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  ACACIA

  Secrets of an African Painting

  By

  Paul Bondsfield

  Copyright November 2013 Paul Bondsfield

  All rights reserved

  Acacia on Facebook

  ISBN: 9781310682834

  For

  Tris, Josh, Amelie and Eden

  The Chapters

  THE PAST - PROLOGUE – CHASE

  CHAPTER ONE – THE FUNERAL

  CHAPTER TWO – MBOKU’S JOURNEY STARTS

  CHAPTER THREE – MUM TELLS A STORY

  CHAPTER FOUR – PROPHECY

  CHAPTER FIVE – FREDERICK’S ARRIVAL IN AFRICA

  CHAPTER SIX – INHERITANCE

  CHAPTER SEVEN – MBOKU GROWS

  CHAPTER EIGHT – FREDERICK IN MATABELELAND

  CHAPTER NINE – THE SEARCH BEGINS

  CHAPTER TEN – MBOKU BECOMES A MAN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN – FREDERICK’S DIARY

  CHAPTER TWELVE – CONSPIRACY

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN – THE SEARCH GOES ON

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN – OLD LOVERS

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN – SO TO AFRICA

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN – CAPE TOWN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – COMING HOME

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - GATSHENI

  CHAPTER NINETEEN - LEOPARD’S LEAP

  CHAPTER TWENTY - THABAS INDUNAS

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE - MORE SECRETS

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO - DEFENDING THE STONES

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE - TO THE LUPANE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR - GATSHENI HURRIES TO THE LUPANE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE - FEVER

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX - AMASSING THE WARRIORS

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN - IN THE BUSH

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT - ON THE TRAIL

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE - CLOSER

  CHAPTER THIRTY - THE SCENT OF BLOOD

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE - CHANGE OF PLAN

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO - GATSHENI TELLS HIS STORY

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE - PROPOSAL

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR - THE PLAN IN ACTION

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE - THE KOPJE

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX - FOLLOW THE CROSS

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN - CONFRONTATION

  EPILOGUE - THE PRESENT

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  THE PAST

  PROLOGUE – CHASE

  The man was near exhaustion as he staggered the final few feet towards the riverbank. The pain that coursed through his body was real enough, but to him it seemed to be a separate thing with a life of its own and with no true heart.

  At the river’s edge, swift flowing, brown water surged before him, tempting him down into its chocolaty murk. The horrors he had witnessed had long since turned his mind in on itself and he didn’t stop to think about the consequence of throwing himself into the churning torrent; a primal instinct for escape was all that drove him on. As he hit the water, he was instantly swept away and simultaneously dragged under the surface so that the blood flowing from his body had only the briefest of moments to tinge the water a muddy pink before it was assimilated and diluted into nothingness.

  The group of warriors, who had until this moment, pursued the man for many days, stopped at the water’s edge and watched his body disappear rapidly. They leant on their spears in silence, hardly out of breath despite the chase, until the tallest of them gestured with a quick movement of his head to turn and start the long run back home. The white man was dead; there was no need to go further. They had their vengeance and would soon find the hiding place and would return the treasure to its rightful owners. Within moments, the group had broken into a loping trot and the spot by the river was again deserted and silent, save for the rushing of the water.

  It might have been more merciful if he had perished at that moment and those who knew him in later years would wonder if death might have been kinder. As it was, the spot at which he had flung himself into the rushing Limpopo was close to a long, slow bend where an ox-bow had been created; a loop of the river that had closed in on itself to create a separate section of still water.

  His body was swept into the loop. The force of the flow pushed him up onto the mud on the opposite bank. In all, he had spent less than two minutes in the water and was still holding onto life as he lay in the mud, blood dripping from his wounds.

  Next to him lay a small bag of oiled canvas and animal skin, bound tightly with leather thongs. Just before he lapsed into a long and tortured unconsciousness, his hand reached out and gripped it tightly to his chest.

  THE PRESENT