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

He remembered riding beside mister Rhodes" carriage down the Mall to Buckingham Palace and dinner with the queen, while the Union Castle mailship delayed its sacred sailing by twenty-four hours to wait for them.

This very morning had added another memory to Jordan's store, for he had read aloud the cable from Queen Victoria to "Our well-beloved Cecil John Rhodes", appointing him one of Her Majesty's Privy Councillors.

Jordan started back to the present.

It was after midnight, and in the dining-hall mister Rhodes was abruptly breaking up the dinner in his characteristic fashion.

"Well, gentlemen, I'll bid you all a good night's rest."

Quickly Jordan rose from his desk and slipped down the servants" passageway.

At the end he opened the door a crack and anxiously watched the burly, appealingly awkward figure mount the stairs. The company had done justice to Jordan's choice of wine, but still mister Rhodes" tread was steady enough. Though he stumbled once at the top of the sweeping marble staircase, he caught his balance, and Jordan shook his head with relief.

When the last servant left, Jordan locked the wine, cellar and the pantry. There was a silver tray left upon his desk, and on it a glass of the Vilanova and two water biscuits spread thickly with salted Beluga caviar. Jordan carried the tray through the silent mansion. A single candle burned in the lofty entrance hall. It stood upon the massive carved teak table in the centre of the floor.

Jordan paced slowly across the chequer board of black and white marble paving, like a priest approaching the altar, and reverently he laid the silver tray upon the table. Then he looked up at the carved image high in its shadowy niche, and his lips moved as he silently began the invocation to the bird goddess, Panes.

When he had finished, he stood silent and expectant in the fluttering light of the candle, and the great house slept around him. The falcon-headed goddess stared with cruel blind eyes into the north, a thousand miles and more towards an ancient land, now blessed, or cursed, with a new name, Rhodesia.

Jordan waited quietly, staring up at the bird like a worshipper before a statue of the Virgin, and then suddenly in the silence, from the bottom of the gardens, where grew the tall dark oak trees that Governor van der Stel had planted almost two hundred years before, came the sad and eerie cry of an eagle owl. Jordan relaxed and backed away from the offering that he left upon the table. Then he turned and went up the marble staircase.

In his own small room he quickly stripped off his clothing that was impregnated with the odours of the kitchen.

Naked, he sponged down his body with cold water, admiring his own lithe form in the full-length mirror on the far wall. He scrubbed himself dry with a rough towel, and then rinsed his hands in eau-de-Cologne.

With a pair of silver-backed brushes he burnished his hair until his curls shone like whorls of pure gold wire in the lamplight; then he slipped his arms into the brocaded gown of midnight blue satin, belted it around his waist, picked up the lamp to light his way and stepped out into the passage.

He closed the door to his bedroom quietly and listened for a few seconds. The house was still silent, their guests slept. On silent, bare feet, Jordan glided down the thick carpet to the double doors at the end of the passage to tap lightly on one of the panels, twice then twice again, and a voice called to him softly, "Enter!"

"These are a pastoral people. You cannot take their herds away from them." Robyn Ballantyne spoke with a low controlled intensity, but her face was pale and her eyes sparkled with furious green lights.

"Please, won't you be seated, Robyn."

Mungo Sint John indicated the chair of rough raw lumber, one of the few furnishings in this adobe mud hut that was the office of the Administrator of Matabeleland. "You will be more comfortable, and I will feel more at ease."

Nothing could make him appear more at ease, she thought wryly. He lolled back in his swivel chair, and his booted ankles were crossed on the desk in front of him. He was in shirtsleeves, without a tie or cravat, and his waistcoat was unbuttoned.

"Thank you, General. I shall continue to stand until I receive your answer."

"The costs of the relief of Matabeleland and the conduct of the war were born entirely by the Chartered Company. Even you must see that there must be reparation."

"You have taken everything. My brother, Zouga Ballantyne, has rounded up over a hundred and twenty-five thousand head of Matabele cattle, "

"The war cost us a hundred thousand pounds."

"All right." Robyn nodded. "If you will not listen to the voice of humanity, then perhaps hard cash will convince you. The Matabele people are scattered and bewildered; their tribal organizations have broken down; the smallpox is rife amongst them "A conquered nation always suffers privation, Robyn.

Oh, do sit down, you are giving me a crick in the neck."

"Unless you return part of their herds to them, at least enough for milk and slaughter, you are going to be faced with a famine that will cost you more than your neat little war ever did."

The smile slipped from Mungo Sint John's face, and he inclined his head slightly and studied the ash of his cigar.

"Think about this, General. When the Imperial Government realizes the extent of the famine, it will force your famous Chartered Company to feed the Matabele. What is the cost of transporting grain from the Cape? A hundred pounds a load. Or is it more now? If the famine approaches the proportions of genocide, then I will see to it that Her Majesty's Government is faced with such a public outcry, led by humanitarians like Labouchere and Blunt, that they may be obliged to revoke the charter and make Matabeleland a crown colony after all."

Mungo Sint John took his bottle off the desk and sat upright in his chair.

"Who appointed you champion of these savages, anyway?" he asked. But she ignored his question.

"I suggest, General, that you relay these thoughts to mister Rhodes before the famine takes a hold."

She gloried in the visible effort it took him to regain his equanimity.

"You may well be right, Robyn." His smile was light and mocking again. "I will point this out to the directors of the Company."

"Immediately," she insisted.

"Immediately," he capitulated, and spread his hands in a parody of helplessness. "Now is there anything else you want of me?"

"Yes," she said. "I want you to marry me."

He stood up slowly and stared at her.

"You may not believe this, my dear, but nothing would give me greater pleasure. Yet, I am confused. I asked you that day at Khami Mission. Why now have you changed your mind?"

"I need a father for the bastard you have got on me. It was conceived four months after Clinton's death."

"A son," he said. "It will be a son." He came around the desk towards her.

"You must know that I hate you," she said.

His single eye crinkled as he smiled at her.

"Yes, and that is probably the reason that I love you."

"Never say that again," she hissed at him.

"Oh, but I must. You see I did not even realize it myself. I always believed that I was proof from such a mundane emotion as love. I was deceiving myself. You and I must now bravely face up to that fact. I love you."

"I want nothing from you but your name, and you shall have nothing from me but hatred and contempt."