The Angels Weep Read Online Free PDF Page B

and Louise. ‘Ladies, I am sure
you will find our discourse tedious, and you have urgent chores
to attend to, I am certain.’
    Cathy glanced up at her husband, and saw Ralph’s quick
annoyance at the artless presumption with which Mr Rhodes had
taken over his camp and all within it. Surreptitiously Cathy
squeezed his hand to calm him, and felt Ralph relax slightly.
There was a limit to even Ralph’s defiance. He might not be
in Rhodes’ employ, but the railway contract and a hundred
cartage routes depended upon this man.
    Then Cathy looked across at Louise, and saw that she was as
piqued by the dismissal. There was a blue spark in her eyes and a
faint heat under the fine freckles on her cheeks, but her voice
was level and cool as she replied for both Cathy and herself,
‘Of course you are correct, Mr Rhodes. Will you please
excuse us.’
    It was well known that Mr Rhodes was uncomfortable in the
presence of females. He employed no female servants, would not
allow a painting nor statue of a woman to decorate his ornate
mansion at Groote Schuur in the Cape of Good Hope, he would not
even employ a married man in a position close to his person, and
immediately discharged even the most trusted employee who took
the unforgivable plunge into matrimony. ‘You cannot dance
to a woman’s whims and serve me at the same time,’ he
would explain as he fired an offender.
    Now Rhodes beckoned Ralph. ‘Sit here, where I can see
you,’ he commanded, and immediately turned back to Zouga,
and began rapping out questions. His questions cut like the lash
of a stock whip, but the attention with which he listened to the
replies was evidence of the high regard he had for Zouga
Ballantyne. Their relationship went back many years, to the early
days of the diamond diggings at Colesberg kopje which had since
been renamed Kimberley after the colonial secretary who accepted
it into Her Majesty’s dominions.
    On those diggings Zouga had once worked claims which had
yielded up the fabulous ‘Ballantyne Diamond’, but now
Rhodes owned those claims, as he owned every single claim on the
fields. Since then, Rhodes had employed Zouga as his personal
agent at the kraal of Lobengula, King of the Matabele, for he
spoke the language with colloquial fluency. When Doctor Jameson
had led his flying column in that swift and victorious strike
against the king, Zouga had ridden with him as one of his field
officers and had been the first man into the burning kraal of
GuBulawayo after the king had fled.
    After Lobengula’s death, Rhodes had appointed Zouga
‘Custodian of Enemy Property’, and Zouga had been
responsible for rounding up the captured herds of Matabele cattle
and redistributing them as booty to the company and to
Jameson’s volunteers.
    Once Zouga had completed that task, Rhodes would have
appointed him Chief Native Commissioner, to deal with the indunas
of the Matabele, but Zouga had preferred to retire to his estates
at King’s Lynn with his new bride, and had let the job go
to General Mungo St John. However, Zouga was still on the Board
of the British South Africa Company, and Rhodes trusted him as he
did few other men.
    ‘Matabeleland is booming, Mr Rhodes,’ Zouga
reported. ‘You will find Bulawayo is almost a city already,
with its own school and hospital. There are already more than six
hundred white women and children in Matabeleland, a sure sign
that your settlers are here to stay at last. All the land grants
have been taken up, and many of the farms are already being
worked. The bloodstock from the Cape is taking to the local
conditions and breeding well with the captured Matabele
cattle.’
    ‘What about the minerals, Ballantyne?’
    ‘Over ten thousand claims have been registered, and I
have seen some very rich crushings.’ Zouga hesitated,
glanced at Ralph, and when he nodded, turned back to Rhodes.
‘Within the last few days, my son and I have rediscovered
and