stopped and repeated it, cocking his head for her reply and feeling a prickle of concern in the silence.
Mater, where are you! Here! Her voice was faint, wracked with pain or some deep emotion and he scrambled over the rock to reach her.
She stood small and forlorn in the sunlight, holding her hat against the front of her hips. Moisture sparkled on her cheeks. He thought it was sweat, until he saw the soft slow slide of tears down her face.
Mater? He moved up behind her and realized that she had found the shrine.
She had drawn the screening branch aside. The small circle of glass jars was still in place, the floral offering brown and withered.
Annalisa said the skeleton was a witch, Shasa breathed with superstitious awe as he stared over Centaine's shoulder at the pathetic pile of bones and the small neat white skull that surmounted it.
Centaine shook her head, unable to speak.
She said the witch guarded the mountain and that she would grant a wish. H'ani. Centaine choked on the name. My beloved old mother. Mater! Shasa seized her shoulders and steadied her as she swayed on her feet. How do you know? Centaine leaned against his chest for support but did not reply.
There could be hundreds of Bushman skeletons in the caves and gorges, he went on lamely, and she shook her head vehemently.
How can you be certain? It's her. Centaine's voice was blurred with grief. It's H'ani, the chipped canine tooth, the design of ostrich shell beads on her loincloth. Shasa had not noticed the scrap of dry leather decorated with beads that lay beneath the pile of bones, half buried in dust. I don't even need that proof. I know it's her. I just know it. Sit down, Mater. He lowered her to sit on one of the lichen-covered boulders.
I'm all right now. It was just such a shock. I've searched for her so often over the years. I knew where she must be. She looked around her vaguely. O'wa's body must be somewhere close at hand. She looked up at the cliff that seemed to hang over them like a cathedral roof. They were up there trying to escape when he gunned them down. They must have fallen close together. Who shot them, Mater? She drew a deep breath, but even then her voice shook as she said his name. 'Lothar. Lothar De La Rey! For an hour longer they searched the bottom and sides of the gorge, looking for the second skeleton.
It's no good. Centaine gave up at last. We will never find him. Let him lie undisturbed, Shasa, as he has all these years. They climbed down to the little rock shrine, and as they returned they plucked the wild flowers along the way.
,MY first instinct was to gather her remains and give them a decent burial, Centaine whispered as she knelt in front of the shrine, 'but H'an i wasn't a Christian. These hills were her holy place. She will be at peace here. She arranged the flowers with care and then sat back on her heels.
I'll see that you are never disturbed, my beloved old grandmother, and I will come to visit you again. She stood up and took Shasa's hand. She was the finest, gentlest person I have ever known, she said softly. And I loved her so. Still hand in hand they went down to where they had tethered the horses.
They did not speak again on the ride home, and the sun had set and the servants were anxious by the time they reached the bungalow.
At breakfast the next morning Centaine was brisk and brittly cheerful, though there were dark bruised smudges beneath her eyes and the lids were puffed from weeping.
This is our last week before we must return to Cape Town. I wish we could stay here for ever. For ever is a long time. You have school waiting for you, and I have my duties. We will come back here, you know that. He nodded and she went on. I have arranged for you to spend this last week working in the washing plant and sorting rooms. You'll enjoy that. I guarantee it. She was right, as usual. The washing plant was a pleasant place. The flow of water over the wiffle boards cooled the air, and after the unremitting thunder of the mill plant it was blessedly quiet. The atmosphere in the long brick room was like the cathedral calm of a holy place, for here the worship of Mammon and Adamant reached its climax.
Shasa watched with fascination as the crushings from the mill plant were carried in on the slowly moving conveyor belt. The oversize rubble had been screened off and returned for another crushing under the spinning rollers. These were the fines. They dropped from the end of the moving belt into the puddling tank, and from there were pushed by the agitating arms of the revolving sweep down the sloping boards of the wiffle table.
The lighter materials floated away and were run off to the waste dump. The heavier gravels, containing the diamonds, were carried on through a series of similar ingenious separating devices until there remained only the concentrates, one thousandth part of the original gravels.
These were washed over the grease drums. The drums revolved slowly, each of them coated with a thick layer of heavy yellow grease. The wet gravel flowed easily over the surface, but the diamonds were dry. One of the diamond's peculiar qualities is its unwettability. Soak it, boil it as long as you wish, but it remains dry. Once the dry surface of the precious stones touched the grease they stuck to it like insects to fly paper.
The grease drums were locked behind heavy bars and a white supervisor sat overlooking each of them, watching them constantly. Shasa peered through the bars for the first time and saw the small miracle occur only a few inches from his nose: a wild diamond captured and tamed like some marvelous creature of the desert. He actually witnessed the moment when it flowed out of the upper bin in a wet porridge of gravel, and he saw it touch the grease and adhere precariously to the slick yellow surface, causing a tiny V-shaped disturbance to the flow like a rock in the ebb of the tide. It moved, seeming to lose its grip in the grease for an instant, and Shasa wanted to thrust out his hand and seize it before it was for ever lost, but the gaps between the steel bars were too narrow. Then the diamond stuck fast and breasted the gentle flood of gravel, sitting up proudly, dry and transparent like a blister on the yellow skin of a gigantic reptile. it left him with a feeling of awe, the same feelings as he had experienced when he witnessed his mare Celeste give birth to her first foal.
He spent the entire morning passing from one to the other of the huge yellow drums and then back again down the line, watching the diamonds sticking on the grease more an d more thickly with each hour that passed.
At noon the washroom manager came down the line with his four white assistants, more than were necessary, other than to watch each other and forestall any opportunity for theft. With a broad-bladed spatula they scraped the grease from the drums and collected it in the boiling pot, then meticulously spread each drum with a fresh coating of yellow grease.
in the locked de-greasing room at the far end of the building the manager placed the steel pot on the spirit stove and boiled off the grease until finally he was left with a pot half full of diamonds, and Dr Twenty-man-Jones
