"I'm glad you raised the point." Toffee nodded thoughtfully, looking anything but glad. "There are some things we have to discuss."
"Listen, Toffee old son, there is absolutely nothing to discuss. All the discussing was done long ago."
"Now, don't upset yourself, my dear fellow." It was, however, in Gareth's nature to become very agitated when someone who owed him money wanted to discuss things.
The usual subject of discussion was how to avoid making payment, and Gareth was about to protest volubly and loudly when the Ras chose that moment to rise to his feet and make a speech.
This caused a certain amount of consternation, for the Ras's legs had been turned by large quantities of tej to the consistency of rubber, and it required the efforts of two of his guardsmen to get him to his feet and keep him there.
However, once up, he spoke with clarity and force while Lij Mikhael translated for the benefit of the white guests.
At first, the Ras seemed to wander. He spoke of the first rays of the sun touching the peaks of the mountains, and the feel of the desert wind in a man's face at noon, he reminded them of the sound of the birth cry of a man's firstborn child and the smell of the earth turning under the plough. Gradually an attentive silence fell upon his unruly audience, for the old man had still a power and force that demanded complete respect.
As he went on, so a greater dignity invested him; he shrugged off the supporting hands of his guard and seemed to grow in stature. His voice lost the querulous tremor of age and took on a more compelling ring.
Jake did not need the Prince's translation to know that he was speaking of mans pride, and the rights of a free man. The duty of a man to defend that freedom with life itself, to preserve it for his sons and their children.
"And now there comes a powerful enemy to challenge our rights as free men. An enemy so powerful, armed with such terrible weapons, that even the hearts of the warriors of Tigre and Shoo shrivelled in their breasts like diseased fruit." The old Ras was panting now, and a scanty sweat trickled from under the tall lion headdress and ran down the wrinkled black cheeks.
"But now, my children, powerful friends have come to stand beside us.
They have brought to us weapons as powerful as those of our enemies. No longer must we fear." Jake realized suddenly what pathetic store the Ras had placed in the worn and obsolete war materials they had brought him. He talked now of meeting the mighty armies of Italy on even terms.
Abruptly, Jake felt a choking sense of guilt. He knew that a week after he left, the four armoured cars would be piles of junk. There was no man in all the Ras's following who could keep their elderly and temperamental engines running.
Even if they were brought into action before the engines expired, they would present a threat only to unsupported infantry. The moment they engaged with Italian armour they would be instantly and hopelessly out-classed. Even the light Italian CV.3 tanks would be immune to the fire of the Vickers guns that the cars mounted, while in return the thin steel of the cars would offer no protection from the 50 men. armour-piercing shell that the enemy fired. There would be no one to explain all this to the Ras and teach him how to achieve the best from the puny weapons he commanded.
Jake visualized the first and probably the last battle that Ras Golam would fight. Scorning manoeuvre and strategy, he would certainly throw in all his force armoured cars, Vickers machine guns, obsolete rifles and swords in a single frontal attack. This was the way he had fought all his battles and the way he would fight the last.
Jake Barton felt his heart go out to the gallant ancient, who stood now shouting a challenge to a modern military power, prepared to defend to the death what was his and Jake felt a curious sense of recklessness.
It was a reaction that he knew well and usually it led him into positions of acute discomfort and danger.
"Forget it," he told himself firmly. "It's their war. Take the money and run. "Then suddenly he looked across the dimly lit cave to where Vicky Camberwell sat. She listened to the old Ras with misty eyes, and her expression was enchanted as she leaned her golden head close to the dark curly head of Sara Sagud, not wanting to miss a word of the translation.
Now she saw Jake watching her, and she smiled and nodded vehemently almost as though she had read his doubts.
"Leave Vicky also?" Jake wondered. "Leave them all and run with the gold?" He knew that nothing would induce Vicky to leave with them.
For her the story was here, her involvement was complete, and she would stay to the end the inevitable end.
The smart thing was to go, the dumb thin to stay and fight another man's war that was already lost before it had begun; the dumb thing was to stake twenty thousand dollars which was his share of the profits, and all his future plans, the Barton engine, and the factory to build it, against the remote chance of winning a lady who promised to be a lifetime of trouble once she was won.
never was a dab hand at doing the smart thing," Jake thought ruefully, and smiled back at Vicky.
The Ras was suddenly silent, panting with the force of his feelings and the effort of voicing them. His listeners were mesmerized also, staring at the thin-robed figure with its wild lion wig.
The Ras made a commanding gesture and one of his guards handed him the broad two-handed sword, its blade long and naked. The Ras leaned his weight upon it and commanded again, and they carried in the war drums.
The Ras's ceremonial drums, passed down to him by his father and his father before him, drums that had beaten at Magdala against Napier, at Adowa against the Italians and at a hundred other battles.
They were as tall as a man's shoulder, elaborately carved of hardwood and covered with rawhide, and the drummers took up their stance with the barrels of their drums held between their knees.
The drum with the deepest bass tone set the rhythm and the lesser drums joined in with the variations and counterpoints, a chorus that arred a man's gut and loosened his brain in his skull.
The old Ras listened to it with his head bowed over the sword, until the rhythm took a hold on him and his shoulders began to jerk and his head came up. With a leap like a white bird taking flight, he landed in the open space before the drummers. The great sword whirled high above his head, and he began to dance.
Gareth took Mikhael Sagud by the sleeve and lifted his voice in competition with the drums, and resumed at the point where he had been interrupted.
"Toffee, you were telling me about the money." Jake heard him and leaned across to catch the Prince's reply, but the Prince was silent, watching his father leap and twirl in the intricate and acrobatic dance.
"We have delivered the goods, old chap. And a deal is a deal."
"fifteen thousand sovereigns," said the Prince thoughtfully.
"That's the exact figure, "Gareth agreed.
"A dangerous sum of money," murmured the PPrince.
"Men have been killed for much less." And they made no reply.
"I think of your safety, of course," the Prince went on.
"Your safety, and my country's chances of survival. Without an engineer to maintain the cars, and a soldier to teach my men to use the new weapons we will have wasted fifteen thousand sovereigns."
"I feel very badly for you," Gareth assured him. "I'll eat my heart out for you while I am having dinner at the Cafe Royal, I really will but truly, Toffee, you should have thought of this long ago."
"Oh, I did my dear Swales I assure you I gave it much thought." And the Prince turned to smile at Gareth. "I thought that no one would be foolish enough to take on his person fifteen thousand gold sovereigns in the middle of Ethiopia and then try and get out of the country without the Ras's personal approval and protection." They stared at him.
"Can you imagine the delight of the shifta, the mountain bandits, when they learned that such a rich prize was moving unprotected through their territory?"