…” He spread his hands. “It got to be too much for him, as I see it, Captain.”

“But what actually happened? What brought you to the scene, Mr. Loeb?”

“I… I was walking on deck, having a cigar, when I thought I heard some sounds or a sort, a… ah—” He looked about the room helplessly, as if searching for something better to say, something more accurately descriptive. “A sound like a — well, a scraping of some sort over in the shadows under one of the lifeboats. But when I walked over to see what it was I’d heard, Barney was all alone and half over the railing, as if he were trying to climb it and jump into the sea. I called out, ‘Barney!’—” He paused, frowning, thinking. “Possibly that was what Mr. Clifford heard; the wind was gusting and my voice may have been distorted — anyway, I ran over to try and stop him, but he was over too far. I tried to grab his jacket sleeve but I couldn’t hold it, and he dropped into the water. And I started to yell ‘Man overboard!’” He paused to wipe his damp forehead.

“And then?”

“Then a crew member — Mr. Luckner — came up; he must have been standing in the shadows, fairly close by, because he was there so quickly, and I hadn’t seen him on deck, and then Mr. Clifford came, and… and… well, you know the rest.”

“I see. You never heard the word ‘Murder’?”

“No, sir.”

“Thank you, Mr. Loeb. I think that’s all. You may step down.” The captain’s head swiveled again. “Mr. Luckner?”

Luckner took the seat. The captain considered the scarred face without much enthusiasm; it had struck the captain from the first that an able seaman such as Luckner, first of the crew on the scene, should not have waited for the fourth officer to go to the rescue. On the other hand, maybe the man couldn’t swim; many of the crew couldn’t.

“Mr. Luckner, what can you tell us of this tragedy?”

Fay broke in, staring at the floor, her face blank. Her voice sounded drugged. “He wasn’t depressed at all. He was happy. He was looking forward…” Her voice faded into silence.

The captain swung about, surprised. “I beg your pardon?”

But Fay had gone back into her narcosis. The captain sighed and came back to Carl Luckner.

“Mr. Luckner, what can you tell us of this tragedy?”

Luckner spread his hands, all servility. “Very little, sir. I was taking a breather on deck, sir — oh, out of sight of the passengers, I assure you, sir — and I also heard sounds—”

“Sounds?”

“Like Mr. Loeb, the gentleman there, said, a sort of scraping sound—”

“Did you hear any voices?” The captain leaned forward a bit. “Did you hear, for instance, the word, ‘Murder’?”

“No, sir. I did hear something called out, but I couldn’t swear it was any particular word.”

“Could the word have been, ‘Barney’?”

“It… it could have been anything, sir. I couldn’t say. The wind was picking up, you see, sir…”

“I see. Go on.”

“Yes, sir. Well, sir, I heard this sound so I walked aft to see what was going on, and I saw what looked like Mr. Loeb here, trying to assist another man who was partly over the rail, sir. And then, just as I came up, the man seemed to slip out of Mr. Loeb’s hands and fall into the sea, and then Mr. Clifford came up while Mr. Loeb was shouting, ‘Man overboard!’ and—” He paused. “Well, sir, that’s about it. Mr. Clifford jumped into the sea after him. I threw a life preserver after him, sir, but Mr. Clifford apparently didn’t see it—”

“Very commendable,” the captain said dryly.

“Thank you, sir.”

The captain looked about the saloon, from one quiet face to another. “Did anyone else here see anything? From your stateroom porthole, for example?”

There was silence. The captain heaved a great sigh.

“Death by misadventure,” he said, almost as if to himself. He wrote in his log for several minutes while the deadly silence held, and then came to his feet, his eyes on the dazed Fay Barnato, sitting in a slump in her chair. He looked up. “Ladies and gentlemen, the inquiry is over. If any of you have any second thoughts, or recall any further details at a later date, my cabin is open to you at all times.” He looked at Fay with sympathy and then looked up again. “Doctor, if you would be so kind as to see Mrs. Barnato to her cabin…”

The morning sun reflected itself from the now-calm sea; the Scott moved steadily on the glasslike waters, with land a mere faint line on the horizon to the east. Solly Loeb, his after-breakfast cigar in his mouth, leaned on the taffrail and stared thoughtfully down at the ship’s wake without seeing it. With Barney gone, his problems were not necessarily ended; it was essential that he get back to Johannesburg as soon as possible and straighten things out, make sure that rumors didn’t reach London before he could get things in hand once again. Of course he could scarcely be in London without spending time with the family, and there was the matter of Fay; it was essential that she be gotten on his side, but simple commiseration with her loss should do that. It was lucky that Barney had not had a chance to inform Harry or the others of the facts, but the fact was he hadn’t. But getting back to Jo’burg as soon as possible was still essential. A telegraph arranged to call him back for something urgent ought to do the trick—

“Mr. Loeb?”

Solly looked up, annoyed to have his thoughts interrupted. Standing beside him with a smirk on his scarred face, was Carl Luckner. Solly frowned. “Yes? What is it?”

“I thought we might have a few words,” Luckner said smoothly, “in view of the fact that my testimony was so helpful to you last night. In fact, I should think it would be worth quite a bit to you.”

Solly’s frown deepened. “What do you mean?”

Luckner shrugged. “I mean I could just as easily have testified that you were pushing old Barney over the rail rather than trying to save him—”

“What!”

“You heard me!” Luckner said harshly, all smoothness gone, his scarred face hard. “I can go to the captain right now and say that, now that I think about it, it looked more like you were pushing him over rather than trying to pull him back! I can say that now that I think about it, it very well might have been the word ‘Murder’ I heard! And how would you like that?”

Solly had been listening with only half his attention; his mind had been racing.

“I see!” he said softly. “You’ve hated Barney since the Paris Hotel! And last night I thought you got there in a hurry! You killed him and started to push him over the rail, and then got away and hid in the shadows when you heard me coming! And then you suddenly thought how smart it would be to be a witness, and you came back!”

Luckner smiled grimly.

“If you think you can get away with a story that thin,” he said with a sneer, “just try it! And I’ll be pleased to watch you hang. All Jo’burg knows you’ve been putting the screws to Barnato for years, and that he finally got wise. He was taking you back to England to face the music; you think that was a secret? When it was a newspaperman who put Barnato on the wise, you think it was a secret? You’re a fool, Loeb! So I had a disagreement with Barnato years ago, so what? He saved my life, didn’t he, up in Pretoria? Who would believe I’d do anything to the man who saved my life, eh? But you? Your life was saved when he went over the rail. Think of that when you’re standing in the dock and the judge is putting on that black cap!” He shook his head. “No, I think you would be a lot happier with the ‘death by misadventure’ the captain was kind enough to write in his log!”

Solly stared at him, his face white. “What… what d’you want?”

“I’ll think about it and let you know before we reach England,” Luckner said. He started to turn and then turned back. “And don’t think I’ll ever go over the rail as easily,” he added meaningfully, and swaggered away.

And Fay Barnato sat in her cabin, stunned, thinking of life without Barney Barnato for ever and ever, with Leah Primrose to raise, and a Jason or a Michelle — or both — soon to be added to the fatherless family. She took a deep, shuddering breath and came to her feet. She had faced hard times before, and hard decisions; life had not always been easy. What would Barney have done; what would Barney have wanted her to do? There was still Leah Primrose to raise, and the child she was carrying, and only her to do it. A start had to be made, and telling Leah Primrose in some manner the child might understand that her father was gone and would never be back, was one way to make that start. She looked at herself in the mirror, surprised to see she had not changed appreciably, and opening the cabin door stepped into the companionway.

And the Scott sailed on toward England…