stopped in mid-stride to watch it, with his head thrown back and the same agony twisting his own lips. It was a tree of extraordinary symmetry, the silvery trunk rising with such gyace as to seem as slim as a young girl's waist. It had taken two hundred years to reach its towering height.
Seventy feet above the ground, it spread into a dark green dome of foliage.
As they watched, the tree shuddered again and the axes fell silent. Slowly, majestically, the leadwood swung into a downward arc, gathering ponderous momentum, and the partially severed trunk groaned and popped as the fibres tore; faster and faster still she fell, crashing through the tops of the lesser vegetation below her, the twisting tearing wood shrieking like a living thing until she struck solid earth with a jarring impact they could feel in their guts.
The silence lasted many seconds, and then there was the sound of men's voices, awed voices, as though intimidated
by the magnitude of the destruction they had wrought.
Then almost immediately after that, the axes started again, fragmenting the great silences of the valley, and Mark began to run. Storm could not keep pace with him.
He came out in an area of devastation, a growing swathe of fallen trees where fifty black men worked like ants, half-naked and burnished with their own sweat, as they stripped the branches and piled them in windrows for burning. The wood chips shone white as bone in the sunlight and the sap that oozed from the axe cuts had the sweetish smell of newly spilled blood.
At the head of the long narrow clearing, a single white man crouched to the eyepiece of a theodolite set on its squat tripod. He was aiming the instrument down the clearing and directing with hand signals the setting of brightly painted markers.
He straightened from the instrument to face Mark, a young man with a mild friendly face, thick spectacles in silver wire frames, lank sandy hair flopping on to his forehead. Oh, helln there, he smiled, and then the smile froze as Mark hissed at him. Are you in charge here? Well, yes, I suppose I am, the young surveyor stuttered. You are under arrest. I don't understand. It's quite simple, Mark blazed at him. You are cutting standing timber in a proclaimed area. I am the Government Ranger, and I am placing you under arrest. Now look here, the surveyor began placatingly, spreading his open hands in a demonstration of his friendly intentions. I'm just doing my job. In his blind wholesale rage, Mark had not noticed the approach of another man, a heavy broad-shouldered man who moved silently out of the uncut brush along the edge of the clearing. However, the thick north-country accent was instantly familiar, and struck sparks along the surface of Mark's skin. He remembered Hobday from that daywhen first he had returned to Andersland to find his world turned upside down. That's all right, chummy. I'll talk to Mister Anders. Hobday touched the young surveyor's shoulder placatingly and smiled at Mark, a smile that exposed the short evenly ground teeth, but was completely lacking in any warmth or humour. There is nothing you can tell me, Mark started, and Hobday lifted one hand to stop him.
J am here in my official capacity as a Provincial Inspector for the Ministry of Lands, Anders. You'd better listen. The angry words died and Mark stared at him, while Hobday calmly unfolded a letter from his wallet and proffered it to Mark. It was typewritten on Government paper and signed by the Deputy Minister of Lands. The signature was bold and black, Dirk Courtney. Mark read through the letter slowly, with a plunging sense of despair, and when he finished, he handed it back to Hobday. It gave him unlimited powers in the valley, powers backed by all the authority and weight of Government. Youaregoingupintheworld, he said, but stillworking for the same master. And the man nodded complacently, and then his eyes switched away from Mark's face as Storm came up. The expression on his face changed, as he looked at her.
Storm had her hair in thick twin braids, dangling forward on to each breast. The sun had turned her skin to a rich reddish brown, against which her eyes were startlingly blue and clear. Except for the eyes, she looked like a Sioux princess from some romantic novel.
Hobday dropped his eyes slowly over her body, with such intimate lingering insolence that she reached instinctively for Mark's arm and drew closer to him, as though to bring herself under his direct protection. What is it, Mark? She was still breathless from her climb up the slope, and high colour lit her cheeks. What are they doing here? They're Government men, said Mark heavily. From the Ministry of Lands. But they can't cut our trees, she protested, her voice rising. You've got to stop them, Mark. They're cutting survey lines, Mark explained. They are surveying the valley. But those trees -'It don't really matter, rna'am, Hobday told her. His voice was lower now with a thick gloating tone, and his eyes were still busy on her body, like insects crawling greedily to the scent of honey, moving over the thin sun bleached cotton that covered her breasts. It don't matter a damn, he repeated. They are all going to be under water anyway, cut or standing, it's all going under. He turned away from her at last, and swept one hand down the rude clearing. From that side to this, he said, indicating the gap between the towering grey cliffs of Chaka's Gate, right across it, we're going to build the biggest bloody dam in the whole world. They sat together in darkness, close together as though for comfort, and Mark had not lit the lantern. The reflected glow of stars was thrown in under the thatched veranda of the cottage, giving them just enough light to make out each other's faces. We knew it was coming, whispered Storm. And yet somehow I did not believe it. just as though wishing could make it stop. I'm going through early tomorrow to see your father Mark told her. He has to know. She nodded. Yes, we must be ready to confront them. What will you do? I can't leave you here with John. IAnd you can't take me with you. Not to my father, she agreed. It's all right, Mark, I'll take John back to the cottage. We'll wait for you. I'll come for you there, and next time we return here, you'll be my wife. She leaned against him. If there is anything to return to, she whispered. Oh Mark, Mark, they can't do it!
They can't drown all this, this -'The words eluded her and she fell silent, clinging to him.
They did not speak again, until minutes later a low polite cough roused them, and Mark straightened to see the dark familiar bulk of Pungushe standing below the veranda in the starlight. Pungushe, he said. I see you. Jamela, the Zulu replied, and there was a tone and tightness in his voice that Mark had never heard before. I have been to the camp of the strangers. The cutters of wood, the men with painted poles, and bright axes. He turned his head to look down the valley, and they followed his gaze. The ruddy glow of many camp fires flickered against the lower slopes of the cliffs and on the still night air, the sounds of laughter and men's voices carried faintly.
Yes? Mark asked. There are two white men there. One of them is young and blind and of no importance, while the other is a square thick man, who stands solid on his feet like a bull buffalo, and yet moves silently, and speaks little and quietly. Yes? Mark asked again. I have seen this man before in the valley, Pungushe paused. He is the silent one of whom we have spoken. He is the one who shot ixhegu, your grandfather, and smoked as he watched him die. Hobday moved quietly, solidly, along the edge of the slashline of the trees. The axes were silent, now, but the end of the noon break would be enforced to the minute.
At the stroke of the hour they would be back at work. He was driving them hard, he always worked his gangs hard, took a pride in his ability to extract from each man effort beyond his wage. It was one of the qualities that Dirk Courtney valued in him, that and his loyalty, a fierce unswerving loyalty that baulked at no demand upon it.
There was no squeamishness, no hesitating. When Dirk Courtney ordered it, there was no question asked. Hobday's reward was every day more apparent, already he was a man of substance, and when the new land was
