When Robyn Ballantyne had discovered that Sint John was not sailing to Africa to barter beads and copper wire for ivory and ostrich feathers, for gumcopal and alluvial gold dust from the kingdom of Monomatapa, but was seeking richer, living black cargo, her hatred was rendered more implacable by her shame at having travelled in company with such a man.
It was Robyn Ballantyne who had called up the avenging spectre of the Royal Navy. She had been the chief instrument in delivering Sint John and his beautiful clipper Huron, with her cargo of five hundred prime slaves, to the gunboats of the British anti-slavery squadron.
Sint John, as was his right as an American captain, had resisted the British boarders, and in the savage action that followed, half his crew had been killed or maimed and his lovely ship so badly mauled that she had to be towed into Table Bay by her captors.
Though after imprisonment in Cape Town castle, the British governor had finally released Sint John and allowed him to sail away, still his cargo of slaves were seized and released from their chains, and the African coast was closed for ever to his ships.
It was then that Zouga had lost contact with him; but after Zouga's book A Hunter's Odyssey had been published, Sint John had written to him care of his London publishers, Messrs Rowland Ward, and since then they had corresponded at irregular intervals. Indeed it was Zouga's description of the diamond fields in one of these letters that was responsible for Sint John's presence here now.
Through the exchange of letters Zouga had been able to follow Sint John's career, and he learned how after his release from the Cape Town castle, Sint John had returned to Fairfields, his cotton and sugar estates near Baton Rouge, only weeks before the first cannon shots were fired at Fort Sumter.
Louisiana had voted for secession from the Union, and when the war began, Mungo raised his own force of irregular cavalry and led them in a brilliant series of hitand-run raids against the supply lines and rear bases of the Federal army. So successful were these depredations that the northeners christened him "Murdering Mungol, declared him an outlaw and placed a reward of fifty thousand dollars on his head. Promoted to major-general, he was later struck in the left eye by a red-hot splinter of shrapnel and dragged over a mile when his horse bolted.
By the time he was discharged from the hospital, Vicksburg had fallen. Recognizing this as a fatal stab in the heart of the Confederacy, he had limped back along the empty road to Fairfields.
The reek of fermenting sugar juices mingled with that of charred flesh was more revolting than any battlefield Mungo had ever smelled. Four colonnades stood above the ashes of his homestead, like monuments to all his dreams.
Now, all these years later, Sint John had come up the road from Good Hope, driving a pair of magnificent pale gold horses with flowing white manes that he called "Palaminos", a long black cigar between his white teeth, an eagle gleam in his single eye and this strangely disturbing woman on the seat of the phaeton beside him.
Sint John's first act in Kimberley had been to walk into the office of the Standard Bank on Market Square and present a letter of credit to the flabbergasted clerk. The letter of credit was on heavy, expensive paper, the printing embossed in rose and gold, the wax seal that of Messrs Coutts and Co. in the Strand, and the sum for which it was drawn was half a million of sterling.
Sint John had drawn a modest hundred pounds against that formidable total, and taken rooms for himself and his wife at the Craven Hotel, Kimberley's most fashionable and comfortable.
When he recovered from his shock, the bank-clerk had excitedly begun to spread the news. There was an American general on the fields who disposed of a half million Pounds in cash.
The following noon Sint John had casually accepted an invitation to lunch at the Kimberley Club and smiled indulgently as his name was proposed for membership by mister C. J. Rhodes and seconded by Dr Leander Starr Jameson. There were men, rich and influential men, who had tried in vain since the foundation of the Club to obtain membership.
Sint John was smiling that same indulgent smile now as he leaned back in his chair, twisting the stem of his champagne glass between his fingers and watching the other guests at the table fawning over his wife.
Even mister Rhodes, who was famous for his immunity to female wiles, and who usually bluntly terminated any frivolous conversation, was responding to her artless questions and chuckling at her sallies.
With an effort, Zouga tore his own attention from Louise and turned to Mungo Sint John. Quite pointedly he changed the discussion from the split skirts which allowed his wife to ride astride to Mungo's own doings since their last meeting.
The reason for the change of subject was not missed by Louise. She shot a sharp speculative glance at Zouga, but then smiled graciously and relapsed into dutiful silence while the conversation became at last serious and important.
Sint John had been in Canada and Australia, and without being specific they all understood that both journeys had been rewarding, for Sint John spoke of wheat and opals and wool and gold, and they listened avidly, shooting their questions like arrows and nodding to the deft replies, until at last Sint John ended: "Well, then I heard from my dear friend Zouga what you gentlemen have been doing here, and thought it was time to come and have a look."
Almost on cue Ralph came down the verandah carrying the scrubbed carving board with its cargo of roasted venison enclosed in a crisp brown envelope of pastry.
The company applauded with exclamations of delight and approbation.
Zouga stood up to carve the roast and while he stropped the hunting knife against steel, he glanced at Ralph who still lingered on the verandah.
"Are you feeling well?" he asked out of the side of his mouth, and Ralph roused himself, tearing his adoring gaze from Louise Sint John.
"Oh yes, Papa, I'm fine."
"You don't look fine. You look as if you have a belly ache. Better get Jan Cheroot to give you a dose of sulphur and treacle."
Jan Cheroot, dressed in his old regimental jacket with burnished buttons and his scarlet cap set at a rakish angle, brought in fresh bottles of champagne, the buckets packed with crushed white ice.
"Ice!" Louise clapped her hands with delight. "I never expected such sophistication here."
"Oh, we lack very little, madam," Rhodes assured her.
"My ice-making factory has been in operation for a year or more. In a year or so the railway line will reach Kimherley and then we shall become a city, a real City."
"And all this on woman's vanity." Louise shook her long black tresses in mock dismay. "A lady's baubles, a city built on engagement rings!"
Despite Zouga's best efforts, the focus of attention had shifted again. They were all hanging on her words with that slightly bemused expression which overcomes even the most sensible of men when he looks at a Beautiful woman." It was the first time Zouga had acknowledged that fact, even to himself, and for some reason it increased his resentment of her.
"Do you know, mister Rhodes," she leaned across the table confidentially, "I have been here for five days now, and although I have searched the sidewalks diligently, I have not seen a single diamond, and I was assured the streets of Kimberley were paved with diamonds."
They all laughed, more heartily than the witticism warranted, and Rhodes murmured a few words to Pickering before turning back to Louise.
We shall do what we can to remedy that, missis Sint John," and while he spoke Pickering scrawled a note and then summoned one of the Coloured grooms who was lolling and smoking in the shade of the camel-thorn tree.
"Major, may I borrow one of your champagne buckets?" Pickering asked, and when Zouga agreed, he handed the empty bucket and the note to the groom.
Zouga was carving seconds off the roast when the groom returned. He was followed by a nondescript white man with an uncertain seat on his placid steed. He came up on to the verandah carrying the bucket as though it were filled with mister Alfred Nobel's newfangled blasting gelatine.