"Ballantyne 01 - A Falcon Flies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Wilbur)

Despite this, Zouga was every bit as dissatisfied with his lot as was Robyn. Like their father, they were both lone wolves, responding badly to authority and regimentation. In spite of the promising start to his military career, Zouga recognized the fact that he had already made powerful enemies in India, and he had begun to doubt that his future lay on that continent. Like Robyn, he was still a searcher, and they had greeted each other after the parting of years with a warmth that they had seldom displayed during their childhood.

Zouga took her to dinner at the Golden Boar. It was such a change from Robyn's daily surroundings that she accepted a second glass of claret and became gay and sparkling. By God, Sissy, you really are a pretty thing, you know, he had told her at last. He had taken to swearing now, and though it had shocked her at first, she had grown accustomed to it quickly enough. She had heard a lot worse in the slums where she worked. "You are too good to spend your life amongst those ghastly crones."

It changed the mood between them instantly, and she was able at last to lean close to her brother and pour out all her frustrations. He listened sympathetically, reaching across the table to squeeze her hand so that she went on quietly but with utter determination.

Zouga, I have to get back to Africa. I'll die if I don't.

I just know it. I will shrivel up and die. "Good Lord, Sissy, why Africa? "Because I was born there, because my destiny is there and because Papa is there, somewhere. "I was born there also. " Zouga smiled, and when he did so it softened the harsh line of his mouth. "But I don't know about my destiny. I wouldn't mind going back for the hunting, of course, but as for Father, don't you often think that Papa's main concern was always Fuller Ballantyne? I cannot imagine that you still harbour any great fatherly love for him. "He is different from other men, Zouga, you cannot judge him by the usual yardstick. "There are many who might agree with that, Zouga murmured drily. "At the L. M. S. and at the Foreign Office but as a father? "I love him! she said defiantly. "After God, I love him best. He killed mother, you know. " Zouga's mouth hardened into its usual grim line. "He took her out to the Zambezi in fever season and he killed her as certainly as if he'd put a pistol to her head."

Robyn conceded after a short, regretful silence, "He was never a father nor a husband, but as a visionary, a blazer of trails, as a torchbearer.. ."

Zouga laughed and squeezed her hand. Really, Sissy! "I have read his books, all his letters, every one he ever wrote to mother or to us, and I know that my place is there. In Africa, with Papa."

Zouga lifted his hand from hers and carefully stroked his thick side whiskers. "You always had a way of making me feel excited-" Then, seemingly going off at a tangent, "Did you hear that they have found diamonds on the Orange river? " He lifted his glass and examined the lees in the bottom of it attentively. "We are so very different, you and I, and yet in some ways so much alike. " He poured fresh wine into his glass and went on casually. I am in debt, Sissy."

The word chilled her. Since her childhood she had been taught a dread of it.

How much? " she asked at last quietly.

Two hundred pounds. " He shrugged. So much! " she breathed, and then, "You haven't been gambling, Zouga? " That was one of the other dread words in Robyn's vocabulary.

Not gambling? " she repeated. As a matter of fact, I have, Zouga laughed. "And thank God for that. Without it I would be a thousand guineas under. "You mean you gamble, and actually win? " Her horror faded a little, became tinged with fascination. Not always, but most of the time."

She studied him carefully, perhaps for the first time.

He was only twenty-six years old, but he had the presence and aplomb of a man ten years older. He was already a hard, professional soldier, tempered in the skirmishes on the border of Afghanistan where his regiment had spent four years. She knew they had been cruel encounters against fierce hill tribes, and that Zouga had distinguished himself. His rapid promotion was proof of that.

Then how are you in debt, Zouga? " she asked. Most of my brother officers, even my juniors, have private fortunes. I am a major now, I have to keep some style. We hunt, we shoot, mess bills, polo ponies -" He shrugged again. Will you ever be able to repay it? "I could marry a rich wife, he smiled, "or find diamonds."

Zouga sipped his wine, slumped down in his chair, not looking at her, and went on quietly. I was reading Cornwallis Harris's book the other day - do you remember the big game we saw when we lived at Koloberg? " She shook her head. No, you were only a baby. But I do. I remember the herds of springbok and wildebeest on the trek down to the Cape. One night there was a lion, I saw it clearly in the light of the campfire. Harris's book described his hunting expeditions up as far as the Limpopo, nobody has been further than that, except Papa, of course. A damned sight better than potting pheasant or black buck.

Did you know that Harris made nearly five thousand pounds from his book? " Zouga pushed his glass away, straightened up in his seat and selected a cigar from his silver case. While he prepared and lit it, he was frowning thoughtfully. You want to go to Africa for spiritual reasons. I probably need to go to Africa, for much better reasons, for blood and for money. I make you a proposal. The Ballantyne Expedition! " He lifted his glass to her.

She laughed then, uncertainly, thinking he was joking, but lifted her own glass which was still almost full. "My word on it. But how? Zouga, how do we get there? "What was the name of that newspaper fellow? " Zouga demanded. Wicks, she said, "Oliver Wicks. But why should he help us? "I'll find a good reason why he should. " And Robyn remembered how, even as a child, he had been an eloquent and persuasive pleader of causes. You know I rather think you might."

They drank then, and when she lowered her glass, she had been as happy as she could ever remember being in all her life.

It was another six weeks before she saw Zouga again, striding towards her through the bustle of London Bridge Station as she clambered down from the carriage. He stood tall above the crowd, with the high beaver top hat on his head and the three-quarter length paletot cloak flaring from his shoulders. Sissy! " he called, laughing at her, as he lifted her from her feet. "We are going, we really are going."

He had a cab waiting for them, and the driver whipped up the horses the moment they were aboard. The London Missionary Society were no use at all, he told her, still with his arm around her shoulders as the cab clattered and lurched over the cobbles. "I had them down on my list for five hundred iron men, and they nearly had apoplexy. I had the feeling they would rather Papa stayed lost in darkest Africa, and they would pay five hundred to keep him there."

You went to the directors? " she demanded. Played my losing tricks first, Zouga smiled. "The next was Whitehall, actually managed to see the First Secretary. He was damned civil, took me to lunch at the Travellers', and was truly very sorry that they were not able to give financial assistance. They remembered Papa's Zambezi fiasco too clearly, but he did give me letters. A dozen letters, to every conceivable person, to the Governor at the Cape, to Kemp the Admiral at Cape Town, and all the others. "Letters won't get us far. "Then I went to see your newspaper friend. Extraordinary little man.

Smart as a whip. I told him we were going to Africa to find Papa, and he jumped up and clapped his hands like a child at a Punch and Judy show."

Zouga hugged Robyn tighter. "To tell the truth, I used your name shamelessly, and it did the trick. He will have all the story rights to our diaries and journals, and the publishing rights to both books. "Both books? " Robyn pulled away from him and looked into his face. Both. " He grinned at her. "Yours and mine I am to write a book? "You certainly are. A woman's account of the expedition. I have already signed the contract on your behalf."

She laughed then, but breathlessly. "You're going too far, much too fast. "Little Wicks was in for five hundred, and the next on the list was the Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade, they were easy. His Royal Highness is the Society's patron, and he had read Papa's books. We are to report on the state. of the trade in the interior of the continent north of the Tropic of Capricorn, and they came up with another 500 guineas. "Oh Zouga, you are a magician.