Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur. Страница 18

There it is! Shasa called. There is the bridge The steelwork seemed feathery and insubstantial as it crossed the half mile of riverbed, leapfrogging across its concrete buttresses. The regular beat of the bogey wheels over the cross ties altered as they ran out onto the span, and the steel girders beneath them rang like an orchestra.

The river of diamonds, Centaine murmured as she leaned shoulder to shoulder with Shasa and peered down into the coffee-brown waters that swirled around the piers of the bridge beneath them.

Where do the diamonds come from? Shasa asked. He knew the answer, of course, but he liked to hear her tell it to him.

The river gathers them up, from every little pocket and crevice and pipe along its course. It picks up those that were flung into the air during the volcanic eruptions at the beginning of the continent's existence. For hundreds of millions of years it has been concentrating the diamonds and carrying them down towards the coast. She glanced sideways at him. And why aren't they worn away, like all the other pebbles? Because they are the hardest substance in nature. Nothing wears or scratches a diamond, he answered promptly.

Nothing is harder or more beautiful, she agreed, and held up her right hand before his face so that the huge marquis cut diamond on her forefinger dazzled him. You will grow to love them. Everybody who works with them comes to love them. The river, he reminded her. He loved her voice. The husky trace of her accent intrigued him. Tell me about the river, he demanded, and listened avidly as she went on.

Where the river runs into the sea, it has thrown its diamonds up on the beaches. Those beaches are so rich in diamonds that they are the forbidden area, the Spieregebied. Could you fill your pockets with diamonds, just pick them up like fallen fruit in the orchard? 'It's not as easy as that, she laughed. You could search for twenty years and not find a single stone, but if you knew where to look and had even the most primitive equipment and a great deal of luck- Why can't we go in there, Mater? Because, mon cheri, it is all taken. It belongs to a man named Oppenheimer, Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, and his company called De Beers. One company owns it all. That's not fair! he protested, and Centaine was delighted to notice the acquisitive sparkle in his eyes for the first time. Without a healthy measure of avarice, he would not be capable of carrying through the plans she was so carefully laying for him. She had to teach him to be greedy, for wealth and for power.

He owns the Orange river concessions, she nodded, and he owns the Kimberley and Wesselton and Bultfontein and all the other great producing mines, but more, much

more than that, he controls the sale of every single stone,

even those produced by us, the few little independents. He controls us, he controls the H'ani? Shasa demanded indignantly, his smooth cheeks flushing.

Centaine nodded. We have to offer every diamond we mine to his Central Saling Organization, and he will set a price upon it. And we have to accept his price? No, we don't! But we would be very unwise not to do so. What could he do to us if we refused? Shasa, I have told you often before. Don't fight with somebody stronger than yourself. There aren't many people stronger than us, not in Africa anyway, but Sir Ernest Oppenheimer is one of them. What could he do? Shasa persisted.

He could eat us up, my darling, and nothing would give him greater pleasure. Each year we become richer and more attractive to him. He is the one man in the world that we have to be afraid of, especially if we were rash enough to come near this river of his. She swept a gesture across the wide river.

Although it had been named Orange by its Dutch discoverers for the Stadtholders of the House of Orange, the name could have as readily applied to its startling orangecoloured sandbanks. The bright plumage of the waterfowl clustered upon them were like precious stones set in red gold.

He owns the river? Shasa was surprised and perplexed.

Not legally, but you approach it at your own peril for he protects it and the diamonds it contains with his jealous wrath. So there are diamonds here? Eagerly Shasa scanned the banks as though he expected to see them sparkling seductively in the sunlight.

Dr Twenty-man-Jones and I both believe it, and we have isolated some very interesting areas. Two hundred miles upstream is a waterfall that the Bushmen called the Place of the Great Noise, Aughrabies. There the Orange thunders

through a narrow rocky chute and falls into the deep, inaccessible gorge below. The gorge should be a treasurehouse of captured diamonds.

Then there are other ancient alluvial beds where the river has changed its course. They left the river and its narrow strip of greenery and the loco accelerated again as they ran on northwards into the desert. Centaine watched Shasa's face carefully as she went on explaining and lecturing. She would never go on until she reached the point of boredom, at the first sign of inattention, she would stop. She did not have to press. There was all the time necessary for his education, but the one single most important consideration was never to tire him, never to outrun his immature strength or his undeveloped powers of concentration. She must retain his enthusiasm intact and never jade him. This time his interest persisted beyond its usual span, and she recognized it was time for another advance.

It will have warmed up in the saloon. Let's go in. She led him to her desk. There are some things I want to show you. She opened the confidential summary of the annual financial reports of the Courtney Mining and Finance Company.

This would be the difficult part, even for her the paperwork was deadly dull, and she saw him immediately daunted by the columns of figures. Mathematics was his only weak subject.

You enjoy chess, don't you? Yes, he agreed cautiously.

This is a game also, she assured him. But a thousand times more fascinating and rewarding, once you understand the rules. He cheered up visibly, games and rewards Shasa understood.

Teach me the rules, he invited.

Not all at one time. Bit by bit, until you know enough to start playing. It was evening before she saw the fatigue in the lines at the corners of his mouth and the white rims to his nostrils, but he was still frowning with concentration.

That's enough for today. She closed the thick folder.

What are the golden rules? You must always sell something for more than it cost you. She nodded encouragement.

And you must buy when everybody else is selling, and you must sell when everybody else is buying. Good. She stood up. Now a breath of fresh air before we change for dinner. On the balcony of the coach she placed her arm around his shoulders, and she had to reach up to do so. When we get to the mine, I want you to work with Dr Twenty-man Jones in the mornings. You may have the afternoons free, but you'll work in the mornings. I want you to get to know the mine and all its workings. Of course, I will pay you., That isn't necessary, Mater. Another golden rule, my darling, never refuse a fair offer. Through the night and all the following day they ran on northwards across great spaces bleached by the sun, with blue mountains traced in darker blue against the desert horizons.

We should get into Windhoek a little after sunset, Centaine explained. But I have arranged for the coach to be shunted on to a quiet spur and we will spend the night aboard and leave for the mine in the morning. Dr Twenty-man-Jones and Abraham Abrahams will be dining with us, so we will dress. In his shirtsleeves Shasa was standing in front of the long mirror in his compartment, struggling with his black bow tie, he had not yet entirely mastered the art of shaping the butterfly, when he felt the coach slowing and heard the loco blow a long eerie blast.