'What Sean was all helpless innocence.

'The bottle!  ' She lifted the bedclothes and began her search.

Saul picked up his helmet, saluted them behind her back and tiptoed

down the veranda.

Sean's leave in Ladyburg passed quickly, much too quickly.

MbeJane had disappeared on a mysterious errand into Zululand.

Sean guessed that it related to the two wives and their offspring that

Mbejane had cheerfully sent to the kraals of their parents when Sean

had left Ladyburg so many years before.

Dirk was incarcerated each morning in the schoolhouse, and so Sean was

free to roam alone upon the hills and over the veld that surrounded the

town.  Most of his time he spent coveting the huge derelict ranch

called Lion Kop which spread above the escarpment.

After it month he knew the course of every strcani and each fold and

slope of the land.  His leg strengthened with the exercise.  It no

longer pained him and the scar lost its purple shine and dulled down to

a closer match with his skin colour.

But as his strength returned and flesh filled out his shoulders and

padded the gaunt bones of his face, so restlessness came back to him.

His daily pilgrimage to Lion Kop Ranch became an obsession.  He

wandered through the bare rooms of the old homestead and saw them as

they could be with the thatched roof replaced to keep out the rain and

the flaking plaster renewed and freshly painted.  He stood before the

empty, smoke-blackened fireplace and imagined the glow and the warmth

it could give.  Stamping across the dusty floors he judged the

yellow-wood planking as sound as the massive beams that supported the

roof.  Then he wandered out across the land, stooping now and then to

take up a handful of earth and feel its rich loamy texture.

In the May of 1900 he went to the Deeds Registry at the Magistrate's

office and surreptitiously inspected the title.  He found that the

fifteen thousand acres of Lion Kop Ranch had been purchased from the

estate of the late Stephanus Johannes Erasmus by the Ladyburg Banking &

Trust Co Ltd.  Transfer had been signed by Ronald Pye, Esq in his

capacity as Chairman of the Bank.  Sean grinned.  Ronny Pye was his

most cherished childhood enemy.  This could be very amusing.

Sean settled himself in the deep, soft nest of polished leather formed

by the armchair and glanced curiously around the panelled office.

'A few changes since you were last here.  Hey, Sean?  ' Ronny Pye

interpreted his thoughts accurately.

'A few.  ' The Ladyburg Banking & Trust Co was doing very prettily,

judging by the furnishings.  Some of its prosperity showed on the

figure of its Chairman.  Plenty of flesh under the solid gold

watch-chain, dark but expensive jacket to offset the extravagant

waistcoat, fifteen-guinea handmade boots.  Very nice until you looked

at the face; pale so that the freckles showed like irregular gold

coins, greedy eyes, ears like the handles of a shaving-mug-that much

hadn't changed.  But although Ronny was Just two years Sean's senior,

there was plenty of grey in his ginger sideburns and little wrinkles of

worry around his eyes.

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