the mount beneath him tired. The horses were the pick of De Beers' stables, and it took him five days from the frontier of Matabeleland to Khami Mission.
'I'm Jordan Ballantyne,' he said, and looked down on the family that had hastily assembled on the front verandah of the Mission. The siege was over without a shot fired; he walked in with his curls shining and that warm, almost shy, smile on his lips, and took their hearts, every one of them, by storm.
The gifts he brought had been chosen with obvious care, and spoke of a knowledge of each of them and their individual needs.
There were two dozen packets of seeds for Clinton unusual vegetables and rare herbs, cornfrey and okra, horseradish and turmeric, shallot and sou-sou. For Robyn a box of medicines, which included a bottle of chloroform, and a folding wallet of shiny, sharp surgical instruments.
The latest volume of Tennyson's poetry for Salina, a pair of marvellous lifelike china dogs with moving eyes for the twins, and for Cathy the best of all, a box of oil paints, a bundle of brushes, and a letter from Ralph.
in the first week, while he waited for Rudd and the rest of the party to come up from the Shashi, Jordan used a green twig to divine water, an art that Clinton had never acquired, and helped him dig the new well. They hit clear, sweet water ten feet down. He recited to Cathy a biography of Ralph from the day and hour of his birth, which was so minutely detailed that it took instalments over the entire week to complete, while she listened with a fixed avidity.
He rolled up his sleeves and from the black woodburning stove produced a flow of culinary phenomena !' i quenelles and souffles, croques-en-bouche and meringues, sauces both Holliandaise and Bearnaise, and while Salina hovered near him, eager to learn and help, he quoted to her the entire 'In Memoriam' of Alfred Lord Tennyson, from memory: 'So fret not, like an idle girl, That life is dash'd with flecks of sin.
Abide: thy wealth is gathered in, When Time hath sunder'd shell from pearl., And she was utterly enchanted by his golden spell.
He showed the twins how to cut and fold from a piece of newspaper all manner of fantastic bird and animal shapes, and he told stories that were the best they had heard since Mungo Sint John had left Khami.
For Robyn he had the latest news from the Cape. He was able to describe for her the rising stars on the political horizon, and categorize their strengths and weaknesses. He had the latest assessments of the political scene at home. Members of both Houses of Parliament, Cape and home, were constant guests at Groote Schuur, so he could repeat the gossip of that 'wild and incomprehensible old man', as the Queen had called Gladstone.
He could explain the Home Rule issue and tell her what the odds were for a Liberal victory at the next election, even after Gladstone's failure to rescue Gordon from Khartoum and his consequential loss of popularity.
'At the Queen's jubilee the common people on the pavements cheered him, but the aristocracy hissed him from the balconies,' he told her.
For Robyn, this was nectar to a woman lost over twenty years in the wilderness.
Dinners at Khami usually finished by the fall of dark, and the family was abed an hour later, but after Jordan's arrival, the talk and laughter sometimes lasted until midnight.
'Jordan, there is no doubt that if we want Mashonaland, we shall have to square your aunt. I hear that Lobengula will not make a major decision without Doctor Codrington. I want you to go on ahead of Rudd and the others. Go to Khami and talk to your aunt.' That had been mister Rhodes' parting injunction to him, and Jordan's conscience found no conflict between this duty and his family loyalties.
Again and again in that week Jordan returned to extol mister Rhodes to Robyn, his integrity and sincerity, his vision of a world at peace and united under one sovereign power.
Instinctively he knew which areas of Rhodes' character to emphasize to Robyn, patriotism, charity, his sympathetic treatment of his black workers, his opposition to the Stropping Act in the Cape Parliament which, if passed, would have given employers the right to lash their black servants, and only when he judged that she was swayed to his views, did Jordan mention the concession to her. Yet, despite his preparations, her opposition was immediate and ferocious.
'Not another tribe robbed of its lands,' she cried.
'We do not want Matabeleland, Aunty. mister Rhodes would guarantee Lobengula's sovereignty and protect him 'I read the letter you wrote to the Cape Times, Aunty, expressing your concern over the Matabele raids into Mashonaland. With the British flag flying over the Shona tribes, they would be protected by British justice.'
'The Germans and Portuguese and Belgians are gathering like vultures, you know, Aunty, that there is only one nation fit to take on the sacred trust.'
Jordan's arguments were calculated and persuasive, his manner without guile and his trust in Cecil John Rhodes touching and infectious, and he kept returning to his most poignant argument.
'Aunty, you have seen the Matabele bucks returning from Mashonaland with the blood caked on their blades and the captured Shona girls roped together. Think of the havoc that they have left behind them, the burned villages, the murdered infants and grey heads, the slaughtered Shona warriors. You cannot deny the Shona people the protection that we will offer.'
That night she spoke to Clinton, lying beside him in the darkness in the narrow cot on the hard straw-filled mattress; and his reply was immediate and simple: 'My dear, it has always been clear to me as the African sun that God has prepared this continent for the protection of the only nation on earth that has the public virtue sufficient to govern it for the benefit of its native peoples.'
'Clinton, mister Rhodes is not the British nation.'
'He is an Englishman.'
'So was Edward Teach, alias Blackbeard the pirate.'
They were silent for many minutes and then Robyn said suddenly: 'Clinton, have you noticed anything wrong with Salina?'
His concern was immediate. 'Is she sickening?'
'I'm afraid so, incurably. I think she is in love.'
