The Burning Shore - Smith Wilbur (читаем бесплатно книги полностью .txt) 📗

Convey to all three of them my affection and duty, assure them of my good health and my longing to see them again.

To you my sincere thanks and good wishes.

Centaine de Thiry Courtney She gave the package and letter to the driver of the lorry and set him on the track back to Windhoek. Because the track was now well blazed and all the difficult placeshad been made good, the truck was back within eight days. There was a tall elderly gentleman sitting up beside the driver in the cab.

May I introduce myself, Mrs Courtney? My name is Rupert Twenty-man-Jones. He looked more like an undertaker than a mining engineer. He even affected a black alpaca jacket with high collar and black string tie. His hair was dead black and sleeked down, but his sideburns were fluffy and white as cotton wool. His nose and the tips of his ears were eroded by rodent ulcers from the tropical sun so that they looked as though mice had been nibbling at them. There were bags under his eyes like those of a basset, and he wore the same lugubrious expression.

How do you do, Mr Jones. Dr Twenty-man-Jones, he corrected her mournfully. Double barrel, as in shotgun. I have a letter for you from Mr Abrahams. He handed it over like an eviction notice.

Thank you, Dr Twenty-man-jones. Won't you take a cup of tea while I read it?

Please do not be misled by the man's sad mien, Abraham.

Abrahams assured her in the letter. He was assistant to Doctor Merensky who discovered the elevated diamond terraces of the Spieregebied, and is now regularly consulted by the directors of the De Beers Consolidated Mines. if further evidence of his standing is required, consider the fact that his fee for this contract is 1,200 guineas.

I am assured by Colonel Courtney that both Mevrou Anna Stok and your son Michel are in astonishingly good health and all of them send their loving wishes and hopes for your swift return.

I am sending the stores you require, and after paying for these and settling Dr Twenty-man-Jones fee in advance, the balance standing to the credit of your account at the Standard Bank is `60. us. 6d. The deeds to your claims are safely deposited in the bank's strong room Centaine folded the letter carefully. Of her inheritance and the proceeds of the sale of H'ani's diamond, there was little over S-66 remaining, she did not even have the price of a fare back to Theuniskraal, unless she sold the vehicles.

However, Twenty-man-Jones had been paid and she could survive for three months longer on the stores she had in camp.

She looked up at him, sitting on her camp chair sipping hot tea. Twelve hundred guineas, sir, you must be goodVNo, madam,he shook his head mournfully. I am quite simply the best.

She led Twenty-man-jones through the cavern of the bees in the night, and when they emerged into the secret valley, he sat down on a rock and mopped his face with a handkerchief.

This really isn't good enough, madam. Something must be done about those revolting insects. We will have to get rid of them, I'm afraid.

No. Centaine's reply was swift and decisive. I want as little damage done to this place and its creatures as possible, until- Until, madam? Until we discover if it is necessary. I do not like bees. I swell most horribly from their stings. I will return the balance of the fees to you, and you can find another consultant. He began to stand up.

Wait! Centaine restrained him. I have explored the cliffs over there. There is a way to get into this valley over the crest. It will, unfortunately, mean rigging a bucket and pulley system from the top of the cliffs."That will greatly complicate my endeavours."Please, Dr Twenty-man-jones, without your help -'and he made grumpy little noncommittal noises and stumped off into the darkness, holding his lantern high.

As the dawn light strengthened, he began his preliminary survey. All that day as Centaine sat in the shade of the mongongo, she caught glimpses of his lanky figure striding here and there, chin against his chest, pausing every few minutes to pick up a chip of rock or a handful of soil, and then disappearing again amongst the trees and the rocks.

It was late afternoon before he returned to where she waited.

Well? she asked.

I you are asking for my opinion, madam, then you are a little premature. It will take me some months before- Months? Centaine cried out in alarm.

Certainly- and then he saw her face, and his voice dropped. You didn't pay me all that money for a guess. I have to open it up and see what's down there. That will take time and hard work. I will need all the labourers you have available, as well as those I have with me."I hadn't thought of that.

Tell me, Mrs Courtney, he asked gently, just what is it you are hoping to find here? She drew a deep breath and behind her back she made the sign of the horns, which Anna had taught her averted the evil eye.

Diamonds, she said, and was immediately terrified that saying it out aloud would bring the worst possible luck upon her.

Diamonds! Twenty-man-jones repeated, as though it was news of his father's death. We'll see."His expression was lugubrious. We'll see! When do we start? We, Mrs Courtney?

You will remain out of this place.

I do not allow anyone else around me when I am working."But, she protested, am I not allowed even to watch? That, Mrs Courtney, is a rule I never vary, you will have to contain yourself, I'm afraid So Centaine was banished from her valley, and the days in Lion Tree Camp passed slowly. From her stockade she could see Twenty-man-jones's labour gangs toiling up the cliff path under their loads of equipment to the summit and then disappearing over the crest.

After almost a month of waiting she made the ascent herself. It was an onerous and taxing climb, and she was aware of the load in her womb every step of the way.

However, from the top she had an exhilarating eagle's view of the plains that seemed to stretch to the ends of the earth, and when she looked down into the secret valley, it was as though she were looking into the very core of the earth.

The pulley and rope system from the lip of the cliff looked as insubstantial as a spider's thread, and she shuddered at the thought of stepping into the canvas bucket and being lowered down into the depths of the amphitheatre. Far below she could make out the antlike specks of the prospect teams and the mounds of earth they had thrown up from their potholes. She could even distinguish Twenty-man-Jones lank storklike gait as he passed from one to another of the prospects.

She sent down a note to him in the bucket. Sir, have you found anything? And the reply came back an hour later. Patience, madam, is one of the great virtues. That was the last time she went up the cliff, for the child seemed to be growing like a malignant turnour. She had borne Shasa with joy, but this pregnancy brought pain and discomfort and unhappiness. She found no surcease even in the books she had brought with her, for she found it difficult to concentrate to the end of a page.

Always her eyes would go up from the printed word to the cliff path, as though for sight of that lanky figure coming down to her.

The heat became every day more oppressive as the summer advanced into the suicide days of late November, and she could not sleep. She lay in her cot and sweated away the nights, then dragged herself out again in the dawn, feeling drained and depressed and lonely. She was eating too much, her only opiate against the boredom of those long sultry days. She had developed a craving for devilled kidneys, and Swart Hendrick hunted every day to bring them fresh to her.

Her belly swelled and the child grew huge, so that it forced her knees apart when she sat, and it buffeted her mercilessly, thumping and kicking and rolling inside her like a great fish struggling on the end of a line until she moaned, Be still, you little monster, oh God, how I long to be rid of you.