Power Of The Sword Part 22

Isabella Malcomess had been thrown from her horse almost five years previous an since then they had not known each other as man and woman. They had attempted it only once, but he could not bear to think about the agony and humiliation they had both suffered at their failure.

He had a healthy l.u.s.ty body and a huge appet.i.te for living.

It had taken all his strength and determination to discipline himself to this unnatural monastic existence. He had succeeded at last, so that he was now unprepared for the savage escape of all those fettered desires and instincts.

Eyes closed again, she called gaily. I'm going to stand and work up some suds. He was unable to reply; he only just contained the groan that came up his throat, and he stared down fixedly at the rifle in his lap.

Centaine screamed on a wild rising note of terror. Blaine! He was on his feet in that instant. Centaine was standing thigh deep, the green water just lapping the deep cleft of her small round b.u.t.tocks, the naked swell of her hips narrowing into a tiny waist. Her exquisitively sculpted back and shoulders were stiff with horror.

The crocodile was coming in from deep water with slas.h.i.+ng sweeps of its long c.o.c.ks-combed tail, a bow wave spreading back from its hideous armoured snout in a sharp arrowhead of ripples. The reptile was almost as long as the mukoro, twenty feet from its nose to the tip of its crested tail.

Run, Centaine, run! he bellowed, and she whirled and floundered back towards him. But the reptile was moving as swiftly as a horse at full gallop, the water breaking into a roiling wake behind it, and Centaine was blocking Blaine's aim, running directly back towards him.

Blaine sprang down from the rock and waded knee-deep into the water to meet her, his rifle held at high port across his chest.

Down! he shouted at her. Fall flat! And she responded instantly, diving forward at full length, and he fired over her back, a snap shot for the huge reptile was almost upon her.

The bullet cracked against the armoured scales of its bideous skull. The crocodile arched its back, exploding out of the water, drenching Blaine and covering Centaine in a breaking wave of foam. it stood on its ma.s.sive tail, its dwarfed forelegs clawing desperately, its creamy belly chequered with symmetrical patterns of scales, the long angular snout pointed to the sky, and with a bellow it collapsed over backwards.

Blaine dragged Centaine to her feet and with one arm around her backed towards the beach, pointing the rifle like a pistol with his free hand. The crocodile was in monstrous convulsions, its primitive brain damaged by the bullet. It rolled and thrashed in uncontrolled erratic circles, snapping its jaws so that the jagged yellow teeth clashed like a steel gate slamming in a high wind.

Blaine thrust Centaine behind him and with both hands lifted the rifle. His bullets rang against the scaly head, tearing away chunks of flesh and bone, and the reptile's tail fluttered and lashed weakly. It dived over the edge of the shallow sandbank into the dark green beyond, came up in one last swirl and then was gone.

Centaine was shaking with terror, her teeth chattering so she could hardly speak. Horrible, oh what an awful monster! and she threw herself against his chest, and clung to him. Oh Blaine, I was terrified. Her face was pressed to his chest so that her voice was blurred.

It's all right now. He tried to calm her. Easy, my darling, it's all over. It's gone. He propped the rifle against the rocks and enfolded her in his arms.

He was stroking her and soothing her, at first without pa.s.sion, as he would have gentled one of his own daughters when she woke from a nightmare screaming for him; then he became acutely aware of the silkiness of her bare wet skin under his hands. He could feel every plane of her back, the smooth curves of muscle on each side of her spine, and he could not prevent himself tracing with his fingertips the ridge of her spine. It felt like a string of polished beads beneath her skin; he followed it down until it disappeared into the divide of her small hard bottom.

She was quiet now, only breathing in little choking gasps, but at his touch she curled her spine like a cat, inclining her pelvis towards him, and he seized one of her b.u.t.tocks in each hand and pulled her to him. She did not resist, but her whole body thrust forward to meet his. Blaine. She said his name and lifted her face.

He kissed her savagely, with the anger of a man of honour who knows he can no longer keep his vows, and they locked together breathing each other's breath, their tongues twisting together, kneading, pressing, so deep that they threatened to choke each other with their fervour. She pulled away. Now, she stammered. It has to be now, and he lifted her in his arms like a child and ran with her, back through the clinging white sand to the thatched shelter, and he fell onto his knees beside the mattress of papyrus fronds and lowered her gently onto the blanket that covered it.

I want to look at you, he blurted, pulling back onto his haunches, but she squirmed up and reached for him.

Later, I can't wait, please, Blaine. Oh G.o.d, do it now. She was tearing at the b.u.t.tons on his s.h.i.+rt front, clumsy with haste, desperate with haste.

He ripped off his sodden s.h.i.+rt and threw it away, and she was kissing him again, smothering his mouth, while both of them fumbled with his belt buckle, getting in each other's way, wildly laughing and gasping, b.u.mping their noses together, bruising their lips between their teeth.

Oh G.o.d, hurry, Blaine. He tore away from her and hopped on one leg as he tried to rid himself of his wet clinging breeches. He looked awkward and ungainly and he almost toppled over into the soft white sand in his haste. And she laughed wildly, breathlessly, he was so funny and beautiful and ridiculous and she wanted him so, and if he took a second longer something inside her would burst and she knew she would die.

Oh please, Blaine, quickly come to me. Then at last he was naked as she was and as he came over her she seized his shoulder with one hand and fell backwards, pulling him with her, spreading her knees and lifting them high, with the other hand groping for him, finding him and guiding him.

Oh Blaine, you're so, oh yes, like that, I can't, I want to scream. Scream! He encouraged her as he plunged and rocked and thrust above her. There is no one to hear you. Scream for both of us! And she opened her mouth wide and gave vent to all her loneliness and wanting and incredulous joy in a rising crescendo that he joined at the end, roaring wildly with her in the most complete and devastating moment of her existence.

Afterwards she wept silently against his bare chest and he was puzzled and compa.s.sionate and concerned.

I was too rough, forgive me! I did not mean to hurt you. She shook her head and gulped back her tears. No, you never hurt me, it was the most beautiful Then why do you cry? Because everything that is good seems so fleeting, the more wonderful it is, the sooner it is past, while the wretched vile times seem to last for ever. Don't think like that, my little one. I don't know how I will go on living without you. It was h.e.l.l before, but this will only make it a thousand times worse. I don't know where I will find the strength to walk away from you, he whispered in agreement. It will be the hardest thing I ever have to do in my life. How much longer do we have? Another day, then we will be at Rundu. When I was a little girl my father gave me a brooch of amber with an insect embedded in it. I wish we could preserve this moment like that, capture it eternally in the precious amber of our love. Their parting was a gradual process, not a merciful guillotine stroke, but over the following days a slow intrusion of events and people that prised them apart so that they must suffer the smallest tear, each new wrench, in all its detailed agony.

From the morning they reached the border post at Rundu and went ash.o.r.e to meet the police sergeant who was in command, they seemed constantly to be with strangers, always on their guard so that every glance that pa.s.sed between them, every word or stolen caress, made them more dreadfully aware of impending separation. Only when the dusty police truck carried them down the last hills into Windhoek was the torturous process completed.

The world awaited them: Isabella, lovely and tragic in her wheelchair, and her daughters bubbling with laughter, mischievous and enchanting as elves, competing for Blaine's embraces; the superintendent of police and the territorial secretary and droves of petty officials and reporters and photographers; TWentyman-jones and Abe Abrahams, Sir Garry and Lady Courtney, who had hurried up from their estate at Lady-burg the moment they heard of the robbery, and piles of messages of concern and congratulation, telegrams from the prime minister and from the Ou Baas, General s.m.u.ts, and from a hundred friends and business a.s.sociates.

Yet Centaine felt detached from the hubbub. She watched it all through a screen of gossamer which muted sound and shape and gave it a dreamlike quality as though half of her was far away, drifting upon a beautiful green river, making love in the warm soft night while the mosquitoes whined outside the protective net, walking hand in hand with the man she loved, a tall strong gentle man with soft green eyes, the hands of a pianist and lovely sticky-out ears.

From her railway coach she telephoned Shasa and tried to sound enthusiastic about the fact that he was now the captain of his cricket eleven and about his mathematics marks which had at last taken an upward turn.

I don't know when I will be back at Weltevreden, cheri.

I have so many things to see to. We never recovered the diamonds, I'm afraid. There will have to be talks with the bank and I'll have to make new arrangements. No, of course not, silly boy! Of course we aren't poor, not yet, but a million pounds is a lot of money to lose, and then there will be the trial. Yes, he is an awful man, Shasa, but I don't know if they will hang him. Good Lord, no! They won't let us watch- TWice that first day of their separation she telephoned the residency in the forlorn hope that Blaine would answer, but it was a woman, either a secretary or Isabella, and each time she hung up without speaking.

They met again at the administrator's office the next day.

Blaine had called a press conference and there was a crowd of journalists and photographers packed into the ante-chamber.

Once again Isabella was there in her wheelchair, with Blaine attentive and dutiful and unbearably handsome behind her.

it took all Centaine's acting ability to shake hands in a friendly fas.h.i.+on, and then to joke lightly with the members of the press, even posing with Blaine for the photographs, and at no time to allow herself to moon at him. But afterwards as she drove herself back to the offices of the Courtney Mining and Finance Company, she had to pull off into a side road and sit quietly for a while to compose herself. There had been no opportunity for a single private exchange with Blaine.

Abe was waiting for her the moment she walked in through the front doors and he followed her up the stairs and into her office. 'Centaine, you are late. They have been waiting in the boardroom for almost an hour. I can't say with any great display of patience either. Let them wait! she told him with bravado she did not feel. 'They had better get accustomed to it., The bank was her single largest creditor.

The loss of the stones has frightened ten different shades of yellow out of them, Centaine. The bank directors had been demanding this meeting since the minute they heard she had arrived back in town.

Where is Dr Twenty-man-jones? He is in there with them, pouring oil on the troubled waters. Abe laid a thick folder in front of her. 'Here are the schedules of the interest repayments. She glanced at them. She already knew them by heart. She could recite dates and amounts and rates. She had already prepared her strategy in detail but it was all dreamy and unreal, like a children's game.

Anything new that I should know about before we go into the lions den? she asked.

A long cable from Lloyds of London. They have repudiated the claim. No armed escort. Centaine nodded. We expected that. Will we take them to court? What do you advise? I am taking silk's opinion on that, but my own feeling is that it will be a waste of time and money. Anything else? De Beers, he said. A message from Sir Ernest Oppenheimer himself. Sniffing around already, is he? She sighed, trying to make herself care, but she thought of Blaine instead.

She saw him bending over the wheelchair. She pushed the image from her mind and concentrated on what Abe was telling her.

Sir Ernest is coming up from Kimberley. He will be arriving in Windhoek on Thursday. By some lucky chance, she smiled cynically.

He requests a meeting at your earliest convenience. He has a nose like a hyena and the eyesight of a vulture, Centaine said. He can smell blood and pick out a dying animal from a hundred leagues. 'He is after the H'ani Mine, Centaine. He has been l.u.s.ting after the H'ani for thirteen years. They are all after the H'ani, Abe. The bank, Sir Ernest, all the predators. By G.o.d, they'll have to fight me for it. They stood up and Abe asked, Are you ready? Centaine glanced at herself in the mirror over the mantel, touched her hair, wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, and suddenly it all clicked into crisp focus again. She was going into battle, her mind cleared, her wits sharp, she smiled a bright, confident, patronizing smile at herself.

She was ready again.

Let's go! she said, and as they marched into the long boardroom with its stinkwood table and the six huge magically lyrical Pierneef murals of the desert places decorating the walls, she lifted her chin and her eyes sparkled with a.s.sumed confidence.

Do forgive me, gentlemen, she cried lightly, attacking immediately with the fall force of her personality and s.e.xual allure and watching them wilt before it, but I a.s.sure you that you now have me, and my full attention, for as long as you want me. Deep inside her there was still that empty aching place which Blaine had filled for a few fleeting moments, but it was b.u.t.tressed and fortified, she was impregnable once again, and as she took the leather upholstered chair at the head of the table she recited silently to herself like a mantra: 'The H'ani belongs to me, no one shall take it from me. Manfred De La Rey moved as swiftly through the darkness as the two grown men who led him northwards. The humiliation and pain of his father's dismissal had invoked within him a new defiance and steely determination. His father had called him a blubbering ninny.

But I am a man now, he told himself, striding onwards after the dark figure of Swart Hendrick. I will never cry again. I am a man, and I will prove it every day I live. I will prove it to you, Pa. if you are watching over me still, you will never have to be ashamed of me again., Then he thought of his father alone and dying upon the hilltop, and his grief was overwhelming. Despite his resolution, his tears rose to swamp him and it took all his strength and his will to thrust them down.

I am a man now. He fixed his mind upon it, and indeed he stood as tall as a man, almost as tall as Hendrick, and his long legs thrust him forward tirelessly. I will make you proud of me, Papa. I swear it. I swear it before G.o.d. He neither slackened his pace nor uttered a single complaint throughout that long night, and the sun was clear of the treetops when they reached the river.

As soon as they had drunk Hendrick had them up again and moving northwards. They travelled in a series of loops, swinging away from the river during the day, hiding out in the dry mopani, and then turning back to slake their thirst and follow the riverbank all the hours of darkness.

it was twelve of these nights of hard marching before Hendrick judged them clear of any pursuit.

When will we cross the river, Hennie? Manfred asked.

Never, Swart Hendrick told him.

But it was my father's plan to cross to the Portuguese, to Alves De Santos the ivory trader, and then to travel to Luanda. That was your father's plan, Hendrick agreed. But your father is not with us. There is no place for a strange black man in the north. The Portuguese are even harder than the Germans or the English or the Boers. They will cheat us out of our diamonds, and beat us like dogs and send us to work on their labour gangs. No, Manie, we are going back, back to ovamboland and our brothers of the tribe, where everyone is a friend and we can live like men and not animals. The police will find us, Manie argued.

No man saw us. Your father made certain of that. But they know you were my father's friend. They will come for you. Hendrick grinned. In Ovamboland my name is not Hendrick, and a thousand witnesses will swear I was always in my kraal and knew no white robber.

To the white police all black men look the same, and I have a brother, a clever brother, who will know how and where to sell our diamonds for us. With these stones I can buy two hundred fine cattle and ten fat wives. No, Manie, we are going home. And what will happen to me, Hendrick? I cannot go with you to the kraals of the Ovambo. There is a place and a plan for you. Hendrick placed his arm around the white boy's shoulders, a paternal gesture.

Your father has entrusted you to me. You do not have to fear. I will see you safe before I leave you. When you go, Hendrick, I will be alone. I will have nothing. And the black man could not answer him. He dropped his arm and spoke brusquely. It is time to march again; a long, hard road lies ahead of us.

They left the river that night and turned back towards the south-west, skirting the terrible wastes of Bushmanland, keeping to the gentler, better watered lands, striking a more leisurely pace but still avoiding all habitation or human contact until, on the twentieth day after leaving Lothar De La Rey on his fatal hilltop, they followed a wooded ridge through well-pastured country and at last in the dusk looked down on a sprawling Ovambo village.

The conical huts of thatch were built in haphazard cl.u.s.ters of four or five, each surrounded by an enclosure of woven gra.s.s matting, and these were grouped around the big central cattle kraal with its palisade of poles set into the earth. The smell of wood-smoke drifted up to them on pale blue wisps, and it mingled with the arnmoniacal scent of cattle dung and the floury smell of maize cakes baking on the coals. The cries of children's laughter and the voices of the women were melodious as wild bird calls. They picked out the gaudy flashes of the skirts of bright trade cotton as the women came up in single file from the water-hole with br.i.m.m.i.n.g clay pots balanced gracefully upon their heads.

However, they made no move to approach the village.

Instead they lay concealed upon the ridge, watching for strangers or any sign of the unusual, even the smallest hint of danger, Hendrick and Klein Boy quietly discussing each movement they spotted, each sound that carried up from the village until Manfred grew impatient.

Why are we waiting, Hennie? Only the stupid young gemsbok rushes eagerly into the pitfall, Hendrick grunted. We will go down when we are certain. In the middle of the afternoon a small black urchin drove a herd of goats up the slope. He was stark naked except for the slingshot hanging around his neck, and Hendrick whistled softly.

The child started and stared at their hiding-place fearfully.

Then, when Hendrick whistled again, he crept towards them cautiously. Suddenly he crinkled into a grin too big and white for his grubby face and he rushed straight at Hendrick.

Hendrick laughed and lifted him onto his hip, and the child gabbled at him in ecstatic excitement.

This is my son,Hendrick told Manie, and then he questioned the child and listened to his piping replies with attention.

There are no strangers in the village, he grunted. The police were here, asking for me, but they have gone. Still carrying the child, he led them down the hill towards the largest of the cl.u.s.ters of huts, and he stooped through the opening in the matting fence. The yard was bare and swept, the circle of huts facing inwards. There were four women working in a group, all of them wearing only loincloths of coloured trade cotton; they rocked on the b.a.l.l.s of their feet, singing softly in chorus, stamping and crus.h.i.+ng the raw dried maize in tall wooden mortars, their bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s jerking and quivering with each stroke of the long poles they wielded as pestles in time to their chant.

one of the women shrieked when she saw Hendrick and rushed to him.

She was an ancient crone, wrinkled and toothless, her pate covered with pure white wool. She dropped on her knees and hugged Hendrick's thick powerful legs, crooning with happiness.

My mother, said Hendrick, and lifted her to her feet.

Then they were surrounded by a swarm of delighted chattering women, but after a few minutes Hendrick quieted them and shooed them away.

You are lucky, Manie, he grunted, with a sparkle in his eyes. 'You will be allowed only one wife. At the entrance to the farthest hut the only man in the kraal sat on a low carved stool. He had kept completely aloof from the screeching excitement, and now Hendrick crossed to him. He was much younger than Hendrick, with paler, almost honey-coloured skin. However, his muscle had been forged and tempered by hard physical labour, and there was a confidence about him, that of a man who has striven and succeeded. He had also an air of grace, and fine intelligent features with a Nilotic cast like those of a young pharaoh. Surprisingly he held a thick battered book in his lap, a copy of Macaulay's History of England.

He greeted Hendrick with calm reserve, but their mutual affection was apparent to the white Boy watching them.

This is my clever young brother; same father, but different mothers. He speaks Afrikaans and much better English than even I do, and he reads books. His English name is Moses. I see you, Moses. Manie felt awkward under the penetrating scrutiny of those dark eyes.

I see you, little white boy. Do not call me "boy", Manie said hotly. I am not a boy The men exchanged glances and smiled. Moses is a bossboy on the H'ani Diamond Mine, Hendrick explained in placatory fas.h.i.+on, but the tall Ovambo shook his head and replied in the vernacular.

No longer, Big Brother. I was sacked over a month ago. So I sit here in the sun drinking beer and reading and thinking, performing all those onerous tasks which are a man's duty. They laughed together, and Moses clapped his hands and called to the women imperiously.

Bring beer, do you not see how my brother thirsts? For Hendrick it was good to divest himself of his western European clothing and dress again in the comfortable loincloth, to let himself drift back into the pace of village life.

It was good to savour the tart effervescent sorghum beer, thick as gruel and cool in the clay pots, and to talk quietly of cattle and game, of crops and rain, of acquaintances and friends and relatives, of deaths and births and matings. It was a long leisurely time before they came circ.u.mspectly to the pressing issues which had to be discussed.

Yes, Moses nodded. The police were here. Two dogs of the white men in Windhoek who should be ashamed to have betrayed their own tribe.

They were not dressed in uniform, but still they had the stink of police upon them. They stayed many days, asking questions about a man called Swart Hendrick, smiling and friendly at first, then angry and threatening. They beat a few of the women, your mother, He saw Hendrick stiffen and his jaw clench and went on quickly, She is old but tough. She has been beaten before; our father was a strict man. Despite the blows, she did not know Swart Hendrick, n.o.body knew Swart Hendrick, and the police dogs went away. They will return, said Hendrick, and his half-brother nodded.

Yes. The white men never forget. Five years, ten years.

They hanged a man in Pretoria for killing a man twenty-five years before. They will return. They drank in turn from the pot of beer, sipping with relish and then pa.s.sing the black pot from hand to hand.

So there was talk of a great robbery of diamonds on the road from the H'ani, and they mentioned the name of the white devil with whom you have always ridden and fought, with whom you went out on the big green to catch fish. They say that you were with him at the taking of the diamonds, and that they will hang you on a rope when they find you. Hendrick chuckled and counterattacked. I also have heard stories of a fellow who is neither unknown nor unrelated to me. I have heard he is well versed in the disposal of stolen diamonds. That all the stones taken from the H'ani Mine pa.s.s through his hands. Now who could have told you such vile lies? Moses smiled faintly, and Hendrick gestured to Klein Boy. He brought a rawhide bag from its hiding place and placed it in front of his father. Hendrick opened the flap and, one at a time, lifted out the small packages of brown cartridge paper and laid them on the hard bare earth of the yard, fourteen in a row.

His brother took up the first package and with his sheath knife split the wax seal. This is the mark of the H'ani Mine, he remarked, and carefully unfolded the paper. His expression did not change as he examined the contents. He placed the package aside and opened the next. He did not speak until he had opened all fourteen, and studied them.

Then he said softly, Death. There is death here. A hundred deaths, a thousand deaths. Can you sell them for us? Hendrick asked, and Moses shook his head.

I have never seen such stones, so many together. To try to sell these all at once would bring disaster and death upon us all. I must think upon this, but in the meantime we dare not keep these deadly stones in the kraal. The next morning in the dawn the three of them, Hendrick and Moses and Klein Boy, left the village together and climbed to the crest of the ridge where they found the leadwood tree that Hendrick remembered from the days when he roamed here as a naked herdboy. There was a hollow in the trunk, thirty feet above the ground, which had been the nesting hole of a pair of eagle owls.

While the others stood guard, Klein Boy climbed to the nesting hole, carrying the rawhide bag.

It was many days more before Moses gave his carefully considered summation.

My brother, you and I are no longer of this life or this place. Already I have seen the first restlessness in you. I have seen you look out to the horizon with the expression of a man who longs to breast them. This life, so sweet at first, palls swiftly. The taste of beer goes flat on the tongue, and a man thinks of the brave things he has done, and the braver things which wait for him still somewhere out there. Hendrick smiled. You are a man of many skills, my brother, even that of looking into a man's head and reading his secret thoughts. We cannot stay here. The death stones are too dangerous to keep here, too dangerous to sell., Hendrick nodded. I am listening, he said.

There are things which I have to do. Things which I believe are in my destiny, and of which I have never spoken, not even to you. 'Speak of them now. I speak of the art which the white men call politics and from which we as black men are excluded. Hendrick made a dismissive scornful gesture. You read too many books. There is no profit or reward in that business. Leave it to the white men. You are wrong, my brother. In that art lie treasures which make your little white stones seem paltry. No, do not scoff. Hendrick opened his mouth and then closed it slowly. He had not truly thought about this before, but the young man facing him had a powerful presence, a quivering intensity which stirred and excited him although he did not understand fully the implication of his words.

My brother, I have decided. We will leave here. It is too small for us. Hendrick nodded. The thought did not disturb him. He had been a nomad all his life, and he was ready to move on again.

Not only this kraal, my brother. We will leave this land. 'Leave this land! Hendrick started up and then sank back on his stool.

,We have to do this. This land is too small for us and the stones. Where will we go? His brother held up his hand. We will discuss that soon, but first you must rid us of this white child you have brought amongst us. He is even more dangerous than the stones. He will bring the white police down upon us even more swiftly.

When you have done that, my brother, we will be ready to go on to do what we have to do. Swart Hendrick was a man of great strength, both physical and mental. He feared very little, would attempt anything and suffer much for what he wanted, but always he had followed someone else. Always there had been a man even fiercer and more fearless than he to lead him.

We will do as you say, my brother, he agreed, and he knew instinctively that he had found someone to replace the man he had left to die upon a rock in the desert.

I will wait here until the sun rises tomorrow, Swart Hendrick told the white boy. If you do not return by then, I will know you are safe. ,Will I see you again, Hennie? Manie asked wistfully, and Hendrick hesitated on the brink of empty promise.

I think that our feet will be on different paths from now on, Manie. He reached out and placed a hand on Manfred's shoulder. But I shall think of you often, and, who knows, one day the paths may come together again. He squeezed the boy's shoulder and he noticed that it was sheathed in muscle, like that of a man full grown. Go in peace, and be a man like your father was. He pushed Manfred away lightly, but the white boy lingered. Hendrick, he whispered, there are many things I want to say to you, but I do not have the words.

Hendrick said. We both know. It does not have to be spoken of. Go, Manie. Manfred picked up his pack and blanket roll and stepped out of the undergrowth onto the dusty rutted road. He started down towards the village, towards the spire of the church which he recognized somehow as a symbol of a new existence, that at once both beckoned and repelled him.

At the bend in the road he looked back. There was no sign of the big Ovambo, and he turned and trudged down the main street towards the church at the far end.

Without conscious decision he turned from the main street down a side opening and approached the pastory along the sanitary lane as he had done on the last visit with his father. The narrow lane was hedged with fleshy moroto plants, and he whiffed the sanitary buckets behind the little sliding doors of the outhouses that backed onto the lane. He hesitated at the back gate of the pastory and then lifted the latch and started at a snail's pace up the long pathway.

Halfway along the path he was stopped by a bellow, and he stared about him apprehensively. There was another roar and a loud voice lifted in exhortation or acrimonious argument. It came from a ramshackle building at the bottom of the yard, a large woodshed perhaps.