The Angels Weep - Smith Wilbur - Страница 156

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"This was where Comrade Tebe was hiding that night?" Tungata asked. When the Scouts, the kanka, could not find him?" "Yes, he was here. It would be best if you went down now." He dropped nimbly down the shaft and found himself in darkness. Leila closed the slate hatch and came down beside him. She groped along the wall and turned a switch. A bare electric bulb lit on the roof of the tiny stone cell.

There was a deal table on which were stacked a few well-thumbed books, pushed beneath it was a low stool and there was a narrow truckle-bed against the far wall. A chemical toilet stood at its foot.

"Not very comfortable," she apologized. "But nobody will find you here." "I have had less luxurious accommodation," he assured her. "Now let us go over your arrangements." She had the medical certificates ready on the table, and she sat on the stool and wrote down his requirements for the transportation of the Umlimo as he dictated them.

When she had finished, he said, "Memorize that and destroy it."

"Very well." He watched while she went over the list carefully and then looked up.

"Now, there is a message for you to take to Comrade Inkunzi,"she said. "It is from our friend in high places." "Give it to me,"he nodded.

"Ballantyne's Scouts, the kanka, they are planning a special operation. It is to destroy Comrade Inkunzi and his staff. Your own name is high on their list." Tungata's expression did not change.

"Do you have any details of their plans?" "All the details," she assured him. "This is what they will do-" She spoke slowly and deliberately for almost ten minutes, and he did not interrupt her.

Even when she had finished, he was silent for many minutes, lying flat on his back on the bed, staring up at the electric bulb. Then she saw that his jaws clenched and that a smoky red tide seemed to have spread over his eyeballs. His voice, when he spoke, was thick with loathing.

"Colonel Roland Ballantyne. If we could get him! He is responsible for the deaths of over three thousand of our people he and his kanka. In the camps they speak his name in whispers, as though he were some sort of demon. His name alone turns our bravest men to cowards. I have seen him and his butchers at work. Oh, if we could only take him." He sat up and glared at her. Perhaps. His voice was choked and slurred as though he was drunk with hatred. "Perhaps this is our chance." He reached out and took Leila by the shoulders. His fingers dug deeply into her flesh and she winced and tried to draw away. He held her without effort.

"This woman of his. You say that she will fly from the Victoria Falls? Can you get me the date, the number of the flight, the exact time?" She nodded, afraid of him now, terrified by his strength and fury.

"We have somebody in the airway booking-office," she whispered, no longer trying to escape the agony of his grip. "I can get it for you."

"The bait," he said, "the tender lamb that will lure the leopard into the trap." She brought him food and drink down the stone shaft and waited while Tungata ate.

For a while he ate in silence, then abruptly he returned to the subject of the Umlimo.

"The stone falcons, he started, "you heard what the old woman said?" She nodded and he went on, "Tell me what you know of these things." "Well, the stone falcons are the emblem on the flag. They are minted on the coinage of this country." "Yes, go on." "They are ancient carvings of bird figures. They were discovered in the ruins of Zimbabwe by the early white adventurers, and stolen by them. There is a legend that Lobengula tried to prevent them, but they were taken south." "Where are they now?"Tungata demanded.

"One of them was destroyed by fire when Cecil Rhodes" house at Groote Schuur was burned down, but the others, I'm not absolutely certain, but I think they are at Cape Town in South Africa."

"Whereabouts?" "In the museum, there." He grunted and went on eating steadily. When the bowl and mug were empty he pushed them aside and stared at her again with those smoky eyes.

"The words of the old woman, "he began and then paused. "The prophecy of the Umlimo," she went on for him, "that the man who returned the falcons would rule this land, and that you were that man."

"You will tell nobody what she said do you understand me?" (I will tell nobody, "she promised.

"You know that if you do, I will kill you." "I know that," she said simply, and gathered the bowl and mug and replaced them on the tray.

She stood before him waiting, and when he did not speak again, she asked, "Is there anything else?" He went on staring at her, and she dropped her eyes. "Do you wish me to stay?" "Yes,"he said, and she turned to the light switch.

"Leave the light," he ordered. "I want to see your whiteness."

The first time she cried out, it was in fear and pain, the second time and the uncounted times after that was in mindless, incoherent transports of ecstasy.

Douglas Ballantyne had selected a dozen of the finest slaughter-beasts from the herds of King's Lynn and Queen's Lynn. The prime carcasses had hung in the cold room for three weeks until they were perfect. They were being barbecued whole on the open coal pits at the bottom of the gardens. The kitchen servants of Queen's Lynn worked in relays, turning the spits and basting the sizzling golden carcasses amidst clouds of fragrant steam.

There were three bands to provide continuous music. The caterers had been flown in with all their equipment from Johannesburg, and paid suitable danger-money for entering the war zone. The gardens of every homestead for fifty miles around had been ransacked for flowers and the marquees were filled with banks of floral decorations, of roses and poinsettia and dahlia in fifty blazing shades of colour.

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