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

How can you speak like this when your wife is in dire danger?"

"Louise was never my wife," he said quietly, staring into her green eyes with that single penetrating gaze.

"She was my travelling companion, never my wife."

Robyn faltered, colour rushed back into her cheeks, and with it came a strange unaccountable pagan joy.

"You told me, once, that you were married."

"I was, Robyn. Not to Louise. That other lady died many years ago in Navarre in France."

Robyn confounded herself. She was married to a brave, kind man, in his own way a saintly man, while before her stood the embodiment of evil, the veritable serpent of Eden; and yet she could not suppress this wicked unconscionable elation at the knowledge that he was free, free for she knew not what, or could not bring herself to think on it.

"I shall go to the king," she said, painfully aware of the quaver in her voice. "I shall ask him to send men after your, after the lady.

I shall ask him also to give you the road, General, and I would consider it full repayment if you would take it immediately, and never return to Matabeleland."

"what is between us can never be denied, Robyn, as long as we both live."

"I do not wish to see you again." With an effort of all her will she steadied her voice and met his eye.

"Robyn!"

"I shall send a messenger to you with the king's reply."

"Robyn!"

"Please." Her voice cracked again. "In God's holy name, please leave me alone."

However, it was two more days before Robyn sent Jordan Ballantyne to Mungo's camp.

"Doctor Codrington bids me tell you, sir, that the king has already sent one of his trusted indunas with a picked body of warriors after your wife. They have orders to protect her from the border guards and to escort her to the Shashi river."

"Thank you, young man."

"Furthermore, she asked me to tell you that the king has given you the road. You may follow your wife immediately."

"Again my thanks to Doctor Codrington."

"General Sint John, you do not remember me "I am afraid -" Mungo frowned up at Jordan on the back of the dancing Arab mare.

"Jordan, Zouga Ballantyne's son. We met in Kimberley some years ago."

"Ali! Of course, forgive me. You have changed."

"General, I know that it is none of my business, but as you are a trusted friend of my father's, it is my duty to warn you that there were unpleasant rumours after your departure from Kimberley."

"I did not know," Mungo told him indifferently. "Still, it is one of life's unpleasant truths that the more prominent a man becomes, the more determined are the mean little men to tear him down."

"I know that, General. I am associated with a great man, "Jordan checked himself. "However, a police agent, a Griqua named Hendrick Naaiman claimed that you attended an I.D.B. rendezvous and that when you realized it was a trap you attempted to kill him."

Mungo made an impatient gesture. "Why should somebody of my standing, my estate, take such a ridiculous risk as to indulge in I.D.B?"

"That was what mister Rhodes said, sir. He has repeatedly expressed certainty of your innocence."

"After I have found my wife I shall return immediately to Kimberley to confront this Naaiman person."

"General Sint John, that will be neither necessary nor possible. Naaiman was killed some months ago in a knife fight in one of the drinking canteens. He cannot give evidence for or against you. Without either witness or accuser, your innocence is presumed."

"Damn it -" Mungo frowned to cover his immense relief. "I should have welcomed the chance to force his words down his lying throat, now there will always be doubts in some men's minds."

to nly in the minds of the mean little men." Jordan touched the brim of his cap. "I shall not detain you further; you must be anxious to follow and find your wife. Good luck and God speed. I am sure we shall meet again, General."

Mungo Sint John stared after Jordan as he rode away. It was hard to grasp the extent of his good fortune, the spectre of unrelenting justice that had pursued him from the south had vanished; he had the road to leave Matabeleland, and an immense fortune in diamonds to carry with him.

An hour later he had visited one of the traders and exchanged the cart and the other meagre possessions he no longer needed for a good rifle and one hundred rounds of ammunition, and he sat the broad comfortable back of the mule, its head pointed southwards, as it skirted the granite hills of the indunas.

Mungo looked neither left nor right: his eye was fixed ahead, towards the south, so that he did not see the slim almost boyish figure on the slopes high above him.

Robyn shaded her eyes with the brim of her bonnet and peered after him until the little feather of dust raised by the mule's big heavy hooves subsided into the mimosa forests.

Louise Sint John was driven on by her need to keep ahead of any pursuit, obsessed with the knowledge that she must avoid the kraals along the road, ridden by the guilt she knew she must share with Mungo, her senses and emotions in terrible turmoil, so that she did not have a chance to regret her hasty action, taken in the shock of discovering the diamonds, nor did she realize the depths of her loneliness, until she had successfully skirted the last of the great kraals and left the pleasant grasslands of the plateau.

Now ahead of her the escarpment fell into the wild land, hot and heavily forested, which she knew was teeming with wild animals and guarded by the merciless border impis.

It was a measure of her desperate need to be free of Mungo Sint John and all he stood for that she never once considered turning back, though she knew there was sanctuary for her at Khami Mission, though she knew that Robyn Codrington would go to the king on her behalf and he would give her an escort of warriors to the border.

She could not go back, she could not bear the prospect of being close to Mungo Sint John ever again. The love she had once borne him had sickened into a total revulsion.

No risk was too high to escape him and she had to do it now. There was no going back.

She lay the last night beside the wagon ruts that were her tenuous link with civilization and life itself, her own thread through the maze of the Matabele Minotaur, and she listened to the mule cropping grass close at hand and, far away down the escarpment, the faint roar of a hunting lion, while she tried to reconstruct in her mind the map that had formed the frontispiece to Zouga Ballantyne's book A Hunter's Odyssey. The account of Zouga's Tourneys had fascinated her, even before she had met him, and she had studied the map with minute attention.

She judged that from where she now lay the Tati river was not more than one hundred miles due west. No pursuer would expect her to take that direction. No impi would guard that desolate untravelled quarter, and the Tati river was the border between Matabeleland and Khama's country. By all accounts King Kharna was a gentle and honourable man; his country was under suzerainty of the British crown, and British justice was ensured by the presence of Sir Sidney Shippard at Khama's kraal.

If she could reach the Tati river and follow it south until she met some of Khania's people who could take her to Sir Sidney, then he would see to it that she was sent on southwards to Kimberley.

The thought of that town made her realize the true reason for her desperate haste. For the first time she became aware of the terrible hunger within her to be with a man whom she could trust, whose strength would shield her and make her strong again. The man to whom she could at last acknowledge she had transferred the love which Mungo Sint John had long ago forfeited. She must reach Zouga, and reach him soon, that was the only thing certain in her confusion, and her despair, but first there were a hundred miles of wilderness to cross.