A Falcon Flies (11 page)

Her escape was a matter of seconds only, for as she locked and leaned thankfully against the door of her cabin, Zouga beat upon it with his fist from the far side.

‘Robyn, wake up! Get dressed. Land is in sight. Come and see!'

Swiftly she bathed her body with a square of flannel dipped into the enamelled jug of cold sea water. She was tender, swollen and sensitive and there was a trace of blood on the cloth.

‘The trace of shame,' she told herself severely, but it was difficult to sustain the emotion. Instead she felt a soaring sense of physical well-being and a hearty appetite for her breakfast.

Her step was light, almost skipping as she went up on to the main deck and the wind tugged playfully at her skirts.

Her first concern was for the man. He stood at the weather rail, in shirt-sleeves only, and immediately a storm of conflicting feelings and thoughts assailed her, the chief of which was that he was so lean and dark and devil-may-care that he should be kept behind bars as a menace to all womankind.

Then he lowered the telescope, turned and saw her by the companionway and bowed slightly, and she inclined her head an inch in reply, very cool and very dignified. Then Zouga hurried to meet her, laughing and excited, and took her arm as he led her to the rail.

The mountain towered out of the steely green Atlantic, a great grey buttress of solid rock, riven and rent by deep ravines and gullies choked with dark green growth. She had not remembered it so huge, seeming to fill the whole eastern horizon and reaching up into the heavens, for its summit was covered in a thick shimmering white mattress of cloud. The cloud rolled endlessly over the edge of the mountain like a froth of boiling milk pouring over the rim of the pot, but as it sank so it was sucked into nothingness, disappearing miraculously to leave the lower slopes of the mountain clear and close, each detail of the rock-face finely etched and the tiny buildings at its foot as startling white as the wing feathers of the gulls that milled the air about the clipper.

‘We'll dine tonight in Cape Town,' Zouga shouted over the wind, and the thought of food flooded Robyn's mouth with saliva.

Jackson, the steward, had the hands spread a tarpaulin to break the wind and they breakfasted under its lee, in the sunshine. It was a festive meal, for Mungo St John called for champagne and they toasted the successful voyage and the good landfall in the bubbling yellow wine.

Then Mungo St John ended it. ‘The wind comes through there, funnelled down that break in the mountain.' He pointed ahead, and they saw the surface at the mouth of the bay seething with the rush of it. ‘Many a ship has been dismasted by that treacherous blast. We'll be shortening sail in a few minutes.' And he signalled to Jackson to clear away the trestles that carried the remains of their breakfast, excused himself with a bow and went back to his quarterdeck.

Robyn watched him strip the canvas off the upper yards, taking in two reefs in the main and setting a storm jib so that
Huron
met the freak wind readily and ran in for Table Bay, giving Robben Island a good berth to port. When the ship had settled on to its new heading, Robyn went up on to the quarterdeck.

‘I must speak with you,' she told him, and St John cocked his eyebrow at her.

‘You could not have chosen a better time—' and with the eloquent spread of his hands indicated wind and current and the dangerous shore close under their bows.

‘This will be the last opportunity,' she told him quickly. ‘My brother and I will be leaving this ship immediately you drop anchor in Table Bay.'

The mocking grin slid slowly from his lips.

‘If you are determined, then it seems that we have nothing more to say to each other.'

‘I want you to know why.'

‘I know why,' he said, ‘but I doubt that you do.'

She stared at him, but he turned away to call a change of heading to the helmsman and then to the figure at the foot of the mainmast.

‘Mr Tippoo, I'll have another reef on her, if you please.'

He came back to her side, but not looking at her, his head tilted back to watch the miniature figures of his crew on the mainyards high above them.

‘Have you ever seen sixteen thousand acres of cotton with the pods ready for plucking?' he asked quietly. ‘Have you ever seen the bales going down river on the barges to the mills?'

She did not answer, and he went on without waiting. ‘I have seen both, Doctor Ballantyne, and no man dare tell me that the men who work my fields are treated like cattle.'

‘You are a cotton-planter?'

‘I am, and after this voyage I will have a sugar plantation on the island of Cuba – half my cargo to pay for the land and half of it to work the cane.'

‘You are worse than I thought,' she whispered. ‘I thought you were merely one of the devil's minions. Now I know you are the devil himself.'

‘You are going into the interior.' St John looked down at her now. ‘When you get there, if you ever do, you will see true human misery. You will see cruelties that no American slave-owner would dream of. You will see the slaughter of human beings by war and disease and wild beast that will baulk your belief in heaven. Beside this savagery, the barracoons and the slave quarters are an earthly paradise.'

‘Do you dare suggest that by catching and chaining these poor creatures you do them favour?' Robyn demanded, aghast at his effrontery.

‘Have you ever visited a Louisiana plantation, Doctor?' Then answering his own question, ‘No, of course, you have not. I invite you to do so. Come down to Bannerfield as my guest one day and then compare the state of my slaves to the savage blacks you will see in Africa, or even to those damned souls that inhabit the slums and workhouses of your own lovely little green island.'

She remembered those raddled and hopeless human creatures with whom she had worked in the mission hospital. She was speechless. Then suddenly his grin was wicked again. ‘Think of it only as forced enlightenment of the heathen. I lead them out of the darkness into the ways of God and civilization – just as you are determined to do – but my methods are more effective.'

‘You are incorrigible, sir.'

‘No, ma'am. I am a sea-captain and a planter. I am also a trader in, and an owner of, slaves – and I will fight to the death to defend my right to be all of those things.'

‘What
right
is that you speak of?' she demanded.

‘The right of the cat over the mouse, of the strong over the weak, Doctor Ballantyne The natural law of existence.'

‘Then I can only repeat, Captain St John, that I will leave this ship at the very first opportunity.'

‘I am sorry that is your decision.' The hard fierce look in the yellow eyes softened a little. ‘I wish it were otherwise.'

‘I shall devote my life to fighting you and men like you.'

‘And what a waste that will be of a lovely woman.' He shook his head regretfully. ‘But then your resolve may give us reason to meet again – I must hope that is so.'

‘One final word Captain St John – I shall never forgive last night.'

‘And I, Doctor Ballantyne, will never forget it.'

Z
ouga Ballantyne checked his horse at the side of the road, just before it crossed the narrow neck between the crags of Table Mountain and Signal Hill, one of its satellite promontories.

He swung down out of the saddle to rest his mount, for it had been a hard pull up the steep slope from the town, and he tossed the reins to the Hottentot groom who accompanied him on the second horse. Zouga was sweating lightly and there was a residual pulse of dullness behind his eyes from the wine he had drunk the night before, the magnificent rich sweet wine of Constantia, one of the most highly prized vintages in the world, but capable of delivering as thick a head as any of the cheap and common grogs they sold in the waterfront bars.

In the five days since they had disembarked, the friendliness of the Cape Colony citizens had almost overwhelmed them. They had slept only the first night at a public inn in Buitengracht Street, then Zouga had called upon one of the Cape Colony's more prominent merchants, a Mr Cartwright. He had presented his letters of introduction from the directors of the Worshipful Company of London Merchants Trading into Africa, and Cartwright had immediately placed at their disposal the guest bungalow set in the gardens of his large and gracious home on the mountain slope above the old East India Company's gardens.

Every evening since then had been a gay whirl of dinners and dances. Had Robyn and Zouga not insisted otherwise, the days would have been filled with equivalent frivolity – picnics, sailing and fishing expeditions, riding in the forest, long leisurely lunches on the lawns under spreading oak trees that reminded him so vividly of England.

However, Zouga had avoided these diversions and had managed to accomplish much of the work of the expedition. Firstly there had been the supervising of the unloading of equipment from
Huron
– in itself a major undertaking as the crates had to be swayed up from the hold and lowered into lighters alongside before making the perilous return through the surf to land on the beach at Rogger Bay.

Then he had to arrange temporary warehousing for the cargo. Here again Mr Cartwright had been of assistance. Still Zouga found himself fiercely resenting his sister's insistence that had made all this heavy work necessary.

‘Damn me, Sissy, even Papa used to travel in the company of Arab slave-traders when he had to. If this fellow St John is a trader, we would do well to learn all we can from him – his methods and sources of supply. No one could give us better information for our report to the society.'

None of his arguments had prevailed, and only when Robyn had threatened to write home to the Society's directors in London, and to follow that up with a frank talk to the editor of the
Cape Times
, had Zouga acceded, with the worst grace possible, to her demands.

Now he looked down longingly at
Huron
, lying well out from the beach, snubbing around on her anchor cable to point into the rumbustious south-easterly wind. Even under bare poles she seemed on the point of flight.

Zouga guessed that St John would be sailing within days, leaving them to await the next ship that might be bound for the Arab and Portuguese coasts.

Zouga had already presented his letter of introduction from the Foreign Secretary to the Admiral of the Cape Squadron of the Royal Navy, and been promised all consideration. Nevertheless, he spent many hours of each morning visiting the shipping agents and owners in the port in hope of an earlier passage.

‘Damn the silly wench,' he muttered aloud, thinking bitterly of his sister and her foibles. ‘She could cost us weeks, even months.'

Time was, of course, of the very essence. They had to be clear of the fever-ridden coast before the monsoon struck and risk of malaria became suicidal.

At that moment there was the crack of cannon shot from the slopes of the hill above him, and as he glanced up he saw the feather of gunsmoke drifting away from the lookout station on Signal Hill.

The gunshot was to alert the townsfolk that a ship was entering Table Bay, and Zouga shaded his eyes with his cap as the vessel came into view beyond the point of land. He was not a seaman but he recognized instantly the ugly silhouette and single smoke stack of the Royal Naval gunboat that had pursued
Huron
so doggedly. Was it really two weeks ago, he wondered, the days had passed so swiftly.
Black Joke
, the gunboat, had her boilers fired and a thin banner of dark smoke drifted away downwind as she rounded up into the bay, her yards training around as she pointed through the wind and she passed within half a mile of where
Huron
was already at anchor. The proximity of the two ships raised interesting possibilities of the feud between the two captains being revived, Zouga realized, but his immediate feeling was of intense disappointment. He had hoped that the vessel might have been a trader that could have offered the expedition further passage up the east coast – and he turned away abruptly, took the reins from the groom and swung up easily into the saddle.

‘Which way?' he asked the servant, and the little yellowskinned lad in Cartwright's plum-coloured livery indicated the left branch of the road that forked over the neck and dropped down across the dragon's-back of the Cape peninsula to the ocean shore on the far side.

It was another two hours' ride, the last twenty minutes along a rutted cart track, before they reached the sprawling thatched building hidden away in one of the ravines of the mountain slope behind a grove of milkwood trees. The slopes behind the building were thick with protea bushes in full flower and the long-tailed sugar-birds haggled noisily over the blazing blooms. To one side a waterfall smoked with spray as it fell from the sheer rock face and then formed a deep green pool on which a flotilla of ducks cruised.

The building had a dilapidated air to it, the walls needed white-washing and the thatch hung in untidy clumps from the eaves. Under the milkwood trees were scattered items of ancient equipment, a wagon with one wheel missing and the woodwork almost entirely eaten away by worm, a rusty hand forge in which a red hen was sitting upon a clutch of eggs, and mouldering saddlery and ropes hung from the branches of the trees.

As Zouga swung down from the saddle, a pack of half a dozen dogs came storming out of the front porch, snarling and barking around Zouga's legs so that he lashed out at them with his riding whip and with his boots, changing the snarls to startled yelps and howls.

‘Who the hell are you and what do you want?' A voice carried through the uproar, and Zouga took one more cut at a great shaggy Boerhound with a ridge of coarse hair fully erect between his shoulders, catching him fairly on the snout and forcing him to circle out of range, with fangs still bared and murderous growls rumbling up his throat.