The Angels Weep - Smith Wilbur - Страница 73

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"How are you, sir?" Ralph actually smiled as he gripped the broad hand with its hard prominent knuckles. The skin was cool, like that of a reptile, the effect of the poor circulation of the damaged heart.

Ralph was pleased to release it, and pass on down the length of the long table. He was not certain that he could long conceal his true feelings from the close scrutiny of those pale hypnotic eyes.

They were all there. The suave little doctor at Mr. Rhodes right hand, his appropriate station.

"Young Ballantyne," he said coldly, offering his hand without rising.

"Jameson!" Ralph nodded familiarly, knowing that the deliberate omission of the title would rankle with him as much as the condescending young' had annoyed Ralph.

On Mr. Rhodes" other hand was a surprising guest. It was the first time that Ralph had ever seen General Mungo St. John at King's Lynn.

There had once been a relationship between the lean grizzled soldier with the dark and wicked single eye and Louise Ballantyne, Ralph's stepmother. That had been many years ago, long before Ralph had left Kimberley for the north.

Ralph had never entirely fathomed that relationship, nor somehow the breath of scandal clouding it. But it was significant that Louise Ballantyne was not in the room, and that there was no place set at the table for her. If Mr. Rhodes had insisted that St. John was present at this gathering, and Zouga Ballantyne had agreed to invite him, then there was a compelling reason for it. Mungo St. John flashed that wolfish smile at Ralph as they shook hands. Despite the family complications, Ralph had always had a sneaking admiration for this romantically piratical figure, and his answering smile was genuine.

The stature of the other men at the table confirmed the importance and significance of this gathering. Ralph guessed that the meeting was being held here to preserve the absolute secrecy that they could not have assumed in the town of Bulawayo. He guessed also that every guest had been personally selected and invited by Mr. Rhodes, rather than by his father.

Apart from Jameson and St. John, there was Percy Fitzpatrick, a partner of the Corner House mining group, and prominent representative of the Witwatersrand Chamber Of Mines, the organ of the gold barons of Johannesburg. He was a lively and personable young man with a fair complexion and ruddy hair and moustache, whose cheque red career had included bank clerk, transport rider, citrus farmer, guide to Lord Randolph Churchill's Africa expedition, author and mining magnate.

Many years later Ralph would reflect on the irony of this extraordinary man's claim to immortality being founded on a sentimental book about a dog called Jock.

Beyond Fitzpatrick sat the Honourable Bobbie White, who had just visited Johannesburg at Mr. Rhodes" suggestion. He was a handsome and pleasant young aristocrat, the type of Englishman that Mr. Rhodes preferred. He was also a staff officer and a career soldier as his mess tunic revealed.

Next to him sat John Willoughby, second-in-command of the original pioneer column, which had taken occupation of Fort Salisbury and Mashonaland. He had also ridden with Jameson's column that had destroyed Lobengula, and his Willoughby's Consolidated Company owned almost one million acres of prime pastoral land in Rhodesia, a rival to Ralph's Rholands Company, so their greetings were guarded.

Then there was Doctor Rutherford Harris, the first secretary of the British South Africa Company and a member of Mr. Rhodes" political party in which he represented the Kimberley constituency in the Cape Parliament. He was a taciturn grey man with a sinister cast of eye, and Ralph mistrusted him as one of Mr. Rhodes' slavish minions.

At the end of the table, Ralph came face to face with his brother Jordan, and he hesitated for just a fraction of a second, until he saw the desperate appeal in Jordan's gentle eyes. Then he gripped his brother's hand briefly, but he did not smile and his voice was cool and impersonal as he greeted him like a mere acquaintance, and then took the place that a servant in a white Kanza uniform and scarlet sash had hurriedly laid beside Zouga at the head of the table.

The animated conversation that Ralph had interrupted was resumed with Mr. Rhodes orchestrating and directing it. "What about your trained zebras? "he demanded of Zouga, who shook his golden beard.

"It was a desperate measure and doomed from the outset. But when you consider that out of the hundred thousand head of cattle that we had in Matabeleland before the rinderpest, only five hundred or so have survived, any chance seemed worth taking." "They say that the Cape buffalo have been wiped out utterly and completely by the disease," Doctor Jameson suggested. "What do you think, Major?" "Their losses have been catastrophic. Two weeks ago I rode as far north as the Pandamatenga river, where a year ago I counted herds of over five thousand together. This time I saw not a single living beast. Yet I cannot believe they are now extinct. I suspect that somewhere out there are scattered survivors, the ones that had a natural immunity, and I believe that they will breed." Mr. Rhodes was not a sportsman, he had once said of his own brother Frank, "Yes, he's a good fellow, he hunts and he fishes in other words, he is a perfect loafer," and this conversation about wild game bored him almost immediately. He changed it by turning to Ralph.

"Your railway line-what is the latest position, Ralph?" "We are still almost two months ahead of our schedule," Ralph told him with a touch of defiance. "We crossed the Matabeleland border fifteen days ago I expect as we sit here that the railhead has reached the trading-post at Plumtree already." "It's as well" Rhodes nodded. "We shall have urgent need of your line in a very short while." And he and Doctor Jim exchanged a conspiratorial glance.

When they had all relished Louise's bread and butter pudding, thick with nuts and raisins and running with wild honey, Zouga dismissed the servants, and poured the Cognac himself, while Jordan carried around the cigars. As they settled back in their seats, Mr. Rhodes made one of his startlingly abrupt changes of subject and pace, and Ralph was immediately aware that the true purpose for which he had been summoned to King's Lynn was about to be revealed.

"There is not one of you who does not know that my life's task is to see the map of Africa painted red from Cape Town to Cairo. To deliver this continent to our Queen as another jewel in her crown." His voice that had been irritable and carping up until now, took on a strange mesmeric quality. "We men of the English-speaking Anglo Saxon race are the first among nations, and destiny has imposed a sacred duty upon us to bring the world to peace under one flag and one great monarch. We must have Africa, all of it, to add to our Queen's dominions. Already my emissaries have gone north to the land between the Zambezi and the Congo rivers to prepare the way." Rhodes broke off and shook his head angrily. "But all this will be of no avail if the southern tip of the continent eludes us." "The South African Republic," said Jameson. "Paul Kruger and his little banana republic in the Transvaal." His voice was low but bitter.

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