Pickering smiled at Rhodes and turned back to the Griqua, who was flapping around in the dust like a trussed chicken.
Pickering helped him solicitously to his feet.
'My dear fellow,' he asked. 'Are you all right?'
'He nearly killed me,' Hendrick bleated bitterly. 'He's a madman!'
'I told you to be careful,' Pickering agreed. 'He's not a man to trifle with. 'He patted the Griqua's back. 'Well done, Hendrick; you did a good job.'
Then Pickering turned to Zouga. 'We owe you a little apology, Major.' He spread his hands and smiled winningly.
Zouga had been staring at him, unable to speak, his face so pale that his scratches and gouges stood out lividly. But now the scar under his eyes began to glow and he found his voice.
'A trap!' he whispered. 'You set a trap for me.'
'We had to be sure of you,' Rhodes explained reasonably. 'We had to know what kind of man you really were before we got you onto the Diggers' Committee.'
'You swine,' Zouga husked. 'You arrogant swine.'
'You came out of it with flying colours, sir,' Rhodes told him stiffly. He was not accustomed to being addressed in those terms.
'If I had fallen for your trap, what would you have done?'
Rhodes shrugged his heavy shoulders. 'The question doesn't arise.
You acted like a true English gentleman.'
'You will never know how close it was,' Zouga told him.
'Oh yes, I do. Most of us here have been tested.'
Zouga turned to Pickering. 'What would have happened, a lynching party?'
'Oh, my dear fellow, probably nothing so theatrical.
You just might have slipped on the roadway and taken a tumble into the diggings, or had the misfortune to be standing under a gravel bucky when the rope parted.' He laughed merrily, and the men at the table laughed with him.
'You need a glass of Charlie Champers, Major, or something stronger perhaps.'
'Do join us, sir,' cried another, making room for him at the table. 'An honour to drink with a gentleman.'
'Come along, Major.' Pickering smiled. 'I'll send for the quack to see to that cut on your head.'
Then Pickering stopped and his expression changed.
Zouga had kicked his feet loose from the stirrups and jumped down to face him. They were of an even height, both big men, and the group at the camp table was instantly enchanted. This would be more diverting than watching blue-bottles settling on sugar lumps.
,'By God, he's going to bang Pickling's head.'
'Or Pickling his.'
'Ten guineas the elephant hunter to win.'
'I don't approve of brawling,' murmured Rhodes, 'but I'll take Pickling for ten.'
'I say, the other horse has run a fair chase already. I do think you might offer some odds.'
Pickering's smile had turned frosty, and he was on his toes, his fists clenched, and his guard half raised.
Zouga dropped his own guard and turned disgustedly to the group under the acacia.
'I've provided you with enough amusement for one day,' he told them coldly. 'You can take your bloody diamonds, and your damned Committee and you can, ' There was a burst of clapping and laughing cheers to cover Zouga's outburst. Zouga swung back onto the gelding's back and kicked him into a gallop, and the ironical applause followed him out of the camp.
'I hope we haven't lost him.' Pickering lowered his fists and stared after Zouga. 'God knows, we need honest men.'
'Oh, don't worry,' Rhodes told him. 'Give him time to simmer down and then we'll square him.'
'Henshaw.' Bazo held the woven reed basket on his lap and peered into it mournfully.
'Henshaw, she is not ready to fight again so soon.'
They sat in a circle about the cooking fire in the centre of the thatched beehive. Ralph felt more at home here than in the tent under the camel-thorn tree. Here he was with friends, the closest friends he had ever known in his nomadic life, and here also he was beyond the severe and unrelenting surveillance of his father.
Ralph dipped into the communal three-legged black pot with his left hand and scooped up a little of the stiff fluffy white maize porridge. While he rolled it into a ball between his fingers he argued with the Matabele princeling opposite him.
'If it were you to decide, she would never fight again,' Ralph told him, and dipped the maize ball into the flavouring of mutton gravy and wild herbs.
'Her new leg is not strong enough yet,' Bazo shook his head.
