Diamonds! Twenty-man-jones repeated, as though it was news of his father's death. We'll see.'His expression was lugubrious. We'll see! When do we start? We, Mrs Courtney?
You will remain out of this place.
I do not allow anyone else around me when I am working.'But, she protested, am I not allowed even to watch? That, Mrs Courtney, is a rule I never vary, you will have to contain yourself, I'm afraid So Centaine was banished from her valley, and the days in Lion Tree Camp passed slowly. From her stockade she could see Twenty-man- jones's labour gangs toiling up the cliff path under their loads of equipment to the summit and then disappearing over the crest.
After almost a month of waiting she made the ascent herself. It was an onerous and taxing climb, and she was aware of the load in her womb every step of the way.
However, from the top she had an exhilarating eagle's view of the plains that seemed to stretch to the ends of the earth, and when she looked down into the secret valley, it was as though she were looking into the very core of the earth.
The pulley and rope system from the lip of the cliff looked as insubstantial as a spider's thread, and she shuddered at the thought of stepping into the canvas bucket and being lowered down into the depths of the amphitheatre. Far below she could make out the antlike specks of the prospect teams and the mounds of earth they had thrown up from their potholes. She could even distinguish Twenty-man-Jones lank storklike gait as he passed from one to another of the prospects.
She sent down a note to him in the bucket. Sir, have you found anything? And the reply came back an hour later. Patience, madam, is one of the great virtues. That was the last time she went up the cliff, for the child seemed to be growing like a malignant turnour. She had borne Shasa with joy, but this pregnancy brought pain and discomfort and unhappiness. She found no surcease even in the books she had brought with her, for she found it difficult to concentrate to the end of a page.
Always her eyes would go up from the printed word to the cliff path, as though for sight of that lanky figure coming down to her.
The heat became every day more oppressive as the summer advanced into the suicide days of late November, and she could not sleep. She lay in her cot and sweated away the nights, then dragged herself out again in the dawn, feeling drained and depressed and lonely. She was eating too much, her only opiate against the boredom of those long sultry days. She had developed a craving for devilled kidneys, and Swart Hendrick hunted every day to bring them fresh to her.
Her belly swelled and the child grew huge, so that it forced her knees apart when she sat, and it buffeted her mercilessly, thumping and kicking and rolling inside her like a great fish struggling on the end of a line until she moaned, Be still, you little monster, oh God, how I long to be rid of you.
Then one afternoon, when she had almost despaired, Twenty-man-jones came down the mountain. Swart Hendrick saw him on the cliff path and came hurrying to her tent to warn her, so that she had time to rise from her cot, bathe her face and change her sweat-damp clothes.
When he strode into the stockade, she was seated at her camp table, concealing her great belly behind it, and she did not rise to greet him.
Well, madam, there is your report. He laid a thick folder on the table before her.
She untied the tapes and opened it. There, in his neat pedantic handwriting, was page after page of figures and numbers, and words she had never seen before. She turned the pages slowly while Twenty-man-Jones watched her sadly. Once he shook his head and looked as though he were about to speak, instead he pulled the handkerchief from his top pocket and noisily blew his nose.
Finally, she looked up at him.
I'm sorry, she whispered, I don't understand any of this. Explain it to me.
I'll be brief, madam. I sank forty-six prospect holes, each to a depth of fifty feet and sampled at six-foot intervals.
Yes, she nodded. But what did you find? I found that there is a layer of yellow ground overlaying the entire property to an average depth of thirty-five feet. Centaine felt dizzy and sick. Yellow ground sounded so ominous. Twenty-man-Jones broke off and blew his nose again. It was quite obvious to Centaine that he did not want to say the final words that would kill for ever her hopes and dreams.
Please, go on, she whispered.
Below this stratum we ran into- his voice fell and he looked as though his heart was aching for her -we ran into blue ground.
Centaine lifted her hand to her mouth, and she thought she would faint.
Blue ground. It sounded even worse than yellow ground, and the child heaved and struggled in her, and despair came down upon her like a flow of poisonous lava.
All for nothing, she thought, and she was no longer listening as he went on.
It's the classic pipe formation, of course, the decomposing breccia composite above with the harder impermeable slaty-blue formation below. So there were no diamonds after all, she said softly, and he stared at her.
Diamonds! Well, madam, I've worked out an average value of twenty-six carats to a hundred loads. I still don't understand, she shook her head stupidly. What does that mean, sir? What is a hundred loads? A hundred loads is approximately eighty tons of earth. And what does twenty-six carats mean? Madam, the Jagersfontein assays at eleven carats to a hundred loads, even the Wesselton goes only sixteen carats to a hundred loads, and they are the two richest diamond mines in the world. This property is almost twice as rich. So there are diamonds after all? She stared at him, and from the side pocket of his alpaca jacket he took a bundle of small buff-coloured envelopes, tied together with string, and placed these on top of the report folder.
Please do not mix them up, Mrs Courtney, the stones from each prospect hole are in separate envelopes, all carefully notated. With fingers that felt numb and swollen, she untied the string and fumbled open the top envelope. She poured the contents into her hand. Some of the stones were chips not much bigger than sugar grains, one was the size of a large ripe pea.
