wagon bed. As she put her weight on it the handle gave slightly, and the drawer slid open an inch.
He has forgotten to lock it, she thought, I must warn him. She pushed the drawer closed and crawled over the chest, reached the stowed carpet bag, pulled out Shasa's jacket, and was crawling back when her eye fell again on the drawer of the bureau, and she checked herself sharply and stared at it.
Temptation was like the prickle of a burr. Lothar's journal was in that drawer.
What an awful thing to do, she told herself primly, and yet her hand went out and touched the brass handle again.
What has he written about me? She pulled the drawer open slowly and stared at the thick, leather-covered volume. Do I really want to know? She began to close the drawer again, and then capitulated to that overwhelming temptation.
I'll only read about me, she promised herself.
She crawled quickly to the wagon flap and peered out guiltily. Swart Hendrick was bringing up the draught oxen preparatory to inspanning. Has the master returned yet? s e called to him.
No, missus, and we have heard no shots. He will be late tonight. Call me if you see him coming, she ordered, and crept back to the bureau.
She squatted beside it with the heavy journal in her lap, and she was relieved to find it was written almost entirely in Afrikaans with only occasional passages in German. She riffled through the pages until she found the date on which he had rescued her. The entry was four pages long, the longest single entry in the entire journal.
Lothar had given a full account of the lion attack and the rescue, of their return to the wagons while she was unconscious, and a description of Shasa. She smiled as she read: A sturdy lad, of the same age as Manfred when last I saw him, and I find myself much affected.
Still smiling, she scanned the page for a description of herself, and her eyes stopped at the paragraph: I have no doubt that this is indeed the woman, though she is changed from the photograph and from my brief memory of her. Her hair is thick and fuzzy as that of a Nama girl, her face thin and brown as a monkey- Centaine gasped with affront -yet when she opened her eyes for a moment, I thought my heart might crack, they were so big and soft.
She was slightly mollified and skimmed forward, turning the pages quickly, listening like a thief for the sound of Lothar's horse. A word caught her eye in the neat blocks of teutonic script; Boesmanne. Her attention flicked to it. Bushmen', and her heart tripped, her interest entirely captivated.
Bushmen harassing the camp during the night. Hendrick discovered their spoor near the horse lines and the cattle. We followed at first light. A difficult huntThe word jag stopped Centaine's eye. Hunt? she puzzled. This was a word only applied to the chase, to the killing of animals, and she raced on.
We came up with the two Bushmen, but they almost gave us the slip by climbing the cliff with the agility of baboons.
We could not follow and would have lost them, but their curiosity was too strong, again, just like baboons. One of them paused at the top of the cliff and looked down at us. it was a difficult shot, at extreme upward deflection and long range The blood drained from Centaine's face. She could not believe what she was reading, each word reverberated in her skull as though it were an empty place, cavernous and echoing.
However, I held true and brought the Bushman down. Then I witnessed a remarkable incident. I had no need of a second shot, for the remaining Bushman fell from the cliff top. From below it seemed almost as though he threw himself over the edge. However, I do not believe that this was the case, an animal is not capable of suicide. It is more likely that in terror and panic, he lost his footing. Both bodies fell in difficult positions. However, I was determined to examine them. The climb was awkward and dangerous, but I was in fact, well rewarded for my endeavours. The first body, that of a very old man, the one that had slipped from the cliff, was unremarkable except that he carried a clasp knife made by 'Joseph Rodgers'
of Sheffield on a lanyard about his waist.
Centaine began to shake her head from side to side. No! she whispered. No!
This, I believe, must have been stolen from some other traveller. The old rogue probably entered our camp in the hope of similar booty.
Centaine saw again little O'wa squatting naked in the sunlight with the knife in his hands and the tears of pleasure running down his withered cheeks.
Oh, in the name of mercy, no! she whimpered, but her eye was drawn remorselessly on by the orderly ranks of brutal words.
The second body, however, yielded the greater trophy. It was that of a woman. If anything she was more aged than the man, but around her neck she wore a most unusual decorationThe book slid from Centaine's lap and she covered her face with both hands.
H'ani! she cried out in the San tongue. My old grandmother, my old and revered grandmother, you came to us. And he shot you down! She was rocking from side to side, humming in her throat, the San attitude of grief.
Suddenly she hurled herself at the bureau. She pulled the drawer from its runners, scattering loose pages of writing-paper and pens and sticks of wax on the floor of the wagon.
The necklace, she sobbed. The necklace. I have to be certain! She seized the handle of one of the small lower compartments and tugged at it. It was locked. She snatched the handle of the wagon jack from its slot in the frame, and with the steel point shattered the lock and jerked the compartment open. It contained a silver framed photograph of a plump blonde woman with a child in her lap and a wad of letters tied up with a silk ribbon.
She spilled them on to the floor and smashed open the next compartment. There was a Luger pistol in a wooden holster, and a packet of am-munition. She threw them on top of the letters, and at the bottom of the compartment she found a cigar box.
She lifted the lid. It contained a bundle wrapped in a patterned bandanna and as she picked it out with shaking hands, H'ani's necklace tumbled from the roll of cloth.
She stared at it as though it was a deadly mamba, holding her hands behind her back and blubbering softly, H'ani - oh, my old grandmother. She brought her hands to her mouth, and pressed her lips to stop them quivering. Then she reached out slowly for the necklace and held it up, but at the full stretch of her arms.
