A Falcon Flies Read Online Free Page B

the interior of the continent north of the Tropic of Capricorn, and they came up with another 500 guineas.’
    â€˜Oh Zouga, you are a magician.’
    â€˜Then there was the Worshipful Company of London Merchants Trading into Africa. For the last hundred years they have based all their activities on the west coast, I convinced them that they needed a survey of the east coast. I have been appointed the Worshipful Company’s Agent, with instructions to examine the market in palm oil, gumcopal, copper and ivory – and they have come up with the third and last 500 guineas – and a presentation Sharps rifle.’
    â€˜One thousand five hundred guineas,’ Robyn breathed, and Zouga nodded.
    â€˜We are going back home in style.’
    â€˜When?’
    â€˜I have booked passage on an American trading clipper. We sail from Bristol in six weeks, for Good Hope and Quelimane inMozambique. I have written asking leave from my regiment for two years – you will have to do the same with the L.M.S.’

I t had all happened with dreamlike rapidity after that. The directors of the L.M.S., perhaps relieved that they were not to pay for her passage nor the expense of relocating Robyn in the African interior, in a flush of extravagance decided to continue her stipend during the period she was away, and made a guarded promise to review the position at the end of that time. If she proved herself capable – then there would be a permanent post in Africa thereafter. It was more than she had ever expected, and she had thrown herself wholeheartedly into assisting Zouga with the preparations for departure.
    There was so much to do that six weeks was barely sufficient, and it seemed only days had passed before the mountain of the expedition’s equipment was being swayed down into the holds of the big graceful Baltimore clipper.
    The
Huron
proved as swift as she looked, another wise choice by Zouga Ballantyne, and under Mungo St John’s skilful navigation she made good her westings before attempting to cross the belt of the doldrums at their narrowest point. They were becalmed not a single day and sped across the line at 29￮ west and immediately Mungo St John put her on the port tack to stand down across the south-east trades.
Huron
clawed her way southwards with the flying fish sailing ahead of her, close on the wind until she broke from their grip at last with Ilha da Trinidade on the horizon. The north-wester came howling at them and
Huron
fled before it, under low, sullen, scudding skies day after day that denied them sight of sun or moon or stars, until she almost hurled herself ashore 200 miles up the west coast of Africa from her destination at the Cape of Good Hope.
    â€˜Mr Mate!’ Mungo St John called in his clear carrying voice as
Huron
settled down to reach across the wind, pulling swiftly away from the land.
    â€˜Captain!’ Tippoo bellowed back from the foot of the mainmast, a great blurt of sound from the bull chest.
    â€˜Take the name of the masthead watch.’
    Tippoo ducked his cannon-ball head on its thick neck like a bare-knuckle fighter taking a punch, and looked up the mast, slitting his eyes in the heavy folds of flesh.
    â€˜Twenty minutes more and he would have had us on the beach.’ St John’s voice was cold, deadly. ‘I’ll have him on the grating before this day is out, and we will get a peep of his backbone.’
    Tippoo licked his thick lips involuntarily, and Robyn, standing near him, felt her stomach heave. There had been three floggings already on this voyage and she knew what to expect. Tippoo was half-Arab, half-African, a honeycoloured giant of a man with a shaven head that was covered with a mesh of tiny pale scars from a thousand violent encounters. He wore a loose embroidered, high-necked tunic over his huge frame, but the forearms that protruded from the wide sleeves were thick as a woman’s thighs.
    Robyn turned quickly to