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The poet adopted a wounded expression and objected: “I've beenwriting, too! As a matter of fact, my latest efforts have causedquite a stir.”
“So I read. The Empire is calling you a genius.”
“Yes, but the Times is calling me a deviant.”
“It's hardly surprising. Your poetry is somewhat-shall we say-florid? Here, give me that back.”
Swinburne handed over the flywheel and watched as his friendfitted it into its housing.
“ Filthy was the word the Times used. Are you preparing it for aflight or just tinkering?”
“I'm flying out to Hampshire this afternoon.”
“What's there?”
“Tichborne House.”
“What! What!” Swinburne cried, twitching and jerking like amaniac. “Surely you haven't got yourself mixed up in thatbusiness!”
Burton picked up a cloth and wiped oil from his hands.
“I'm afraid so. There's a remote possibility that the FrancoisGarnier Collection is involved, too.”
“Eh? The Fra-What? How? You mean Brunel-? What?”
“Really, Algy, you're the most incomprehensible poet I've evermet! But to answer the question you haven't managed to ask: no, Idon't think the Steam Man has anything to do with the Tichbornecase. However, I do suspect that whoever stole the diamonds fromright under his mechanical nose might have some co
“Ah ha! So there's a safe cracker among the Tichborne clan!”
“It's not impossible. All I know thus far is-”
Burton went on to recount the legends concerning the three Eyesof Naga. He then told the history of the Tichborne family.
“So you see,” he concluded, “I'm working on the premise thatperhaps Sir Henry found the South American Eye-even though HenryArundell pooh-poohs the suggestion-and that someone in or co
“Which just leaves the African diamond,” Swinburnecommented.
“Indeed.”
“Which strikes me as peculiar.”
“Peculiar?”
“It gave rise to the Nile.”
“According to myth, yes. What are you getting at?”
“Just that you and Speke went hunting for the source of thatriver, then Henry Stanley did, and now his expedition hasdisappeared.”
Burton frowned. “His expedition has disappeared because he wasstupid enough to fly over the region in these-” He rapped hisknuckles against the side of his rotorchair. “Not a single flyingmachine that's entered the region has ever come out again. He knewthat, but still he flew.”
“Yes, but that's not what I meant.”
“What, then?”
“Come into the house with me. Have a cigar. I want you to tellme a story.”
The king's agent considered his friend for a moment, thenshrugged, nodded, put away his tools, and led Swinburne from thegarage.
Minutes later, they were relaxing in the study.
Burton took a sip of port and said: “What do you want toknow?”
“About your expedition with Speke. If I remember rightly, youreached Lake Tanganyika by March of ’58. What happened next?”
“Illness, mainly. We'd heard there was a port town named Ujijion the eastern shore of the lake where we could establish a basecamp, but when we got there we found that it consisted of nothingbut a few decrepit beehive-shaped huts and a pitiful market-”
Captain Richard Francis Burton was blind.
Lieutenant John Ha
Both men were too weak to walk more than a few paces.
For two weeks, they rested in a half-derelict domed hut and atethe boiled rice brought to them by their guide, Sidi Bombay. Theylay limply on their cots, crushed by the oppressive heat, andsuffered and slept and moaned and vomited and lapsed in and out ofconsciousness.
“Mary, mother of God, is it worth it, Dick?” Spekewhispered.
“It has to be. We're almost there, I'm sure of it. You heardwhat Bombay told me this morning.”
“No, I didn't. I was out of my mind with fever.”
“The locals claim a river flows northward out of the lake. If wecan get a dhow onto her, I'm certain we'll find ourselves floatingdown the Nile, straight past the warring tribes, and all the way toCairo.”
Burton clung on to that conviction and used it to slowly haulhimself out of the pit of ill health. Infuriatingly, Speke, who wasfar less driven than his commanding officer, nevertheless made amuch speedier recovery, and was soon strolling around during theshort spells of cool morning and evening air, bathing in the lake,and shopping in the little market, where he would appear with anative holding an umbrella over him, with strings of trading beadsslung over his arm, and with smoked-glass spectacles protecting hiseyes.
He was a strange, restless, self-conscious man. Tall and thin,long-bearded and watery-eyed, hesitant in ma
Lieutenant Speke shot at everything. He put bullets into hipposand antelope, giraffes and lions, elephants and rhinos. He killedgleefully and indiscriminately, and had left aseven-hundred-mile-long trail of corpses all the way back toZanzibar.
Even so, as the days dragged on in Ujiji, he became maddened bythe shimmering landscape, the unending profusion of dried-out grassand trees, the hard, dusty, cracked earth.
“Brown! Nothing but blasted brown! Not a spot of green anywhere!I can't bear it. Even hunting is tedious in this damned hellhole.Can't we move on? I feel like I'm losing my mind!”
“Soon, John, but I need a little more time,” answered Burton,whose sight was still impaired, his legs still paralysed.
Speke groaned. “Will you at least permit me to take a canoeacross the lake with Sidi Bombay? We know Sheikh Hamed is overthere and he has a dhow. Maybe I can talk him into hiring it out tous? And he might know something about the northern river.”
“It's too dangerous. The rainy season is due. They say it causesviolent storms on the water.”
Speke, though, became fixated upon the idea and eventuallypersuaded Burton to allow the excursion. He departed on the 3rd ofMarch and was gone almost a month, during which time Burton dosedhimself morning, noon, and night with Saltzma
By the time the lieutenant returned, Burton was feeling a littlebetter. His ophthalmia had cleared and he was able to totter aroundunassisted.
“The river?” he asked, eagerly.
“It's called the Rusizi. Hamed gave me an absolute assurancethat it flows out of the lake. The tribes in the region arefriendly and will guide us to it.”
Burton punched a fist into the air. “Allah be praised! Did yousecure the dhow?”
“He'll loan it to us three months from now at a cost of fivehundred dollars.”
“What? That's ridiculous! Didn't you barter?”
“I lack the language skills, Dick.”
Burton seethed. What a waste of time and resources! Damn Speke'sincompetence!
The lieutenant should have been mortified by his failure to getthe dhow, yet he wasn't. Instead, his ma
A few days later, he approached Burton and said: “I say, oldchap, would you mind helping me to put my diaries into order? Youknow how confounded amateurish I am when it comes to writing.”
“Certainly,” answered Burton, and the two men settled at amakeshift table with Speke's journals open before them.
They went through the notebooks, and Burton pointed out where amore extensive description would be beneficial, where crossreferences could be inserted, and, very frequently, where spellingmistakes and grammatical errors required correction.
Then he turned a page and found a map sketched out.
“What's this?”
“It's the northern shore of the lake.”
“You mean this lake? Tanganyika?”
“Yes.”
“But John-what's this horseshoe of mountains in the north?”