Men of Men - Smith Wilbur (книги бесплатно без txt) 📗
The heliograph operator called the message aloud, at the same time scribbling it on his signal pad. "Jove advises hold your position pending clarification Lobengula's intention." Jove was the code for mister Rhodes.
"Very well." Pennefather closed his telescope with a snap. "Acknowledge message received and understood."
The operator bent to the prism of the instrument and made a minute adjustment in its focus, turning one mirror to catch the sunlight and the second to reflect it directly towards the line of distant hills; then he seized the handle and the shutter clattered as it blinked the beam of sunlight, speeding the dots and dashes of the Morse code instantaneously across fifty miles of wilderness.
Pennefather turned away and crossed briskly to the massive steam engine on its tall steel wheels. He looked up at Ralph on the footplate.
"Are you ready to light up, Ballantyne?"
Ralph removed the long black cheroot from between his teeth, and gave a parody of a military salute.
"Weve got sixty pounds of pressure on the boiler.
Another half hour and she'll be whistling out of the valve."
"Very well." Pennefather hid his mystification. He neither understood nor admired these demoniacal contraptions "Just as long as we have light by nightfall."
Gandang sat on his shield with his fur kaross of monkey skins over his shoulders. The winter evenings were cold, even here in the lowlands. There were no fires in the bivouac, and he could barely make out the faces of his junior commanders who sat opposite him, for the last flush of the sunset was fading from the western sky. "It was something that all of us saw, and something that we have never seen before."
They murmured agreement.
"It was a star, fallen from the heavens, and it lay upon the hills. We all saw it."
"In the morning I will send two of our swiftest runners to the king. He must know of this terrible witchcraft."
He stood up and let his kaross fall. "Now I am going He did not finish the sentence.
Instead he dropped into a defensive crouch and flung up his shield to cover his head, and around him his warriors wailed like frightened children, their eyes wide and white, glinting in the flood of light that burst down upon them from the sky.
The evening stars were washed out by the brilliance of the great white beam that reached from earth to heaven, and threw the hills into crisp black silhouette.
"The sun has returned," Gandang croaked in religious terror. "It is the prophecy, the whole prophecy. The stone falcons have flown, the stars shine on the hills, and now the sun burns at midnight."
Fort Salisbury 20th Sept. 1890 My darling Kate, Over two months since last I kissed you, and I am missing your cooking, amongst other things!
You will see by the address that we have reached our destination, although we lost a man drowned, another to drink, a third bitten by a mamba and a fourth eaten by a lion, the Matabele touched not one of us.
So Lobengula kept his word, to the surprise of all, and the disappointment of not a few. After one exchange of insults with old Gandang at the head of 8,000 of his bully boys, they let us pass, and the rest of it was rather tedious, just sweat and blisters!
The great Selous almost lost us once, but then I showed him the pass through the hills which Isazi and I found when we made our little foray to Great Zimbabwe. Selous called it Providential Pass (providential that I was with him, I'd say), and he took the kudos (to which he is welcome). He will probably write another book about his feat!
We reached Mount Hampden on the 6th instant, and it gave me a turn to think that Papa had been the first man here all those years ago.
However, Pennefather, in his great wisdom, decided there was insufficient water there and moved us all twelve miles across here. Of course the man is a new chum, fresh out from home, so how is he to know that this place will turn into a swamp with the first rains.
"I intend to be well away by then!) I have visited some God-forsaken places on my travels, but this one gets the coconut! It's infested with lions, and I've lost 15 oxen to them already. The grazing is sour-!" and, the remaining beasts are losing condition, oh, how I long for the sweet-veld of Matabeleland. Trust the Matabele to pick the best stock country, so I'll not be too surprised when others start thinking about Lobengula's herds and pastures. If only the cunning old brighter had thrown his war spear and given us the excuse, we might be hoisting the flag over Gubulawayo now, rather than over this dreary spot.
Oh well! At least I am the only one here with whisky, two wagonloads of it, and doing a roaring trade at 10 shillings the bottle. You shall have the prettiest bonnet in Kimberley when I return, Katie my heart.
The day Pennefather hoisted the flag the boys were free to go their own way, and what a stampede there was! Everyone intent to be the first to peg the gold reef we've heard so much about. Some of them are crawling back already, tail between their legs. This is no Eldorado, if there is gold, they'll have to work for it, and then, of course, mister Rhodes and his British South Africa Company will take half of it. Of course, they all were happy enough about the Company's cut when they signed on, but they are starting to bellyache about it now.
We had a message on the "Helio" this morning that the British South Africa Company shares are selling for 3 pounds 5 shillings. each in London, and 5,000 new shareholders on the books in the first week. Well, all I can say is that whoever is paying that price has never seen Fort Salisbury!
"Young Ballantyne," says Leander Starr Jameson to me, "you were damnably lucky to take half your fees payable in B.S.A. shares valued at 1 pound each."
"Jarneson," says I, "it's strange how the harder I work and the harder I think, the luckier I get."
So I have 40,000 B.S.A. shares, Katie my love, and you will find here attached a letter addressed to Aaron Fagan, my solicitor in Kimberley, instructing him to sell every last one of them. Take it around to him posthaste, that's a good girl. We'll be well rid of them at a profit of 2 pounds 5 shillings each, and that's God's truth! Perhaps I'll buy you two bonnets when I come back!
Oh, if only we had Matabeleland, no wonder Lobengula left Mashonaland to the Mashonas! Though they don't call it that any more. The new name that is all the rage is Rhodesia, no less!
What an ungainly name it is, but no doubt mister Rhodes will be flattered and my brother Jordan will be delighted. They are welcome to my share of Rhodesia , Don't forget to take the letter to Fagan, mind!
Nonetheless, there is still a penny to be made here.
I have taken a partner, and we are building a General Store and Bar-room. He will run both businesses, as well as the Salisbury Depot for my wagons. He seems an honest lad, our Tom Meikle, and hard-working, so I have given him a wage of 5 pounds a month and ten percent of the profits, no point in spoiling him! just as cen soon as we get the building up and the stocks on the shelves, I will leave him to it and be on my way back to you.
mister Rhodes wants me to contract to erect the telegraph line from Kimberley to Fort Salisbury for him at a price Of 25,000 pounds I reckon there will be 10,000 pounds profit in it. You shall have three bonnets, Katie, I swear it to you!
I must leave here by the 10th of next month if I am to beat the rains. Once they start the mosquitoes are going to take over Fort Salisbury, and every river between here and the Shashi will be a flood that would break even Noah's heart.
Thus I expect to reach Kimberley by the end of October, so take a good look at the floor, Katie my sweet, for when I get there you will be looking at nought but the ceiling for a week, and my word on it!
