The Angels Weep - Smith Wilbur (бесплатные онлайн книги читаем полные версии txt) 📗
Her breath sobbed in her throat, and she struggled to be free, to escape from the torture of her own wild wanting, of her cruel need for him, and from his skilful insistent fingers. He held her easily, his mouth against the soft of her throat, and his voice was hoarse and tough.
"Cathy!"he said. "My Katie! I missed you so!" Elizabeth stopped struggling. She lay against him like a dead woman. No longer fighting, no longer even breathing. "Katie!" His hands were desperate to find her, but she was dead-dead.
He was fully awake now. His hands left Elizabeth's body and came up to her face. He cupped her head in his hands, and lifted it. He looked at her uncomprehendingly for a long moment, and then she saw the green change in his eyes.
"Not Cathy!"he whispered.
She opened his fingers gently and stood up beside the cot.
"Not Cathy" she said softly. "Cathy has gone, Ralph." She stooped over the guttering candle, cupped one hand behind it, and blew it out. Then she stood upright again in the sudden total darkness.
She unfastened the bodice of her nightdress, shrugged it over her shoulders and let it fall around her ankles. She stepped out of it and lay down on the cot beside Ralph. She took his unresisting hand and replaced it where it had been before.
"Not Cathy," she whispered. "Tonight it's Elizabeth. Tonight and for ever more." And she placed her mouth over his.
When at last she felt him fill all the sad and lonely places within her, her joy was so intense that it seemed to crush and bruise her soul and she said. "I love you. I have always loved you I will always love you." Jordan Ballantyne stood beside his father on the platform of the Cape Town railway station. They were both stiff and awkward in the moment of parting.
"Please don't forget to give my, "Jordan hesitated over the choice of words, "my very warmest regards to Louise." "I am sure she will be pleased," said Zouga "I have not seen her for so long--" Zouga broke off.
The separation from his wife had drawn out over the long months of his trial in the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court before the Lord Chief Justice, Baron Pollock, Mr. Justice Hawkins, and a special jury. The Lord Chief Justice had shepherded a reluctant jury towards the inevitable verdict.
"I direct you that, in accordance with the evidence and your answers to the specific questions I have put to you, you ought to find a verdict of guilty against all the defendants." And he had his way.
"The sentence of the Court, therefore, is that as to you Leander Starr Jameson, and as to you John Willoughby, that you be confined for a period of fifteen months" imprisonment without hard labour. That you, Major Zouga Ballantyne, have three months" imprisonment without hard labour." Zouga had served four weeks of his sentence in Holloway, and with the balance remitted, had been released to the dreadful news that in Rhodesia the Matabele had risen and that Bulawayo was under siege.
The voyage southwards down the Atlantic had been agonizing, he had had no word of Louise, nor of King's Lynn, and his imagination conjured up horrors that were nourished by tales of slaughter and mutilation.
Only when the Union Castle mail boat had docked that morning in Cape Town Harbour were his terrible anxieties relieved.
"She is safe in Bulawayo," Jordan had answered his first question.
Overcome with emotion, Zouga had embraced his youngest son, repeating, "Thank God, oh thank God!" over and over again.
They had lunched together in the dining-room of the Mount Nelson Hotel and Jordan had given his father the latest intelligence from the north.
"Napier and the Siege Committee seem to have stabilized the situation. They have got the survivors into Bulawayo, and Grey and Selous and Ralph with their irregulars have given the rebels a few bloody knocks to keep them at a wary distance.
"Of course the Matabele have an absolutely free run of the territory outside the laagers at Bulawayo and Gwelo and Belingwe. They do as they please, though strangely enough they do not seem to have closed the road to the southern drifts. If you can reach Kimberley in time to join the relief column that Spreckley is taking through, you should be in Bulawayo by the end of the month and Mr. Rhodes and I will not be long in joining you.
"Spreckley will be taking through only essential supplies, and a few hundred men to stiffen the defence of Bulawayo until the imperial troops can get there. As you probably know, Major-General Sir Frederick Carrington has been chosen to command, and Mr. Rhodes and I will be going up with his staff. I have no doubt we will bring the rebels to book very swiftly." Jordan kept up a monologue during the entire meal, to cover the embarrassment caused by the stares and the whispers of the other diners, who were deliciously scandalized by the presence of one of Jameson's freebooters in their midst. Zouga ignored the stir he was creating, and addressed himself to the meal and the conversation with Jordan until a young journalist from the Cape Times, clutching his shorthand pad, approached the table.
"I wonder if you would care to comment on the leniency of the sentences passed by the Lord Chief Justice." Only then did Zouga raise his head, and his expression was bleak.
"In the years ahead they will give medals and knighthoods to men who achieve exactly the same task that we attempted," he said quietly.
"Now will you be kind enough to let us finish our lunch in peace."
At the railway station Jordan fussed over making certain that Zouga's trunk was in the goods van and that he had a forward-facing seat in the last carriage. Then they faced each other awkwardly, as the guard blew his warning whistle.
"Mr. Rhodes asked me to enquire whether you would still be good enough to act as his agent at Bulawayo." "Tell Mr. Rhodes that I am honoured by his continued confidence." They shook hands and Zouga climbed into the coach. "If you see Ralph,-" "Yes?" Zouga asked.
