stagings on the rim of the workings, and running wires to the floor of the diggings is the only one that will beat the problem of depth. Hayes, here, has done some drawings.'
The engineer unrolled the plans he carried, spread them on the dusty earth at his feet and anchored the corners with diamondiferous pebbles from Zouga's tailing dump which had spilled into and was threatening to engulf the entire camp.
'I have considered a cantilever design.' Hayes began to explain the drawings in crisp technical terms, and the others moved their seats closer and bowed over the plans. 'We will have to use hand winches, and perhaps horse whims, until we can get a steam engine to do the haulage.'
They discussed it quietly, asking penetrating questions and, when the answers were obscure, cutting down for them with sharp minds and quick words. There was no waste of words, no repetitions, no drawn-out discussion and the work went swiftly.
The stagings would be tall scaffoldings built on the edge of the pit, and they would house the haulage winches.
'We will have to use steel hawsers. Manila will never do the job,' Hayes told them. 'There will have to be a single wire to each individual claim. A lot of wire.'
'How long to get it out?'
'Two months to Cape Town.'
'How much is this going to cost?' Zouga asked the question which had been burning his lips all morning.
'More than any of us can afford,' smiled Pickering. A man with a thousand guineas in his pocket was a rich man on New Rush in these days.
'What we cannot afford is not to do it,' Rhodes answered him without a smile.
'What about those diggers who cannot afford their share of the stagings?' Zouga persisted, and Rhodes shrugged.
'Either they find the money, or they will not have a wire down to their claims. From now on it's going to take capital to work a claim on New Rush.'
'Those who haven't got it, will have to sell out, it's as easy as that.'
'Since the cave-in the price of claims in the number 6 has dropped to 100 pounds,' Zouga said. 'Anybody who sells now is going to take a hell of a knock.'
'And anybody who buys at 100 pounds is going to make a killing,' Rhodes answered him, and lifted his pale blue eyes from Hayes' plans, and for a moment held Zouga's gaze significantly. He was giving advice, Zouga realized, but what impressed Zouga was the strength and determination behind that level gaze. He no longer wondered why somebody so young commanded such widespread respect on the diggings.
'Are we all agreed, then?' he asked.
With less than twenty pounds cash in the world and his claims cut off eighty feet below ground level and partially covered by the earth fall of the roadway, Zouga hesitated.
'Major Ballantyne.' They were all looking at him. 'Are you in?'
'Yes,' he nodded firmly. 'Count me in.' He would find the money, somewhere, somehow.
They all relaxed, and Pickering chuckled. 'It's never easy to play it all on one card.' He understood.
'Pickling, didn't I hear your saddle-bag clink when you dismounted?' Rhodes asked, and Pickering laughed again and went to fetch the bottle.
'Cordon Argent,' he said as he pulled the cork. 'The right juice for such an occasion, gentlemen.'
They swished the coffee grounds from their mugs and held them out for a dram of the cognac.
'The number 6 stagings, fast may they rise and long may they stand!'
Pickering gave them the toast, and they drank together.
Hayes wiped his whiskers with the back of his hand and stood up. 'I'll have the quantities ready to send off on the noon coach tomorrow,' he said, and hurried to his mount. Men who worked for Rhodes were always in a hurry. But neither Pickering or Rhodes moved to follow him.
Instead, Rhodes stretched out his long legs in the stained white cricket flannels and crossed his dusty riding boots at the ankles, at the same time offering his coffee mug to Pickering.
'I'll be damned if we don't have something else to celebrate this day,' he said as Pickering glugged cognac into their mugs.
'The Imperial Factor,' Pickering suggested.
'The Imperial Factor,' Rhodes agreed, and when he smiled the cleft in his smooth chin deepened and the melancholy line of his full lips under the fair moustache relaxed. 'Even this awful creature Gladstone has not been able to halt the march of Empire northwards through Africa. The Foreign Office has moved at last.
The Griquas are to be recognized as British subjects, and Waterboer's request has been granted. Griqualand West is to become part of Cape Colony, and of the Empire.
We have lord Kimberley's assurance on it.'
'That's wonderful news,' Zouga interrupted.
'You think so?' The pale blue eyes sought and held Zouga's.
know it to be so,' Zouga told him. 'There is only one way to bring peace and civilization to Africa and that is under the Union Jack.'
immediately there was a relaxation of the relationship between the three men, an unspoken accord, so that
