Trade Wind (61 page)

“Which they won’t do,” grunted Batty.

“Oh yes, they will: if it’s that or losing everything they’ve got and having the town burned over their heads. They’ll do it all right once they get that point straight. But they’ll hate doing it. My God, how those fat Banyan merchants and idle Arab nobles will hate it! They’re the ones who have managed to escape the worst of it so far, and it will be like drawing eye-teeth to get money out of them. They’ll do it this time because they’ll have to, but I don’t think they’ll do it again. Next time they’ll probably prefer to fight and put a stop to it once and for all, and Issa-bin-Yusuf, and his old friend from Kuwait and his business acquaintances from the Gulf, will find that they have killed the goose, and with it the golden eggs. Simple, Batty, isn’t it?”

Batty ruminated for a while, and then a slow smile split his nut-cracker face and he said: “Simple it is. And I reckons you’re right. If there’s one thing them Banyans and rich Arabs “ate it’s forkin’ out the rhino, while as for those ‘oo send their kids and their best slaves to their country ‘ouses soon as ever the dhows ‘eave in sight, they never yet been ‘it where it ‘urts, and they ain’t going to like it. Not ‘arf, they ain’t! There’s such a thing as being druv too far.”

“Let’s hope so. And now we’d better get down to producing a list and a set of careful directions for the benefit of this visiting gentleman from Kuwait. Call Ralub, and we’ll see what we can do.”

Between them they compiled a list that included the names of any rich landowner, merchant or noble who had so far escaped spoliation by the pirates or was known to have made money from them through the sale of slaves; adding such details as the location of houses in the city and the exact whereabouts of country estates and hiding places in the interior of the island. In addition they devised a method of obtaining entrance that stood such an excellent chance of proving effective, that Ralub was driven to observe regretfully that it was a pity not to try it out for their own benefit instead of handing it, with its rich rewards, to a horde of thieves and cut-throats from the Gulf.

“It is that,” agreed Batty with a sigh, “but no good never come from fouling your own nest, and speaking for meself I don’t fancy being run out of one of the few places that’s been an ‘ome-from-‘ome to me.”

“They’ll run us out soon enough if they ever get to hear about this!” observed Rory, appending a sketch-map of the estate of an idle, lascivious and pleasure-loving sheikh whose practice it was to withdraw into the country at the first sign of trouble, leaving a few of his older and less useful slaves to stand their chance in his town house, and who had long been suspected of kidnapping likely children from the villages and selling them to the raiders.

“They will not hear of it,” said Ralub. “And if they did it would make no difference, for those who have suffered in other years would be on our side, and if by this we rid the Island of these locusts we shall all be the gainers. Write down Mahmud Ferjiani. The old toad pays no taxes and pretends to be a poor man, but it is said—and I believe it—that he owns half the houses in the Street of the Harlots in Mombasa, and that it was he who stole Ali Mohammed’s two girl-children for one of these houses, knowing that the pirates would be blamed for it when last they came. His doorkeeper is known to me and I think that we can arrange for the latch to be off one night.”

Issa-bin-Yusuf’s friend from Kuwait had arrived two days later. A man as lean as Issa Yusuf was fat; gaunt and grey as an elderly wolf, and with all a wolf’s ferocity and cunning in his cold eyes. He had been introduced as Sheikh Omar-bin-Omar, and Rory had suffered a slight qualm on seeing him and had momentarily regretted that rash remark about the goose and the golden eggs. It seemed to him that this was a man who might well see further than Issa Yusuf had and follow it to its logical conclusion. But either his host had not thought fit to repeat it, or it had once again been accepted at its face value and the Sheikh’s greed had blinded him to other issues. He expressed deep concern over the matter of the Sultan of Zanzibar’s depleted Treasury and lamentable lack of private funds (a situation with which any gentleman must sympathize), and announced himself delighted to co-operate in any scheme that might assist His Highness to overcome his difficulties and ensure that his wealthier subjects bore a fair share in any financial arrangement between the Palace and the raiders.

“Traders,” murmured Issa Yusuf automatically, but was disregarded.

“There is one thing more,” said Captain Frost, thoughtfully weighing several folded sheets of paper in the palm of his hand.

“Your share?”

Rory shook his head and laughed. “For once, I am doing a favour to a friend. But as it will be a profitable one for you, I require something in return for the information I have here in my hand and for any other assistance that I or my crew may give you later.”

“You have only to ask,” said die Sheikh with a lordly wave of a hand that was as thin and curved and predatory as the talons of a bird of prey.

Rory bowed gravely in acknowledgement. “I require the safety of my own house and of any belonging to my crew, and an assurance that no white foreigner will be in any way molested.”

“It is granted,” said Omar-bin-Omar magnificently, and held out his hand for the papers.

They had sealed the bargain with cups of Turkish coffee, glasses of sherbet and a varied assortment of highly spiced and richly assorted dishes, and Rory had enquired as to how soon the dhows might be expected.

“In two days’ time,” said Omar-bin-Omar, sipping coffee. “Or it may be less. And you return to Zanzibar—when?”

“When it pleases me,” said Rory dryly.

Omar-bin-Omar scowled, and then laughed. “But this assistance you have promised?”

“You have it in your hand. As for the rest, I am sending two of my most trusted men to make any arrangements that are necessary.”

“Then you will not be returning yourself?”

“I can see no reason for doing so. There are other matters that require my attention.”

No more had been said on that head, and on the following morning Rory had offered suitable thanks to Hajji Issa-bin-Yusuf for his hospitality, and returned to the
Virago
, In view of the particular circumstances it would, he considered, be a deal safer and more sensible to stay well clear of Zanzibar while the pirate dhows filled the harbour. Majid, warned of their arrival, could be trusted to deal with the situation without any further prompting, and he had no fear that Omar-bin-Omar would break his word respecting the safety of his house and possessions and those of his crew; or of the Western community either. There was, in such matters, more honour among thieves than is normally found in honest men, and he would wait for news of the pirate fleets’ arrival and then sail south to Durban for a spell, to enquire as to the European market prices of raw gold and the best way of converting unminted metal into foreign currencies.

But in the event he neither sailed for Durban nor kept clear of Zanzibar. For in the same hour as the dhows were sighted, bearing down like witches on the wind, Igzaou the Abyssinian, who had carried Rory’s warning of their imminent arrival to Majid, returned from the island with evil news.

He had not dared bring it himself to the Captain, and it was Batty who brought it. Batty with his brown, wrinkled face distorted with fury and his thin body shaking with rage: “It’s you what done it,” cried Batty hoarsely. “I told you not to give ‘er that necklace, didn’t I? But would you listen t’me? Not you! you crooked, cock-sure chouser, you!”

Rory turned to stare at his distraught henchman in some surprise, and said shortly: “Go to bed. Uncle; you’re drunk.”

“Drunk am I? So’ll you be when you ‘ears what I ‘ave to tell you. She’s dead, d’you ‘ear?…
dead!
”

Rory rose abruptly and stood very still for a long, dragging minute. Then he took a swift stride forward and gripping Batty’s bony shoulders shook him with a violence that made the little man’s teeth rattle. “Who’s dead? What are you talking about?”

“Zorah. That’s ‘oo!” There were tears in Batty’s eyes.

“I don’t believe it.”

“It’s true, I tell you. Do you think I’d lie about a thing like that? The barstards—the bleedin’ barstards…!” Batty’s voice broke.

“Who told you? How did it happen?”

“Igzaou. ‘E just come back. ‘E wouldn’t tell you ‘imself. Ralub and me we don’t believe it neither when ‘e tells us, but it’s true all right, and it were that there necklace. I told you—I told you…”

Rory shook him again savagely. “What happened?”

Batty gasped and made an effort to control himself.’ It were like I said. Seems you broke that necklace before you leaves; did you?”

“What’s that got to do with—I may have done. Go on.”

“Zorah she took it to Gaur Chand’s shop to be mended, and on ‘er way back she were kidnapped.”

Rory’s face was suddenly as grey and bloodless as Batty’s; and as old. He said again, and quite steadily: “Go on.”

“She were missing for two days, and when she come back she acted wild-like and wouldn’t eat nor drink, but cries and carries on, and ‘er woman, Dahili, says a man ‘ad ‘ad ‘er. ‘E kept ‘er for two days in an ‘ouse in the city, and then ‘e give ‘er an ‘andful of money and turns ‘er loose.”

Rory said harshly: For God’s sake get on with it!”

“Dahili says she gets it into ‘er ‘ead that she’s been got with child, and she does something to ‘erself to get rid of it, and it’s that what kills ‘er. She dies the night before Igzaou gets in. And now ‘oo’s to look after me baby? ‘Oo’s there to care for Amrah? Not you! You don’t care for ‘er—you never “ave! She only ‘ad ‘er Ma…and me.”

Rory said in a whisper: “Who did it? Do they know who did it?”

“She wouldn’t say—except that it were a foreigner. Dahili says it were a white man.”

What!
” Rory’s fingers bit into Batty’s flesh and made him wince with pain, but he made no attempt to pull free. He said: “That’s what she told Igzaou. She were with Zorah when she were took. They was coming out of the shop when three blokes sets on ‘em, and one fetches Dahili a clip which knocks the wind out of ‘er so’s she can’t do nothing, while the others shoves a cloth over Zorah’s ‘ead and slings ‘er up and runs off with ‘er. And Dahili she says she’ll swear as those two were whites, though they was dressed as Arabs. But on account of ‘er dropping the lantern and its being dark she didn’t see no faces, so she don’t know no names, but that there weren’t no foreign ships in ‘arbour…”

“We can find out,” said Rory softly.

He stood for a long time gripping Batty’s shoulder and staring above his head at the open door and the companionway beyond; seeing Zorah’s small face and her dark adoring eyes, and all the slender loveliness that had meant so little to him. A white man…two white men…perhaps three. Men to whom all coloured women were “nigger girls’. And if there had been no foreign ship in the harbour they were not some casual seamen, but men from the trading firms or the consulates. White men resident in Zanzibar, to whom Zorah would have seemed fair game: a harlot. A coloured harlot. White men…

Rory’s eyes narrowed and his lips drew back from his teeth in a smile that sent a sudden shiver through Batty’s meagre frame. The slight movement brought him back from whatever place he had been wandering in, and he released Batty with an abruptness that sent the older man staggering back against the wall, and ran from the cabin. Batty heard his feet on the deck outside and his voice shouting an unintelligible order, and following more slowly was in time to see him leap down into a hastily lowered boat to be rowed away to the water steps.

“Where is he going?” asked Ralub, listening to the quick splash of the oars.

“Gawd knows,” said Batty tiredly. “Maybe ‘e just wants to be alone.”

But it was the Sheikh Omar-bin-Omar, and not solitude that Captain Frost had gone in search of, and coming up with him as he was about to take his departure from Issa Yusuf’s house, he broke unceremoniously across the polite and protracted farewells.

Omar-bin-Omar was accustomed to the hot, swift-flaring rages of his own people and could recognize them. But he had never before seen a man in the grip of a cold, killing rage, and he was puzzled by an emotion that he could not understand yet knew instinctively to be considerably more dangerous than any display of uncontrolled fury would have been.

“I have come,” said Captain Frost tersely and without preamble, “to ask a favour of you.”

Omar-bin-Omar’s interested gaze became suddenly blank, and he murmured a vague formula to the effect that his house and all that was his was at Captain Frost’s disposal.

“I have no need of your house or anything that is yours,” said Captain Frost in a hard and entirely expressionless voice: “I asked a favour of you once before—that you would see that no white foreigner in Zanzibar was molested. I should like you to forget that request.”

“You mean?” began Omar-bin-Omar, taken aback for perhaps the first time in forty years.

“I mean,” said Captain Frost deliberately, “that you will be doing me a personal favour if you would request your friends from the Gulf to put the fear of God and the devil into every white man in Zanzibar!”

Omar-bin-Omar recovered himself and his teeth showed briefly in a wolfish grin; for behind the clipped, colourless voice and stony gaze he had seen something that he understood and could sympathize with—a savage desire for revenge.

“It is granted,” said Omar-bin-Omar graciously.

The northeast Trade Winds that brought the monsoon rains, and drove the great dhows down the long coast of Africa as it had driven them for two thousand years, unchanged and unchanging, brought also a steaming, enervating heat, until it sometimes seemed to Hero that everything she touched was damp, and that it was months instead of weeks since she had last worn a garment that could be called dry.

The sheets on her bed, her thin cotton undergarments and the flimsy muslin folds of her dresses felt limp and clammy, and a pair of shoes removed at night grew a white film of mould before the following morning. Mildew attacked her gloves and shoes, the backs of books and anything made of leather, while metal rusted and polished wood grew dim, and toadstools sprouted in impossible and improbable places. But it was not only inanimate objects that deteriorated in the heat and humidity, for Hero was shocked to discover that it had an equally detrimental effect upon the character and habits of the white community, and that she herself was by no means immune to its insidious encroachments.