Money from Holme Read Online Free PDF Page B

swallowing and dissolving in its violent chiaroscuro such human beings as have momentarily hacked themselves out breathing-space and elbow-room amid its savage proliferations…
     
    (Blush-making twaddle, Cheel told himself. But some approximation to hard fact seemed to be coming.)
     
    The mighty spectacle of Resurgent Africa was never, to either of the Holme brothers, a spectacle and nothing more. Keenly concerned for the ordered progress of the entire Continent, they took part in numerous enterprises designed to further the economic, and even political, development of more than one territory lately come to independence. In particular, they were the moving spirits in a small but highly significant import business operating mainly on the seaboard of Wamba and among its offshore islands. When, in January 1963, the reactionary régime of ‘Field-Marshal’ Mbulu and the RIP (the so-called Republican Independent Progressives) was overthrown by what is now the recognized government of Professor Ushirombo and his MADS (Moderate Advanced Democrats and Syndicalists) both the Holmes were present as keenly interested observers in Wamba-Wamba (the capital of Wamba, two hundred miles in the interior). Unfortunately, as is well known, the revolution, while peacefully achieved and enthusiastically received throughout Wamba as a whole, was attended by sporadic violence in Wamba-Wamba itself. Indeed, for some days Professor Ushfrombo and his Cabinet were unable to leave the precincts of the Old Colonial Gaol, and the city was in the hands of Terrorists, Students, and Criminal Elements. It was during this unfortunate phase in the political evolution of the Wambian people that the tragedy occurred.
    On the night of 18 January the small European community had thought it well to take shelter in the Wamba Palace Hotel – in which, incidentally, Sebastian Holme had arranged a display of a large number of his paintings by way of welcome to Professor Ushirombo, who was to attend a state banquet in the building immediately upon his taking over. To hold such an Exhibition in a mere hostelry or place of public refreshment was surely ill-judged and unbecoming. It was certainly calamitous. There is every reason to believe that ‘Field-Marshal’ Mbulu (already in exile on the farther bank of the Upper Wam) caused rumours to be circulated in the disturbed city to the effect that Holme’s paintings were in fact a collection of propaganda posters commissioned by the universally execrated ‘Emperor’ Mkaka, leader of the proscribed JUMBO (a terrorist organization the full title of which is totally unknown). The result was a fanatical attack upon the Wamba Palace, culminating in large-scale massacre and arson. As the hotel was a commodious structure fabricated in the main out of platted straw and bituminous mud the conflagration is said to have been spectacular.
    Almost the only survivor of this incident – regrettable in point of the loss of life involved, and vastly tragic because of the destruction of more than a score of irreplaceable works of art – was Mr Gregory Holme. Seizing a prog (a kind of native sword with a serrated blade) he cut his way to the bank of the Wam, boarded a krimp (a species of native light craft, graceful in construction and probably of Arab origin) and constrained the indigenous Wambians forming its crew to set sail down stream at once. After a two-day passage of the dangerous rapids of the Upper Wam (during which, most unfortunately, his crew was without exception eaten by crocodiles) Mr Holme had the good fortune to contact a small but effectively armed mobile column commanded by Colonel Uk, which had been placed at the disposal of UNO by the Lapland army, and which was hastening to Wamba-Wamba to support the legally constituted Government of Professor Ushirombo.
    Returning to the capital thus effectively accompanied, Mr Gregory Holme found that a large measure of order had already been achieved. The charred bodies of