The Angels Weep - Smith Wilbur - Страница 86
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"Ralph." Aaron was staring at him across the table. "The bear transaction, you sold the shares of Charter and Consolidated short, and your position is still open." "I have closed all your transactions," said David Silver. "I averaged out BSA shares at a little over seven pounds, that gives you a profit, after commission and levy, of almost four pounds a share. You did even better on the Consolidated Goldfields transactions, they were the worst hit in the crash, from eight pounds when you began selling them short they dropped to almost two pounds when it looked as though Kruger was going to seize the mining companies of the Witwatersrand in retaliation." David Silver broke off and looked at Ralph with awe. "It is the kind of killing which becomes a legend on the floor, Mr. Ballantyne. The frightful risk you took," he shook his head in admiration. "What courage! What foresightV "What luck!" said Ralph impatiently. "Do you have my difference cheque?" "I have." David Silver opened the black leather valise in his lap and brought from it a snowy white envelope sealed with a rosette of scarlet wax.
"It is counted signed and guaranteed by my bank." David laid it reverently upon his Uncle Aaron's desk-top. "The total is," and he breathed it like a lover, "one million and fifty-eight pounds eight shillings and sixpence. After the one that Mr. Rhodes paid to Barney Barnato for his claims in the Kimberley mine, it is the largest cheque ever drawn in Africa, south of the equator. what do you say to that, Mr. Ballantyne?" Ralph looked at Aaron in the chair behind the desk.
"You know what to do with it. Just be certain it can never be traced back to me." "I understand," Aaron nodded, and Ralph changed the subject.
"Has there been an answer to my telegraph yet? My wife is not usually so slow in replying." And because Aaron was an old friend, who loved the gentle Cathy as much as any of her many admirers, Ralph went on to explain. "She is within two months of her time. Now that the dust of Jameson's little adventure has begun to settle and there is no longer any danger of war, I must get Cathy down here, where she can have expert medical attention." "I'll send my clerk to the telegraph office." Aaron rose and crossed to the door of the outer office, to give his instructions. Then he looked back at his nephew. "Was there anything else, David?" The little stockbroker started. He had been staring at Ralph Ballantyne with the glow of hero-worship in his eyes.
Now he hastily assembled his papers, and stuffed them into his valise, before coming and offering his soft white hand to Ralph.
"I cannot tell you what an honour it has been to be associated with you, Mr. Ballantyne. If there is ever anything at all I can do for you-" Aaron had to shoo him out of the door.
"Poor David," he murmured, as he came back to the desk. "His very first millionaire, it's a watershed in any young stockbroker's life."
"My father-" Ralph did not even smile.
"I'm sorry, Ralph. There is nothing more we can do. He will go back to England in chains with Jameson and the others. They are to be imprisoned in Wormwood Scrubs until they are called to answer the charge. "Aaron selected a sheet of paper from the pile on his desk.
"That they, with certain other persons in the month of December 1895, in South Africa, within Her Majesty's dominions, did unlaufully prepare and fit out a military expedition to proceed against the dominions of a certain friendly state, to wit, the South African Republic, contrary to the provisions of the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870."" Aaron laid down the paper and shook his head. "There is nothing any of us can do now."
"What will happen to them? It's a capital offence-" "Oh no, Ralph, I am sure it won't come to that." Ralph sank down in his chair and stared moodily out of the window, for the hundredth time castigating himself for not having anticipated that Jameson would cut the telegraph lines before marching on Johannesburg. The recall that Cathy had sent to Zouga Ballantyne, the fiction that Louise was gravely ill, had never reached him and Zouga had ridden into the waiting Boer commandos with the rest of them.
If only, Ralph thought, and then his thoughts were interrupted.
He looked up expectantly as the clerk came hesitantly into the office.
"Has there been a reply from my wife?" Ralph demanded, and the man shook his head.
"Begging your pardon, Mr. Ballantyne, Sir, but there has not." He hesitated, and Ralph urged him. "Well, man, what is it? Spit it out, there's a good fellow." "It seems that all the telegraph lines to Rhodesia have been down since noon on Monday." "Oh, so that is it."
"No, Mr. Ballantyne, that's not all. There has been a message from Toti on the Rhodesian border. It seems a rider got through this morning."
The clerk gulped. "This messenger seems to have been the only survivor." "Survivor!" Ralph stared at him. "What does that mean?
What on earth are you talking about?" "The Matabele have risen. They are murdering all the whites in Rhodesia man, woman and child, they are being slaughtered!" "Mummy, Douglas and Suss aren't here. There is nobody to get me breakfast." Jon-Jon came into the tent while Cathy was still brushing out her hair, and twisting it up into thick braids.
"Did you call for them?" "I called and called." "Tell one of the grooms to go down and fetch them, darling." "The grooms aren't here also." "The grooms aren't here either," Cathy corrected him and stood up. "All right, then, let's go and see about your breakfast." Cathy stepped out into the dawn. Overhead the sky was a lovely dark rose colour shaded to ripe orange in the east, and the bird chorus in the trees above the camp was like the tinkle of silver bells. The camp-fire had died to a puddle of grey powdery ash and had not been replenished.
"Put some wood on, jonjon,"Cathy told him and crossed to the kitchen hut. She frowned with annoyance. It was deserted. She took down a tin from the gauzed meat-safe and then looked up as the doorway darkened.
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