A Falcon Flies Part 24

She felt a cold steel band lock about her chest and squeeze her heart so that it took an effort of will to force her feet to move back across the swept floor of the cave.

The Mashona woman was watching Robyn expressionlessly. She had clearly not understood the English question, but she waited with the endless patience of Africa.

Robyn was about to appeal to her again, when the skeletal figure across the smoky little fire started to rock from side to side agitatedly, and a querulous slurred old man's voice began to chant some strange litany, like a magical incantation.

it took Robyn some moments to realize that the accents were faintly Scots and the words, though blurred and jumbled, were a parody of the 23rd psalm. Yea! Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil."

As suddenly as it had begun the chanting broke off, and the rocking ceased. The frail figure froze into stillness and silence again. Across the fire, the Mashona woman stooped and gently as a mother with a child, she drew back the kaross from the head and shoulder of the figure at her feet.

Fuller Ballantyne had shrivelled, his face lined and roughened like the bark of an old oak. It seemed as though the smoke of the fire had etched his skin, collecting in the creases, crusting it with soot.

His hair and beard had fallen out in clumps, as though from some disgusting disease, and what was left of it was pure white but stringed and darkened with dirt to a tobacco yellow at the corners of the mouth and at the nostrils.

only his eyes still seemed to live, they rolled in their sockets, and it needed only one look at them for Robyn to realize that her father was mad. This was not Fuller Ballantyne, this was not the great explorer, the powerful evangelist and enemy of slavery. He had gone long ago, leaving a filthy shrivelled lunatic in his place. Pater, " she stared at him in disbelief, feeling the world spin and lurch beneath her. Pater, she repeated, and across the fire the crouched figure gibbered with abrupt falsetto girlish laughter, and then began to rave incoherently, s.n.a.t.c.hes of English giving way to a half-dozen dialects of Africa, the cries becoming more agitated, his thin pale arms thrown wildly in the air. I have sinned against thee, my G.o.d, he screamed and clawed at his own beard, a tuft of the thin pale hair coming away in the hooked fingers. "I am not worthy to be thy servant. " He tore at himself again this time leaving a thin livid scratch down the pouched and wrinkled cheek, though it seemed that the wasted body had no blood left to shed.

The Mashona. woman leaned over him and caught the bony wrist, restraining him. The action was so familiar that she must have performed it often. Then gently she stooped and lifted him. The body seemed to weigh no more than that of a child for she carried him without visible effort to the crude pole bed. One of his legs was bound up in a rudimentary splint and stuck straight out ahead of him.

Robyn stayed on beside the fire, hanging her head. She found that she was still shivering, until the woman came back to her, touching her arm. He is very sick."

Only then could Robyn force back her revulsion. and her horror. She stood, hesitated only a moment longer, and then went to her father. With Juba and the Mashona woman helping her, she began her examination, taking refuge behind her professional rituals and procedures while she regained control of her emotions. He was thinner than she had ever seen a living human body, thinner than the starved brats of gin-soaked slum s.l.u.ts. There has been little food, said the woman, "and what there is, he will not eat. I have had to feed him like a small baby. " Robyn did not then understand what she meant, but she went on grimly with her examination.

The starved body was verminous, the bunches of little white nits hanging like grapes in the thin white pubic hair, and his whole body was crusted with filth and traces of his own incontinence.

Feeling under the staring rib cage her fingertips encountered the hard distended shape of liver and spleen, and Fuller Ballantyne screamed when she did so, The swelling and extreme tenderness were certain indications of ma.s.sive malarial infection of long duration, and evidence of terrible neglect. Where is the medicine, the umuthi, of Ma.n.a.li? "It was long ago finished, together with the powder and shot for the gun. Everything was finished long ago, the woman shook her head, "long, long ago, and when it was finished, the people no longer came with gifts to feed us. " It was suicidal to remain in a malarial area without supplies of quinine. Fuller Ballantyne of all people knew that. The acknowledged world expert on malarial fever and its treatment, how could he have neglected his own often-repeated advice. She found the reasons almost immediately, as she opened his mouth, forcing open his lower jaw despite his feeble protests.

Most of his teeth had been rotted out by the disease, and his throat and palate were covered by the characteristic lesions.

She released his jaw, allowing him to close the ruined mouth, and gently she touched the bridge of his nose, feeling the soggy collapsing bone and gristle.

There could be no doubt at all, the disease was far advanced, had long ago begun its final a.s.sault upon the once magnificent brain. It was syphilis, in the terminal stages, the general paralysis of the insane. The disease of the lonely man that led inevitably to this lonely madman's death.

As Robyn worked, so her horror and revulsion gave way swiftly to the compa.s.sion of the healer, to the sympathy of one who had lived with human weakness and folly and had come far along the road of understanding.

She knew now why her father had not turned back when his supplies of vital medicines ran perilously low, the half-destroyed brain had not recognized the dangers which he had previously described so clearly.

She found herself praying for him as she worked, praying silently but with the words coming more readily than they usually did. Judge him as he was, Oh Lord, judge him by his service in your name, not by his small sins, but by his great achievements. Look not upon this ruined pathetic thing, but on the strong and vital man who carried your work forward without flinching."

As she prayed, she lifted the heavy kaross off his legs, and the smell of corruption made her blink and the frail figure began immediately to struggle with renewed strength, that needed of Ju a an t Mashona woman to control.

Robyn stared at the legs, and realized the other reason why her father had never left this land. He had been physically unable to do so. The splints that held the leg had been whittled out of native timber. The leg had been fractured, probably at more than one place below the hip.

Perhaps the hip joint itself had gone, that vulnerable neck of the femur. But what was certain was that the breaks had not mended cleanly. Perhaps the bindings of the splints had been too tight, for the deep suppurating ulcerations went down to the very bone, and the smell was a solid jarring thing.

Quickly she covered his lower body, there was nothing she could do until she had her medical chest and instruments, and now she was merely inflicting unnecessary pain and humiliation. Her father was still struggling and bleating like a petulant child, rolling his head from side to side, the toothless mouth darkly agape.

The Mashona woman leaned over him, and took one of her own dark tight b.r.e.a.s.t.s in her hand, squeezing out the nipple between her fingers, and then she paused and looked up shyly, imploringly at Robyn.

Only then did Robyn understand, and respecting the privacy of woman and the poor maimed thing that had been her father, she dropped her eyes and turned away towards the entrance of the cave. I must fetch my umuthi. I will return here later tonight."

Behind her, the childlike bleats gave way abruptly to small snuffling sounds of comfort.

Robyn felt no shock or outrage as she went down the steep pathway in. the moonlight. Instead she felt immense pity for Fuller Ballantyne who had made the full circle back to infancy. She felt also a deep grat.i.tude to the woman, and a sense of wonder at her loyalty and dedication. How long had she stayed on with Fuller Ballantyne after all reason for staying was gone?

She remembered her own mother, and her devotion to the same man, she remembered Sarah and her child still waiting patiently beside a far-off river. And then there was Robyn herself, come so far and so determinedly.

Fuller Ballantyne always had the power to attract as powerfully as he could repel.

Holding Juba's hand for her own comfort as well as that of the child, Robyn hurried along the moonlit path on the bank of the river, and with relief saw the glow of the camp fires in the forest ahead of her. On the return journey she would have bearers to carry her medical chest, and armed Hottentot musketeers as escort.

Her relief was short-lived, for as she answered the challenge of the Hottentot sentry and entered the circle of firelight, a familiar figure rose from beside the camp fire and came striding to meet her, tall and powerful, goldenbearded and handsome as a G.o.d from Greek mythology, and every bit as wrathful. Zouga! " she gasped. "I didn't expect you. "No, he agreed icily. "I'm sure that you did not. "Why? " she thought desperately. "Why must he come now? Why not a day later, when I have had time to clean and treat my father? Oh G.o.d, why now? Zouga will never understand, Never! Never! Never! " Robyn and her escort could not hope to keep pace with Zouga. They fell swiftly behind him as he climbed the pathway in the night, months of hard hunting had toned him to the peakof physical condition and he ran at the hill.

She had not been able to warn him. What words were there to describe the creature in the cave on the hilltop.

She had told him simplyI have found Pater."

It had deflected his anger instantly. The bitter accusations shrivelled on his tongue, and the realization dawned in his eyes.

They had found Fuller Ballantyne. They had accomplished one of the three major objectives of the expedition. She knew that Zouga was already seeing it in print, almost composing the paragraph that would describe the moment, imagining the newspaper urchins shouting the headlines in the streets of London.

For the first time in her life she -came close to hating her brother, and her voice was crisp as h.o.a.r-frost as she told him, "And don't you forget it was me. I was the one who made the march and broke trail, and I was the one who found him."

She saw the shift in his green eyes in the firelight. Of course, Sissy. " He smiled at her thinly, an obvious effort. "Who could ever forget that? Where is he? "First I must a.s.semble what I need."

He had stayed with her until they reached the foot of the hill, and then had been unable to restrain himself.

Ri that none of them He had gone at the slope at a pace had been able to equal. Robyn came out in the little clearing in front of the cave. Her heart was racing and her breathing ragged from the climb so that she had to pause and fight for breath, holding one hand to her breast.

The fire in front of the cave had been built up to a fair blaze, but it left the depths of the cave in discreet shadow. Zouga. stood in front of the fire. His back to the cave.

As Robyn regained her breath, she went forward. She saw that Zouga's face was deathly pale, in the firelight his sun-bronzing had faded to a muddy tone. He stood erect, as though on the parade ground, and he stared directly ahead of him. Have you seen Pater? " Robyn asked. His distress and utter confusion gave her a sneaking and spiteful pleasure. There is a native woman with him, Zouga whispered, in his bed. "Yes, " Robyn nodded. "He is very sick. She is caring for him. "Why did you not warn me? " That he is sick? " she asked. That he had gone native. "He's dying, Zouga. "What are we going to tell the world? "The truth, she suggested quietly. "That he is sick and dying. "You must never mention the woman. " Zouga's voice, for the first time that she could remember, was uncertain, he seemed to be groping for words. "We must protect the family. "Then what must we tell about his disease, the disease that is killing him? " Zouga's eyes flickered to her face. "Malaria? "The pox, Zouga. The French sickness, the Italian plague, or, if you prefer it, syphilis, Zouga. He is dying of syphilis."

Zouga flinched, and then he whispered, "It's not possibleWhy not, Zouga? " she asked. "He was a man, a great man, but a man nevertheless She stepped past him. "And now I have work to do."

An hour later when she looked for -him again, Zouga had gone back down the hill to the camp beside the river pools. She remained to work over her father for the rest of that night and most of the following day.

By the time she had bathed and cleaned him, shaved off the infested body hair and trimmed the stringy beard and locks of yellowed treated the ulcerations of his le& she was exhausted both physically and emotionally.

She had seen approaching death too many times not to recognize it now. She knew that all she could. hope for was to give comfort and to smooth the lonely road that her father must travel.

When she had done all that was possible, she covered him with a clean blanket and then tenderly caressed the short soft hair which she had so lovingly trimmed. Fuller opened his eyes. They were a pale empty shade of blue, like an African summer sky. The last sunlight of the day was washing the cave, and as Robyn leaned over him, it sparkled in her hair in chips of ruby light.

She saw something move in the empty eyes, a shadow of the man who had once been there, and Fuller's lips parted. Twice he tried to speak and then he said one word, so husky and light that she missed it. Robyn leaned closer to him.

What is it? " she asked.

Helen! " This time clearer.

Robyn felt the tears choke up her throat at the sound of her mother's name. Helen. " Fuller said it for the last time, and then the flicker of comprehension in his eyes was gone.

She stayed on beside him, but there was nothing more.

That name had been the last link with reality and now the link was broken.

As the last light of the day faded, Robyn lifted her eyes from her father's face and for the first time realized that the tin chest was missing from the ledge at the back of the cave.

Using the lid of his own writing-case as a desk, screened from the camp by the thin wall of thatch, Zouga worked swiftly through the contents of the chest.

His horror at the discovery of his father had long ago been submerged by the fascination of the treasures which the chest contained. The disgust, the shame, would return again when he had time to think about it, he knew that. He knew also that there would be hard decisions to make then, and that he would have to use all his force of personality and of brotherly superiority to control Robyn, and make her agree to a common version of the discovery of Fuller Ballantyne and a tactful description of the circ.u.mstances to which he had been reduced.

The tin chest contained four leather and canvas-bound journals, each of five hundred pages, and the pages were covered on both sides either with writing or with hand drawn maps. There was also a bundle of loose sheets, two or three hundred of them tied together with plaited bark string. and a cheap wooden pen case with a part.i.tion for spare nibs, and cut-outs for two ink bottles.

One bottle was dry, and the pen nibs had obviously been sharpened many times, for they were almost worn away.

Zouga sniffed the ink in the remaining bottle. It seemed to be an evil-smelling mixture, of fat and soot and vegetable dyes that Fuller had concocted when his supplies of the manufactured item were exhausted.

The last journal and most of the loose pages were written with this mixture, and they had faded and smeared, making the handwriting that much more difficult to decipher, for by this stage Fuller Ballantyne's hand had deteriorated almost as much as his mind. Whereas the first two journals were written in the small, precise and familiar script, this slowly turned into a loose sloping scrawl as uncontrolled as some of the ideas expressed by it. The history of his father's madness was plotted therein with sickening fascination.

The pages of the leatherbound journals were not numbered, and there were many gaps between the dates of one entry and the next, which made Zoup's work easier.

He read swiftly, an art he had developed when acting as regimental intelligence officer with huge amounts of reading, reports, orders and departmental manuals, to get through each day.

The first books of writing were ground that had been travelled before, meticulous observations of celestial position, of climate and alt.i.tude, ed up by shrewdly observed descriptions of terrain and population. Sandwiched between these were accusations and complaints about authority, whether it were the directors of the London Missionary Society, or "The Imperial Factor" as Fuller Ballantyne referred to the Foreign Secretary and his department in Whitehall.

There were detailed explanations of his reasons for leaving Tete and travelling south with a minimally equipped expedition, and then, quite suddenly, " two pages devoted to an account of a s.e.xual liaison with an exslave girl, an Angoni girl whom Fuller had christened Sarah" and who he suspected was about to bear his child.

His reasons for abandoning her at Tete were direct and without pretence. "I know that a woman, even a hardy native, carrying a child would delay me. As I am on G.o.d's work, I can brook no such check."

Although what Zouga had seen on the hilltop should have conditioned him for this sort of revelation, still he could not bring himself to terms with it. Using his hunting-knife, whetted to a razor edge, he slit the offending pages from the journal, and as he crumpled them and threw them in the camp fire he muttered, "The old devil had no right to write this filth."

Twice more he found s.e.xual references which he removed from the journal, and by then the handwriting was showing the first deterioration, and pa.s.sages of great lucidity were followed by wild ravings and the dreams and imaginings of a diseased mind.

More often Fuller referred to himself as the instrument of G.o.d's wrath, his blazing sword against the heathen and the unG.o.dly. The weirdest and patently lunatic pa.s.sages Zouga cut from the journal and burned. He knew he must work swiftly, before Robyn came down from the hilltop. He knew that what he was doing was right, for his father's memory and place in posterity and also for those who would have to live on after him, Robyn and Zouga himself, and their children and children's children.

It was a chilling experience to see his father's great love and compa.s.sion for the African people, and the very land itself changing and becoming a bitter unreasoning hatred. Against the Matabele people, whom he referred to as the Ndebele, or the Amandebele, he railed:These leonine peoples who acknowledge no G.o.d at all whose diet consists of the devil's brew and half-cooked meat, both in vast quant.i.ties, and whose greatest delight is spearing to death defenceless women and children, are ruled over by the most merciless despot since Caligula, the most grossly blood-besotted monster since Attila himself."

Of the other tribes he was at least as scornful. "The Rozwis are a sly and secret people, the timid and treacherous descendants of the slave-trading and gold-mad kings they called the Mambos. Their dynasties destroyed by the marauding Ndebele and their monstrous Nguni brothers the Shangaans of Gungundha and the bloodsmattered Angoni."

The Karangas were "cowards and devil-worshippers, lurking in their caves and hilltop fortresses, committing unspeakable sacrilege and offending in the face of the Almighty by their blasphemous ceremonies in the ruined cities where once their Monomatapa held sway'.

The reference to Monomatapa and ruined cities checked Zouga's eyes in the middle of the page. Then he read on eagerly, hoping for elaboration of the mention of ruined cities, but Fuller's mind had flown on to other ideas, the theme of suffering and sacrifice which has always been the spine of Christian belief. I thank G.o.d, my Almighty Father, that he has chosen me as his sword, and that as the mark of his love and condescension he has made his mark upon me. This dawn when I awoke there were the stigmata in my feet and hands, the wound in my side, and the bleeding scratches from the crown of thorns upon my forehead. I have felt the same sweet pain as Christ himself."

The disease had reached that part of his brain that affected his eyes, and sense of feeling. His faith had become religious mania. Zouga cut out this and the following pages and consigned them to the flames of the camp fire.

Ranting madness was followed by cool sanity, as though the disease had tides which ebbed and flowed within his brain. The next entry in the journal was dated five days after that claiming the stigmata. It began with a celestial observation that placed him not far from where Zouga sat reading the words, always making allowances for the inaccuracy of a chronometer that had not been checked for almost two years. There was no furtherSo I rose, and G.o.d's hand held me up and carried me onwards."

How much of this was fact, and how much was the ranting of madness, fantasy of a diseased brain, Zouga could not know, but he read on furiously. And the Almighty guided me until I came at last alone to the foul city where the devil-worshippers commit their sacrilege. My bearers would not follow me, terrified of the devils. Even old Joseph who was always at my side could not force his legs to carry him through the gateway in the high stone wall. I left him cringing in the forest, and went in alone to walk between the high towers of stone. As G.o.d had revealed to me, I found the graven images of the heathen all decked with flowers and gold, the blood of the sacrifice not yet dried, and I broke them and cast them down and no man could oppose me for I was the sword of Zion, the finger of G.o.d's own hand."

The entry broke off abruptly, as though the writer had been overwhelmed by the strength of his own religious fervour, and Zouga. flipped through the next one hundred pages of the journal searching for further reference to the city and its gold-decked images, but there was none.

Like the miraculous blooming of the stigmata upon Fuller's hands and feet and body and brow, perhaps this was also the imaginings of a lunatic.

Zouga returned to the original entry, describing Fuller's meeting with the Umlimo, the sorceress whom he had slain. He wrote the lat.i.tude and longitude into his own journal, copied the rough sketch map and made cryptic notes of the text, pondering it for clues that might lead or guide him. Then, quite deliberately, he cut out the pages from Fuller's own journal and held them one at a time over the fire, letting them crinkle and brown, then catch and flare before he dropped them and watched them curl and blacken. He stirred the ashes to dust with a stick before he was satisfied.

The last of the four journals was only partially filled, and contained a detailed description of a caravan route running from "the blood-soaked lands where Mzilikazils evil impis hold sway" eastwards five hundred miles or more "to where the reeking ships of the traders surely wait to welcome the poor souls who survive the hazards of this infamous road'. I have followed the road as far as the eastern rampart of mountains, and always the evidence of the pa.s.sing of the caravans is there for all the world to see. That grisly evidence which I have come to know so well, the bleaching bones and the circling vultures. Is there not a corner of this savage continent which is free from the ravages of the traders? " These revelations would interest Robyn more than they did him. Zouga glanced through them swiftly and then marked them for her attention. There was a great deal on slavery and the traders, a hundred pages or more and then the penultimate entry. We have today come up with a caravan of slaves, winding through the hilly country towards the east. I have counted the miserable victims from afar, using the telescope and there are almost a hundred of them, mostly half-grown children and young women. They are yoked together in pairs with forked tree trunks about their necks in the usual manner. The slave-masters are black men, I have been unable to descry either Arabs or men of European extraction amongst them. Although they wear no tribal insignia, no plumes nor regalia, I have no doubt they are Amandebele, for their physique is distinctive, and they come from.

the direction of that tyrant Mzilikazi's kingdom. They are furthermore armed with the broad bladed stabbing spear and long ox-hide shields of that people, while two or three of them carry trade muskets. At this moment they are encamped not more than a league from where I lie, and in the dawn they will continue their fateful journey towards the east where the Arab and Portuguese slave-masters no doubt wait to purchase the miserable human cattle and load them like cargo for the cruel voyage half across the world. G.o.d has spoken to me, clearly I have heard his voice as he enjoined me to go down, and, like his sword, cut down the unG.o.dly, free the slaves and minister to the meek and the innocent.

Joseph is with me, that true and trusted companion of the years, and he will be well able to serve my second gun. His marksmanship is not of the best, but he has courage and G.o.d will be with us."

The next entry was the last. Zouga had come to the end of the four journals. G.o.d's ways are wonderful and mysterious, pa.s.sing all understanding. He lifteth up and he casteth down. With Joseph beside me I went down, as G.o.d had commanded, to the camp of the slave-masters. We fell upon them, even as the Israelites fell upon the Philistines. At first it seemed that we must prevail for the unG.o.dly fled before us. Then G.o.d in all his knowing wisdom deserted us.

One of the unG.o.dly leapt upon Joseph while he was reloading, and though I put a ball through his chest he impaled poor Joseph from breast bone to spine with that terrible spear, before himself falling dead. Alone I carried on the fight, G.o.d's fight, and the slavemasters scattered into the forest before my wrath. Then one of them turned and at extreme range fired his musket in my direction. The ball struck me in the hip. I managed, I do not know how, to drag myself away before the slave-masters returned to slay me. They did not attempt to follow me, and I have regained the shelter which I left to make the attempt. However, I am sorely smitten and reduced to dire straits. I have managed to remove the musket ball from my own hip, but I fear the bone is cracked through and I am crippled. In addition I have lost both my firearms, Joseph's musket lies with him where he fell, and I was so badly hurt as to be unable to carry my weapon off the field. I sent the woman back to find them, but they have been carried away by the slave-traders. My remaining porters, seeing the state to which I have been reduced and knowing that I could not prevent it, have all deserted, but not before they had looted the camp and carried away almost everything of value, not excluding my medicine chest. Only the woman remains.

I was angry at first when she attached herself to my party, but now I see G.o.d's hand in this, for although she is a heathen, yet she is loyal and true beyond all others, now that Joseph is dead. What is a man in this cruel land without a musket or quinine? Is there a lesson in this for me and posterity, a lesson that G.o.d has chosen me to teach? Can a white man live here? Will he not always be the alien, and will Africa tolerate him once he has lost his weapons and expended his medicines? " Then a single poignant cry of agony. Oh G.o.d, has this all been in vain? I came to bring your Word and n.o.body has listened to my voice. I came to change the ways of the wicked and nothing is changed. I came to open a way for Christianity, and no Christian has followed me. Please, my G.o.d, give me a sign that I have not followed the wrong road to a false destination."

Zouga leaned back and rubbed his eyes with the heels of both hands. He found himself deeply moved, his eyes stinging not only from fatigue.

Fuller Ballantyne was an easy man to hate, but a hard man to despise.

Robyn chose the place with care. The secluded pools on the river, away from the main camp, where n.o.body could overlook or overhear them. She chose the time, in the heat of midday, when most of the Hottentots and all the porters would be asleep in the shade. She had given Fuller five drops of the precious laudanum to quiet him, and left him with the Mashona girl and Juba to care for him while she went down the hill to Zouga.

They had barely exchanged a dozen words during the ten days since he had caught up with her. in all that time he had not returned to the cave on the hilltop, and she had seen him only once when she had gone down to the river camp for supplies.

When she had sent Juba down with a tersely worded note, demanding the return of Fuller's tin chest of papers, he had sent a porter with it immediately. In fact, with such alacrity that Robyn was immediately suspicious.

This distrust was a symptom of their rapidly deteriorating relationship. She knew that she and Zouga must talk, must discuss the future, before the opportunity to talk was past.

He was waiting for her beside the green river pools, as she had asked him to be, sitting in the mottled shade beneath a wild fig tree, quietly smoking a hand-rolled cheroot of native tobacco. He stood up courteously as soon as he saw her, but his expression was reserved and his eyes guarded.

I do not have much time, Zouga dear. " Robyn tried to lessen the tension between them by using the small endearment, and Zouga nodded gravely. "I must get back to Pater. She hesitated. "I did not want to ask you to come up the hill since you find it distasteful. " She saw the green sparks in his eyes kindle immediately, and went on quickly. "We must decide what we should do now. Obviously we cannot stay on here indefinitely. "What do you suggest? "Pater is much stronger. I have subdued the malaria with quinine and the other disease, she worded it tactfully, "has responded to the mercury. It is only the leg that truly worries me now. "You told me he was dying. " Zouga reminded her levelly, and she could not help herself, despite her good intentions she flared at him. Well, I am sorry to disappoint you, then Zouga's face stiffened into a handsome, bronzed mask.

She could see the effort it took him to control his own temper, and his voice was thick with it as he answered. That's not worthy of you. "I'm sorry, she agreed, and drew a deep breath.

"Zouga, he has rallied strongly. Food and medicine, care and his own natural strength have made an immense difference.

I am even convinced that if we could get him to civilization to a skilled surgeon, we could cure the ulceration of his leg, and possibly even induce the bone to mend!

Zouga was silent for a long time, and though his face was expressionless, she could see the play of emotion in his eyes.

He spoke at last. "Father is mad She did not answer. Can you cure his mind? "No. " She shook her head. "That will get worse, but with care and skilled attention in a good hospital, we can improve his body and he could live for many years still To what purpose? " Zouga insisted. He would be comfortable and perhaps happyAnd all the world would know that he was a syphilitic madman, Zouga went on quietly for her. "Would it not be kinder to let the legend stand untarnished? No, more than that, to add to it by our own account, rather than drag back this poor diseased and demented thing for all his enemies, his numerous enemies, to mock? "Is that why you tampered with his journals? " Robyn's voice was shrill, even in her own ears. That's a dangerous accusation.

" He was losing his control also. "Can you prove it? I don't have to prove it; we both know it's so. "You cannot move him. " Zouga changed direction. "He is crippled! He could be carried on a litter. We have more than enough porters."

Which way would you take him? " Zouga demanded. He would never survive the route over which we have travelled, and the route southwards is uncharted."

Pater himself has charted the slave road in his journal.

We will follow that. It will lead us directly to the coast."