A Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith Page B

he smiled. ‘You have to talk, always you have to talk.’
    She let him go, as punishment for those words. But as he slithered free of her she felt a terrible emptiness and she regretted his going fiercely, beginning to hate him for it.
    â€˜You have no God,’ she accused him.
    â€˜Isn’t it strange,’ he chided her gently, ‘that most of the worst crimes in history have been committed by men with God’s name upon their lips.’
    The truth of it deflated her momentarily, and she struggled into a sitting position.
    â€˜You are a slaver.’
    â€˜I don’t really want to argue with you, you know.’ But she would not accept that.
    â€˜You buy and sell human beings.’
    â€˜What are you trying to prove to me?’ He chuckled now, further angering her.
    â€˜I’m telling you that there is a void between us that can never be bridged.’
    â€˜We have just done so, convincingly,’ and she flushed bright scarlet down her neck on to her bosom.
    â€˜I have sworn to devote my life to destroy all you stand for,’ she said fiercely, pushing her face close to his.
    â€˜Woman, you talk too much,’ he told her lazily, and covered her mouth with his own, holding her like that while she struggled, gagging her with his lips so her protests were muffled and incomprehensible. Then when her struggles had subsided he pushed her easily backwards on to the bunk and came over her again.
    In the morning when she woke, he was gone, but the bolster beside her was indented by his head. She pressed her face into it and the smell of his hair and of his skin still lingered, though the heat of his blood had dissipated and the linen was cool against her cheeks.

T he ship was in the grip of intense excitement. She could hear the voices from the deck above as she scurried down the empty passageway to her own cabin, dreading meeting a member of the crew, or more especially meeting her brother. What excuse could she have for being abroad in the dawn, with her cabin unslept in and her clothing torn and rumpled?
    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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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