Men of Men - Smith Wilbur - Страница 40

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There was a coil of braided rawhide rope on the pommel of the grey mare's saddle. Jan Cheroot hurried back with it and then paused in the door of the derelict shanty.

"I know him." He stared at Hendrick Naaiman's bloody snoring face. "I think I know him, but you made such a mess of him."

"Tie him," Zouga whispered, and drank from the water bottle. Then he unwound the silk scarf from around his throat and wetted it from the bottle before tenderly wiping away the blood and dust from his cuts and scratches.

The worst injury was in his hairline, where the breech of the broken shotgun had caught him; by the feel of it, it needed to be stitched.

Jan Cheroot was muttering insults and abuse at Hendrick Naaiman as he worked.

"You yellow snake." He rolled the Griqua onto his back. "You got shoes on your feet and pants covering your black arse, and you think you are a gentleman."

He pulled Hendrick's arms up behind him and trussed them, quickly and expertly, at wrist and elbow.

"You'd give a vulture a bad name." Jan Cheroot looped the rawhide around his ankles and pulled it up tight.

"Even the hyenas wouldn't eat dung alongside of you, my beauty."

Zouga capped the water bottle and picked up the empty tobacco bag.

Then he hunted for the diamonds.

They had been kicked and scattered about the kitchen.

The eighth and last was the green dragon, dark and inconspicuous In one gloomy corner.

Zouga tossed the bag to Jan Cheroot, and he whistled as he peered into it.

IDB," he muttered, his wrinkled brown face puckering into a sculpture of pure avarice. "The yellow snake was I.D.B."

"He wanted us to run those stones across our sortingtables."

"What shares?" Jan Cheroot demanded, playing with the stones.

"Half shares."

"That's a good deal. We could be rich in six months and get out of this god-damned and blasted desert for ever."

Abruptly Zouga snatched the bag back again. He had been through the temptation once already.

"Get his horse," he ordered angrily.

They hoisted the Griqua's inert body and threw it over the grey's saddle. As Jan Cheroot was tying the Griqua to the horse, Hendrick kicked his legs weakly and tried to raise his head, twisting his neck to peer blearily at Zouga.

"Major," he croaked, only half conscious. "Major, let me explain.

You don't understand."

"Shut your mouth," Zouga growled at him.

"Major. I am not a thief, let me explain about those diamonds."

"I told you to hold your mouth," Zouga warned, and wrenched the Griqua's jaw open, roughly digging his thumbs into the sallow bloody cheeks; then he thrust the bag of diamonds into his slack mouth.

"Choke on your bloody diamonds, you thieving, treacherous bastard," he told him grimly as he bound the man's mouth closed with his scarf, jamming the bag in place, while Hendrick squawked and rolled his eyes, jerking his head from side to side, his cries muffled and his spittle soaking the gay band of silk.

"That will keep you quiet until we get you in front of the Committee."

Jan Cheroot sat up behind the trussed Griqua on the grey's back and followed Zouga on the gelding.

He sucked his teeth mournfully, sighed and shook his head.

"What a waste!" he grumbled just loud enough for Zouga to hear. "That bag would take us back to the north."

He rolled his eyes sideways at Zouga, but there was no reaction.

"The Committee is going to see this yellow bastard lynched anyway.

He is as good as vulture breakfast already Hendrick wriggled helplessly and snuffled through his swollen nose.

If we just did the job for them, nice and quietly, a bullet in the head, and leave him for his brothers and sisters, the jackals and the hyena, man, nobody will ever know."

He glanced hopefully at Zouga again. "What's in that bag will take us north again, as far as we want to go."

Zouga kicked the gelding into a canter, and ahead of them the iron roofs and dusty tent cones of New Rush glowed ruddily in the slanting rays of the sunset. Jan Cheroot sighed, swatted the double-laden grey across the quarters and followed Zouga into the camp.

Pickering and Rhodes messed with a few other bachelor diggers directly beyond Market Square, at the edge of the main tailing dumps. There were two good spreading acacias to give them shade, and they had planted a hedge of milkbush around the cluster of iron huts and walled shanties.

Every member of the mess owned good claims and was recovering stones; he had to do so to afford the mess bills for champagne and old cognac that seemed to form the group's staple diet. One of them was the younger son of a belted earl, another was a baronet in his own right, although merely of the Irish aristocracy. Most of them were members of the Diggers" Committee, and their style had earned the group the title of "The Swells".

When Zouga rode into their camp, half a dozen of the Swells were lounging under the acacia trees, dining on Veuve Cliquot champagne, although the sun was still above the horizon, and wrangling amiably over the heavy wagers that they were placing against how many flies would settle on the sugar lumps that each had on the camp table in front of him.

Pickering looked up, his fair open features for once puckered in astonishment, as Zouga rode into the camp.

"Gentlemen," Zouga announced grimly. "I have something for you."

He leaned out of his saddle and cut the thongs that secured Hendrick Naairnan's heels to the saddle girth of the grey mare, and then tipped him off the horse, letting him fall head-first into the dust in front of the seated group of Diggers" Committee members.

I.D.B.," Zouga told them, as they stared at him.

Pickering moved first. He jumped to his feet.

"Where are the diamonds, Major?" he asked.

"In his mouth."

Pickering went down on one knee next to the Griqua, and he undid the scarf.

He worked the saliva-drenched bag out of Hendrick's broken mouth, and poured the contents onto the camp table amongst the flies and sugar lumps and champagne bottles.

"Eight," Rhodes counted them swiftly, and looked immensely relieved. "They are all there."

"I told you not to worry. I bet fifty guineas on them all being there. Don't forget it."

Pickering smiled at Rhodes and turned back to the Griqua, who was flapping around in the dust like a trussed chicken.

Pickering helped him solicitously to his feet.

"My dear fellow," he asked. "Are you all right?"

"He nearly killed me," Hendrick bleated bitterly. "He's a madman!"

"I told you to be careful," Pickering agreed. "He's not a man to trifle with. "He patted the Griqua's back. "Well done, Hendrick; you did a good job."

Then Pickering turned to Zouga. "We owe you a little apology, Major." He spread his hands and smiled winningly.

Zouga had been staring at him, unable to speak, his face so pale that his scratches and gouges stood out lividly. But now the scar under his eyes began to glow and he found his voice.

"A trap!" he whispered. "You set a trap for me."

"We had to be sure of you," Rhodes explained reasonably. "We had to know what kind of man you really were before we got you onto the Diggers" Committee."

"You swine," Zouga husked. "You arrogant swine."

"You came out of it with flying colours, sir," Rhodes told him stiffly. He was not accustomed to being addressed in those terms.

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