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

Jordan dismounted and hitched the big glossy hunter from the stables of Groote Schuur to the rail below the verandah, and he walked to the front steps.

He glanced at the pillar of blue marbled stone that stood at the head of the steps like a sentinel, and a little shadow flitted over his face as he remembered the fateful day that Ralph had hacked it out of the Devil's Own claims and brought it to the surface.

It was the only thing that remained to any of them from all those years of labour and travail. He wondered not only that his father had transported it so far with so much effort, but that he had placed it so prominently to rebuke him.

For a moment he laid his hand upon the stone, and he felt the faint satiny bloom that other hands had made on the same spot on the surface, like the marks of worshippers" hands on a holy relic. Perhaps Zouga also touched it every time he passed. Jordan dropped his hand and called towards the shuttered cottage.

"Is anybody there?"

There was a commotion in the front room, and the front door burst open.

"Jordan, my Jordie!"howled Jan Cheroot, and came bounding down the steps. His cap of peppercorn hair was pure white at last, but his eyes were bright and the web of wrinkles around them had not deepened.

He embraced Jordan with the wiry strength of brown arms; but even from the advantage of the verandah step he did not reach to Jordan's chin.

"So tall, jordie," he chuckled. "Whoever thought you'd grow so tall, my little jordie."

He hopped back and stared up into Jordan's face. "Look at you, I bet a guinea to a baboon turd that you've broken a few hearts already."

"Not as many as you have." Jordan pulled him close again, and hugged him.

"I had a start," Jan Cheroot admitted, and then grinned wickedly. "And I've still got the wind left for a sprint or two."

"I was afraid that you and Papa might still be away."

"We got home three days ago."

"Where is Papa?"

jordan!"

The familiar, beloved voice made him start and he broke from Jan Cheroot's embrace and looked beyond him to Zouga Ballantyne standing in the doorway of the cottage.

He had never seen his father looking- so well. It was not merely that he was lean and hard and sun-browned.

He seemed to stand taller and straighter with an easy set to his shoulders, so different from the defeated slump with which he had left the diamond fields.

"Jordan!" he said again, and they came together and shook hands, and Jordan studied his father's face at closer range.

The pride and the purpose that had been burnt away in the diamond pit had returned, but with their quality subtly changed. Now he had the look of a man who had worked out the terms on which he was prepared to live.

There were the shadows of a new thoughtfulness in his green eyes, the weight of understanding and compassion in his gaze. Here was a man who had tested himself almost to the point of destruction, had explored the frontiers of his soul and found them secure.

"Jordan," he said again quietly for the third time, and then he did something that demonstrated the profound change he had undergone. He leaned forward and briefly he pressed the soft golden curls of his beard to Jordan's cheek.

"I have thought of you often," he said without embarrassment. Thank you for coming." Then with his Arm about his shoulders he ushered Jordan into the front room.

This room always pleased Jordan, and he moved across to the log fire in the walk-in hearth and held out his hands to the blaze while he looked about him. It was a man's room, shelves filled with men's books, encyclopaedias and almanacs and thick leatherbound volumes of travel and exploration.

Weapons hung upon the walls, bows and quivers of poisoned Bushman arrows, shields and assegais of Matabele and Zulu, and, of course, the tools of the trade to which Zouga had reverted, firearms, heavy calibre sporting rifles by famous gunsmiths, Gibbs, Holland and Holland, Westley Richards. They were racked on the wall facing the fireplace, blued steel and lovingly carved wood.

With them were the souvenirs and trophies of Zouga's work, horns of antelope and buffalo, twisting or curved or straight as a lance, the zig-zag stripes of a zebra hide, the tawny gold bushed mane of the Kalahari lion, and ivory, great yellow arcs reaching higher than a man's head, yellow as fresh butter and translucent as candlewax in the cold winter light from the doorway.

"You had a good trip?" Jordan asked, and Zouga shrugged.

"It gets more difficult each season to find good specimens for my clients."

His clients were rich and aristocratic sportsmen, come out to Africa for the chase.

"But at least the Americans seem to have discovered Africa at last. I have a good party booked for next season young fellow called Roosevelt, Secretary of the Navy."

He broke off. "Yes, we are managing to keep body and soul together, old Jan Cheroot and I, but I don't have to ask about you."

He glanced down at the expensive English cloth of Jordan's suit, the soft leather of his riding boots which creased perfectly around his ankles like the bellows of a concertina, the solid silver spurs and the gold watch chain in his fob pocket, and then his eye paused on the white sparkle of the diamond in his cravat.

"You made the right choice when you decided to go with Rhodes. My God, how that man's star rises higher and brighter with. each passing day."

"He is a great man, Papa."

"Or a great rogue." Then Zouga smiled apologetically.

"I am sorry, I know how highly you think of him. Let's have a glass of sherry, Jordie, while Jan Cheroot makes lunch for us." He smiled again. "We miss your cooking.

You will find it poor fare, I'm afraid."

While he poured sweet Cape sherry into long glasses, he asked over his shoulder: "And Ralph, what do you hear of Ralph?"

"We meet often in Kimberley or at the railhead. He always asks after you."

"How is he?"

"He will be a big man, Papa. Already his wagons run to Pilgrims" Rest and those new goldfields on the Witwatersrand. He has just won the fast coach contract from Algoa Bay. He has trading posts at Tati and on the Shashi river."

They ate in front of the fire, sour bread and cheese, a cold joint of mutton and a black bottle of Constantia wine, and Jan Cheroot hovered over Jordan, scolding him fondly for his appetite and recharging his glass when it was barely a quarter empty.

At last they finished and stretched out their legs towards the fire, while Jan Cheroot brought a burning taper to light the cigars which Jordan pro from a gold pocket case.

Jordan spoke through the perfumed wreaths of smoke.

"Papa, the concession, "And for the first time an angry arrowhead creased the skin between Zouga's eyes.

"I had hoped that you came to see us," he said coldly.

"I keep forgetting that you are Rhodes" man, ahead of being my son."

"I am both," Jordan contradicted him evenly. "That's why I can talk to you like this."

"What message has the famous mister Rhodes for me this time?" Zouga demanded.

"Maund and Selous have both accepted his offers. They have sold their concessions to mister Rhodes, and both are ten thousand pounds richer."

Maund was a soldier and an adventurer. Fred Selous, like Zouga, a hunter and explorer. Also, like Zouga, Selous had written a well-received book on the African chase A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa. Both of these men had at different times prevailed on Lobengula to grant them concessions to ivory and minerals in his eastern dominions.