They have delayed it. I don"t know how long. I heard some rumour that they have to send in a big package of stones. Why? Lothar asked softly, and Fourie shrugged.
I just heard it will be a big package. As I warned you, it"s because they are going to close the mine. Lothar watched his face carefully. He sensed that the man was wavering. He had to steel him. "It will be the last shipment, and then you will be out of work. just like those poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds you have on your trucks. Fourie nodded glumly. Yes, they have fired them. It will be you next, old friend. And you told me what a good family man you are, how much you love your family. Then no more money to feed your children, no money to clothe them, not even a few pounds to pay the little girls for their clever tricks. Man, you mustn"t talk like that., ,YOU do what we agreed and there will be all the little girls you want, any way you want them. Don"t talk like that. It"s dirty, man. You know the arrangements. You know what to do just as soon as they tell you when the shipment is going in. Fourie nodded but Lothar insisted. Tell me about it.
Repeat it to me. And he listened while Fourie reluctantly recited his instructions, correcting him once on a detail, and at last smiled with satisfaction.
Don"t let us down, old friend. I do not like to be disappointed He leaned close to Fourie and stared into his eyes, then quite suddenly turned and slipped away into the moon shadows.
Fourie shuddered and stumbled away up the ravine towards the camp like a drunkard. He was almost there before he remembered that the girl had his money but had not completed her part of the bargain. He wondered if he could talk her into doing so at the next camp, and then morosely decided that his chances were not very good. Yet somehow it didn"t seem so urgent now. The ice that Lothar De La Rey had injected into his blood seemed to have settled in his loins.
They rode through the open forest below the cliffs, and their mood was carefree and gay with antic.i.p.ation of the days that lay ahead.
Shasa rode Prester John, with the 7mm Marmlicher sporting rifle in the leather scabbard under his left knee. It was a beautiful weapon, the b.u.t.t and foregrip in choice selected walnut and the blue steel engraved and inlaid with silver and pure gold: hunting scenes exquisitely rendered and Shasahs name scripted in precious metal. The rifle had been a fourteenth birthday present from his grandfather.
Centaine rode her grey stallion, a magnificent animal. His hide was marbled with black in a lacy pattern across his shoulders and croup, while his mane and muzzle and eye patches were also shiny jet black, in startling contrast to the snowy hide beneath. She Called him Nuage, Cloud, after a stallion that her father had given her when she was a girl.
Centaine wore an Australian cattleman"s wide-brimmed hat and a kudu-skin gilet over her shirt. There was a yellow silk scarf knotted loosely at her throat, and a sparkle in her eyes.
,oh, Shasa, I feel like a schoolgirl playing hookey! We"ve got two whole days to ourselves. Race you to the spring! he challenged her, but Prester John was no match for Nuage and when they reached the spring Centaine had already dismounted and was holding the stallion"s head to prevent him bloating himself with water.
They remounted and rode on deeper into the wilderness of the Kalahari. The further they went from the mine the less had been the intrusion of human presence, and the wild life more abundant and confident.
Centaine had been trained in the ways of the wild by the finest of all instructors, the wild Bushmen of the San, and she had lost none of her skills. It was not only the larger game that engaged her. She pointed out a pair of quaint little bat-eared foxes that Shasa would have missed. They were hunting gra.s.shoppers in the spa.r.s.e silver gra.s.s, p.r.i.c.king their enormous ears as they crept forward in a pantomime of stealth before the heroic leap onto their formidable prey.
They laid their tell-tale ears against their fluffy necks and flattened against the earth as the horses pa.s.sed.
They startled a yellow sand-cat from an ant-bear burrow, and so intent was the big cat on its escape that it ran headlong into the sticky yellow web of a crab spider. The animal"s comical efforts to wipe the web from its face with both front paws while at the same time continuing its flight had them both reeling in the saddle.
Once in the middle of the afternoon they spotted a herd of stately gemsbok trotting in single file across the horizon.
They held their heads high, the long straight slender horns transformed by distance and the angle of view into the single straight horn of the unicorn. The mirage turned them into strange long-legged monsters and then swallowed them up completely.
As the lowering sun painted the desert with shadow and fresh colour, Centaine picked out another small herd of spring-bok and pointed out a plump young ram to Shasa. We are only half a mile from camp and we need our dinner. Eagerly Shasa drew the Mannlicher from its scabbard.
Cleanly! she cautioned him. It troubled her a little to see how he enjoyed the chase.
She stayed back and watched him dismount. Using Prester John as a stalking horse, Shasa angled in towards the herd.
Prester John understood his role and kept himself between Shasa and the game, even pausing to graze when the springbok became restless, only moving closer when they had settled down again.
At two hundred paces Shasa squatted and braced his elbows on his knees, and Centaine felt a rush of relief as the springbok ram dropped instantly to the shot. She had once seen Lothar De La Rey gut shoot one of the lovely gazelle. The memory still haunted her.
When she rode up she saw that Shasa had hit the animal cleanly behind the shoulder, and the bullet had pa.s.sed through the heart. She watched critically as Shasa dressed out the game the way Sir Garry had taught him.
Keep all the offal, she told him. The servants love the tripes. So he wrapped it in the wet skin and bundled the carca.s.s up onto Prester John"s back and tied it behind the saddle.
The camp was at the foot of the hills, below a seep well m the cliff which provided water. The previous day Centaine had sent three servants ahead with the pack horses and the camp was comfortable and secure.
They dined on grilled kebabs of liver, kidneys and heart, larded with laces of fat from the springbok"s belly cavity.
Then they sat late at the fire, drinking coffee that tasted of wood smoke, talking quietly and watching the moon rise.
in the dawn they rode out, bundled in sheepskin jackets against the chill. They had not gone a mile before Centaine pulled up Nuage"s head and leaned far out of the saddle to examine the earth.
What is it, Mater? Shasa was always sensitive to every nuance of her moods, and he saw how excited she was.
Come quickly, cheri. She pointed out the tracks in the soft earth. What do you make of these? Shasa swung down from the saddle and stooped over the sign.
Human beings? He was puzzled. But so small. Children? He looked up at her, and her shining expression gave him the clue.
Bushmen! he exclaimed. Wild Bushmen. Oh yes, she laughed. A pair of hunters. They are after a giraffe. Look! Their tracks are overlaying those of the quarry., Can we follow them, Mater? Can we? Now Shasa was as excited as she was.
Centaine agreed. Their spoor is only a day old. We can catch them if we hurry. Centaine rode on the spoor with Shasa trailing behind her, careful not to spoil the sign. He had never seen her work like this, taking it at a canter over the bad places where even his sharp young eyes could see nothing.
Look, a Bushman toothbrush. She pointed to a fresh twig, the end chewed to a brush, that lay discarded beside the spoor and they rode on.
This is where they first spotted the giraffe. How do you know that? They have strung their bows. There are the marks of the b.u.t.ts. The little men had pressed the tips of their bows against the earth to arch them.
Look, Shasa, now they have begun stalking. He could see no change in the spoor and said so.
Shorter and stealthier paces, weight forward on the toes, she explained, and then, a few hundred paces farther, Here they went down on their bellies, snake-crawling in for the kill. Here they went up on their knees to loose their arrows, and here they leapt to their feet to watch them strike. Twenty paces farther on she exclaimed, See how close they were to the quarry. This is where the giraffe felt the sting of the barbs and started to gallop, look how the hunters followed at a run, waiting for the poison of the arrows to take effect. They galloped along the line of the chase until Centaine rose in the stirrups and pointed ahead.
Vultures! Four or five miles ahead the blue of the heavens was dusted with a fine cloud of black specks. The cloud turned in slow vortex, high above the earth.
Slowly now, chgri, Centaine cautioned him. It could be dangerous if we frighten and panic them. They brought the horses down to a walk and rode up slowly to the site of the kill.
The giraffe"s huge carca.s.s, partly flayed and dismembered, lay on its side. Against the surrounding thorn bushes crude sun-shelters of thatch had been erected, and the bushes were festooned with strips of meat and ribbons of entrails set out to dry in the sun, the branches bowed under their weight.
The area was widely trodden by small feet.
They have brought the women and children to help cut up and carry, Centaine said.
Phew! It pongs terribly! Shasa screwed up his nose.
Where are they, anyway? Hiding. Centaine said. They saw us coming probably from five miles away. She stood up in the stirrups and swept the broad-brimmed hat from her head to show her face more clearly, and she called out in a strange guttural clicking tongue, turning slowly and repeating the message to every quarter of the silent brooding desert that encompa.s.sed them.
It"s creepy. Shasa shivered involuntarily in the bright sunlight. Are you sure they are still here? They"re watching us. They aren"t in a hurry., Then a man rose out of the earth so close to them that the stallion shied and nodded his head nervously. The man wore only a loincloth of animal skin. He was a small, yet perfectly formed, with elegant and graceful limbs built for running. Hard muscle lay flat down his chest and sculpted his naked belly into the same ripples that the ebb tide leaves on a sandy beach.
He held his head proudly, and though he was clean-shaven, it was evident he was in the full flowering of his manhood.
His eyes had a Mongolian slant to the corners and his skin glowed with a marvelous amber colour seeming almost translucent in the sunlight.
He lifted his right hand in a greeting and a sign of peace and he called, birdlike and high, I see you, Nam Child, using Centaine"s Bushman name, and she cried aloud for joy.
I see you also, Kwi! Who is with you? the bushman demanded.
This is my son, Good Water. As I told you when first we met, he was born in the holy place of your people and O"wa was his adopted grandfather and H"ani was his grandmother. Kwi, the Bushman, turned and called out into the empty desert. This is the truth, oh people of the San. This woman is Nam Child, our friend, and the boy is he of the legend.
Greet them Out of the seemingly barren earth against which they had hidden rose the little golden people of the San. With Kwi there were twelve of them; two men, Kwi and his brother Fat Kwi, their wives and the naked children. They had hidden with all the art of wild creatures, but now they crowded forward chirruping and clicking and laughing and Centaine swung down from the saddle to meet and embrace them, greeting each of them by name and finally picking up two of the toddlers and holding one on each hip.
How do you know them so well, Mater? Shasa wanted to know.
Kwi and his brother are related to O"wa, your adopted Bushman grandfather. I first met them when you were very small and we were developing the H"ani Mine. These are their hunting grounds. They pa.s.sed the rest of that day with the clan, and when it was time to leave Centaine gave each of the women a handful of bra.s.s 7mm cartridges and they shrieked with joy and danced their thanks. The cartridges would be strung with ostrich sh.e.l.l beads into necklaces that would make them the envy of every other San woman they met in their wandering. Shasa gave Kwi his ivory-handled hunting knife and the little man tried the edge with his thumb and grunted with wonder as the skin parted, and he displayed the b.l.o.o.d.y thumb proudly to each of the women.
What a weapon I have now. Fat Kwi got Centaine"s belt, and they left him studying the reflection of his own face in the polished bra.s.s buckle.
If you wish to visit us again, Kwi called after them, we will be at the mongongo tree grove near O"chee Pan until the rains break. "They are so happy with so little, Shasa said, looking back at the tiny dancing figures.
They are the happiest people in this earth, Centaine agreed. "But I wonder for how much longer. Did you truly live like that, Mater? Shasa asked. Like a Bushman? Did you really wear skins and eat roots? So did you, Shasa. Or rather you wore nothing at all just like one of those grubby little scamps. He frowned with the effort of memory. Sometimes I dream about a dark . place, like a cave with water that smoked. That was the thermal spring in which we bathed, and in which I found the first diamond of the H"ani Mine. I would like to visit it again, Mater. That isn"t possible. He saw her mood change. The spring was in the centre of the H"ani pipe, in what is now the main excavation of the mine. We dug it out and destroyed the spring. They rode on in silence for a while. It was the holy place of the San, and yet, strangely, they did not seem to resent it when we, she hesitated over the word and then said it firmly, when we desecrated it. I wonder why. I mean if some strange race turned Westminster Abbey into a diamond mine. A long time ago I discussed it with Kwi. He said that the secret place belonged not to them but the spirits and if the spirits had not wanted it so they would not have let it happen. He said the spirits had lived there so long that perhaps they were bored and wished to move on to another home, just like the San do. I still cannot imagine you living like one of the San women, MatCT. Not you. I mean it just goes beyond imagination. it was hard, she said softly. It was hard beyond the telling of it, beyond imagination, and yet without that tempering and toughening I would not be what I am now. You see, Shasa, Out here in the desert when I had almost reached the breaking point I swore an oath. I swore that I, and my son, would never again be so deprived. I swore that we would never again have to stiffer those terrible extremes. But I was not with you then. Oh yes, she nodded. Oh yes, you were. I carrier] You within me on the Skeleton Coast and through the heat of the dune lands and you were part of that oath when I made it. We are creatures of the desert, my darling, and we will survive and prosper when others fail and fall. Remember that. Remember it well, Shasa, my darling. Early the next morning they left the servants to break camp, load the pack horses and follow them as they turned their horses regretfully in the direction of the H"ani Mine. At noon they rested under a camel-thorn tree, lying against their saddles and lazily watching the drab little weavers above their heads busily adding to their communal nest that was already the size of an untidy haystack. When the heat went out (if the sun they caught the hobbled horses, tip-saddled and rode along the base of the hills.
Shasa straightened in the saddle suddenly and shaded his eyes with one hand as he looked up at the hills.
What is it, cheri? He had recognized the rocky gorge to which Annalisa had led him.
Something is worrying you, Centaine insisted, and Shasa felt a sudden urge to lead his mother up the gorge to the shrine of the witch of the mountain. He was about to speak when he remembered his oath and he stopped, teetering uneasily on the brink of betrayal.
Don"t you want to tell me," She was watching the struggle on his face.
Mater doesn"t Count. She"s like me. It"s not as though I were telling a stronger, lie justified himself and burst out before his conscience could overtake him. There is the skeleton of a Bushman in the gorge tip there, Mater. Would you like me to show you," Centaine paled under her suntan and stared at him. A Bushman? she whispered. "How do you know it"s a Bushman? The hair is still on the skull, little Bushman peppercorn curls, just like Kwi and his clan. How did you find it? Anna, he broke off and flushed with guilt.
The girl showed you out Centaine helped him.
Yes. He nodded and hung his head.
Can you find it again? Centaine"s colour had returned, and she seemed eager and excited as she leaned across and tugged his sleeve.
Yes, I think so, I marked the place. He pointed up the cliffs. "That notch in the rocks and that cleft shaped like an eye. Show me, Shasa, she ordered.
We will have to leave the horses and go up on foot., The climb was onerous, the heat in the gorge fierce and the hooked thorns s.n.a.t.c.hed at them as they toiled upwards.
It must he about here. Shasa climbed up on one of the tumbled boulders and orientated himself. Perhaps just a little more to the left. Look for, pile of rock with a mimosa growing below it. There is a branch covering a small niche.
Let"s spread out and search. They picked their way slowly tip the gorge, moving a little apart to cover more ground and keeping in touch with whistles and calls when scrub and rocks separated them.
Centaine did not respond to Shasa"s whistle, and he 4:.
stopped and repeated it, c.o.c.king his head for her reply and feeling a p.r.i.c.kle of concern in the silence.
Mater, where are you! Here! Her voice was faint, wracked with pain or some deep emotion and he scrambled over the rock to reach her.
She stood small and forlorn in the sunlight, holding her hat against the front of her hips. Moisture sparkled on her cheeks. He thought it was sweat, until he saw the soft slow slide of tears down her face.
Mater? He moved up behind her and realized that she had found the shrine.
She had drawn the screening branch aside. The small circle of gla.s.s jars was still in place, the floral offering brown and withered.
Annalisa said the skeleton was a witch, Shasa breathed with superst.i.tious awe as he stared over Centaine"s shoulder at the pathetic pile of bones and the small neat white skull that surmounted it.
Centaine shook her head, unable to speak.
She said the witch guarded the mountain and that she would grant a wish. H"ani. Centaine choked on the name. My beloved old mother. Mater! Shasa seized her shoulders and steadied her as she swayed on her feet. How do you know? Centaine leaned against his chest for support but did not reply.
There could be hundreds of Bushman skeletons in the caves and gorges, he went on lamely, and she shook her head vehemently.
How can you be certain? It"s her. Centaine"s voice was blurred with grief. It"s H"ani, the chipped canine tooth, the design of ostrich sh.e.l.l beads on her loincloth. Shasa had not noticed the sc.r.a.p of dry leather decorated with beads that lay beneath the pile of bones, half buried in dust. I don"t even need that proof. I know it"s her. I just know it. Sit down, Mater. He lowered her to sit on one of the lichen-covered boulders.
I"m all right now. It was just such a shock. I"ve searched for her so often over the years. I knew where she must be. She looked around her vaguely. O"wa"s body must be somewhere close at hand. She looked up at the cliff that seemed to hang over them like a cathedral roof. They were up there trying to escape when he gunned them down. They must have fallen close together. Who shot them, Mater? She drew a deep breath, but even then her voice shook as she said his name. "Lothar. Lothar De La Rey! For an hour longer they searched the bottom and sides of the gorge, looking for the second skeleton.
It"s no good. Centaine gave up at last. We will never find him. Let him lie undisturbed, Shasa, as he has all these years. They climbed down to the little rock shrine, and as they returned they plucked the wild flowers along the way.
,MY first instinct was to gather her remains and give them a decent burial, Centaine whispered as she knelt in front of the shrine, "but H"an i wasn"t a Christian. These hills were her holy place. She will be at peace here. She arranged the flowers with care and then sat back on her heels.
I"ll see that you are never disturbed, my beloved old grandmother, and I will come to visit you again. She stood up and took Shasa"s hand. She was the finest, gentlest person I have ever known, she said softly. And I loved her so. Still hand in hand they went down to where they had tethered the horses.
They did not speak again on the ride home, and the sun had set and the servants were anxious by the time they reached the bungalow.
At breakfast the next morning Centaine was brisk and brittly cheerful, though there were dark bruised smudges beneath her eyes and the lids were puffed from weeping.
This is our last week before we must return to Cape Town. I wish we could stay here for ever. For ever is a long time. You have school waiting for you, and I have my duties. We will come back here, you know that. He nodded and she went on. I have arranged for you to spend this last week working in the washing plant and sorting rooms. You"ll enjoy that. I guarantee it. She was right, as usual. The washing plant was a pleasant place. The flow of water over the wiffle boards cooled the air, and after the unremitting thunder of the mill plant it was blessedly quiet. The atmosphere in the long brick room was like the cathedral calm of a holy place, for here the worship of Mammon and Adamant reached its climax.
Shasa watched with fascination as the crushings from the mill plant were carried in on the slowly moving conveyor belt. The oversize rubble had been screened off and returned for another crushing under the spinning rollers. These were the fines. They dropped from the end of the moving belt into the puddling tank, and from there were pushed by the agitating arms of the revolving sweep down the sloping boards of the wiffle table.
The lighter materials floated away and were run off to the waste dump. The heavier gravels, containing the diamonds, were carried on through a series of similar ingenious separating devices until there remained only the concentrates, one thousandth part of the original gravels.
These were washed over the grease drums. The drums revolved slowly, each of them coated with a thick layer of heavy yellow grease. The wet gravel flowed easily over the surface, but the diamonds were dry. One of the diamond"s peculiar qualities is its unwettability. Soak it, boil it as long as you wish, but it remains dry. Once the dry surface of the precious stones touched the grease they stuck to it like insects to fly paper.
The grease drums were locked behind heavy bars and a white supervisor sat overlooking each of them, watching them constantly. Shasa peered through the bars for the first time and saw the small miracle occur only a few inches from his nose: a wild diamond captured and tamed like some marvelous creature of the desert. He actually witnessed the moment when it flowed out of the upper bin in a wet porridge of gravel, and he saw it touch the grease and adhere precariously to the slick yellow surface, causing a tiny V-shaped disturbance to the flow like a rock in the ebb of the tide. It moved, seeming to lose its grip in the grease for an instant, and Shasa wanted to thrust out his hand and seize it before it was for ever lost, but the gaps between the steel bars were too narrow. Then the diamond stuck fast and breasted the gentle flood of gravel, sitting up proudly, dry and transparent like a blister on the yellow skin of a gigantic reptile. it left him with a feeling of awe, the same feelings as he had experienced when he witnessed his mare Celeste give birth to her first foal.
He spent the entire morning pa.s.sing from one to the other of the huge yellow drums and then back again down the line, watching the diamonds sticking on the grease more an d more thickly with each hour that pa.s.sed.
At noon the washroom manager came down the line with his four white a.s.sistants, more than were necessary, other than to watch each other and forestall any opportunity for theft. With a broad-bladed spatula they sc.r.a.ped the grease from the drums and collected it in the boiling pot, then meticulously spread each drum with a fresh coating of yellow grease.
in the locked de-greasing room at the far end of the building the manager placed the steel pot on the spirit stove and boiled off the grease until finally he was left with a pot half full of diamonds, and Dr Twenty-man-Jones was there to weigh each stone separately and record it in the leather-bound recovery book.
of course you will notice, Master Shasa, that none of these stones is smaller than half a carat. Yes, sir. Shasa had not thought of that. What happened to the smaller ones? The grease table is not infallible, indeed the stones must have a certain minimum weight to get them to adhere. The others, even a few large valuable stones, pa.s.s across the table. He led Shasa back to the washroom and showed him the trough of wet gravel that had survived the journey over the drums. We drain all the water and reuse it. Out here water is precious stuff, as you know. Then all the gravel has to be hand picked. As he spoke two men emerged from the door at the end of the room and each scooped a bucket of gravel from the trough.
Shasa and Twenty-man-jones followed them back through the doorway into a long narrow room well lit with gla.s.s skylights and high windows.
A single long table ran the length of the room, its top clad in a polished metal sheet.
On each side of the table sat rows of women. They looked up as the two men entered and Shasa recognized the wives and daughters of many of the white workers as well as those of the black boss-boys. The white women sat together nearest the door and, with a decent and proper distance between them, the black women sat separated at the far end of the room.
The bucket boys dumped the damp gravel onto the metal table top and the women transferred their attention back to it. Each had a pair of forceps in one hand and a flat wooden scoop in the other. They drew a little of the gravel towards them, spread it with the scoop and then picked over it swiftly.
It"s a job at which the women excel, Twenty-man-Jones explained as they pa.s.sed down the line, watching over the stooped shoulders of the women. They have the patience and the sharp eyes and the dexterity that men lack. Shasa saw that they were picking out tiny opaque stones, some as small as sugar grains, others the size of small green peas, from the duller ma.s.s of gravel.
Those are our bread and b.u.t.ter stones, Twenty-man-Jones remarked. "They are used in industry. The jewellery grade stones that you saw in the grease room are the strawberry jam and the cream. When the mine hooter signalled the end of the day shift, Shasa rode down with Twenty-man-Jones in the front seat of his Ford from the washing gear to the office block. On his lap he carried the small locked steel box in which was the day"s recovery.
Centaine met them on the verandah of the administration building and led them into her office. Well, did you find it interesting? she asked, and smiled at Shasa"s hearty response.