'Very well,' Judge Villiers said at last. 'Mr Prosecutor, you ma proceed to present the case for the crown." The prosecutor was a master of his profession and he had all infallible case. He worked it up with meticulous attention to detail with logic and with skill.
One at a time he submitted his exhibits to the court. The wirinl and the electrical detonator, the Tokarev pistol and spare magazines Although it was considered too dangerous to allow the blocks o plastic explosives and the detonators into the courtroom, photo graphs were submitted and accepted. The altar chest was too larg to bring into court, and again photographs were accepted by Judg Villiers. Then there were the gruesome photographs of Shasa's office with Blaine's covered body against the bookcases and his blooc splashed over the carpet, and the wreckage of broken furniture and scattered papers. Centaine turned her face away as the photograph, were handed in and Shasa squeezed her arm and tried to shield bel from the curious glances.
After all the exhibits had been tabled, the prosecutor called his first witness. 'I call the honourable Minister of Mines and Industry Mr Shasa Courtney." Shasa was on the witness stand for the rest of that day and all of the following morning, describing in detail how he had discovered and thwarted the bombing.
The prosecutor took him back to his first childhood meeting with Moses Gama, and as Shasa described their relationship, Moses raised his head and for the first time since he had taken the stand looked d!rectly into Shasa's face. In vain Shasa searched for the slightest trace of that sympathy they lad once shared, but there was none.
Moses Gama's stare was baleful and unwavering.
When at last the prosecutor had finished with Shasa, he turned to the accused. 'Your witness,' he said, and Justice Villiers roused himself.
'Do you wish to cross-examine the witness?" Moses shook his head and looked away, but the judge insisted.
'This will be your last opportunity to query or refute the witness's evidence. I urge you to make full use of it." Moses crossed his arms over his chest, and closed his eyes as though in sleep, and from the non-white section of the court there were hoots of laughter and the stamping of feet.
Justice Villiers raised his voice, 'I will not warn you again,' and there was silence in the face of his anger.
Over the next four days the prosecutor placed his witnesses on the stand.
Tricia, Shasa's secretary, explained how Moses had gained entrance to the office suite in the guise of a chauffeur and how on the day of the murder Moses had seized and bound her. How she had watched him fire the fatal shot that killed Colonel Malcomess.
'Do you wish to cross-examine the witness'?." Judge Villiers asked, and once again Moses shook his head.
Manfred De La Rey gave his evidence and described how he had found Moses Gama with the pistol in his hand and Blaine Malcomess lying on the floor dying. How he had heard him cry, 'You! You!" and saw him deliberately fire the pistol at Shasa Courtney.
Do you wish to cross-examine the witness'?." the judge asked, and this time Moses did not even look up.
An electrical engineer described the captured equipment and identified the transmitter as being of Russian origin. An explosives expert told the court of the destructive power of the plastic explosives placed beneath the government benches.
en my opinion it would have been sufficient to destroy totally the entire chamber and the adjoining rooms. It would certainly have killed every person in the main chamber, and most of those in the lobby and the surrounding offices." After each witness had finished his evidence Moses again refused to cross-examine. At the end of the fourth day the crown had presented its case, and Judge Villiers adjourned the court with one last appeal to the prisoner.
'When the court reconvenes on Monday, you will be required to answer the charges against you. I must once more impress upon you the grave nature of the accusations, and point out to you that your very life is at stake. Yet again I urge you to accept the services of legal counsel." Moses Gama smiled at him with contempt.
Dinner at Weltevreden that evening was a sombre affair. The only one who was unaffected by the day's events was Garry, who had flown down in the Mosquito from the Silver River Mine for the weekend.
While the rest of the family sat in silence, each of them brooding on the events of these last days and their own particular part in them, Garry was enthusiastically selling to Centaine and Shasa his latest plan for reducing costs at the mine.
'Accidents cost us money in lost production. I'll admit that in the last two years our safety record has been about average for the industry as a whole, but if we could cut down our fatalities to one per hundred thousand shifts or better, we could reduce our overall production costs by over twelve percent. That is twenty million pounds a year. On top of that we would get the added bonus of worker satisfaction and cooperation. I have put all the figures through the computer." Garry's eyes behind his spectacles glittered as he mentioned that piece of equipment. Shasa had reports from Dave Abrahams and the general manager of the Silver River that Garry sometimes sat all night at one of the terminals of the new IBM computer that the company had at last installed.
'The lad knows his way around the machine as well, if not better, than any of our full-time operators. He can almost make it sit up and whistle God Save the Queen"." David Abrahams had not attempted to conceal his admiration and Shasa had remarked deprecatingly, to conceal his paternal pride, 'That will be a redundant accomplishment by next year, when we become a republic." Oh, Garry, you are being an utter bore,' Isabella interrupted him at last. 'All that business about tonnages and penny weights - at the dinner table, what's more. No wonder you can't find a girlfriend." For once I think Bella is right,' Centane said quietly from the end of the table. 'That's enough for one night, Garry. I just cannot concentrate at the moment. I think this has been one of the worst weeks of my entire life, having to watch that monster, with Blaine's blood on his hands, sitting there defying us and making a mockery of our system of justice.
He threatens to tear down the whole structure of government, to plunge us all into anarchy and the same savagery of Africa which rent the land before we whites arrived. Then he smirks at us from the dock.
I hate him. I have never hated anything or anybody as much as I hate him. I pray each night that the hang him." Unexpectedly it was Michael who replied. 'Yes, we hate him, Nana. We hate him because we are afraid of him, and we are afraid of him because we do not understand him or his people." They all stared at him in astonishment.
'Of course we understand him,' Centaine said. 'We have lived in Africa all our lives. We understand them as nobody else does." 'I don't think so, Nana. I think if we had truly understood and listened to what this man had to say, Blaine would be alive today. I think he could have been an ally and not our deadly enemy. I think Moses Gama could have been a useful and highly respected citizen, and not a prisoner on trial for his life." 'What strange ideas you have picked up on that newspaper of yours! He murdered your grandfather,' Centaine said, and shot a glance down the table at Shasa. Shasa interpreted it fluently and it meant, 'We have another problem on our hands here,' but Michael was going on obliviously.
'Moses Gama will die on the gallows - I think we all know that.
But his words and his ideas will live on. I know now why I had to be a journalist. I know what I have to do. I have to explain those ideas to the people of this land, to show them that they are just and fair, and not dangerous at all. In those ideas are the hopes for our survival as a nation." It is a good thing I sent the servants out,' Centaine interrupted him. 'I never thought to hear words like those spoken in the diningroom of Weltevreden." Vicky Gama waited for over an hour in the visitors' room at Roeland Street prison while the warders examined the contents of the package she had brought for Moses and made up their minds whether or not to allow her to hand it to the prisoner.