trees.
The slopes behind the building were thick with protea bushes in full flower and the long-tailed sugar-birds haggled noisily over the blazing blooms. To one side a waterfall smoked with spray as it fell from the sheer rock face and then formed a deep green pool on which a flotilla of ducks cruised.
The building had a dilapidated air to it, the walls needed white-washing and the thatch hung in untidy clumps from the eaves. Under the milkwood trees were scattered items of ancient equipment, a wagon with one wheel missing and the woodwork almost entirely eaten away by worm, a rusty hand forge in which a red hen was sitting upon a clutch of eggs, and mouldering saddlery and ropes hung from the branches of the trees.
As Zouga swung down from the saddle, a pack of half a dozen dogs came storming out of the front porch, snarling and barking around Zouga's legs so that he lashed out at them with his riding whip and with his boots, changing the snarls to startled yelps and howls. Who the hell are you and what do you want? ' A voice carried through the uproar, and Zouga took one more cut at a great shaggy Boerhound with a ridge of coarse hair fully erect between his shoulders, catching him fairly on the snout and forcing him to circle out of range, with fangs still bared and murderous growls rumbling up his throat.
Then he looked up at the man on the stoep of the building. He carried a double-barrelled shotgun in the crook of his arm, and both hammers were at full cock.
He was so tall that he had to stoop beneath the angle of the roof, but he was thin as a blue-gum tree, as though the flesh and fat had been burned off his bones by ten thousand tropical suns.
Do I have the honour of addressing Mr. Thomas Harkness? ' Zouga called over the clamour of the dog pack. I ask the questions here, the lean giant bellowed back. His beard was as white as the thunderhead clouds of a summer's day on the highveld and it hung to his belt buckle. Hair of the same silver covered his head and flowed down to the collar of his leather jerkin.
His face and his arms were burned to the colour of plug tobacco, and were speckled by the raised blemishes like little moles and freckles, where years of the fierce African sun had destroyed the upper layers of his skin.
The pupils of his eyes were black and bright as drops of fresh tar, but the whites were smoky yellow, the colour of. the malarial fevers and the pestilences of Africa. What is your name, boy? ' His voice was strong and deep. Without the beard he might have been fifty years of age, but Zouga knew with certainty that he was seventy-three. He carried his one shoulder higher than the other and the arm on that side hung at an awkward angle to the joint. Zouga knew that a lion had chewed through the shoulder and through the bone of the upper arm, before Harkness had been able to reach his hunting knife on his belt with the other hand and stab it between the forelegs, up into the heart. That had been forty years before and the injury had become the Harkness hallmark. Ballantyne, sir. ' Zouga shouted to make himself heard above the dogs. 'Morris Zouga Ballantyne.'
The old man whistled once, a fluting double note that stilled the dogs and brought them back around his legs.
He had not lowered the shotgun and a frown puckered his sharp features. Fuller Ballantyne's pup, is it? 'That's right, sir. 'By God, any son of Fuller Ballantyne's is good enough for a charge of my buckshot in the rump. Don't cock your butt when you get back on that horse, boy, for I'm a man who tempts very easily. 'I've ridden a long way to see you, Mr. Harkness.'
Zouga smiled that frank and wining smile of his, standing his ground.
I'm one of your greatest admirers. I've read everything that has ever been written about you and everything you have written yourself. 'I doubt that, ' Harkness growled, 'they burned most of mine. Too strong for their lily livers. ' But the hostile glint in his eyes turned to a twinkle and he cocked his head as he studied the young man before him. I have no doubt that you're as ignorant and arrogant as your Daddy, but you've got a fairer turn of speech.'
And he stared again at the toes of Zouga's boots, and let his gaze move up slowly. Priest, he asked, 'like your Daddy? 'No, sir, soldier. 'Regiment? ' 13th Madras Foot. 'Rank? Major.'
Harkness' expression eased with each reply until his gaze once more locked with Zouga's. Teetotal? Like your Daddy?
'Perish the thought! Zouga assured him vehemently and Harkness smiled for the first time as he let the muzzles of the shotgun droop until they pointed at the ground. He tugged at the long spikes of his beard for a moment, then reached a decision. Come. ' He jerked his head and led the way into the house. There was one huge central room, the high ceiling of dried reed stern s kept it cool and the narrow windows kept it gloomy. The floor was of peach-pip shells set into a plaster of mud and cow-dung and the walls were threefoot thick.
Zouga paused in the threshold and blinked with surprise at the collection of strange articles that covered the walls, were piled on every table and chair, and packed to the rafters in the dark corners.
There were books, thousands of books, cloth and leatherbound books, pamphlets and journals, atlases and encyclopaedias. There were weapons, assegai of'Zulu, shield of Matabele, bow of Bushman with its quiver of poisoned arrows and, of course, guns, dozens of them in racks or merely propped against the walls. There were hunting trophies, the beautiful zigzag-striped hide of zebra, the dark bush of the lion's mane, the elegant curved horn of harris-buck, teeth of hippopotamus and wartho& and then the Ion& yellow arcs of ivory thicker than a woman's thigh and taller than a man's head.
There were rocks, piles of rocks that glittered and sparkled, crystal rocks of purple and green, metallic nodules, native copper redder than gold, hairy strands of raw asbestos, all of it covered with a fine layer of dust and piled untidily wherever it had fallen.
The room smelled of skins and dogs and damp, of stale brandy and fresh turpentine, and there were stacks of new canvases already stretched in their wooden frames, while other canvases stood on their easels with the subjects sketched in charcoal outline, or partly blocked in with bright oil paint. On the walls were hung some finished pictures.
Zouga crossed to examine one of them while the old man blew into a pair of glass tumblers and polished them on his shirt-tail. What do you think of my lions? ' he asked, as Zouga studied a huge canvas entitled 'Lion Hunt on the Gariep River. Feb. 1846'.
Zouga made an appreciative sound in the back of his throat. Zouga was himself a dauber and scribbler, but he considered that the meticulous reproduction of the subject was the painter's duty, while these paintings had a guileless, almost childlike joy in every primitive line.
The colours also were gay and made no pretence to imitate nature, while the perspectives were wildly improbable. The mounted figure with the flowing beard in the background dominated the pride of lions in the foreground. Yet Zouga knew that these strange creations had remarkable value. Cartwright had paid ten guineas for
