A Falcon Flies Read Online Free

just know it. I will shrivel up and die.’
    â€˜Good Lord, Sissy, why Africa?’
    â€˜Because I was born there, because my destiny is there – and because Papa is there, somewhere.’
    â€˜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 filial love for him.’
    â€˜He is different from other men, Zouga, you cannot judge him by the usual yardstick.’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜I love him!’ she said defiantly. ‘After God, I love him best.’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Really, Sissy!’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜How much?’ she asked at last quietly.
    â€˜Two hundred pounds.’ He shrugged.
    â€˜So much!’ she breathed, and then, ‘You haven’t been gambling, Zouga?’
    That was one of the other dread words in Robyn’s vocabulary.
    â€˜Not gambling?’ she repeated.
    â€˜As a matter of fact, I have,’ Zouga laughed. ‘And thank God for that. Without it I would be a thousand guineas under.’
    â€˜You mean you gamble – and actually win?’ Her horror faded a little, became tinged with fascination.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Then how are you in debt, Zouga?’ she asked.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Will you ever be able to repay it?’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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