The Covenant (113 page)

“How could that happen?” one of the listeners asked.

“It’s your job to make it happen,” he said.

•  •  •

The next weeks determined the pattern of Frank Saltwood’s life. He had intended going to South Africa for only a brief visit with his parents, then returning to London for legal training, but as he moved about the ship he became aware that Mr. Rhodes was keeping an eye on him, and at various intervals they met in discussion, and once Rhodes asked bluntly, “Why would you pursue the law when you could be exercising your power directly?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you were at Oxford, did you ever read John Ruskin’s charge to the young men of the university? You didn’t? You should have been required to memorize it. Wait here.” He ran to his cabin, a rather heavy man moving with agility, and within a few moments was back with a dog-eared pamphlet of Ruskin’s famous Oxford address of 1870, a few years before Rhodes matriculated. “Read this,” he said peremptorily, “and we’ll talk about it after dinner.” In Mr. Rhodes’ chair on deck, Frank read the intoxicating challenge:

When Mr. Rhodes returned after dinner, the sun had set behind the western horizon, but its invisible disk still sent golden rays to illuminate the clouds that stood guard over Africa, making the eastern Atlantic a scene of glory. He asked only one question: “Saltwood, have you discovered your fixed purpose?”

“Not really, sir.”

“Isn’t it about time you did?”

“As you know, I’ve been thinking of law.”

“You’ve
been thinking of
!” He spat out the words with distaste.
“At Oriel you were thinking of missionary work. And next week you’ll be thinking of something else. Why not come to solid grips with real problems?”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“Come to work for me. There’s so much to be done, so little time to do it.”

Darkness fell upon the ship, and as it sailed southward to the realm of stars that Frank knew well, Rhodes talked insistently. “I need help, Saltwood. I need the energy of young men.”

“How old are you, sir?”

“Twenty-nine. But I feel thirty-nine. Have you any idea, Saltwood, of the empire I control?”

“No, sir.”

“I told few at Oxford. I was embarrassed. But I mean to control all the diamonds in the world.”

“To what purpose?”

“The map, Saltwood. The map. I mean to turn it all red. To make places you and I have never seen part of the British Empire.”

“Can that be done?”

“Never ask such a question!” Rhodes exploded. “Anything can be done if men of good principle determine that it shall be done. Have you the courage to strike for immortal goals?”

In the darkness of midnight Frank had no estimate whatever of his courage, and he said so. “Then you must come to work for me,” Rhodes said, “and I’ll show you how much courage a young man can develop.”

Through the night they talked of the Limpopo and the Zambezi, of the Matabele, and when the moon hung low upon the waves Rhodes introduced a new word: “Zimbabwe. Ever heard of it?”

“Yes.”

“A fabulous city. Some idiots are beginning to argue that it was built by blacks, but those who know are convinced it’s Ophir of the Bible. The Queen of Sheba may have built it, or the Phoenicians. One day we must go to Zimbabwe to show the world that this is the Queen of Sheba’s city.” Immediately he enlarged on the subject: “Matabeleland, ancient cities, gold mines … They’re nothing, Saltwood. The obligation of mankind is to improve society, and no people have stepped upon this earth more qualified to perform this task than well-bred Englishmen. Will you work with me?”

The night was gone, the sun was coming up over Africa—and young Saltwood was bewildered. “I must discuss these matters with my parents.”

“Saltwood! A man forges his destiny of himself, not of his parents’ wishes. If I’d listened to my father—” He stopped abruptly. “Fine old man. Village preacher. Nine children. Much loved by his parishioners, and do you know why? No sermon he ever preached was more than ten minutes long.”

“You have eight brothers and sisters?”

“Yes, and a half sister.”

“All of them married?”

“One,” and he said this with such fierce finality, as if a sore point had been touched, that Frank was not surprised when he stalked off. Then he recollected that not once during the entire voyage had he seen Rhodes talking with any of the lady passengers or acknowledging in any way that they existed.

In the days that followed that conversation Rhodes spent his time with a group of male passengers, discussing only one topic: England and her glory. “Join us,” he called one morning to Saltwood, and when Frank sat with the men he was peppered with questions about South Africa, the future of ranching at De Kraal, and the likelihood that Zulu warriors might once more challenge English armies.

Rhodes liked his answers, and when the others left he kept Saltwood beside him: “You’re the only one who made sense.” Then he became excited. He did not speak, he orated—in a high voice that grew higher as his enthusiasm flamed. He sat on his hands, rocking back and forth, and always he returned to the subject of Africa and the extension of empire: “Germany is coming at us from the west, and Portugal’s dug in on the east. It will be our responsibility to fend them both off. Push the channels north. Always north till we reach Cairo. The world can be saved only by Englishmen standing together. Saltwood, I need your help.”

“What about the Boers?” Frank evaded. “Can they, too, be used?”

“The Boers are some of the finest people on earth. United with them, we could form a nation of unsurpassed strength.”

“Why don’t we invite them to join us?”

Mr. Rhodes frowned and rubbed his chin. “You know, I’m a member of Parliament. And what kind of district elected me, if you please? Heavily Boer. I work with them, I collect their votes—and
damnit, I know them no better than when I started. And those who emigrated north I understand even less.”

“Is there a mystery?”

“Yes. They huddle in their little republics and refuse to join the mainstream of the human race. They keep on their farms and leave the running of the world to us.”

“You speak as if you intend to rule the world.”

“Nothing less.” Quickly he added, “If that sounds arrogant, I mean that the empire I shall put together for England must rule the world.” He dropped his voice: “So your task will be to bring the Boers in with us.”

Then he became so impassioned on this point that he asked Saltwood to wait by the railing, and while other passengers were heading for the dining room, he ran to his cabin and returned with a rumpled piece of paper. It was a holograph of his will, and when Saltwood read it he was shocked: C. J. Rhodes was donating all his possessions to two minor officials of the English government, commissioning them to bring into the British Empire countries as diverse as the United States, the east coast of China and the whole continent of Africa, the Voortrekker republics not excluded.

“Can this really be done?” Frank asked.

“It must be,” Rhodes said, “and you’re to be part of it.”

When the volatile man disappeared into his cabin, Saltwood reflected on his curious behavior: he was offering a young Oriel graduate, whom he scarcely knew, a part in governing the world, but he never invited him to his cabin, or to his table, or to any other event of which he was a part. And one afternoon when he saw Frank talking with an attractive girl on her way home to Cape Town, he actually scowled and turned away in disgust. For some days thereafter he did not speak to Frank, and when he finally did he muttered, “I hope you’re not making silly promises to some silly girl,” and only when Saltwood replied, “Hardly,” did he resume his friendship.

When the ship docked at Port Elizabeth, Frank headed immediately north for his family’s farm, and he supposed that he would never again see C. J. Rhodes, but one afternoon as he and his parents sat at tea on a veranda overlooking the pastures and the stream, a dusty cart clattered up to the gate, and Mr. Rhodes strode up to the porch.
After the most perfunctory acknowledgment of Frank’s parents, he asked bluntly, “Well, Saltwood, are you prepared to come with me?”

“I haven’t really …”

“You’re not mooning about the law, are you? With so much work to be done?”

Frank tried to avoid a harsh answer that would send Mr. Rhodes away permanently, and once he vacillated, Rhodes sprang at him like a tiger: “Good! We’re off to Kimberley in the morning.” Only then did he bother with the older Saltwoods: “I’ll watch over him. He’ll be at the heart of things, and when you next see him he’ll be a man.”

The next day they drove to Graaff-Reinet, where they caught the stagecoach to Kimberley, whose violent activity was bewildering. Frank would never forget his first sight of the diamond mines, for as he wrote to his mother, they were like nothing else on earth:

Frank did not tell his mother what might have been the two most interesting bits of information. In the cottage occupied by Mr. Rhodes just as much chaos reigned as in the mines; a tin-roofed affair, it was Spartan-like, with not a single adornment to grace it, clothes pitched everywhere, dishes unwashed and furniture about to collapse. No woman was ever allowed in the house, which Rhodes shared with a gifted, sickly young man a few years younger than he. Frank found that he wasn’t the only one in his early twenties selected to advance Mr. Rhodes’ many interests; a squad of bright, eager recruits submerged their personal interests in those of this dreamer who visualized a Union Jack over every territory from the Cape to Cairo.

He invariably called his young men by their first names: Neville, Sandys, Percival, Bob, Johnny, and often he encouraged them to engage in hearty pranks, as if they were in grammar school. They were free to entertain such women as they could find in the diamond town, but there was an unwritten law that ladies were to be flirted with, and perhaps frolicked with, but quickly forgotten. Far greater things were in store for “my young gentlemen,” as he referred to them, and like Shaka, he wanted his regiments to keep their hearts on the great tasks ahead and not on the bosoms of their wives.

Frank noticed that up to the time of his formal employment, Rhodes addressed him with a curt “Saltwood,” but once he accepted his assignment he became “Frank,” and so he would remain, perpetually young, perpetually smiling. Like all the young gentlemen, he was paid well.

The second interesting bit involved Mr. Rhodes’ chief rival in diamonds, an extraordinary chap who never stopped amazing the young gentlemen and the public at large. He was as different from Mr. Rhodes as a man could be, but was equally ruthless in hounding a business opportunity, and he alone stood between Rhodes and true riches.

Barnett Isaacs was a year older than Rhodes, a Jew born in one of the worst slums of London; in the midst of an undistinguished career as a frowzy vaudeville comedian and tap-dancer, he decided in a stroke of pure genius to make his fortune in the mines of South Africa. With only his nerve and some boxes of cheap cigars purchased
near the docks at Cape Town, he talked his way north to Kimberley, peddled his “six-penny-satisfiers,” and earned a pitiful living entertaining the miners with deplorable jokes, ridiculous acrobatics, and whatever else came to his mind when he stood before them in one cheap hall or another.

But Barnett Isaacs was an inspired listener, and while he clowned he picked up choice bits of negotiable information: who was going broke, who wanted to return to London, who had stolen whose claim. And bit by bit he pulled this information together, acquiring a horse and cart and prowling the diggings as a kopje-walloper, a kind of money-minded vulture looking to snap up the discarded pickings off other men’s sorting tables. He soon got his hands on valuable rights, and one day Kimberley woke to find that Isaacs was one of the richest men on the diamond fields.