It was as though the contact had loosened something in her that she had locked away tightly and at last the tears welled up in her hot dry eyes.
‘Oh my dear Doctor Ballantyne,’ Clinton whispered. ‘Please do not fret for me.’ But through the tears Robyn was still seeing the ghostly image of a tall and beautiful ship fading away into the pearly curtain of sea fret, and the first sob shook her body.
The floor of the ballroom of Admiralty House was laid out in chessboard squares of black and white marble, and the human characters like chess pieces were ranged upon it haphazard, as though by the vagaries of a hard-fought end game.
Robyn Ballantyne in skirt and blouse of sober green stood by the head of the board, a solitary queen, while arranged opposite her were the rooks of the legal council: two naval officers in full uniform and sword who were playing the roles of prosecutor and defender. They had been chosen arbitrarily, and neither of them relished the unfamiliar task.
They had isolated themselves from the rest of the company, and each of them busied himself with the sheaf of documents he carried, not looking at the man whom they were destined to save or condemn, depending on the deliberations of the senior officers who were even now closeted behind the tall double doors at the far end of the ballroom.
The other witnesses, Denham of Black Joke bearing the ship’s log under his arm, MacDonald the engineer hiding his grey coal-stained hands behind his back, the colony’s agent and Honorary Consul for the Sheikh of Omani, a prosperous Asian trader, were like the scattered pawns of the game around the edge of the board.
Only the officer accused and on trial for his life was not at rest. Captain Clinton Codrington paced at random about the ballroom floor, his heels clicking on the marble slabs, his cocked hat clasped under one arm, his pale blue eyes staring dead ahead. He paced without pattern, like the roving knight of the chess board.
The tension seemed to charge even this huge room, increasing rather than lessening with every minute. Only the two red-coated marines on each side of the double doors seemed totally unaffected.
They stood stolidly, their musket butts grounded beside the polished toe caps of their right boots, their expressions blank and their eyes fixed directly ahead.
Once Clinton stopped in front of Robyn and drew his watch.
‘Fifty minutes,’ he said.
‘It could be hours yet,’ she answered quietly.
‘I can never thank you for the evidence you gave.’
‘It was nothing but the truth.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘But without it—’ He broke off, and resumed his restless pacing.
The prosecuting officer, who had attempted for the two previous days to damn him and send him to the gallows, glanced up at Clinton, and then hurriedly, almost guiltily, returned his eyes to the documents he held in his right hand. Robyn was the only one who watched him openly, and her eyes were dark with worry and concern, yet when he caught her eye again a few minutes later, she smiled at him bravely, trying to hide her doubts.
The four senior officers, before whom she had given her evidence, had listened attentively, but she had seen no warmth nor compassion in their faces.
‘Madam,’ Admiral Kemp had asked her at the end, ‘is it true that you obtained a medical degree by impersonating a man, and if your answer is ‘Yes’, would you not then believe us justified in doubting your allegiance to the truth?’
Robyn had seen the faces of the senior officers flanking Kemp harden, their eyes become remote. The Sultan’s agent had been blatantly hostile, as the prosecuting officer had led him dutifully through a long list of aggressions and warlike acts against his master’s sovereign territory and against his subjects.
Denham and MacDonald could only recite the facts, and their own repudiation of their Captain’s orders was recorded in the ship’s logbook.
The only thing that surprised Robyn was that the court had deliberated so long, and then she started involuntarily as, with a crash that echoed around the walls of the empty ballroom, the double doors were thrown open, and the two marine guards stamped to attention.
Through the doors she could see the naval officers seated down the length of the long dining room table facing the ballroom. Their frogging and epaulettes gleamed with gold lace and Robyn was too far to be certain of their expressions. Though she took a step forward and craned to see the polished top of the table in front of the grim line of judges, she could not be certain of the hilt and point of the single weapon that lay upon it, and then her view was blocked by the backs of the three men who lined up facing the doors.
Clinton was in the centre with the prosecution and the defending officers flanking him. At a muttered command, they marched briskly through the open doors. The doors closed behind the trio, and still Robyn could not know which way the naval dirk on the table was pointing, whether it was in its sheath or if the blade was naked.
Clinton had explained to her the significance of that weapon. It was only placed upon the table when the judges had reached their decision. If the blade was sheathed, and if the hilt was pointed towards the prisoner when he entered, then the judgement was ‘not guilty’. When the bare blade was pointed towards him, then he knew that the wrath of the service was about to descend upon him – and he might be called to pay his penalty upon the flogging grating, or upon the gallows itself.
Clinton kept his gaze fixed upon a point above Admiral Kemp’s head, while the doors were banged closed behind him, and he and the officers flanking him came to attention five paces from the long polished table behind which sat his judges.
Only then did he allow himself to glance down at the dagger upon the table top. The bare blade glinted a bluish-silver in the late sunlight that slanted in from the tall french windows, and the bright point was aimed at Clinton’s stomach.
He felt the cold drive of despair in his guts, as though the dagger had been plunged through them. The shock of the injustice of the verdict, the disbelief that his whole life had been brought down at a single stroke, the shame and disgrace of a career shattered and a reputation indelibly besmirched, left him numbed and blind to all but the wicked blade before him, and deaf to all but the voice of Admiral Kemp.
‘Guilty of flagrant disregard of the orders of his superior officer.’
‘Guilty of acts of piracy upon the high seas.’
‘Guilty of destroying the property of the subjects of a friendly power.’
‘Guilty of flouting the terms of a treaty between her Britannic Majesty’s Government and the Sultan of the Omani Arabs.’
It must be death, Clinton realized, the verdict was too detailed, the list of his transgressions too long and his guilt too serious. It must be death by the noose.
He lifted his eyes from the accusing weapon, and he stared out of the french windows beyond his judges. The high stock of his uniform collar felt as tight as the hangman’s noose as he tried to swallow.
‘I have never feared death, Lord,’ he prayed silently. ‘There is only one thing I will regret – that I must leave the woman that I love.’
To be deprived of honour, and of life was sufficient punishment, but to lose his love as well was the final injustice.
‘The Court has deliberated at length on the sentence,’ Admiral Kemp paused and shot a sideways glance at a lean, tanned and silver-haired Rear-Admiral beside him, the passenger from the visiting East Indiaman, ‘and has heard and been swayed by the eloquent arguments of Admiral Reginald Curry.’
He paused again and puffed out his lips, indicating clearly that he did not agree with those eloquent arguments, before going on.
‘The sentence of this Court is that the prisoner be stripped of all rank, privileges and pay and that the Queen’s Commission which he holds shall be withdrawn, and that he be dishonourably discharged from the naval service.’
Clinton steeled himself, the stripping of rank and discharge would precede the main body of the sentence.
‘Furthermore,’ Kemp paused and cleared his th
roat. ‘Furthermore it is the sentence of the Court that the prisoner be taken from here to the castle and that he be there—’
The castle was the place of execution, the gallows would be erected on the parade ground before the main gates.
‘That he be there imprisoned for a period of one year.’
The judges were standing up, were filing out of the room. As the lean silver-haired Admiral came level with Clinton, a small conspiratorial smile touched his lips, and for the first time Clinton realized that it was not death.
‘A year,’ said the Lieutenant who had prosecuted, as the door closed, ‘not a flogging, nor a hanging – damned generous, I’d say.’
‘Congratulations.’ Clinton’s defending officer was grinning incredulously. ‘It was Curry, of course, he commanded the west coast anti-slavery squadron himself. What a stroke of luck to have him on the Board.’
Pale, voiceless, swaying slightly on his feet, Clinton was still staring blindly through the open windows.
‘Come on, my dear fellow, a year will soon be past,’ the defending officer touched his arm, ‘and after that, no more bully beef and hard bread – do pull yourself together.’
Twenty miles a day since leaving grandfather Moffat’s mission-station at Kuruman, Zouga had pushed the mules and his servants hard all the way, and now at the crest of the pass he reined in the tall sway-backed mule and stared out across the sweeping panorama of the Cape peninsula.
Directly below him was that strange pale hill of smooth rock, Die Paarl as the Dutch burghers had named it, ‘the Pearl’, and it shone with an almost translucent lustre in the Cape sunlight of high summer.
Beyond that the wheatlands and vineyards dotted the flat land that stretched away to the Paarde Berg, the Horse Mountains, where once the wild mountain zebra had roamed, and the Tyger Berg. The leopard to the Dutch burghers was a tiger and the zebra was a horse.
‘Nearly home now, Sergeant,’ Zouga called to Jan Cheroot.
‘Just look at that—’ The little Hottentot pointed to the smoky blue flat-topped mountain that stood up tall and massive against the southern horizon.
‘We will be there before dark tomorrow night.’
Jan Cheroot puckered his lips and blew a kiss towards it. ‘Pull the cork and tell the Cape Town ladies that my mama didn’t call me big cheroot for nothing.’
His mule flicked its long hairy ears to the sound of his voice and gave a little half-hearted buck. ‘You feeling it too, you old thunder!’ Jan Cheroot chuckled. ‘Let’s go then!’ and he whipped the animal up and went clattering away down the steep and rocky roadway.
Zouga stayed to watch the battered little two-wheeled Cape cart follow him at a more sedate pace, carrying its precious burden of ivory and sculptured green soapstone, as it had for a thousand miles and more.
It was a month before Robyn was allowed to pay her first visit to the castle. After the guard at the gates inspected her pass, she was led to a small whitewashed guard room, devoid of all furniture except three high-backed uncushioned chairs.
She remained standing for ten minutes before the low door opposite her was opened and Clinton stooped through it. He stopped, facing her, and she was struck instantly by the prison pallor of his skin. His deep-water tan had faded to a tobacco stain of yellow, and the roots of his hair, no longer bleached by salt and strong sunlight, had darkened.
He looked older, tired and dejected.
‘You at least have not deserted me in my disgrace,’ he said simply.
The Subaltern of the guard took the third chair and tried to look as though he was not listening to their conversation. Robyn and Clinton sat facing each other stiffly, on the uncomfortable chairs, and their conversation was at first as stilted, a polite series of enquiries after each other’s health.
Then Robyn asked, ‘Have you received the newspapers?’
‘Yes. The warder has been good to me.’
‘Then you have read what the new American President has promised at his inauguration.’
‘Lincoln was always a staunch enemy of the trade,’ Clinton nodded.
‘He has granted the ships of the Royal Navy the right of search at last.’
‘And six of the Southern States have seceded already,’ Clinton told her grimly. ‘There will be fighting, if he tries to force it.’
‘It’s so unfair,’ Robyn cried. ‘Just a few short weeks and you would have been a hero instead of a—’ she broke off with her hand to her mouth, ‘I am sorry, Captain Codrington.’
‘Captain no longer,’ he said.
‘I feel so much to blame – had I not sent that letter—’
‘You are so kind, so good,’ then he blurted abruptly, ‘and so beautiful that I can scarcely bear to look at you.’
Robyn found herself blushing hotly, and she glanced at the listening guard officer. He was studying the rough plaster ceiling of the cell.
‘Do you know what I thought when I entered the chamber and saw the dirk pointed at me?’ Clinton went on, and she shook her head. ‘I thought I was going to lose you. That they would hang me and I would never see you again.’ His voice was shaking with such emotion, that the listening officer rose to his feet.
‘Doctor Ballantyne, I will leave the room for five minutes,’ he said. ‘Do I have your word that you will not attempt to pass a weapon or a tool to the prisoner in my absence?’
Robyn nodded jerkily and whispered, ‘Thank you.’
The moment the door closed, Clinton launched himself across the gap between them and dropped to his knees before Robyn. He encircled her waist with both arms and pressed his cheek to her bosom.
‘But now I have nothing to offer you, I have nothing to share with you but my disgrace.’
Robyn found herself stroking his hair as though he were a child.
‘Soon I will go back to that beautiful land below the Zambezi river. I know now that is where my destiny lies,’ she said quietly. ‘To minister to the souls and the bodies of those who live there.’
She paused a moment and looked down fondly on the dense pale locks of his hair.
‘You say you have nothing to offer, nothing to share, but I have something to offer you, and to share with you.’
He raised his head and looked up at her questioningly, hope starting to dawn in his pale sapphire eyes.
‘Will you not offer yourself to be ordained in God’s service as a missionary, and come with me into the wilderness, to the land of Zambezia?’
‘To share my life with you, and with God.’ His voice was hush and choked. ‘I never dreamed I was worthy of such an honour.’
‘The fellow is a prig,’ said Zouga firmly. ‘And, damn me, but now he is a gaol-bird to boot. Neither of you will be able to hold up your heads in society.’ ‘He has a true and noble spirit, and now he has found his true calling in God’s service,’ Robyn replied hotly. ‘Neither of us intend spending much of our time in society, you may be certain of that.’
Zouga shrugged and smiled. ‘Of course, that is your affair. At least he has made a pretty packet of prize money which they can’t take away from him.’
‘I assure you that money had nothing to do with my decision.’
‘I will believe that.’ Zouga’s smile infuriated her, but before she could find a scathing enough retort, he turned away and sauntered the length of the long veranda under the trellised vines and stood with his hands thrust into his pockets, staring out across the Cartwrights’ gardens to the far glimpses of blue bay seen through the oaks and the rustling palms.
Robyn’s anger subsided and gave way to regret. It seemed now that the two of them must always be squabbling, their desires and their motives always directly opposed.
At first her relief at his safety had been almost as strong as her sisterly delight at seeing him again. She had barely recognized him as he rode the bony sway-backed mule up the path to the Cartwright mansion. It was only when he dismounted and lifted the stained old hat from his head that she screamed with joy, leapt up from th
e luncheon table and ran down off the terrace to hug him.
He was so lean and hard and bronzed, and somehow endowed with new authority, charged with purpose and presence, that she glowed with pride as he recounted his experiences and all the company hung avidly on each word.
‘He is like a Greek god!’ Aletta Cartwright had whispered to Robyn, which was not an original description – but then Aletta did not run much to original thought, and Robyn had to agree that in this case it was accurate.
She had followed his description of the land of the Matabele, and of the long trek southward with all her attention, asking such acute questions that Zouga had asked sharply, ‘I hope that you will not be using any of this in your own account, Sissy?’
‘Of course not,’ she assured him, but still that had been the first sour note, and he had not spoken further of his adventures, except to give her the greetings and news of their grandfather, Robert Moffat at Kuruman.
‘You would never believe that he was seventy-five years old this past December. He is so bright and alive that he has just finished translating the Bible into the Sechuan language. He gave me every courtesy and help, and it was he who arranged for mules and for the cart which made the last portion of the journey so much easier. He remembered you as a little girl of three years old, and he has received your letters and gave me this in reply.’ It was a thick packet. ‘He tells me that you have asked him about leading a missionary expedition to Zambezia or Matabeleland.’
‘That is correct.’
‘Sissy, I do not think that a woman on her own,’ he had begun, but she had forestalled him.
‘I shall not be alone. Captain Clinton Codrington has decided to seek ordination as a missionary, and I have consented to become his wife.’
That had led to the explosion which had once more marred their relationship. As her anger faded, she made another determined effort to avert the new clash of temperament.
‘Zouga,’ she went down the length of the terrace and took his arm. ‘I would be grateful if you would consent to give me away at the wedding.’