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and nodded when he saw Rogan looking at his bags.
    â€œYes, my ship for Capetown leaves in the morning. My bags will be loaded aboard my cabin tonight.” He explained his delayed departure by pushing an envelope across the desk toward Rogan.
    â€œThis is why I called for you to come privately. I’m worried about recent events. This letter is from your brother.”
    â€œParnell?” Rogan was surprised. Somehow he had expected that troubling news would be from Sir Julien Bley, and why would Parnell send it to Anthony?
    The letter had been sent from Bulawayo. As Rogan slipped it from the envelope and started reading, he realized it contained information that could be damaging to Julien. Rogan now knew why Parnell had not sent it to him. Rogan was independent enough to question Julien’s doings, and Parnell was still trying to please him, just as he had when he was working for him in Kimberly at De Beers’s mining and claims office. It disturbed Rogan that his older brother was still committed to Julien’s cause above all else, as though being hitched to Julien’s wagon would strengthen Parnell’s position in the family and also his chances of marrying Julien’s granddaughter, Darinda. Why couldn’t Parnell see the obvious? Rogan doubted if his brother would ever be permitted to marry the beautiful and independent Darinda Bley.
    Rogan honed in on a section of the letter that troubled him and read it again slowly, thoughtfully.
    Sir Julien helped lead Dr. Jameson’s troopers against Lobengula at Bulawayo. When Lobengula fled his kraal, Julien and I were some of the first to enter the savage’s hut. He went berserk searching for the treasure trove of diamonds that he expected to find there. The main chest
was gone. But there were bags of diamonds left behind in Lobengula’s haste to flee our troopers. Yet Julien was utterly dismayed. After dumping the diamonds out onto the floor, he fell to his knees scooping them with his hands. I kept telling him to hurry. The kraal huts were bursting with fire. Julien’s face was ravaged. I feared for a time that he had mentally cracked until I understood that he had expected the Kimberly Black Diamond to be in one of those bags!
    He became furious. “The induna promised me it was here. Lobengula has run off with it. But I’ll find him,” he kept saying, but I kept trying to pull him out of the tent. “Come, Uncle,” I kept telling him. “The Ndebele are coming back and will attack us.” I feared for our lives, but Julien kept searching. Finally he stood, dazed. “Lobengula has the Black Diamond with him.
”
    Julien urged Dr. Jameson’s troopers to track Lobengula and his indunas. Our men were closing in when Lobengula sent more diamonds to buy them off. But they pursued him to the Shangani River. A battle ensued. Our patrol was killed to the last man. Lobengula got away. He fled to the Matopos Hills. Here he took refuge in a cave and drank poison. We captured a Shona slave of one of the chief indunas. He told us that Lobengula’s most loyal induna, along with his wives, buried Lobengula in one of the secret caves, and like the ancient Egyptian pharaohs, they surrounded Lobengula with his great wealth, his assegai, and his royal cloak. There were so many diamonds sprinkled over Lobengula that the Shona now have a saying: “Lobengula glitters in his sleep. The glittering crocodile sleeps, covered over with diamonds like shiny, thick scales.
”
    Julien believes the Black Diamond is there …
    Rogan looked up from the letter, and Anthony spoke.
    â€œThe Matopos Hills—aren’t they near Bulawayo?”
    â€œYes. You can look off and see them from Lobengula’s kraal.” Rogan remembered his visit there with Rhodes’s delegation when Dr. Jameson and Frank Thompson were negotiating with Lobengula for right of passage through Matabeleland to dig for gold. What