'Give it to me in round figures.'
'Well, very roughly, you understand, it would be around oh I don't
know-say He paused. That carpet-bag looked confoundedly heavy. Its
sides bulged and he could see the tension in Michael's arm muscles as
he held it. 'Say, twenty-two thousand, eight hundred and sixteen
pounds, fifteen shillings. ' As he named the exact figure Ronny
dropped his voice in veneration the way a primitive tribesman might
evoke the name of his god.
Sean lowered his feet. Then he leant forward and swept the papers that
covered the desk to one side.
'Very well. Pay the man, Michael.'
Solemnly Michael placed the bag in the cleared space. But when Sean
winked at him his solemnity cracked and he grinned.
Making no attempt to hide his agitation, Ronny plunged both hands into
the mouth of the bag and withdrew two pouches of unbleached canvas. He
loosened the draw string of one and spilled gold on to his desk.
'Where did you get this?' he demanded angrily.
At the end of the rainbow.
'There's a fortune here,' Ronny protested, as he dipped into the
carpet-bag again.
'A goodly amount, I'll admit.
'But, but Ronny was scratching in the pile of coins, hunting for the
secret of their origin like a hen for a worm.
However, Sean had spent a week in Johannesburg and another two days in
Pietermaritzburg visiting every bank and exchanging small parcels of
Kruger coin for Victorian and Portuguese, and the coin of half a dozen
other States. For a minute Sean watched his efforts with a smile of
happy contempt. Then he excused himself.
'We'll be getting on home now. ' Sean placed an arm around Michael's
shoulder and led him to the door.
'Deposit the balance to my account, there's a good fellow.'
Further protest stillborn on his lips, and despair mingled with
frustration, Ronny Pye watched through the window as Lion Kop Wattle
Estates climbed up into the buggy, settled its hat firmly, waved a whip
in a courteous farewell and trotted sedately out of his clutches.
All that summer the hills of Lion Kop echoed to the thud of axes and
the singing of hundreds of Zulus. As each tree toppled and fell in a
froth of heaving branches, men with cane-knives moved forward to strip
the rich bark and tie it in bundles. Every train that left for
Pietermaritzburg towed truckloads of it to the extract plant.
Each long day together strengthened the bonds between Sean and Michael.
They evolved a language of their own, notable only for its economy of
words. Without lengthy discussion each took charge of a separate
sphere of Lion Kop activity. Michael made himself responsible for the
maintenance of equipment, the loading and dispatch, all the paperwork
and the ordering of material. At first Sean surreptitiously checked
his work, but when he found no fault in it he no longer bothered. They
parted only at the end of each week; Sean to Pietermaritzburg for
obvious reasons, and Michael to Theuniskraal in duty. Michael hated
those returns home, he hated Anna's endless accusations of disloyalty
