Blood Diamond Chapter 18

Was it a madness that possessed him? It could be nothing else. He didn’t think – they were not decisions that he made. He acted as though he were moved by some force greater than himself, working through his limbs, over which he had no control.

Daniel lay on the temple floor for a long time, listening to the wind howl and the rain lash. The long peals of thunder ran overhead and echoed to the distance, the lightning lit over and again the silhouette of the Bird, and the burning redness around its neck.

Daniel moved an arm. He moved a leg. Still the Princess lay without stirring. She might almost have been dead, or a perfect bronze casting of a woman, so little did she give signs of sleep or wakefulness. Daniel rose to his feet and stood beside the Bird. He reached out his hands, tentatively, fearfully. The green stone of the Bird was smooth and cool to the touch. He rested his hands upon its head while he built the courage to touch the object of his desiring. A crack of thunder stirred him from a dazed fascination. He cupped the Stone in his hands.

It was warm against his palm, like the ashes of a campfire that has burnt itself down, yet still retains the memory of heat. He stood holding it and time passed away from him again. Then he snapped out of it, lifted the Stone on its gold chain and slipped it over his own head. It pulsed against his chest like a living thing. Daniel slipped the white loincloth on again and took a deep breath. He knew not where he was going, but he had to go. He stepped toward the entrance.

The hand, when it closed on his ankle, was as unexpected as the rearing snake. He looked down and Kamelka’s green eyes blazed in fury. The grip was strong and she pulled him back with a strength that was not the strength of a woman. He tumbled to the ground, rolled over her, trying to hold her away. Her hands, so recently hot with a passion that seemed inextinguishable, were cold as stone as they clawed at his chest, clawed for the red Stone. She was too strong for him. Her fingers were at his throat as he reached blind for purchase. Did he know that the stone Bird was in his hands? Was he aware of the terror in him, the terror of losing the stone, that caused him to raise the Bird with two hands and, with his last strength, bring it crashing down on the back of her skull? Was there anything of sanity in him, was there anything of the Daniel Feelding that had been thrown from the side of the Rosanna and had first fetched upon these savage shores?

When sense returned to Daniel, he was standing with her body at his feet, the red pool spreading, locks of her matted hair still clinging to the base of the implacable Bird. It was too late for fear. Clarity returned to him. Instead of blundering out through the entrance, into the axes and blades of the guards, he went to the rear corner, scrabbled at the loose earth and scooped out a trench beneath the tight-drawn hide wall. He wriggled through, the Stone clutched in his hand for protection, and stood outside in the blackness and the rain, feeling grateful for the sky’s water washing the blood of his crime from his skin.

His urge was to run, to turn blindly into the wildness of the bush and the night, and he forced himself to be calm, to think, to plan. He picked his way out past the perimeter of the camp fires – shielded from the storm beneath canopies of woven reed – and circled the camp, crouching low, although he was now melded with the darkness. He circled to the far side, past the sleeping heads of the tribe, to where the small river ran past, making a sound beneath the rain like a waterfall. He paused, his feet in the shallow water, and thought.

They would discover her, and they would come for him. He had no idea how long it would be before they came. The obvious direction would be to head down-river. To follow the river upwards would be to head deeper into the wilderness, farther and farther into the unknowable heart of an unknowable continent. He waded deeper into the stream so that it tugged at his calves with a slow, insistent sucking. He turned his face to the rain and commended his soul to what shattered memories he still had of his God. He began walking up-stream.

Copyright Ranulph Moore

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Ranulph Moore describes himself as an explorer, who became a writer to purge himself of the adventures that were crowding his life. He says he has seen it all, in a life spent observing the lives of others. He will travel anywhere – as long as he can make a decent cup of tea and launder a linen jacket. He describes Africa as one of his great loves. He has spent time in every country on the continent. If he can’t find a good champagne, he has been known to resort to gin. He has homes in Paris, Jura and Cape Town. At present, he lives in Madagascar, where he is researching his latest book.

Read an interview with Ranulph Moore.