dressed in a loincloth had come out into the sunlight and was staring up at them. 'We have been together all our lives. I think you will like him.'
Zama waved and bounded up the slope to meet them. Jim slipped down from Drumfire's back to greet him. 'Have you got the coffeepot on?' he asked.
Zama looked up at the girl on the horse. They studied each other for a moment. He was tall and well formed, with a broad, strong face, and very white teeth. 'I see you, Miss Louisa,' he said at last.
'I see you also, Zama, but how did you know my name?'
'Somoya told me. How did you know mine?'
'He told me also. He is a great chatterbox, is he not?' she said, and they laughed together. 'But why do you call him Somoya?' she asked.
'It is the name my father gave him. It means the Wild Wind,' Zama replied. 'He blows as he pleases, like the wind.'
'Which way will he blow now?' she asked, but she was looking at Jim with a small, quizzical smile.
'We shall see.' Zama laughed. 'But it will be the way we least expect.'
Colonel Keyser led ten mounted troopers clattering into the courtyard of High Weald. His Bushman tracker ran at his horse's head. Keyser stood in the stirrups and shouted towards the main doors of the go down 'Mijnheer Tom Courtney! Come out at once!'
From every window and doorway white and black heads appeared, children and freed slaves gawked at him in round-eyed amazement.
'I am on dire Company business,' Keyser shouted again. 'Do not trifle with me, Tom Courtney.'
Tom came out through the tall doors of the warehouse. 'Stephanus Keyser, my dear friend!' he called, in jovial tones, as he pushed his steel rimmed spectacles on to the top of his head. 'You are welcome indeed.'
The two had spent many evenings together in the Mermaid tavern. Over the years they had done each other many favours. Only last month Tom had found a string of pearls for Keyser's mistress at a favourable price, and Keyser had seen to it that the charges of public drunkenness and brawling laid against one of Tom's servants were quashed.
'Come in! Come in!' Tom spread his arms in invitation. 'My wife will bring us a pot of coffee, or do you prefer the fruit of the vine?' He called across the courtyard to the kitchens, 'Sarah Courtney! We have an honoured guest.'
She came out on to the terrace. 'Why, Colonel! This is a delightful surprise.'
'A surprise maybe,' he said sternly, 'but delightful, I doubt it, Mevrouw. Your son James is in serious trouble with the law.'
Sarah untied her apron and went to stand beside her husband. He put one thick arm around her waist. At that moment Dorian Courtney, slim and elegant, his dark red hair bound up in a green turban, stepped out of the shadows of the go down and stood at Tom's other hand. Together, the three presented a united and formidable front.
'Come inside, Stephanus,' Tom repeated. 'We cannot talk here.'
Keyser shook his head firmly. 'You must tell me where your son, James Courtney, is hiding.'
'I thought you might be able to tell me that. Yesterday evening all the world and his brothers saw you racing Jim over the dunes. Did he beat you again, Stephanus?'
Keyser flushed and fidgeted on his borrowed saddle. His spare tunic was too tight under the armpits. Only hours ago he had recovered his medals and the star of St. Nicholas from the abandoned saddlebags his Bushman tracker had found on the edge of the salt pan. He had
pinned these decorations on awry. He touched his pockets to reassure himself that his gold watch was still in place. His breeches were fit to burst their seams. His feet were raw and blistered from the long walk home in the darkness; his new boots pinched the sore spots. He usually took pride in his appearance, and his present disarray and discomfort compounded the humiliation he had suffered at the hands of Jim Courtney.
'Your son has absconded with an escaped convict. He has stolen a horse and other valuable items. All these are hanging matters, I warn you. I have reason to believe that the fugitive is hiding here at High Weald. We have followed his tracks here from the salt pan. I am going to search every building.'
'Good!' Tom nodded. 'And when you are finished my wife will have refreshments ready for you and your men.' As Keyser's troopers dismounted and drew their sabres, Tom went on, 'But, Stephanus, you warn those ruffians of yours to leave my serving girls alone, otherwise it will really be a hanging matter.'
The three Courtneys withdrew into the cool shade of the go down and crossed the wide, cluttered floor to the counting-house on the far side. Tom slumped into the leather-covered armchair beside the cold fireplace. Dorian sat cross-legged on a leather cushion on the far side of the room. With his green turban and embroidered waistcoat he looked like the Oriental potentate he had once been. Sarah closed the door but remained standing beside it to keep watch for any possible eavesdroppers. She studied the pair while she waited for Tom to speak. Brothers could scarcely have been more different: Dorian slim, elegant, marvellously handsome and Tom so big, solid and bluff. The strength of her feelings for him, even after all these years, still surprised her.
'I could happily wring the young puppy's neck.' Tom's genial smile had given way to a furious scowl. 'We can't be sure what he has got us all into.'
'You were young once, Tom Courtney, and you were always in hot water up to your neck.' Sarah gave him the smile of a loving wife. 'Why do you think I fell in love with you? It could never have been your looks.'
Tom tried not to let his smile reappear. 'That was different,' he declared. 'I never asked for trouble.'
'You never asked,' she agreed. 'You simply grabbed it with both hands.'
Tom winked at her and turned to Dorian. 'It must be wonderful to have a dutiful, respectful wife like Yasmini.' Then he was serious again.
'Has Bakkat returned yet?' The herder had sent one of his sons to
Tom to tell him of Jim's nocturnal visit. Tom had felt a sneaking admiration for Jim's ruse in covering his tracks. 'It's the sort of thing I would have done. He may be wild as the wind but he's no fool,' he had told Sarah.
'No,' Dorian answered. 'Bakkat and the other herders are still moving all of the cattle and sheep over every path and road this side of the mountains. Even Keyset's Bushman will not be able to work out Jim's tracks. I think we can be sure that Jim has got clean away. But where did he go?' Both of them looked at Sarah for the answer.
'He planned it carefully,' she answered. 'I saw him with the mules a day or so ago. The shipwreck might have been a stroke of luck as far as he was concerned, but he was planning to get the girl off the ship one way or the other.'
'That damned woman! Why is it always a woman?' Tom lamented.
'You, of all people, should not have to ask that,' Sarah told him. 'You stole me away from my family with musket balls whizzing around our heads. Don't try to play the Pope with me, Tom Courtney!'
'Sweet heavens, yes! I'd almost forgotten about that. It was fun, though, wasn't it, my beauty?' He leaned across and pinched her bottom. She slapped his hand, and he went on unperturbed, 'But this woman Jim is with. What is she? A prison drab. A poisoner? A cutpurse? A whore mistress? Who knows what the idiot has picked for himself.'
Dorian had been watching this exchange with a fond expression while he got his hookah pipe to draw properly. It was a habit he had brought back from Arabia. Now he took out the ivory mouthpiece and remarked drily, 'I have spoken to at least a dozen of our people who were on the beach and saw it all. She may be all the other things you suggest, but she is no drab.' He blew a long feather of fragrant smoke. 'Reports of her vary. Kateng says she is an angel of beauty, Litila says she is a golden princess. Bakkat says she is as lovely as the spirit of the rain goddess.'
Tom snorted with derision. 'A rain goddess out of a stinking convict ship? A sunbird hatching from a turkey buzzard's egg is more likely. But where has Jim taken her?'
'Zama has been missing since the day before yesterday. I didn't see him go, but my guess is that Jim sent him off with the mules to wait for him somewhere,' Sarah suggested. 'Zama will do whatever Jim asks.'
'And Jim spoke to Bakkat about the Robbers' Road,' Dorian added, 'and told him to sweep his tracks from the road to the east and the north of here.'
The Robbers' Road is a myth,' said Tom firmly. 'There are no roads into the wilderness.'
'But Jim believes in it. I heard him and Mansur discussing it,' Sarah said.
Tom looked worried. 'It's madness. A babe and a prison drab going off empty-handed into the wilderness? They won't last a week.'
'They have Zama, and they are hardly empty-handed. Jim took six mule-loads of goods,' said Dorian. 'I've been checking what is missing from the stores, and he chose well. They are well set-up and provisioned for a long journey.'
'He didn't even say goodbye.' Tom shook his head. 'He's my son, my only son, and he didn't even say goodbye.'
'He was in somewhat of a hurry, brother,' Dorian pointed out.
Sarah rallied to her son's defence: 'He
