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

The sun began its slow descent towards the western horizon, and at last one at a time the witches crept back to the mountain of death they had created. They staggered with exhaustion, the dust had caked on their running sweat, but they bayed and whined like dogs as they pored over the corpses, selecting those they would take with them, back to their caves and secret places, a sliver of the womb of a virgin was a powerful fertility charm, a slice of the heart of a blooded warrior was a wonderful talisman in battle.

"Is the work done?" Lobengula asked.

"It is done, oh king."

"Are all the evil ones dead?"

"They are all dead, son of Mzilikazi."

"Go then, and go in peace," Lobengula said wearily.

"Stay in peace, Great King." They chuckled and hooted and, bearing their gruesome plunder with them, they shuffled away through the gateway of the stockade.

Three times in as many weeks Mungo Sint John petitioned the king, asking him to "give the road" to the south, but each time the king chatted affably for an hour and then waved him away. "I will sleep on it, One Bright Eye, but are you unhappy here? Does the beef and beer I send you not fill your belly? Perhaps you would like to go once again on the hunt?"

"I want to go south, oh King."

"Perhaps in the next full moon, One Bright Eye, and then again perhaps after the rain has passed, or after the Chawala Ceremony, who knows? We will see in good season."

Then one morning Louise rode out early, as had become her custom, but after she had been gone some hours Mungo realized that this time she had the rifle and bandolier of ammunition, her blanket roll and the gallon water bottle with her.

He puzzled over her behaviour for the rest of that day, but he was not alarmed until night fell and she had not returned. He sat up beside the fire all that night, and at first light he took the second mule and crossed the river to where Rudd's party was camped in grand style in a pleasant glade of the forest. They had six wagons and as many tents made of best quality waterproof canvas, each with sun flysheets.

The horses on the picket line were all blood Arabs, one of which would carry Mungo and his small bag of precious stones to the Shashi river in six days or less.

He was eyeing them hungrily, when Robyn Codrington stooped out of one of the tents. She saw him and would have gone in again, but he called to her and jumped down from the mule.

"Doctor Codrington, please, it is a matter of extreme urgency.

Reluctantly she turned back.

"My wife is missing, she did not come in last night."

Immediately her distant expression changed to one of concern.

"Did she say where she was going?"

He shook his head. "I can only think that she might have ridden back to Khami, you know she was becoming friendly with your elder daughter, "

"I shall send a servant to the mission."

"Can you not ask the king to let me go?"

"The king has gone in to his wives, nobody, not even I dare disturb him until he comes out from the women's quarters."

"How long will that be?"

"A day, a week, there is no way of telling. I shall send word to you as soon as I have news."

That night Mungo waited again, and then in the dawn as he crouched, haggard and bleary-eyed, over the smoky fire, listening for the hoof beats of the mule or the sound of Louise's voice out of the darkness, he was struck instead by a thought that chilled his blood and made his guts slide with dread.

He leapt up from the fire, ran into the hut and scrabbled frantically under the mattress. With a blessed soaring relief his fingers closed on the bag, and he pulled it out and fumbled the drawstring open. He poured the bright stones into the palm of his hand. They were all there, but with them was something that had not been there before. It was a folded sheet of paper, and he took it to the fire and held it to catch the light.

"When you find this you will know why I have gone.

Even as I write this the memory of those poor wretches who died in their hundreds to pay for your greed rises before me to torment me. With them died the last of my love for you.

"I leave you those blood-spattered stones in the certain knowledge that they are accursed.

"Do not follow me. Do not send after me. Do not think of me again."

She had not signed it.

Rudd's party was at breakfast under the open-sided dining-tent.

It was a fresh and cool morning. The conversation around the table was intelligent, informed and yet quick and witty, Robyn revelled in it.

She sat at the head of the trestle table and the gentlemen deferred to her. mister Rudd had been very obviously taken with her from their first meeting, and addressed all his remarks to her directly.

Jordan had supervised the preparation of a gargantuan q English breakfast, fresh eggs and grilled gammon, salted kippers and tinned pork sausage, potted shrimps and bloater paste, with freshly-chumed yellow butter and hot scones.

Mister Rudd, quite carried away with the spontaneous festive mood, called for a bottle of champagne that had been hung overnight in a wet sack to cool.

"Well," he lifted his glass to Robyn, "I am sure we shall be able to survive this rough life and rude fare until the good king makes up his mind."

Despite Robyn's intercession, Lobengula had not yet ratified the concession that they sought. His senior indunas had been in secret conclave for weeks, but could not reach a consensus of agreement, while Lobengula vacillated and reacted to mister Rudd's insistence by retiring to his women's quarters where nobody could reach him.

"It may take months yet." Robyn lifted her own glass and returned Rudd's salute. "I would not expect Lobengula to make a decision on such an important matter without going into the Matopos Hills to consult the oracle, the Umlimo."

Suddenly Clinton looked down towards the river, frowned and whispered to Robyn. "It's that scoundrel Sint John, what does he want coming here?"

Mungo Sint John had dismounted at the periphery of the camp, but he did not approach the company under the open-sided marquee.

Robyn stood up quickly. "Please excuse me, gentlemen. General Sint John's wife is missing, and he is naturally worried."

"Thank you for coming," Mungo said, as she hurried to him. "I have nobody else to turn to, Robyn."

She tried to ignore the intimacy of his appeal, and the little jolt that his use of her given name always gave her.

"Do you have news?" she asked.

"I have discovered a note that Louise left for me."

"Let me see it." Robyn held out her hand.

"I am sorry. It contains most personal and, I fear, embarrassing, references," Mungo told her. "But what is important is that Louise is trying to leave Matabeleland by the southern road."

"That is madness," Robyn whispered. "Without the king's permission, without an escort. The road is obscure, the country wild and infested with lions, she cann of hope to pass the border impis, and they have orders to kill all who do not have the road from Lobengula."

She knows all this," Mungo said.

"Then what possessed her to make the attempt?"

"We argued. She resented the feeling which she knows that I still have, for you."

Robyn fell back a pace, her cheeks paling and her breath catching in her throat.

"General Sint John, I forbid you to talk in that fashion."

"you asked me, Robyn, and once, long ago, I told you that I would never forget that night aboard Huron "Stop it! Stop it, this instant!