"Get out," he said to Rhodes. "You'll be in the way here."
It took Jameson only minutes to make certain that the paralysis below the neck was complete, and then he looked up at Jordan, making sure that he was out of sight of Pickering's alert, fever-bright eyes, and he shook his head curtly.
"I'll be a minute," he said. "I must speak with mister Rhodes."
"Jordie," Pickering whispered painfully, the moment Jameson left the room, and Jordan stooped to his lips.
"It's my neck, it's broken."
"No."
"Be quiet. Listen." Pickering frowned at the interruption. "I think I always knew, that it would be you. One way or the other, it would be you He broke off, fresh sweat blistered on his forehead, but he made another terrible effort to speak. "I thought I hated you. But not any more, not now. There is not enough time left for hate."
He did not speak again, not that night, nor the following day. But at dusk when the heat in the tiny ironwalled room abated a little, he opened his eyes again and looked up at Rhodes. It was frightening to see how low he had sunk. The fine bones of forehead and cheeks seemed to gleam through the translucent skin, and his eyes had receded into dark bruised cavities.
Rhodes leaned his great shaggy head over him until his ear touched Pickering's dry white lips. The whisper was so light, like a dead leaf blown softly across a roof at midnight, and Jordan could not hear the words, but Rhodes clenched his lids closed over his pale blue eyes as though in mortal anguish.
"Yes," he answered, almost as softly as the dying man.
"Yes, I know, Pickling."
When Rhodes opened his eyes again they were flooded with bright tears, and his colour was a frightening mottled purple.
"He's dead, Jordan," he choked, and put one hand on his own chest, pressing hard as though to calm the beat of his swollen heart.
Then quite slowly, deliberately, he lowered his head again, and kissed the broken, torn lips of the man on the iron-framed cot.
Zouga thought the voice was part of his dream, so sweet, so low, and yet tremulous and filled with some dreadful appeal. Then he was awake, and the voice was still calling, and now there was a light tap on the window above the head of his bed.
"I'm coming," Zouga answered, as low as he was called.
He did not have to ask who it was.
He dressed swiftly, in total darkness, instinct warning him not to light a candle, and he carried his boots in his hand as he stepped out onto the stoep of the cottage.
The height of the moon told him that it was after midnight, but he barely glanced at it before turning to the figure that leaned against the wall beside the door.
"Are you alone?" he demanded softly. There was something in the way the figure slumped that frightened him.
"Yes." The distress, the pain, were clear in her voice now that they were so close.
"You should not have come here, not alone, missis Sint John."
"There was nobody else to turn to."
"Where is Mungo. Where is your husband?"
"He is in trouble, terrible, terrible, trouble."
"Where is he?"
"I left him out beyond the Cape crossroad."
For a moment her voice choked on her, and then it came out with a forceful rush.
He's hurt. Wounded, badly wounded."
"Her voice had risen, so that she might rouse Jan Cheroot and the boys. Zouga took her arm to calm and quieten her, and immediately she fell against him. The feel of her body shocked him, but he could not pull away.
"I'm afraid, Zouga. I'm afraid he might die." It was the first time she had used his given name.
"What happened?"
"Oh God!" She was weeping now, clinging to him, and he realized how hard-pressed she was. He slipped his arm around her waist and led her down the verandah.
In the kitchen he seated her on one of the hard deal chairs, and then lit the candle. He was shocked again when he saw her face. She was pale and shaking, her hair in wild disorder a smear of dirt on one cheek and her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot.
He poured coffee from the blue enamel pot at the back of the stove. It was thick as molasses. He added a dram of brandy to it.
"Drink it."
She shuddered and gasped at the potent black brew, but it seemed to steady her a little.
"I didn't want him to go. I tried to stop him. I was sick of it.
I told him I couldn't take it any more, the cheating and lying. The shame and the running, "
"You aren't making sense," he told her brusquely, and she took a deep breath and started again.
"Mungo went to meet a man tonight. The man was going to bring him a parcel of diamonds, a parcel of diamonds worth one hundred thousand pounds. And Mungo was going to buy them for two thousand."
Zouga's face set grimly, and he sat down opposite her and stared at her. His expression intimidated her.
"Oh God, Zouga. I know. I hated it too. I have lived with it so long, but he promised me that this would be the last time."
"Go on," Zouga commanded.
"But he didn't have two thousand, Zouga. We are almost broke, a few pounds is all that we have left."
This time Zouga could not contain himself and he broke in.
"The letter of credit, half a million pounds "Forged," she said quietly.
"Go on."
"He didn't have the money to pay for the diamonds and I knew what he was going to do. I tried to stop him, I swear it to you."
"I believe you."
"He arranged to meet this man tonight, at a place out on the Cape road."
"Do you know the man's name?"
"I'm not sure. I think so." She passed her hand over her eyes. "He is a coloured man, a Griqua, Henry, no, Hendrick Somebody "Hendrick Naaiman?"
right! Naaiman, that's it."
"He's an I.D.B. trap."
"Police?"
"Yes, police."
"Oh sweet God, it's even worse than I thought."
"What happened?" Zouga insisted.
"Mungo made me wait for him at the crossroads and he went to the rendezvous alone. He said he needed to protect himself, he took his pistol. He went on my horse, on Shooting Star, and then I heard the gunfire."
She took another gulp of the coffee and coughed at the burn of it.
"He came back. He had been shot, and so had Shooting Star. They couldn't go any further, neither of them. They were both hard hit, Zouga. I hid them near the road and I came to you."
Zouga's voice was harsh. "Did Mungo kill him?"
"I don't know, Zouga. Mungo says the other man fired first and he only tried to protect himself."
"Mungo tried to hold him up and take the diamonds, without paying for them," Zouga guessed. "But Naaiman is a dangerous man."
"There were four empty cartridges in Mungo's pistol, but I don't know what happened to the policeman. I only know that Mungo escaped, but he is hurt very badly."
"Now keep quiet and rest for a while." He stood up and paced up and down the kitchen, his bare feet making no sound, his hands clasped at the small of the back.
Louise Sint John watched him anxiously, almost fearfully, until he stopped abruptly and turned to her.
"We both know what I should do. Your husband is I.D.B. he is a thief and by now he is probably a murderer."
"He is also your friend," she said simply. "And he is very badly wounded."
He resumed his pacing but now he was muttering to himself, troubled and scowling, and Louise twisted her fingers in her lap.
"Very well," he said at last. "I'll help you to get him away."
"Oh, Major Ballantyne, Zouga He silenced her with a frown. "Don't waste time talking. We'll need bandages, laudanum, food, "He was ticking off a list on his fingers. "You can't go like that.
They'll be watching for a woman. Jordan's cast-off clothes will fit you well enough, breeches, cap and coat, " Zouga walked at the flank of the mule, and the gravel cart was loaded with bales of thatching grass.
Louise lay silently in the hollow between two bales, with another ready to pull over herself if the cart was stopped.