The Angels Weep - Smith Wilbur - Страница 117

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"Juba," she said. "Is that you, Juba?" "Oh Balela," the Matabele woman whimpered. "I had thought never to see the sunshine of your face again." "What now!" said Zouga grimly. "We have caught ourselves a pretty prize, Jan Cheroot. The senior wife of the great and noble and una Gandang, and this puppy must be his grandson! I didn't recognize either of them, they are on their last legs." Tungata Zebiwe sat in his grandmother's bony lap and ate with a quiet frenzy, the total dedication of a starving animal. He ate the extra Cornish pasties from the picnic basket, then he ate the crusts that Zouga had left. Louise searched the saddlebags and found a battered tin of bully, and the child ate that also, stuffing the rich fatty meat into his mouth with both hands.

"That's right," said Jan Cheroot sourly. "Fatten him up now, so we have to shoot him later." And he went off sulkily to saddle the horses for the return to Bulawayo.

"Juba, little Dove," Louise asked, "are all the children like this?" "The food is finished, "Juba nodded. "All the children are like this, though some of the little ones are dead already." "Juba is it not time that we women put an end to the foolishness of our men, before all the children are dead?" "It is time, Balela,"Juba agreed. "Time and past time." "Who is this woman? "Mr Rhodes asked, in that exasperated high-pitched voice that betrayed his agitation, and he peered at Zouga His eyes seemed to have taken a new prominence as though they were being squeezed out of his skull.

"She is the senior wife of Gandang." "Gandang he commanded the impi that massacred Wilson's patrol on the Shangani?" "He was a half-brother to Loberigula. With Babiaan and Somabula he is the senior of all the indunas." "I don't suppose there is anything to lose by talking to them," Mr. Rhodes shrugged. "This business will destroy us all if it goes on much longer. Tell this woman to take a message back that the indunas must lay down their arms and come in to Bulawayo."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Rhodes," Zouga told him. "They won't do that. They have had an indaba in the hills, all the indunas have spoken, and there is only one way." "What is that, Ballantyne?" "They want you to go to them." "personally?" Mr. Rhodes asked softly.

"We will speak only to Lodzi, and he must come to us unarmed. He must come into the Matopos without the soldiers. He may bring three other men with him, but none of them must carry a weapon. If they do, we kill them immediately." Zouga repeated the message that Juba had brought out of the hills for him, and Mr. Rhodes closed his eyes and covered them with the palm of his hand. His voice wheezed painfully in his chest, so that Zouga had to lean forward to catch his words.

"In their power," he said. "Alone and unarmed, completely in their power." Mr. Rhodes dropped his hand and stood up. He moved heavily to the opening of the tent. He clasped his hands behind his back, and rocked back on his heels. Outside in the hot dusty noon, a bugle sang the advance, and there was the distant sound of a cavalry troop leaving the laager, hooves and the rattle of lance butts in their hard leather boots.

Mr. Rhodes turned back to Zouga "Can we afford to trust them?" he asked.

"Can we afford not to, Mr. Rhodes?" They left the horses at the place that had been agreed, in one of the myriad valleys in the granite hills that reared into broken crests and dropped into deep troughs like the frozen surf whipped up by a wild Atlantic gale. Zouga Ballantyne led from there, taking the twisted narrow footpath through dense brush, moving slowly and looking back every few paces at the shambling, bearlike figure that followed him.

When the path began to climb, Zouga stopped and waited for him to regain his breath. Mr. Rhodes" face had taken on a bluish mottled appearance, and he was sweating heavily. However, after only a few minutes, he waved Zouga onwards impatiently.

Close behind Mr. Rhodes followed the two others that the indunas had stipulated. One was a journalist Mr. Rhodes was too much of a showman to miss an opportunity such as this and the other was a doctor, for he realized that the assegais, of the Matabele were not the only threat he faced, on this gruelling journey.

The shimmering heat of the Matopos Hills made the air above the granite surfaces dance and waver as though they were the plates of a wood-fired iron stove. The silence had a cloying suffocating texture that seemed almost tangible, and the sudden sharp bird calls that cut through it every few minutes served only to emphasize its intensity.

The scrub pressed in closely on each side of the track, and once Zouga saw a branch tremble and stir when there was no breeze. He strode on upwards with a measured pace, as though he were leading the guard of honour at a military funeral. The path turned sharply into a vertical crack in the highest point of the granite wall, and here Zouga waited again.

Mr. Rhodes reached him and leaned against the heated granite with his shoulder while he wiped his face and neck with a white handkerchief. He could not speak for many minutes and then he gasped, "Do you think they. will come, Ballantyne?" Farther down the valley, from the thickest bush, a robin called and Zouga inclined his head to listen. It was almost convincing mimicry.

"They are here before us, Mr. Rhodes. The hills are alive with Matabele," and he looked for fear in the pale blue eyes. When he found none, he murmured quietly, almost shyly, "You are a brave man, sir." "A pragmatic one, Ballantyne." And a smile twisted the swollen disease-ravaged face. "It's always better to talk than to fight." "I hope the Matabele agree." Zouga returned his smile and they went on into the vertical crack in the granite, passing swiftly through shadow into the sunlight once more, and below them was a basin in the granite. It was ringed by high ramparts of broken granite, and bare of any cover.

Zouga looked down into the little circular valley and all his soldier's instincts were offended.

"It's a trap," he said. "A natural killing-ground from which there is no escape." "Let us go down," said Mr. Rhodes.

In the middle of the basin was a low anthill, a raised platform of hard yellow clay, and instinctively the little group of white men made their way towards it.

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