Men of Men - Smith Wilbur (книги бесплатно без txt) 📗

"Good afternoon, ladies." He smiled, and bowed as low as his leg would allow. His smile was irresistible, and some of the rigidity went out of the two small bodies, but their expressions remained pale and fixed; their eyes, huge with trepidation, were fastened upon the fly of his breeches, so that after a few seconds silence even Mungo Sint John felt disconcerted, and he shifted uncomfortably.

What service can I be to you?" he asked.

"We would like to see your tail, sir."

"Ah!" Mungo knew never to show himself at a loss in front of a female, of no matter what age. "You aren't posed to know about that," he said. "Are you, now?"

SUP They shook their heads in unison, but their eyes remained fixed with fascination below his waist. Vicky was right, there was definitely something there.

"Who told you about it?" Mungo sat down again, bringing his eyes to the level of theirs, and their disappointment was evident.

"Mama said you were the Devil, and we know the Devil has a tail."

"I see." Mungo nodded. With a huge effort, he fought back his laughter, and kept his expression serious, his tone conspiratorial.

"You are the only ones that know,"he told them. "You won't tell anybody, will you?" Quite suddenly Mungo realized the value of having allies at Khami, two pairs of sharp bright eyes that saw everything and long ears that heard all.

"We won't tell anybody," promised Vicky. "If you show us.

"I can't do that." And there was an immediate wail of disappointment.

"Why not?"

"Didn't your mother teach you that it's a sin to show anybody under your clothes?"

They glanced at each other, and then Vicky admitted reluctantly. "Yes, we aren't even really allowed to look at ourselves there. Lizzie got whacked for it."

"There." Mungo nodded. "But I'll tell you what I will do, I'll tell you the story of how I got my tail."

"Story!" Vicky clapped her hands, and they spread their skirts and squatted cross-legged at Mungo's feet. If there was one thing better than a secret, it was a story, and Mungo Sint John had stories, wonderful scary, bloodthirsty stories, the kind that guaranteed nightmares.

Each afternoon when he reached the lookout under the leadwood tree, they were waiting for him, captives of his charisma, addicted to those amazing stories of ghosts and dragons, of evil witches and beautiful princesses who always had Vicky's hair or Lizzie's eyes when Mungo Sint John described them.

Then after each of Mungo's stories, he would tactfully initiate a lively discussion of the affairs of Khami Mission. On a typical day he would learn that Cathy had begun painting a portrait of Cousin Ralph from memory, and that it was the considered and unanimous verdict of the twins that Cathy was not only "soft" but, much worse, "sloppy" about Cousin Ralph.

He learned that King Ben had commanded the entire family to attend the Chawala ceremony at the new moon, and the twins were ghoulishly anticipating the slaughter of the sacrificial black bull. "They do it with their bare hands," Vicky gloated. "And this year we are going to be allowed to watch, now that we are eleven."

He was told in detail how Papa had demanded from Mama at the dinner table how much longer "that infamous pirate" was to remain at Khami, and Mungo had to explain to the twins what "infamous" meant "famous, but only more so".

Then on one such afternoon, Mungo learned from Lizzie that King Ben had once again "khombisile" with his indunas. Gandang, one of the king's brothers, had told Juba, who was his wife, and Juba had told Mama.

"Khombisile?" Mungo asked dutifully. "What does that mean?"

it means that he showed them."

"Showed them what?"

The treasure," Vicky cut in, and Lizzie rounded on her.

"I'm telling him!"

"All right, Lizzie." Mungo was leaning forward, interest tempering the indulgent smile. "You tell me."

"It's a secret. Mama says that if other people, bad people, heard about it, it would be terrible for King Ben.

Robbers might come."

"It's a secret then," Mungo agreed.

"Cross your heart."

And Lizzie was telling it before he had made the sign of good faith. Lizzie was determined that Vicky would not get in ahead of her, this time.

"He shows them the diamonds. His wives rub fat all over him, and then they stick the diamonds onto the fat."

"Where did King Ben get all these diamonds?" Scepticism warred with the need to believe.

"His people bring them from Kimberley. Juba says it isn't really stealing. King Ben says it is only the tribute that a king should have."

"Did Juba say how many diamonds?"

"Pots full, pots and pots of them."

Mungo Sint John turned his single eye from her flushed and shining face and looked across the grassy golden plains to the Hills of the Indunas, and his eye was flecked golden yellow like one of the big predatory cats of Africa.

Jordan looked forward to this early hour of day. it was one of his duties to check each evening in the nautical -almanac the time of sunrise, and to waken mister Rhodes an hour beforehand.

Rhodes liked to see the sun come up, whether it was from the balcony of his magnificent private railway coach or drinking coffee in the dusty yard of the corrugated iron cottage that he still maintained behind Market Square in Kimberley, from the upper deck of an ocean-going liner or from the back of a horse as they rode the quiet pathways of his estate on the slopes of Table Mountain.

It was the time when Jordan was alone with his master, the time when ideas which mister Rhodes called his "thoughts" would come spilling out of him. Incredible ideas, sweeping and grand or wild and fanciful, but all fascinating.

It was the time when Jordan could feel that he was part of the vast genius of the man, as he scribbled down mister Rhodes" draft speeches in his shorthand pad, speeches that would be made in the lofty halls of the Cape Parliament to which mister Rhodes had been elected by the constituents of what had once been Griqualand, or at the board table of the governors of De Beers, of which he was chairman. De Beers was the mammoth diamond company which mister Rhodes had welded together out of all the little diggers" claims and lesser competing companies. Like some mythical boa constrictor, he had swallowed them all, even Barney Barnato, the other giant of the fields. mister Rhodes owned it all now.

On other mornings they would ride in silence, until mister Rhodes would lift his chin from his chest and stare at Jordan with those stark blue eyes. Every time he had something startling to say. Once it was, "You should thank God every day, Jordan, that you were born an Englishman."

Another time it was, "There is only one real purpose behind it all, Jordan. It is not the accumulation of wealth. I was fortunate to recognize it so early. The real purpose is to bring the whole civilized world under British rule, to recover North America to the crown, to make all the Anglo-Saxon race into one great empire."

It was thrilling and intoxicating to be part of all this, especially as so often the big burly figure would rein his horse and turn his head and look to the north, towards a land that neither he nor Jordan had ever seen, but which, during the years that Jordan had been with him, had become a part of both their existences.

"My thought," he called it. "My north, my idea."