"I suggest, General, that you relay these thoughts to mister Rhodes before the famine takes a hold."
She gloried in the visible effort it took him to regain his equanimity.
"You may well be right, Robyn." His smile was light and mocking again. "I will point this out to the directors of the Company."
"Immediately," she insisted.
"Immediately," he capitulated, and spread his hands in a parody of helplessness. "Now is there anything else you want of me?"
"Yes," she said. "I want you to marry me."
He stood up slowly and stared at her.
"You may not believe this, my dear, but nothing would give me greater pleasure. Yet, I am confused. I asked you that day at Khami Mission. Why now have you changed your mind?"
"I need a father for the bastard you have got on me. It was conceived four months after Clinton's death."
"A son," he said. "It will be a son." He came around the desk towards her.
"You must know that I hate you," she said.
His single eye crinkled as he smiled at her.
"Yes, and that is probably the reason that I love you."
"Never say that again," she hissed at him.
"Oh, but I must. You see I did not even realize it myself. I always believed that I was proof from such a mundane emotion as love. I was deceiving myself. You and I must now bravely face up to that fact. I love you."
"I want nothing from you but your name, and you shall have nothing from me but hatred and contempt."
"Marry me first, my love, and later we will decide who gets what from whom., "Do not touch me," she said, and Mungo Sint John kissed her full on the mouth.
It had taken almost ten full days of leisurely riding to make a circuit of the boundaries of the ranch lands that Zouga had claimed with his land grants.
It stretched eastwards from the Khami river, almost as far as the Zembesi crossing and southwards to the outskirts of Gubulawayo, an area the size of the county of Surrey, rich grasslands with stretches of parklike forests and low golden hills. Through it meandered a dozen lesser rivers and streams, which watered the herds that Zouga was already grazing.
mister Rhodes had appointed Zouga the custodian of enemy property, with powers to take possession of the royal herds of Lobengula. The hundred troopers who volunteered for the duty rounded up almost 130,000 head of prime cattle.
Half of these belonged to the Chartered Company, but that left 65,000 to be distributed as loot to the men who had ridden in to Gubulawayo with Jameson and Sint John. However, at the very last minute, mister Rhodes changed his mind, and telegraphed Sint John with instructions to redistribute 40,000 head to the Matabele tribe.
The volunteers were incensed at having lost more than a third of their rightful loot, and word was soon spreading through the improvised bars and canteens of Gubulawayo that the cattle had been given back to the tribe after threats and representations by the woman doctor of Khami Mission. Credence was given to the rumour by the fact that the same telegraph message authorized the grant of six thousand acres of land to Khami Mission.
mister Rhodes was squaring the God-botherers, and the volunteers were not going to stand for it.
Fifty troopers, all full of whisky, rode out to burn down the mission and string up the hag responsible for their loss. Zouga Ballantyne and Mungo Sint John met them at the foot of the hills, With a few salty sallies, they had them laughing; then they took it in turn to curse them fluently and roundly, and finally they drove them back to town, where they stood them a dozen rounds of drinks.
Despite the redistribution to the tribe, still the flood of cattle upon the market brought the price down to two pounds a head, and Zouga used half the proceeds of the Ballantyne diamond to buy up ten thousand of them to stock his new estates.
Now as Zouga and Louise rode together, with Jan Cheroot following them in the Scotch cart with the tent and camping equipment, they passed small herds of the cattle tended by Matabele herders that Zouga had hired.
Zouga had been able to select only the best animals, and he had graded them by colour, so that one herd might consist of all red beasts while the next of only black ones.
Ralph had contracted to bring up all the materials for the new homestead from the railhead at Kimberley, and with the same convoy would be twenty thoroughbred bulls of Hereford stock that Zouga intended running with his cows.
"This is the place," Louise exclaimed with delight.
"How can you be so certain, so soon?" Zouga laughed.
"Oh, darling it's perfect. I can spend the rest of my life looking at that view."
Below them the land fell away steeply to deep green pools of the river.
"At least there will be good water, and that bottom land will grow excellent vegetables, "
"Don't be so unromantic," she chided him. "Look at the trees.
They soared above their heads like the arched and vaulted spans of a great cathedral, and the autumn foliage was a thousand shades of reds and golds, murmurous with bees and merry with bird song.
"They will give good shade in the hot season" Zouga agreed.
"Shame on you," she laughed. "If you cannot see their beauty, then look at the Thabas Indunas."
The Hills of the Indunas were whalebacked and dreaming blue beneath the tall silver clouds. The grassy plains between were scattered with small groups of Zouga's cattle, and of wild game, zebra and blue wildebeest.
"They are close enough, Zouga nodded. "When Ralph's construction company finally reaches Gubulawayo with the railway line, then we shall be a few hours" ride from the railhead and all the amenities of civilization."
"So you will build me a home here, on this very spot?"
"Not until you give it a name., "What would you like to call it, my darling husband?"
"I'd like to have a touch of the old country, King's Lynn was where I spent my childhood."
"That's it then."
"King's Lynn." Zouga tested the name. "Yes, that will do very nicely. Now you shall have the home you want."
Louise took his hand, and they walked down under the trees towards the river.
A man and a woman came down the narrow winding pathway through the thick riverine bush.
The man carried his shield on his left shoulder, with the broad-bladed assegai secured to it by the rawhide thongs; but his right arm was shortened and deformed, twisted out from his shoulder as though the bone had been broken and badly set.
There was no superfluous flesh upon his powerfully boned frame; the rack of his ribs showed through, and his skin lacked the lustre of health. It was the dull lifeless colour of lamp-black, as though he had just risen from a long sick bed. On his trunk and back gleamed the satiny rosettes of freshly healed gunshot wounds, like newly-minted coins of pure blue cobalt.
The woman who followed him was young and straight.
Her eyes were slanted and her features those of an Egyptian princess. Her breasts were fat and full with milk, and her infant son was strapped tightly to her back so that his head would not jerk or wobble to her long, swinging gait.
Bazo reached the bank of the river and turned to his wife.
"We will rest here, Tanase."
She loosened the knot and swung the child onto her hip. She took one of her swollen nipples between thumb and forefinger until milk spurted from it, and then she touched it to the boy's lips. Immediately he began to feed with little pig-like snuffles and grunts.
"When will we reach the next village?" she asked.