jezail! But there aren't any monsters like that around any more, more's the pity.
Come along, mustn't keep the old goat waiting.'
They went on through half a dozen chambers, each of them Aladdin's caves of rare treasures, carved jade, beautifully worked ivory carvings, a palm tree and suspended moon, the symbol of Mohamed, in solid gold, carpets of silk and thread of gold and silver, a collection of fifty priceless Korans in silver and golden containers set with precious and semiprecious stones. Look at that shiner! Sir John stopped again, and pointed out a native cut diamond in the hilt of an Arabian scimitar.
The diamond was cushion-shaped and a little out of true, but burning with a weird blue and icy fire even in the semi-dark. 'Legend says the sword was Saladin's I doubt it, but the stone is one hundred and fifty-five carats. I weighed it myself. ' And then as he took Clinton's arm and stumped off again, 'Old goat is rich as Croesus. He has been milking rupees out of the mainland for forty years, and his father for fifty years before that. Ten rupees for every slave, ten for every kilo of ivory, God knows how much for copra and gum-copal concessions.'
Clinton saw instantly why Sir John called him the old goat. The resemblance was startlin& from the white, pointed beard and square yellow teeth to the mournful Roman nose and elongated ears.
He took one look at Clinton, catching his eye for a split part of a second, before he looked away hurriedly, blanching visibly, as he waved his two visitors to the piles of velvet and silk cushions. Keep the old beady eye on him, ' Sir John counselled aside, 'and don't eat anything! He indicated the display of sweetmeats and -sugared cakes on the bronze trays. 'If they aren't poisoned, they'll probably turn your stomach anyway. It's going to be a long night.'
The prediction was accurate, the talk went on hour after tedious hour, in flowing Arabic hyperbole and flowery diplomacy, that concealed the hard bargaining.
Clinton understood not a word. He forced himself not to fidget, though his buttocks and legs soon lost all feeling from the unusual position on the cushions, yet he maintained a stern expression and kept his gaze fixed on the Sultan's wrinkled and whiskered visage. Sir John assured him later that it had helped greatly to shorten the negotiations, yet it seemed a hill round of eternity before Sir John and the Sultan were exchanging polite fixed smiles and deep bows of agreement.
There was a triumphant gleam in Sir John's eye, as he strode out of the palace, and he took Clinton's arm affectionately. Whatever happens to you, my dear fellow, generations unborn will have reason to bless your name. We have done it, you and I. The old goat has agreed. The trade will wither and die out within the next few years now.'
On the walk back through the narrow streets, Sir John was as lively and cheerful as a man returning from a convivial party rather than the bargaining table. His servants were still waiting his coming, and all the lamps in the consulate were burning.
Clinton would have liked immediately to go back aboard his ship, but Sir John restrained him with an arm about his shoulder, as he called for his Hindu butler to bring champagne. On the silver tray with the green bottle and crystal glasses was a small package in stitched and sealed canvas. While the uniformed butler poured the champagne, Sir John handed Clinton the package. This came in earlier on a trading dhow. I did not have the opportunity to deliver it to you before we left for the palace.'
Clinton accepted it warily, and read the addressCaptain Clinton Codrington, Officer Commanding Her Majesty's Ship Black Joke. Please forward to H. M.
Consul at Zanzibar to await collection.'
The address was repeated in French, and Clinton felt a quick thrill kindle his blood as he recognized the bold round script in which the package was addressed. It took an effort to restrain himself from ripping the package open immediately.
However, Sir John was handing him a glass of wine, and Clinton suffered through the toasts, the loyal toast to the Queen, and that ironical one to the Sultan and the new treaty, before he blurted out, 'Excuse me, Sir John, I believe this to be a communication of importance, and the Consul waved him into his study and closed the door after him to give Clinton privacy.
On the leather top of the marquetry desk, Clinton slit the seals and stitching of the package with a silver knife from the Consul's desk set. From it fell a thick sheaf of closely written notepaper, and a woman's earring of paste and silver, the twin to the one that Clinton wore under his shirt against his chest.
Black Joke groped her way out through the dark, unbuoyed channel an hour before the first flush of dawn in the eastern sky. Turning southwards she set all canvas and worked up swiftly to her best speed.
She was making eleven knots when she passed the sloop Penguin a little before midnight the following night. Penguin bearing her urgent dispatches was hull down on the eastern horizon and her running lights were obscured by a heavy tropical deluge, the first fanfare of the coming monsoon that passed between the two vessels hiding them from each other's lookouts.
By dawn the two ships were fifty nautical miles apart, and rapidly widening the gap, while Clinton Codrington paced his quarterdeck impatiently, stopping at every turn to peer impatiently into the south.
He was hurrying to answer the most poignant appeal, the most pressing duty of a dutiful man, the call for succour from the woman he loved, a woman in terrible and pressing jeopardy.
The flow of the Zambezi had a majesty that Zouga Ballantyne had seen on no other great river, neither the Thames, nor the Rhine, nor the Ganges.
The water was the almost iridescent green of molten s ag pouring down the side o a steel-yard dump, and it formed powerful, slowly turning vortices in the angles of the broad bends, while in the shallows it seemed to roll upon itself as though the leviathan of all the world sported below its dark mysterious surface. Here the main channel was more than a mile across, though there were other lesser channels, and other narrower mouths beyond the waving banks of papyrus and cotton-headed reeds.
The small flotilla of boats hardly seemed to move against the current. In the lead was the steam launch Helen, named after Zouga's mother.
Fuller Ballantyne had designed the vessel and had it manufactured in Scotland for the disastrous Zambezi expedition which had penetrated only as far as the Kaborra-Bossa gorge.
The launch was almost ten years old now, and for most of that time had been the victim of the engineering prowess of the Portuguese trader who had purchased her from Fuller Ballantyne when the expedition was abandoned.
