It was cold. A vindictive wind came down off the mountains of the Hottentots Holland and as they took the path up towards the private zoo, Jordan looked back.
Across the wide Cape flats he saw the snow on the distant peaks turning pink and gold in the early light.
mister Rhodes was in a morose mood, silent and heavy in the saddle, his collar pulled up over his ears, and the broad hat jammed down to meet it. Jordan surreptitiously pushed his own mount level and studied his face.
Rhodes was still in his thirties, and yet this morning he looked fifteen years older. He took no notice of the first unseasonal flush of blue plumbago blooms beside the path, though on another morning he would have exclaimed with delight, for they were his favourite flowers.
He did not stop at the zoo to watch the lions fed, but turned up into the forest; and on the prow of land that led to the steeper cliffs of the flat-topped massif they dismounted.
At this distance the thatched roof of Groote Schuur with its twirling barley-corn turrets looked like a fairy castle, but Rhodes looked beyond it.
"I feel like a racehorse," he said suddenly. "Like a thoroughbred Arab with the heart and the will and the need to run, but there is a dark horseman upon my back that checks me with a harsh curb of iron or pricks me with a cruel spur." He rubbed his closed eyes with thumb and forefinger, and then massaged his cheeks as though to set the blood coursing in them again. "He was with me again last night, Jordan. Long ago I fled from England to this land and I thought I had eluded him, but he is back in the saddle. His name is Death, Jordan, and he will give me so little time." He pressed his hand to his chest, fingers spread as though to slow the racing of his damaged heart. "There is so little time, Jordan. I must hurry." He turned and took the hand from his heart and placed it on Jordan's shoulder. His expression became tender, a small sad smile touched his white lips. "How I envy you, my boy, for you will see it all and I shall not."
At that moment Jordan thought his own heart might break and, seeing his expression, Rhodes lifted his hand and touched his cheek.
"It's all too short, Jordan, life and glory, even love it's all too short. "He turned back to his horse. "Come, there is work to do."
As they rode out of the forest, the course of that mercurial mind had changed again. Death had been pushed aside and he said suddenly: "We shall have to square him, Jordan. I know he is your father, but we shall have to square him. Think about it and let me have your thoughts, but remember time is running short and we cannot move without him."
The road over the neck between the main massif of Table Mountain and Signal Hill was well travelled and Jordan passed twenty coaches or more before he reached the top, but it was another two miles and the road became steadily less populous, until at last it was a lonely deserted track which led into one of the ravines in the Mountainside.
In this winter season the protea bushes on the slopes beyond the sprawling thatched building were drab and their blooms had withered and browned on the branches.
The waterfall that smoked down off the mountain polished the rocks black and cold, and the spray dripped from the clustering trees about the pool.
However, the cottage had a neat cared-for look. The thatch had recently been renewed. It was still bright gold, and the thick walls had been whitewashed. With relief Jordan saw smoke curling from the chimney stack.
His father was at home.
He knew that the property had once belonged to the old hunter and explorer Tom Harkness, and that his father had purchased it with 150 pounds of his royalties from A Hunter's Odyssey. A sentimental gesture perhaps for old Tom had been the one who had encouraged and counselled Zouga Ballantyne on his first expedition to Zambezia.
Jordan dismounted and hitched the big glossy hunter from the stables of Groote Schuur to the rail below the verandah, and he walked to the front steps.
He glanced at the pillar of blue marbled stone that stood at the head of the steps like a sentinel, and a little shadow flitted over his face as he remembered the fateful day that Ralph had hacked it out of the Devil's Own claims and brought it to the surface.
It was the only thing that remained to any of them from all those years of labour and travail. He wondered not only that his father had transported it so far with so much effort, but that he had placed it so prominently to rebuke him.
For a moment he laid his hand upon the stone, and he felt the faint satiny bloom that other hands had made on the same spot on the surface, like the marks of worshippers" hands on a holy relic. Perhaps Zouga also touched it every time he passed. Jordan dropped his hand and called towards the shuttered cottage.
"Is anybody there?"
There was a commotion in the front room, and the front door burst open.
"Jordan, my Jordie!"howled Jan Cheroot, and came bounding down the steps. His cap of peppercorn hair was pure white at last, but his eyes were bright and the web of wrinkles around them had not deepened.
He embraced Jordan with the wiry strength of brown arms; but even from the advantage of the verandah step he did not reach to Jordan's chin.
"So tall, jordie," he chuckled. "Whoever thought you'd grow so tall, my little jordie."
He hopped back and stared up into Jordan's face. "Look at you, I bet a guinea to a baboon turd that you've broken a few hearts already."
"Not as many as you have." Jordan pulled him close again, and hugged him.
"I had a start," Jan Cheroot admitted, and then grinned wickedly. "And I've still got the wind left for a sprint or two."
"I was afraid that you and Papa might still be away."
"We got home three days ago."
"Where is Papa?"
jordan!"
The familiar, beloved voice made him start and he broke from Jan Cheroot's embrace and looked beyond him to Zouga Ballantyne standing in the doorway of the cottage.
He had never seen his father looking- so well. It was not merely that he was lean and hard and sun-browned.
He seemed to stand taller and straighter with an easy set to his shoulders, so different from the defeated slump with which he had left the diamond fields.
"Jordan!" he said again, and they came together and shook hands, and Jordan studied his father's face at closer range.
The pride and the purpose that had been burnt away in the diamond pit had returned, but with their quality subtly changed. Now he had the look of a man who had worked out the terms on which he was prepared to live.
There were the shadows of a new thoughtfulness in his green eyes, the weight of understanding and compassion in his gaze. Here was a man who had tested himself almost to the point of destruction, had explored the frontiers of his soul and found them secure.
"Jordan," he said again quietly for the third time, and then he did something that demonstrated the profound change he had undergone. He leaned forward and briefly he pressed the soft golden curls of his beard to Jordan's cheek.
"I have thought of you often," he said without embarrassment. Thank you for coming." Then with his Arm about his shoulders he ushered Jordan into the front room.
This room always pleased Jordan, and he moved across to the log fire in the walk-in hearth and held out his hands to the blaze while he looked about him. It was a man's room, shelves filled with men's books, encyclopaedias and almanacs and thick leatherbound volumes of travel and exploration.
Weapons hung upon the walls, bows and quivers of poisoned Bushman arrows, shields and assegais of Matabele and Zulu, and, of course, the tools of the trade to which Zouga had reverted, firearms, heavy calibre sporting rifles by famous gunsmiths, Gibbs, Holland and Holland, Westley Richards. They were racked on the wall facing the fireplace, blued steel and lovingly carved wood.
With them were the souvenirs and trophies of Zouga's work, horns of antelope and buffalo, twisting or curved or straight as a lance, the zig-zag stripes of a zebra hide, the tawny gold bushed mane of the Kalahari lion, and ivory, great yellow arcs reaching higher than a man's head, yellow as fresh butter and translucent as candlewax in the cold winter light from the doorway.