over his ears, looked oddly out of place in the middle of the uniformed patrol of armed men. As he came level with Mungo Sint John, standing on the top of the bank with his hands clasped behind his back, Clinton bent low from the saddle of his borrowed horse and said, so quietly that only Mungo heard him, 'Read '1 Samuel, chapter eleven, verse fifteen.' Then Clinton straightened, gathered the old grey gelding with which he had been provided by the Company, and the two of them went sliding untidily down the cutting in the steep bank which the Matabele had dug to take Lobengula's wagons across.
At this point, the Shangam river was two hundred yards across, and as the little patrol waded the deepest part of the channel, the muddy waters reached to their stirrup irons. They climbed the far bank and almost immediately were lost from view in the dripping woods and poor light.
Mungo Sint John stood for many minutes, staring across the river, ignoring the fine, drizzling rain. He was wondering at himself, wondering why he had sent such a puny force across the river, with only hours of daylight left. The priest was right, of course, it would rain again soon. The heavens were leaden and charged with it. The Matabele were in force. The priest had seen the Inyati impi under its old and crafty commander, Gandang, escorting the wagons away from Gubulawayo.
If he were going to reconnoitre the lie of the land beyond the river, then he knew that he should have used the last of the daylight to ford his entire force. It was the correct tactical disposition. That way the patrol could fall back under the protection of the Maxims at any time during the night, or he could go forward to relieve them if they ran into trouble.
Some demon had possessed him when he gave the orders. Perhaps Wilson had finally irritated him beyond all restraint. The man had argued with him at every opportunity, and had done his best to subvert Mungo's authority amongst the other officers, who resented the fact that he was an American over British officers. It was mostly Wilson's fault that this was such an unhappy and divided little expedition. He was well rid of the overbearing and blunt Scotsman, he decided. Perhaps a night spent in company with the Inyati regiment would take some of the pepper out of him; and he would be a little more tractable in the future, if there was a future for him. Mungo turned back to the sheltering tarpaulin strung between the gun carriages.
Suddenly a thought struck him, and he called down the line. 'Captain Borrow.'
'Sir?
'You have a Bible, don't you? Let me have it, will you?'
Mungo's batman had a fire going, and coffee brewing in the shelter, and he took Mungo's coat to dry and.
spread a grey woollen blanket over his shoulders as Mungo squatted beside the fire and paged slowly through the little leather-bound, travel-battered Bible.
He found the reference and stared at it thoughtfully: And he wrote in the letter, saying, Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die.
Mungo wondered that he was still capable of surprising himself. There were still strange places in his soul that he had never explored.
He took a burning stick from the fire and lit his cigar, then plunged the glowing red of the brand into the black coffee to enhance the taste of the brew.
'Well, well, Parson!' he murmured aloud. 'You have a sharper instinct than I ever gave you credit for.'
Then he thought Of Robyn Codrington, trying to consider his feelings objectively, and without passion.
'Do I love her?' he asked, and the answer was immediate.
'I have never loved a woman, and by God's grace, I never will.'
'Do I want her, then?' And again there was no hesitation. 'Yes, I want her. I want her badly enough to send anybody who stands in my way to his death.'
'Why do I want her?' he pondered. 'When I have never loved a woman, why do I want this one? She is no longer young, and God knows, I have had my pick of a hundred more beautiful. Why do I want her!'and he grinned at his own perception. 'I want her because she is the only one whom I have never had, and whom I will never have completely.'
He closed the Bible with a snap, and grinned wickedly across the wide river at the dark and silent mopani forest.
'Well done, Parson. You saw it long before I did.'
The tracks of Lobengula's wagons were clear to follow, even in the worsening light, and Wilson pushed the pace to a canter.
Clinton's aged grey was exhausted by two weeks of hard trekking. He fell back little by little, until after five miles they were loping along with Captain Napier's rear file. The mud thrown up by the hooves ahead speckled Clinton's face as though he was suffering from some strange disease.
The mopani thinned out dramatically ahead of the tiny patrol, and there were low bare hills on either hand.
'Look at them, Padre,' Wilson called to Clinton, and gestured at the hills. 'There must be hundreds of them.'
'Women and old men,' Clinton grunted. The slopes were scattered with silent watching figures. 'The fighting men will be with the king.'
The twelve riders cantered on without a check, and the thunder muttered and shook the sky above the low, swirling clouds.
Suddenly Wilson raised his right hand high.
'Troop, halfl' Clinton's grey stood, head hanging and chest heaving between his knees, and Clinton was as grateful. At his best he was no horseman, and he was unaccustomed to such hard riding.
'Reverend Codrington to the front!'The order was passed back, and Clinton kicked the grey into a plodding walk.
At that moment a squall of rain stung his face like a handful of thrown rock-salt, and he wiped it off with the
