Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur. Страница 84

If it please my lord, I should like to call a witness to give evidence in mitigation. Come now, Mr Osmond, surely you don't intend to introduce a witness at this stage? Do you have precedents for this? The judge frowned.

I respectfully commend your lordship to the matter of the Crown versus Van der Spuy 1923 and to the Crown versus Alexander 1914. The judge conferred for a few moments with his assessors and then looked up with a stagy sigh of exasperation. Very well, Mr Osmond. I am going to allow you your witness. Thank you, my lord. Mr Osmond was so overcome with his own success that he stuttered a little as he blurted eagerly: I call Mrs Centaine de Thiry Courtney to the stand. This time there was a stunned silence. Even judge Hawthorne fell back in his tall carved chair before a buzz of surprise and delight and anticipation swept through the court. The press were standing to get a view of Centaine as she rose and from the gallery a voice called: Put the noose around the bastard's neck, luv. Judge Hawthorne recovered'swiftly and his eyes flashed behind his pince-nez as he glared up at the gallery, trying to identify the wag.

I will not tolerate a further outburst. There are severe penalties for contempt of court, he snapped, and even the journalists sat down again hurriedly and, chastened, applied themselves to their notepads.

The usher handed Centaine into the witness stand and then swore her in while every man in the room, including those on the bench, watched, most of them in open admiration, but a few, including Blaine and Abraham Abrahams, with puzzlement and perturbation.

Mr Osmond stood to open his examination, his voice pitched low with nervous respect.

Mrs Courtney, will you please tell the court how long you have known the accused, he corrected himself hurriedly, for now Lothar De La Rey was no longer merely accused, he had been convicted. the prisoner. I have known Lothar De La Rey for nearly fourteen years., Centaine looked across the room at the stooped grey figure in the dock.

Would you be good enough to describe, in your own words, the circumstances of your first meeting, It was in 1919. I was lost in the desert. I had been a castaway on the Skeleton Coast after the sinking of the Protea Castle. For a year and a half I had been wandering in the Kalahari desert with a small group of San Bushmen., All of them knew the story. At the time it had been a sensation, but now Centaine's narrative, related in her French accent, brought it all vividly to life.

She conjured up the desolation and misery, the fearful hardships and loneliness that she had endured, and the room was deathly quiet. Even judge Hawthorne was hunched down in his chair, supporting his chin on his clenched fist, absolutely still as he listened. They were all with her as she struggled through the clinging sand of the Kalahari, dressed in the skins of wild animals, her infant son on her hip, following the tracks of a horse, a shod horse, the first sign of civilized man that she had encountered in all those desperate months.

They chilled with her and shared her despair as the African night fell across the desert and her chances of succour receded; they willed her onwards, through the darkness, seeking the glow of a camp-fire far ahead, then started in horror as she described the sinister shape, dark with menace, that suddenly confronted her, and flinched as though they also had heard the roar of a hungry lion close at hand.

Her audience gasped and stirred as she described her fight for her life and the life of her infant; the way the circling lion drove her up into the highest branches of a tall mopani and then climbed up towards her like a cat after a sparrow.

Centaine described the sound of its hot panting breath in the darkness and at last the shooting agony as the long yellow claws hooked into the flesh of her leg and she was drawn inexorably from her perch.

She could not go on, and Mr Osmond prompted her gently.

Was it at this stage that Lothar De La Rey intervened? Centaine roused herself. I'm sorry. It all came back to me, Please, Mrs Courtney, do not tax yourself. judge Hawthorne rushed to her aid. I will recess the court if you need time, No, no, my lord. You are very kind, but that won't be necessary. She squared her shoulders and faced them again.

Yes, that was when Lothar De La Rey came up. He had been camped close at hand, and was alerted by the roars of the animal. He shot the lion dead while it was in the act of savaging me. He saved your life, Mrs Courtney. He saved me from a dreadful death, and he saved my child with me. Mr Osmond bowed his head in silence, letting the court savour the full drama of the moment, then he asked gently: What happened after that, madarn? I was concussed by my fall from the tree; the wound in my leg mortified. I was unconscious for many days, unable to care for myself or my son. What was the prisoner's reaction to this? He cared for me. He dressed my wounds. Tended every need of mine and of my child. He saved your life a second time? Yes. She nodded. He saved me once again. Now, Mrs Courtney. The years passed. You became a wealthy lady, a millionairess? Centaine was silent, and Osmond went on. Then one day three years ago the prisoner approached you for financial assistance for his fishing and canning enterprise. Is that correct? He approached my company, Courtney Mining and Finance, for a loan, she said, and Osmond led her through the series of events up to the time that she had closed down Lothar's canning factory.

So, Mrs Courtney, would you say that Lothar De La Rey had reason to believe that he had been unfairly treated, if not deliberately ruined by your action? Centaine hesitated. My actions were at all times based on sound business principles. However, I would readily concede that from Lothar De La Rey's standpoint, it could have seemed that my actions were deliberate. At the time, did he accuse you of attempting to destroy him? She looked down at her hands and whispered something.

I am sorry, Mrs Courtney. I must ask you to repeat that. And she flared at him, her voice cracking with strain. Yes, damn it. He said that I was doing it to destroy him. Mr Osmond! The judge sat up straight, his expression I must insist that you treat your witness in a more severe.

considerate fashion. He sank back in his seat, clearly moved by Centaine's recital, and then raised his voice again. I will recess the court for fifteen minutes to allow Mrs Courtney time to recover herself. When they reconvened, Centaine entered the witness stand again and sat quietly while the formalities were completed and Mr Osmond prepared to continue his examination.

From the third row Blaine Malcomess smiled at her encouragingly, and she knew that if she did not look away from him every single person in the courtroom would be aware of her feelings. She forced herself to break contact with his eyes and instead looked up at the gallery above his head.

It was an idle glance. She had forgotten the way in which Lothar De La Rey searched the gallery each morning, but now she was seeing it from the same angle as he did from the dock. And suddenly her eyes flicked to the furthest corner of the gallery, drawn irresistibly by another set of eyes, by the intensity of a glowering gaze that was fastened upon her, and she started and then swayed in her seat, giddy with shock, for she had stared once again into Lothar's eyes: Lothar's eyes as they had been when first she met him, yellow as topaz, fierce and bright, with dark brows arched over them, young eyes, unforgettable, unforgotten eyes. But the eyes were not set in Lothar's face, for Lothar sat across the courtroom from her, bowed and broken and grey. This fare was young, strong and full of hatred, and she knew, she knew with a mother's sure instinct. She had never seen her younger son, at her insistence, he had been taken away, wet from the womb, at the very moment of birth, and she had turned her head away so as not to see his squirming naked body. But now she knew him, and it was as though the very core of her existence, the womb which had contained him, ached at this glimpse of his face, and she had to cover her mouth to prevent herself crying out with the pain of it.