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“Bismillah!”
No more Africa. Never again. Nothing is worth this agony. Leavethe source of the Nile for younger men to find. I don't careanymore. All it's brought me is sickness and treachery.
Damn Speke!
Don't step back. They'll think that we're retiring.
How could he possibly have interpreted that order as a personalslight? How could he have so easily used it as an excuse forbetrayal?
“Damn him!”
“Are you awake, Richard?”
“Leave me alone, John. I need to rest. We'll try for the laketomorrow.”
“It's not John. It's Algernon.”
Algernon.
Algernon Swinburne.
The yellowed canvas was yellowed plaster-a smoke-stainedceiling.
Betrayal. Always betrayal.
“Algy, you told them where to find it.”
“Yes.”
“Was the diamond there?”
“Yes. Kenealy reached through the waterfall. There was a nichebehind it. He pulled out the biggest diamond I've ever seen, blackor otherwise. It was the size of a plum.”
Betrayal.
To hell with you, Speke! We were supposed to be friends.
Is there shooting to be done?
I rather suppose there is.
Voices outside the tent. War cries. Ru
A world conceived in opposites only creates cycles and ceaselessrecurrence. Only equivalence can lead to destruction.
“And final transcendence.”
“What? Richard, are you still with me?”
“Be sharp, and arm to defend the camp.”
“Richard. Snap out of it! Wake up!”
“Algy?”
“I'm sorry, Richard. Truly, I am. But I couldn't help it.Something got inside my head. I can't explain it. For a fewmoments, I really believed that monstrosity was RogerTichborne.”
“Get out, Algy. If this blasted tent comes down on us we'll becaught up good and proper!”
“Please, Richard. We're not in Berbera. This is the DickWhittington I
“Ah. Wait. Yes, I remember. I think the malaria has got meagain.”
“No, it hasn't. It was the Claimant. That confounded blackguardbeat you half to death. You remember the labyrinth?”
“Yes. Gad! He was strong as an ox! How serious?”
“Bruises. Bad ones. You're black-and-blue all over. Nothingbroken, except your nose. You need to rest, that's all.”
“Water.”
“Wait a minute.”
The labyrinth. The stream. The Claimant.
The Cambodian Choir Stones!
The Claimant has Brundleweed's stolen diamonds and the twomissing Pelletier gems embedded in his scalp. Why? Why? Why?
“Here, drink this.”
“Thank you.”
“I have no memory of how we got here, Richard. The last thing Irecall is seeing Kenealy pass the diamond to the Claimant. Thecreature looked at it, then he looked at me, and suddenly that lowhum that comes from it overwhelmed me. I heard a woman's voicebehind me, turned, and saw the ghost of Lady Mabella. I must havepassed out. I woke up here a little while ago. The landlord says wewere delivered in a state of intoxication by staff from the estate.I found a letter addressed to us on your bed. Listen: Burton,Swinburne, Against my client's express instruction, which wasissued through me, his lawyer, in front of witnesses, you chose totrespass on the Tichborne estate and you attempted to stealTichborne property. Were it not for the fact that we are alreadypreparing a complex legal case against Colonel Lushington, I wouldnot hesitate to prosecute you. As it is, my client has agreed tolet this matter drop on the condition that you make absolutely nofurther attempt to intrude upon Tichborne property. I remind youthat the law states that trespassers may be shot on sight. If youset foot on the estate again and somehow manage to avoid such afate, I assure you that you will not avoid the full force of thelaw. Doctor Edward Vaughan Hyde Kenealy On behalf of Sir RogerCharles Doughty Tichborne
“It bears Kenealy's signature and, believe it or not, what looksto be the Claimant's thumbprint. It's also witnessed by Jankyn andthe butler, Andrew Bogle.”
“That's that, then.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean there's nothing more we can do here, Algy. Kenealy andthe Tichborne Claimant are obviously in league with the ghost ofLady Mabella, and they are now in possession of the South AmericanEye and the fragments of the Cambodian Eye. So we'll pack up andreturn to London, we'll investigate the Claimant's background, andwe'll watch carefully to see what our enemies intend to do withthose peculiar stones.”
S ir Richard Francis Burton had been in South America for threeweeks. He was unshaven and his skin was dark and weather-beaten. Helooked untamed and dangerous, like a bandit.
“Difficult times, Captain,” said Lord Palmerston softly as theking's agent sat down.
Burton grunted an agreement and studied the prime minister'swaxy, eugenically enhanced features. He noticed that the man'smouth seemed to have been stretched a little wider and there werenew surgical scars around the angles of his jaw, a couple of inchesbeneath the ears. They were oddly gill-like.
He looks like a blessed newt!
The two men were in number 10 Downing Street, the headquartersof His Majesty's government.
“How goes the war, sir?” he asked.
“President Lincoln has formidable strategists directing hisarmy,” Palmerston responded, “but mine are better, and, unlike his,they aren't defending two fronts. Our Irish troops have alreadytaken Portland and large sections of Maine. In the south, GeneralsLee and Jackson have forced the Union out of Virginia. I wouldn'tbe at all surprised to receive Lincoln's surrender byChristmas.”
A great many people, Burton included, held the Eugenicistfaction of the Technologist caste responsible for Great Britain'sentry into the American conflict. Had the scientists left Irelandalone, it was argued, there would not have been such anoverwhelming refugee problem; and if there had not been anoverwhelming refugee problem, then Palmerston may have reactedrather less aggressively to the Trent Affair.
The Eugenicists had started sowing seeds in Ireland last March,around the time of the Brundleweed robbery.
It was an attempt to put an end to the Great Famine, which hadbeen devastating the Emerald Isle since 1845. Nearly two decades ofdisease had obliterated the potato crop before spreading to otherflora, leaving the island a virtual desert. The source of theblight remained a mystery, though its failure to cross to mainlandBritain suggested a disease of the soil.
The Eugenicists, working with the botanist Richard Spruce, hadplanted specially adapted seeds at twelve test sites. Thesegerminated within hours and the plants grew with such unexpectedrapidity that they were fully mature within a fortnight. By the endof April, they'd blossomed and pollinated. During May, their seedsand spores spread right across the country, and by early July, fromshore to shore, Ireland was a jungle.
Inexplicably, the plants confined themselves to the island;their seeds wouldn't germinate anywhere else. This was a stroke ofluck, for, as with every other Eugenicist experiment, the benefitswere accompanied by an unexpected side effect.
The new flora was carnivorous.
The experiment was an unmitigated disaster.
During June and July, more than fifteen thousand people werekilled. Venomous spines were fired into them, or tendrils strangledthem, or acidic sap burned away their flesh, or flowery scentgassed them, or roots jabbed into their bodies and sucked out theirblood.
The scientists were at a loss.
Ireland became uninhabitable.
Its population fled.
During the middle months of summer, mainland Britain struggledwith a massive influx of refugees. Wooden shanty towns were set upto house them in South Wales, along the edges of Dartmoor, in theScottish Highlands, and on the Yorkshire Moors. They quicklydeteriorated into disease-ridden slums-scenes of terrible squalor,violence, and poverty.