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The Leopard Woman

by Stewart Edward White · English · Gutenberg #9401 · 416,658 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Leopard Woman

Author: Stewart Edward White

Illustrator: W. H. D. Koerner


        
Release date: December 1, 2005 [eBook #9401]
                Most recently updated: August 10, 2012

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9401

Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Richard Prairie, Tonya Allen,
        and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LEOPARD WOMAN ***




Produced by Suzanne Shell, Richard Prairie, Tonya Allen,
and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders











THE LEOPARD WOMAN

BY

STEWART EDWARD WHITE

Illustrated by W. H. D. Koerner

1916







TABLE OF CONTENTS


CHAPTER

     I. The March
    II. The Camp
   III. The Rhinoceros
    IV. The Stranger
     V. The Encounter
    VI. The Leopard Woman
   VII. The Water Hole
  VIII. The Thirst
    IX. On the Plateau
     X. The _Suliani_
    XI. The Ivory Stockade
   XII. The Pilocarpin
  XIII. The Tropic Moon
   XIV. Over the Ranges
    XV. The Sharpening of the Spear
   XVI. The Murder
  XVII. The Darkness
 XVIII. The Leopard Woman Changes Her Spots
   XIX. The Trial
    XX. Kingozi's Ultimatum
   XXI. The Messengers
  XXII. The Second Messengers
 XXIII. The Council of War
  XXIV. M'tela's Country
   XXV. M'tela
  XXVI. Waiting
 XXVII. The Magic Bone
XXVIII. Simba's Adventure
  XXIX. Winkleman's Safari Arrives
   XXX. Winkleman Appears
  XXXI. Light Again
 XXXII. The Colours
XXXIII. Curtain



ILLUSTRATIONS

"'Go, I say!' cried the Leopard Woman. 'And hold up your head. If this
is suspected of you, you will surely die'" ... _Frontispiece_

"'If you _will_ ride in a hammock, you ought to teach your men to
shoot,' was Kingozi's greeting"

"After the flat crack of the rifle a hollow _plunk_ indicated that the
bullet had told"

"Their eyes were large with curiosity as to this man and woman of a new
species ... Kingozi touched his lips to the _tembo_"

"'Cazi Moto, take this stick and make on the ground marks exactly like
those on the _barua_. Make them deep, so that I may feel them with my
hands'"

"The search party found Winkleman, very dirty, quite hungry, profoundly
chagrined"

"At the top of the hill the guide stopped and pointed. Kingozi gathered
that through the distant cleft he indicated the strangers must come"

"So intent was the Leopard Woman on the examination and on Kingozi that
she seemed utterly unconscious of the men standing over opposite ... A
more startlingly exotic figure for the wilds of Central Africa could
not be imagined"





THE LEOPARD WOMAN



CHAPTER I


THE MARCH

It was the close of the day. Over the baked veldt of Equatorial Africa
a safari marched. The men, in single file, were reduced to the
unimportance of moving black dots by the tremendous sweep of the dry
country stretching away to a horizon infinitely remote, beyond which
lay single mountains, like ships becalmed hull-down at sea. The
immensities filled the world--the simple immensities of sky and land.
Only by an effort, a wrench of the mind, would a bystander on the
advantage, say, of one of the little rocky, outcropping hills have been
able to narrow his vision to details.

And yet details were interesting. The vast shallow cup to the horizon
became a plain sparsely grown with flat-topped thorn trees. It was not
a forest, yet neither was it open country. The eye penetrated the thin
screen of tree trunks to the distance of half a mile or more, but was
brought to a stop at last. Underfoot was hard-baked earth, covered by
irregular patches of shale that tinkled when stepped on. Well-defined
paths, innumerable, trodden deep and hard, cut into the iron soil. They
nearly all ran in a northwesterly direction. The few traversing paths
took a long slant. These paths, so exactly like those crossing a
village green, had in all probability never been trodden by human foot.
They had been made by the game animals, the swarming multitudinous game
of Central Africa.

The safari was using one of the game trails. It was a compact little
safari, comprising not over thirty men all told. The single white man
walked fifty yards or so ahead of the main body. He was evidently
tired, for his shoulders drooped, and his shuffling, slow-swinging gait
would anywhere have been recognized by children of the wilderness as
that which gets the greatest result from the least effort. Dressed in
the brown cork helmet, the brown flannel shirt with spine-pad, the
khaki trousers, and the light boots of the African traveller little was
to be made of either his face or figure. The former was fully bearded,
the latter powerful across the shoulders. His belt was heavy with
little leather pockets; a pair of prismatic field-glasses, suspended
from a strap around his neck, swung across his chest; in the crook of
his left arm he carried a light rifle.

Immediately at his heels followed a native. This man's face was in
conformation that of the typical negro; but there the resemblance
ceased. Behind the features glowed a proud, fierce spirit that
transformed them. His head was high but his eyes roved from right to
left restlessly, never still save when they paused for a flickering
instant to examine some gazelle, some distant herd of zebra or
wildebeeste standing in the vista of the flat-topped trees. His
nostrils slowly expanded and contracted with his breathing, as do those
of a spirited horse. In contrast to the gait of the white man he
stepped vigorously and proudly as though the long day had not touched
his strength. He wore a battered old felt hat, a tattered flannel
shirt, a ragged pair of shorts, and the blue puttees issued by the
British to their native troops. The straps of two canteens crossed on
his breast; a full cartridge belt encircled his waist; he carried
lightly and easily one of those twelve-pound double cordite rifles that
constitute the only African life insurance.

Fifty yards in the rear marched the carriers. They were a straight,
strong lot, dressed according to their fancy or opportunity in the
cast-off garments of the coast; comical in the ensemble, perhaps, but
worthy of respect in that all day each had carried a seventy-pound load
under a tropical sun, and that they were coming in strong.

And finally, bringing up the rear, marched a small, lively, wizened
little fellow, dressed as nearly as possible like the white man, and
carrying as the badge of his office a bulging cotton umbrella and the
_kiboko_--the slender, limber, stinging rhinoceros-hide whip.

It was the end of a long march. This could be guessed by the hour, by
the wearied slouch of the white man, above all by the conduct of the
safari. The men were walking one on the heels of the other. Their
burdens, carried on their heads, held them erect. They stepped out
freely. But against the wooden chop boxes, the bags of cornmeal
_potio_, the bundles of canvas that made up some of the loads, the long
safari sticks went _tap, tap, tap_, in rhythm. This tapping was a
steady undertone to the volume of noise that arose from thirty throats.
Every man was singing or shouting at the full strength of his lungs. A
little file of Wakamba sung in unison one of the weird wavering minor
chants peculiar to savage peoples everywhere; some Kavirondos simply
howled in staccato barks like beasts. Between the extremes were many
variations; but every man contributed to the uproar, and tapped his
load rhythmically with his long stick. By this the experienced
traveller would have known that the men were very tired, tired to the
point of exhaustion; for the more wearied the Central African native,
or the steeper the hill he, laden, must surmount, the louder he sings
or yells.

"_Maji hapana m'bale, bwana_," observed the gun bearer to the white
man. "Water is not far, master."

The white man merely nodded. These two had been together many years,
and explanations were not necessary between them. He, as well as Simba,
had noticed the gradual convergence of the game trails, the presence of
small grass birds that flushed under their feet, the sing-sing buck
behind the aloes, the increasing numbers of game animals that stared or
fled at the sight and sound of the safari.

Nothing more was said. The way led to the top of one of those low
transverse swells that conceal the middle distance without actually
breaking the surface of the veldt. In the corresponding depression
beyond now could be discerned a wandering slender line of green.

"_Maji huko!_" murmured Simba. "There is the water."

Suddenly he stooped low, uttering a peculiar hissing sound. The white
man, too, dropped to the ground, throwing his rifle forward.

"_Nyama, bwana!_" he whispered fiercely, "_karibu sana!_"

He pointed cautiously over the white man's shoulder. The safari, at the
sight of the two dropping to a crouch, had stopped as though petrified,
and stood waiting in silence.

"We have no meat," Simba reminded his master in Swahili.

The white man eased himself back to a sitting posture, resting his
elbows on his knees, as all sensible good rifle shots do when they have
the chance. Simba, his eyes glowing fiercely, staring with almost
hypnotic intensity over his master's shoulder, quivered like an eager
dog.

"Hah!" he grunted as the loud spat of the bullet followed the rifle's
crack. "_Na kamata_--he has it!" he added as the wildebeeste plunged
into full view.

The hunter manipulated the bolt to throw in a new cartridge, but did
not shift his position. In less remote countries the sportsman,
unlimited in ammunition but restricted in chances, would probably have
pumped in four or five shots until the quarry was down. The traveller
and Simba watched closely, with expert eyes, to determine whether a
precious second cartridge should be expended.

"Where?" asked the white man briefly.

"Low in the shoulder," replied Simba.

The wildebeeste plunged wildly here and there, kicking, bucking,
menacing the unseen danger with his horns. For several seconds longer
the two watched, then rose leisurely to their feet. Simba motioned to
the waiting safari, who, correctly interpreting the situation, broke
into a trot. Both Simba and his master knew that had the animal not
received a mortal wound it would before this have whirled to look back.
The fact that it still ran proved its extremity. Sure enough, within
the hundred yards it suddenly plunged forward on its nose, rolled over,
and lay still.

The fierce countenance of the gun bearer lit up in triumph. He shifted
the heavy rifle and reached out to touch the lighter weapon resting
again in the crook of his master's arm.

"_Nyama Yangu! Nyama Yangu!_" he murmured. That was Simba's name for
the light rifle that did most of the shooting. The words meant simply
"my meat." Simba had a name for everything from the sheath knife of his
office to the white man himself. Indeed Culbertson in the Central
countries was Culbertson to none. Should you inquire for news of him by
that name news you could not obtain; but of Bwana Kingozi you might
learn from many tribes and peoples.

But now the safari, topping the hill, swept down with a rapid fire of
safari sticks against the loads and a chorus whose single word was
"_n'yama!_"

Simba was already at the carcass, _Kisu M'kubwa_, his thin-bladed
knife, in his hand. The men eased their loads to the ground, and stood
about with eagerly gleaming eyes, as would well-trained dogs in like
circumstances. Simba briefly indicated the three nearest to act as his
assistants. The wildebeeste was rapidly skinned and as rapidly
dismembered, the meat laid aside. Only once did the white man speak or
manifest the slightest interest.

"_Sarrara indani yangu_--the tenderloin is mine."

The wizened little headman with the umbrella and the _kiboko_, who
answered to the name of Cazi Moto, stepped forward and took charge of
the indicated delicacy. Soon all was ready for a resumption of the
march. Nothing was left of the wildebeeste save the head and the
veriest offal. The stomach and intestines, even, had been emptied of
their contents and packed away in the hide.

Already the carrion birds had gathered in incredible numbers. The sky
was full of them circling; an encompassing ring of them sat a scant
fifty yards distant, their wings held half out from their bodies, as
though they felt overheated. And in the low bushes could be discerned
the lurking, furtive, shadowy jackals.

The men were laughing, their weariness forgotten. Maulo, the camp
humourist, declaimed loudly at the top of his lungs, mocking the
marabouts, the buzzards, the vultures great and small, the kites and
the eagles.

"Go to the lion," he cried, "he kills much, and leaves. Little meat
will you get here. We keep what we get!"

And the men broke into meaningless but hearty laughter, as though at
brilliant wit.

But Bwana Kingozi's low voice cut across the merriment.

"_Bandika!_" he commanded.

And immediately Cazi Moto and Simba took up the cry.

"_Bandika! bandika! bandika!_" they vociferated over and over. Cazi
Moto moved here and there, lively as a cricket, his eyes alert for any
indication of slackness, his _kiboko_ held threateningly.

But there was no need for the latter. The men willingly enough swung
aloft their loads, now augmented by the meat, and the little caravan
moved on.

Scarcely had Cazi Moto, bringing up the rear, quitted the scene when
the carrion birds swooped. They fell from the open sky like plummets,
their wings half folded. When within ten feet of the ground they
checked their fall with pinion and tail, and the sound of them was like
the roar of a cataract. Those seated on the ground moved forward in a
series of ungainly hops, trying for more haste by futile urgings of
their wings. Where the wildebeeste had fallen was a writhing, flopping,
struggling brown mass. In an incredibly brief number of seconds it was
all over. The birds withdrew. Some sat disgruntled and humpbacked in
the low trees; some merely hopped away a few yards to indulge in gloomy
thoughts. A few of the more ambitious rose heavily and laboriously with
strenuous beating of pinions, finally to soar grandly away into the
infinities of the African sky. Of the wildebeeste remained only a
trampled bloody space and bones picked clean. The jackals crept forward
at last. So brief a time did all this occupy that Maulo, looking back,
saw them.

"Ho, little dogs!" he cried with one of his great empty laughs; "your
stomachs will go hollow but you can fill your noses!"

They tramped on steadily toward the low narrow line of green trees, and
the sun sank toward the hills.



CHAPTER II


THE CAMP

The game trails converged at a point where the steep, eroded bank had
been broken down into an approach to a pool. The dust was deep here,
and arose in a cloud as a little band of zebra scrambled away. The
borders of this pool were a fascinating palimpsest: the tracks of many
sorts of beast had been impressed there in the mud. Both Kingozi and
Simba examined them with an approach to interest, though to an observer
the examination would have seemed but the most casual of glances. They
saw the indications of zebra, wildebeeste, hartebeeste, gazelles of
various sorts, the deep, round, well-like prints of the rhinoceros, and
all the other usual inhabitants of the veldt. But over these their eyes
passed lightly. Only three things could here interest these seasoned
African travellers. Simba espied one of them, and pointed it out, just
at the edge of the narrow border of softer mud.

"There is the lion," said he. "A big one. He was here this morning. But
no buffalo, _bwana_; and no elephant."

The water in the pool was muddy and foul. Thousands of animals drank
from it daily; and after drinking had stood or wallowed in it. The
flavour would be rich of the barnyard, which even a strong infusion of
tea could not disguise. _Kingozi_ had often been forced to worse; but
here he hoped for better.

The safari had dumped down the loads at the top of the bank, and were
resting in utter relaxation. The march was over, and they waited.

Bwana Kingozi threw off the carefully calculated listless slouch that
had conserved his strength for an unknown goal. His work was not yet
done.

"Simba," he directed, "go that way, down the river[1] and look for
another pool--of good water. Take the big rifle."

[Footnote 1: Every watercourse with any water at all, even in
occasional pools, is _m'to_--a river--in Africa.]

"And I to go in the other direction?" asked Cazi Moto.

Bwana Kingozi considered, glancing at the setting sun, and again up the
dry stream-bed where, as far as the eye could reach, were no more
indications of water.

"No," he decided. "It is late. Soon the lions will be hunting. I will
go."

The men sprawled in abandon. After an interval a shrill whistle sounded
from the direction in which Bwana Kingozi had disappeared. The men
stretched and began to rise to their feet slowly. The short rest had
stiffened them and brought home the weariness to their bones. They
grumbled and muttered, and only the omnipresence of Cazi Moto and the
threat of his restless whip roused them to activity. Down the stream
they limped sullenly.

Kingozi stood waiting near the edge of the bank. The thicket here was
very dense.

"Water there," he briefly indicated. "The big tent here; the opening in
that direction. Cook fire over there. Loads here."

The men who had been standing, the burdens still on their heads, moved
forward. The tent porter--who, by the way, was the strongest and most
reliable of the men, so that always, even on a straggling march, the
tent would arrive first--threw it down at the place selected and at
once began to undo the cords. The bearers of the kitchen, who were also
reliable travellers, set about the cook camp.

A big Monumwezi unstrapped a canvas chair, unfolded it, and placed it
near his master. The other loads were arranged here, in a certain
long-ordained order; the meat piled there. Several men then went to the
assistance of Mali-ya-bwana, the tent bearer; and the others
methodically took up various tasks. Some began with their _pangas_ to
hew a way to the water through the dense thicket that had kept it
sweet; others sought firewood; still others began to pitch the tiny
drill tents--each to accommodate six men--in a wide circle of which the
pile of loads was the centre. As the men fell into the ordered and
habitual routine their sullenness and weariness vanished.

Kingozi dropped into the canvas chair, fumbled for a pipe, filled and
lighted it. With a sigh of relief he laid aside his cork helmet. The
day had not only been a hard one, but an anxious one, for this country
was new to every member of the little expedition, native guides had
been impossible to procure, and the chances of water had been those of
an arid region.

The removal of the helmet for the first tune revealed the man's
features. A fine brow, upstanding thick and wavy hair, and the clearest
of gray eyes suddenly took twenty years from the age at first made
probable by the heavy beard. With the helmet pulled low this was late
middle age; now bareheaded it was only bearded youth. Nevertheless at
the corners of the eyes were certain wrinkles, and in the eyes
themselves a direct competent steadiness that was something apart from
the usual acquisition of youth, something the result of experience not
given to most.

He smoked quietly, his eye wandering from one point to another of the
new-born camp's activities. One after another the men came to report
the completion of their tasks.

"_Pita ya maji tayiari_," said Sanguiki coming from the new-made water
trail.

"_I zuru_," approved Kingozi.

"_Hema tayiari_," reported Simba, reaching his hand for the light rifle.

Kingozi glanced toward the tent and nodded. A licking little fire
flickered in the cook camp. The tiny porter's tents had completed their
circle, and in front of each new smoke was beginning to rise. Cazi Moto
glided up and handed him the _kiboko_, the rhinoceros-hide whip, the
symbol of authority. Everything was in order.

The white man rose a little stiffly and walked over to the pile of
meat. For a moment he examined it contemplatively, aroused himself with
an apparent effort, and began to separate it into four piles. He did
not handle the meat himself, but silently indicated each portion with
his _kiboko_, and Simba or Cazi Moto swiftly laid it aside.

"This for the gun-bearer camp," commanded Kingozi, touching with his
foot the heavy "backstraps" and the liver--the next choicest bits after
tenderloin. He raised his voice.

"Kavirondo!" he called.

Several tall, well-formed black savages of this tribe arose from one of
the little fires and approached. The white man indicated one of the
piles of meat.

"Wakamba!" he summoned; then "Monumwezi"; and finally "Baganda!"

Thus the four tribes represented in his caravan were supplied. The men
returned to their fires, and began the preparation of their evening
meal.

Kingozi turned to his own tent with a sigh of relief. Within it a cot
had been erected, blankets spread. An officer's tin box stood open at
one end. On the floor was a portable canvas bath. While the white man
was divesting himself of his accoutrements, Cazi Moto entered bearing a
galvanized pail full of hot water which he poured into the tub. He
disappeared only to return with a pail of cold water to temper the
first.

"Bath is ready, _bwana_," said he, and retired, carefully tying the
tent flaps behind him.

Fifteen minutes later Kingozi emerged. He wore now a suit of pajamas
tucked into canvas "mosquito boots," with very thin soles. He looked
scrubbed and clean, the sheen of water still glistening on his thick
wavy hair.

The canvas camp chair had been placed before two chop boxes piled one
atop the other to form a crude table on which were laid eating
utensils. As soon as Cazi Moto saw that his master was ready, he
brought the meal. It consisted simply of a platter of curry composed of
rice and the fresh meat that had been so recently killed that it had
not time to get tough. This was supplemented by bread and tea in a tall
enamelware vessel known as a _balauri_. From the simplicity of this
meal one experienced would have deduced--even had he not done so from a
dozen other equally significant nothings--that this was no sporting
excursion, but an expedition grimly in earnest about something.

The sun had set, and almost immediately the darkness descended, as
though the light had been turned off at a switch. The earth shrunk to a
pool of blackness, and the heavens expanded to a glory of tropical
stars. All visible nature contracted to the light thrown by the
flickering fires before the tiny white tents. The tatterdemalion crew
had, after the curious habit of Africans, cast aside its garments, and
sat forth in a bronze and savage nakedness. All day long under the
blistering sun your safari man will wear all that he hath, even unto
the heavy overcoat discarded by the latest arrival from England's
winter; but when the chill of evening descends, then he strips happily.
The men were fed now, and were content. A busy chatter, the crooning of
songs, laughter, an occasional shout testified to this. A general
relaxation took the camp.

The white man finished his meal and lighted his pipe. Even yet his
day's work was not quite done, and he was unwilling to yield himself to
rest until all tasks were cleared away.

"Cazi Moto!" he called.

Instantly, it seemed, the headman stood at his elbow.

"To-morrow," said Kingozi deliberately, and paused in decision so long
that Cazi Moto ventured a "Yes, _bwana_."

"To-morrow we rest here. It will be your _cazi_ (duty) to find news of
the next water, or to find the water. See if there are people in this
country. Take one man with you. Let the men rest and eat."

"Yes, _bwana_."

"Are there sick?"

"Two men."

"Let them come."

Cazi Moto raised his voice.

"_N'gonjwa!_" he summoned them.

Kingozi looked at them in silence for a moment.

"What is the matter with you?" he asked of the first, a hulking,
stupid-looking Kavirondo with the muscles of a Hercules.

The man replied, addressing Cazi Moto, as is etiquette; and although
Kingozi understood perfectly, he awaited his headman's repetition of
the speech as though the Kavirondo had spoken a strange language.

"Fever, eh?" commented Kingozi aloud to himself, for the first time
speaking his own tongue. "We'll soon see. Cazi Moto," he instructed in
Swahili, "the medicine."

He thrust a clinical thermometer beneath the Kavirondo's tongue,
glancing at a wrist watch as he did so.

"Cazi Moto," he said calmly after three minutes, "this man is a liar.
He is not sick; he merely wants to get out of carrying a load."

The Kavirondo, his eyes rolling, shot forth a torrent of language.

"He says," Cazi Moto summarized all this, "that he was very sick, but
that this medicine"--indicating the thermometer--"cured him."

"He lies again," said Kingozi. "This is not medicine, but magic that
tells me when a man has uttered lies. This man must beware or he will
get _kiboko_."

The Kavirondo scuttled away, and Kingozi gave his attention to the
second patient. This man had an infected leg that required some minor
surgery. When the job was over and Kingozi had washed his hands, he
relighted his pipe and sat back in his chair with a sigh of content.
The immediate foreground sank below his consciousness. He stared across
the flickering fires at the velvet blackness; listened across the
intimate, idle noise of the camp to the voice of the veldt.

For with the fall of darkness and the larger silence of darkness, the
veldt awoke. Animals that had dozed through the hot hours and grazed
through the cooler hours in somnolent content now quivered alert. There
were runnings here and there, the stamp of hoofs, sharp snortings as
taut nerves stretched. Zebras uttered the absurd small-dog barks
peculiar to them; ostriches boomed; jackals yapped; unknown birds
uttered hasty wild calls. Numerous hyenas, near and far away, moaned
like lost souls. Kingozi listened as to the voice of an old
acquaintance telling familiar things; the men chattered on, their whole
attention within the globe of light from their fires.

But suddenly the noise stopped as though it had been cut by a knife.
Total silence fell on the little encampment. The men, their various
actions suspended, listened intently. From far away, apparently, a low,
vibrating rumble stole out of the night's immensity. It rose and seemed
to draw near, growing hollow and great, until the very ground seemed to
tremble as though a heavy train were passing, or the lower notes of a
great organ had been played in a little church. And then it died down,
and receded to the great distance again, and was ended by three low,
grunting coughs.

The veldt was silent. The zebra barkings were still; the night birds
had hushed; the hyenas and jackals and all the other night creatures
down--it almost seemed--to the very insects had ceased their calls and
cries and chirpings. One might imagine every living creature rigid,
alert, listening, as were these men about the little fires.

The tension relaxed. The men dropped more fuel on the fires, coaxing
the flame brighter. A whispering comment rose from group to group.

"_Simba! simba! simba!_" they hissed one to the other.

A lion had roared!



CHAPTER III


THE RHINOCEROS

In the first gray dusk Simba and Cazi Moto slipped away on the errands
appointed for them--to find people and to find water, if possible. The
cook camp, too, was afoot, dark figures passing and repassing before a
fire. But the rest of the men slept heavily, seizing the unwonted
chance.

When the first rays of the sun struck the fly of the small green
master's-tent Kingozi appeared, demanding water wherewith to wash. At
the sound of his voice men stirred sleepily, sat up, poked the remains
of their tiny fires. As though through an open tap the freshness of
night-time drained away. The hot, searching, stifling African day took
possession of the world.

After breakfast Kingozi looked about him for shelter. A gorgeous,
red-flowering vine had smothered one of the flat-topped thorn trees in
its luxuriance. The growths of successive years had overlaid each
other. Kingozi called two men with _pangas_ who speedily cut out the
centre, leaving a little round green room in the heart of the shadow.
Thither Kingozi caused to be conveyed his chop-box table, his canvas
chair, and his tin box; and there he spent the entire morning writing
in a blank book and carefully drawing from field notes in a pocketbook
a sketch map of the country he had traversed. At noon he ate a light
meal of bread, plain rice with sugar, and a _balauri_ of tea. Then for
a time he slept beneath the mosquito bar in his tent.

At this hour of fiercest sun the whole world slept with him. From the
baked earth rose heat waves almost as tangible as gauze veils. Objects
at a greater distance than a hundred yards took on strange distortions.
The thorn trees shot up to great heights; animals stood on stilts; the
tops of the hills were flattened, and from their summits often reached
out into space long streamers. Sometimes these latter joined across
wide intervals, creating an illusion of natural bridges or lofty
flat-topped cliffs with holes clear through them to the open sky
beyond. All these things shimmered and flickered and wavered in the
mirage of noon. Only the sun itself stared clear and unchanging.

At about two o'clock Kingozi awoke and raised his voice. Mali-ya-bwana,
next in command after Cazi Moto and Simba, answered.

"Get the big gun," he was told, "and the water bottles."

Mali-ya-bwana was not a professed gun bearer, but he could load, and
Kingozi believed him staunch. Therefore, often, in absence of Simba,
the big Baganda had been pressed into this service.

The blasting heat was fiercest at this hour. The air was saturated by
it just as water may hold a chemical in solution. Every little while a
wave would beat against the cheek as though a furnace door had been
opened. Nevertheless Kingozi knew that this was also the hour when the
sun's power begins to decline; when the vertical rays begin to give
place. For it is not heat that kills, but the actinic power of rays
unfiltered by a long slant through the earth's atmosphere.

The two men tramped methodically along, paying little attention to
their surroundings. Game dozed everywhere beneath the scanty shade,
sometimes singly, sometimes in twos or threes, sometimes in herds.
Motionless they stood; and often, were it not for the switch of a tail,
they would have remained unobserved. Even the sentinel hartebeestes,
posted atop high ant hills on the outskirts of the herds, seemed half
asleep. Nevertheless they were awake enough for the job, as was
evidenced when the two human figures came too near. Then a snort
brought every creature to its feet, staring.

The objective of the men seemed to be a rise of land which the
lessening mirage now permitted to appear as a small kopje, a solitary
hill with rocky outcrops. Toward this they plodded methodically:
Kingozi slouching ahead, Mali-ya-bwana close at his heels, very proud
of his temporary promotion from the ranks. Suddenly he snapped his
fingers. At the signal Kingozi stopped and looked back inquiringly over
his shoulder.

Mali-ya-bwana was pointing cautiously to a low red clay ant hill
immediately in their path and about thirty yards ahead. To the casual
glance it looked no different from any of the hundreds of others of
like size and colour everywhere to be seen. Kingozi's attention,
however, now narrowed to a smaller circle than the casual. It did not
need Mali-ya-bwana's whispered "_faru_" (rhinoceros) to identify the
mound.

Cautiously the two men began to back away. When they had receded some
twenty yards, however, the huge beast leaped to its feet. The rapidity
of its movements was extraordinary. There intervened none of the slow
and clumsy upheaval one would naturally expect from an animal of so
massive a body and such short, thick legs. One moment it slumbered, the
next it was afoot, warned by some slight sound or jar of the earth
or--as some maintain--by a telepathic sense of danger. Certainly, as
far as they knew, neither Kingozi nor Mali-ya-bwana had disturbed a
pebble or broken a twig.

The rhinoceros faced them, snorting loudly. The sound was exactly that
of steam roaring from a locomotive's safety valve. Strangely enough, in
spite of the massive structure and the loose, thick skin of the beast,
it conveyed an impression of taut, nervous muscles. Though it faced
directly toward them, the men knew that they were as yet unseen. The
rhinoceros' eyesight is very short, or very circumscribed, or both; and
only objects in motion and comparatively close enter its range of
vision. Kingozi and his man held themselves rigidly immovable, waiting
for what would happen. The rhinoceros, too, held himself rigidly
immovable, his nostrils dilating between snorts, his ears turning; for
his senses of smell and hearing made up in their keenness for the
defects of his eyes.

Suddenly, without the slightest warning, he stuck his tail
perpendicular and plunged forward at a clumsy-looking but exceedingly
swift gallop.

An inexperienced man would have considered himself the object of a
deliberate "charge"; but an old African traveller, such as Kingozi,
knew this for a blind rush in the direction toward which the animal
happened to be headed. The rhinoceros, alarmed by the first intimation
of danger, unable to get further news from its keener senses, had been
seized by a panic. Were nothing to deflect him from the straight line,
he would continue ahead on it until the panic had run out.

But the two men were exactly in that line!

Kingozi hitched his light rifle forward imperceptibly. Although this
was at present only a blind rush, should the rhinoceros catch sight of
them he would fight; and within twenty-five yards or so his eyesight
would be quite good enough. As the beast did not slow up in the first
ten yards, but rather settled into its stride, Kingozi took rapid aim
and fired.

His intention was neither to kill nor to cripple his antagonist. If
that had been the case, he would have used the heavy double rifle that
Mali-ya-bwana held ready near his elbow. The bullet inflicted a slight
flesh wound in the outer surface of the beast's left shoulder. Kingozi
instantly passed the light rifle back with his right hand, at the same
motion seizing the double rifle with his left.

But at the _spat_ of the bullet the rhino veered toward the direction
from which it seemed to his stupid brain the hurt had come. Tail erect,
he thundered away down the slope.

For a hundred yards he careered full speed, then slowed to a trot,
finally stopped, whirled, and faced to a new direction. The sound of
his blowing came clearly across the intervening distance.

A low bush grew near. The rhino attacked this savagely, horning it,
trampling it down. The dust arose in clouds. Then the huge brute
trotted slowly away, still snorting angrily, pausing to butt violently
the larger trees, or to tear into shreds some bush or ant hill that
loomed dangerously in the primeval fogs of his brain.

"Sorry, old chap," commented Kingozi in his own language, "but you're
none the worse. Only I'm afraid your naturally sweet temper is spoiled
for to-day, at least."

He turned to exchange guns with Mali-ya-bwana.

"_N'dio, bwana_," assented the latter to a speech of which he
understood not one word. Mali-ya-bwana was secretly a little proud of
himself for having stuck like a gun bearer, instead of shinning up a
thorn tree like a porter.

Kingozi slipped a cartridge into the rifle, and the two resumed their
walk toward the kopje.



CHAPTER IV


THE STRANGER

By the time the two men had gained the top of the hill the worst heat
of the day had passed. Kingozi seated himself on a flat rock and at
once began to take sights through a prismatic compass, entering the
observations in a pocketbook. Mali-ya-bwana, bolt upright, stared out
over the thinly wooded plain below. He reported the result of his
scouting in a low voice, to which the white man paid no attention
whatever.

"_Twiga[2] bwana_," he said, and then, as his eye caught the flash of
many sing-sing horns, "_kuru, mingi_." Thus he named over the different
animals--the topi, the red hartebeeste, the eland, zebra, some
warthogs, and many others. The beasts were anticipating the cool of the
afternoon, and were grazing slowly out from beneath the trees,
scattering abroad over the landscape.

[Footnote 2: Giraffe.]

From even this slight elevation the outlook extended. Isolated mountain
ranges showed loftier; the tops of unguessed hills peeped above the
curve of the earth; the clear line of the horizon had receded to the
outer confines of terrestrial space, but even then not far enough to
touch the cup of the sky. Elsewhere the heavens meet the horizon: in
Africa they lie beyond it, so that when the round, fleecy clouds of the
Little Rains sail down the wind there is always a fleet of them beyond
the earth disappearing into the immensities of the infinite. There is
space in African skies beyond the experience of those who have dwelt
only in other lands. They dwarf the earth; and the plains and
mountains, lying in weeks' journeys spread before the eye, dwarf all
living things, so that at the last the man of imagination here becomes
a humble creature.

For an hour the two remained on top the kopje. The details of the
unknown country ahead, toward which Kingozi gave his attention, were
simple. From the green line of the watercourse, near which the camp
showed white and tiny, the veldt swept away for miles almost unbroken.
Here and there were tiny parklike openings of clear grass; here and
there more kopjes standing isolated and alone, like fortresses. Far
down over the edge of the world showed dim and blue the tops of a short
range of mountains. Vainly did Kingozi sweep his glasses over the
landscape in hope of another line of green. No watercourse was visible.
On the other hand, the scattered growth of thorn trees showed no signs
of thickening to the dense spiky jungle that is one of the terrors of
African travel. There might be a watercourse hidden in the folds of the
earth; there might be a rainwater "tank," or a spring, on any of the
kopjes. Simba and Cazi Moto were both experienced, and capable of a
long round trip. The problem of days' journeys was not pressing at this
moment. Kingozi noted the compass bearings of all the kopjes; took back
sights in the direction from which he had come; closed his compass; and
began idly to sweep the country with his glasses. In an unwonted mood
of expansion he turned to Mali-ya-bwana.

"We go there," he told the porter, indicating the blue mountain-tops.

"It is far," Mali-ya-bwana replied.

Kingozi continued to look through his glasses. Suddenly he stopped them
on an open plain three or four miles back in the direction from which
he had come the day before. Mali-ya-bwana followed his gaze.

"A safari, _bwana_," he observed, unmoved. "A very large safari," he
amended, after a moment.

Through his prismatic glasses Kingozi could see every detail plainly.
After his fashion of talking aloud, he reported what he saw, partly to
the black man at his side, but mostly to himself.

"_Askaris_,"[3] he said, "six of them. The man rides in a
_machele_[4]--he is either a German or a Portuguese; only those people
use _macheles_--unless he is sick! Many porters--four are no more white
men. More _askaris!_" He smiled a little contemptuously under his
beard. "This is a great safari, Mali-ya-bwana. Four tin boxes and
twelve _askaris_ to guard them; and eighty or more porters; and sixteen
men just to carry the _machele!_ This must be a _Bwana M' Kubwa_."

[Footnote 3: Native troops, armed with Snider muskets.]

[Footnote 4: A hammock slung on a long pole, and carried by four men at
each end.]

"That is what Kavirondos might think," replied Mali-ya-bwana calmly.

Kingozi looked up at him with a new curiosity.

"But not yourself?"

"A man who is a _Bwana M'kubwa_ does not have to be carried. He does
not need _askaris_ to guard him in this country. And where can he get
_potio_ for so many?"

"Hullo!" cried Kingozi, surprised. "This is not porter's talk; this is
headman's talk!"

"In my own country I am headman of many people," replied Mali-ya-bwana
with a flash of pride.

"Yet you carry my tent load."

But Mali-ya-bwana made no reply, fixing his fierce eyes on the distant
crawling safari.

"It must be a sportsman's safari," said Kingozi, this time to himself,
"though what a sportsman wants in this back-of-beyond is a fair
conundrum. Probably one of these chappies with more money than sense:
wants to go somewhere nobody else has been, and can't go there without
his caviare and his changes of clothes, and about eight guns--not to
speak of a Complete Sportsman's Outfit as advertised exclusively by
some Cockney Tom Fool on Haymarket."

He contemplated a problem frowningly. "Whoever it is will be a
nuisance--a _damn_ nuisance!" he concluded.

"_N'dio, bwana_," came Mali-ya-bwana's cheerful response to this speech
in a language strange to him.

"You have asked a true question," Kingozi shifted to Swahili. "Where is
_potio_ to be had for so large a safari? Trouble--much trouble!" He
arose from the flat stone. "We will go and talk with this safari."

At an angle calculated to intercept the caravan, Kingozi set off down
the hill.

After twenty minutes' brisk walk it became evident that they were
approaching the route of march. Animals fled past them in increasing
numbers, some headlong, others at a dignified and leisurely gait, as
though performing a duty. The confused noise of many people became
audible and the tapping of safari sticks against the loads.

At the edge of a tiny opening Kingozi, concealed behind a bush,
reviewed the new arrivals at close range, estimating each element on
which a judgment could be based. As usual, he thought aloud, muttering
his speculations sometimes in his own language, sometimes in the
equally familiar Swahili.

"_Askaris_ not _pukha[5] askaris_ of the government. Those are not
Sniders they carry--don't know that kind of musket. Those boxes are not
the usual type--wonder where they were bought!"

[Footnote 5: Genuine--regular.]

The hammock came into view, swinging on the long pole. It was borne by
four men at each end--experienced _machele_ carriers who would keep
step with a gentle gliding. Eight more walked alongside as relay. They
would change places so skilfully that the occupant of the hammock could
not have told when the shift took place. Alongside walked a tall,
bareheaded, very black man. Kingozi's experienced eye was caught by
differences.

"Of what tribe is that man?" he asked.

But Mali-ya-bwana was also puzzled.

"I do not know, bwana. He is a _shenzi_[6]."

[Footnote 6: Wild Man.]

The unknown was very tall, very straight, most well formed. But his
face was extraordinarily ugly. His flat, wide nose, thick lips, and
small yellow eyes were set off by an upstanding mop of hair. His
expression was of extraordinary fierceness. He walked with a free and
independent stride, and carried a rifle.

"He is not of this country. He is from the west coast, or perhaps Nubia
or the Sudan," was Kingozi's conclusion.

"Many of these people are _shenzis_," Mali-ya-bwana pursued his own
thought.

"That is true," Kingozi acknowledged. "If this is a sportsman, from
what part did he hail to have got together this lot! We will see."

As the swinging hammock came opposite his concealment, Kingozi stepped
forward.

Every one in sight looked in his direction, but none showed any
astonishment at this apparition out of the wilderness. The
sophisticated African has ceased to be surprised at anything a white
man may do. If he can make fire by rubbing a tiny stick _once_, why
should he not do anything under heaven he wants to? A locomotive, an
automobile, a flying machine are miracles, but no less--and no
greater--than ordinary matches. Once admit the ability to transcend
natural laws, once admit the possibility of miracles, why be surprised
at anything? If a white man chose to appear thus in an unknown country,
why not? If he chose again to vanish into thin air, again why not? Only
the fierce-looking savage carrying the rifle rolled his eyes uneasily.

But at this precise moment a diversion on the opposite side of the line
attracted attention enough. A galvanic shiver ran down the string of
porters, succeeded at once by a crashing of loads cast hastily to the
ground. With unanimity the bearers swarmed across the little open space
toward and to either side of Kingozi and his attendant. Reaching the
fringe of flat-topped trees they sprang into the low branches, heedless
of the long thorns, and scrambled aloft until at least partially
concealed. A few of the bolder members lurked behind the trunks, but
held themselves ready for an instant ascent. From a hundred throats
arose a confused cry of "_Faru! Faru!_"

Not joining this first flight remained only the _askaris_, the eight
men bearing the hammock, and the tall Nubian. Of these the _askaris_
were far ahead and to the rear; the hammock bearers were decidedly
panicky; only the Nubian seemed cool and self-possessed. The occupant
of the hammock thrust out a foot to descend.

But before this could be accomplished a rhinoceros burst fully into
view across the open space. His tail was up, he was snorting loudly,
and he headed straight for the hammock. That was large, moving, and
directly in his line of vision. The sight was too much for the bearers.
With a howl they dropped the pole and streaked it to join their
brothers in the thorn trees. The pole and the canopy of the hammock
tangled inextricably its occupant.

A ragged volley from the muskets of the _askaris_ merely seemed to add
to the confusion. With great coolness the Nubian discharged first one
barrel then the other of the heavy rifle he carried. The recoil,
catching him in a bad posture, knocked him backward. The bullets kicked
up a tremendous dust part way between himself and the charging beast.
He was now without defence. Nevertheless he stepped in front of the
entangled struggling figure on the ground.

Before the appearance of the rhinoceros into the open Kingozi had
exchanged rifles, and stood at the ready. He was a good hundred yards
from the hammock. Even in the rush of events he, characteristically,
found time for comments, although they did not in the least interfere
with his rapid movements.

"Hope they don't wing one another," he remarked of the _askaris'_
volley. "Rotten shooting! rotten!" as the Nubian stood his ground. At
the same time he pushed forward the safety catch and threw the heavy
rifle to his shoulder.

A charging rhinoceros--or one rushing near enough a man's direction to
be dangerous--is not a difficult problem. Given nerve enough, and
barring accidents--which might happen in a London flat--a man is in no
danger. If he opens fire too soon, indeed, he is likely to empty his
weapon without inflicting a stopping wound, but if he will wait until
the beast is within twenty yards or so, the affair is certain. For this
reason: just before a rhinoceros closes, he drops his head low in order
to bring his long horn into action. If the hunter fires then, over the
horn, he will strike the beast's backbone. The shot can hardly be
missed, for the range is very close and the outstanding flanges of the
vertebrae make a large mark. The formidable animal goes down like a
stone. In country open enough to preclude the deadly close-at-hand
surprise rush, where one has no chance to use his weapon at all, the
rhinoceros is not dangerous to one who knows his business.

But in this case Kingozi was nearer a hundred and twenty than twenty
yards from the animal. The mark to be hit was now very small; and it
was moving. In addition the heavy double rifle, while accurate enough
at that range, was not, owing to its weight and terrific recoil, as
certain as a lighter rifle. These things Kingozi knew perfectly. The
muscles under his beard tightened; his gray eyes widened into a glare
like that of Simba in sight of game.

Just before the rhinoceros dropped his head for the toss, the Nubian
stepped directly into the line of fire.

"_Lala!_--lie down!" Kingozi shouted.

Somehow the whip-snap of authority in his voice reached the Nubian's
consciousness. He dropped flat, and almost instantly the white man
fired.

At the roar of the great gun the rhinoceros collapsed in mid career,
going down, as an animal always does under a successful spine shot,
completely, without a struggle or even a quiver.

"That was well shot, master," said Mali-ya-bwana.

Kingozi reloaded the rifle and started forward. At the same time the
occupant of the hammock finally emerged from the tangle and came erect.



CHAPTER V


THE ENCOUNTER

Kingozi saw a tall figure without a coat, dressed in brown shirt,
riding breeches, and puttees. The Nubian had retrieved a spilled sun
helmet even before the stranger had scrambled erect, so the head and
face were invisible. Kingozi's countenance did not change, but a faint
contempt appeared in his eyes. The first impression conveyed by the
numbers of the tin boxes and their bearers and escort had been
deepened. Why? Because the riding breeches were of that exaggerated cut
sometimes actually to be seen outside tailor's advertisements. They
were gathered trimly around an effeminately slender waist, and then
ballooned out to an absurd width, only to contract again skin tight
around the knees.

"_M'buzi!_" grunted Kingozi, applying to the stranger the superlative
of Swahili contempt. He did not know he spoke aloud; for it is not well
for one white man to criticise another to a native. But Mali-ya-bwana
replied.

"_Bibi_," he corrected.

Kingozi stared. "By Jove, you're right!" he exclaimed in English. "It
_is_ a woman!" He burst into an unexpected laugh. "It isn't balloon
breeches; it's _hips!_" he cried. This correction seemed to him
singularly humorous. He approached her, laughing.

It was evidently an angry woman, to judge by her gestures and the
deprecating attitude of the Nubian. Kingozi surmised that she probably
did not fancy being dumped down incontinently before an angry
rhinoceros. After a moment, however, her attitude lost its rigidity,
she gestured toward the dead monster, evidently commending the savage.
He shook his head and motioned in Kingozi's direction. The woman
turned, showing an astonished face.

Kingozi was now close up. He saw before him a personality. Physically
she was beautiful or not, according as one accepted conventional
standards. The dress she wore revealed fully the fact that she had a
tall, well-knit figure of long, full curves; a thoroughly feminine
figure in conformation, and yet one that looked competent to transcend
the usual feminine incompetencies. So far she measured to a high but
customary standard. But her face was as exotic as an orchid. It was
long, narrow, and pale with three accents to redeem it from what that
ordinarily implies--lips of a brilliant carmine, eyes of a deep
sea-green, and eyebrows high, arched, clean cut, narrow as though drawn
by a camel's-hair brush. Indeed, in civilization no one would have
believed them to have been otherwise produced. In spite of the awkward
sun helmet she carried her head imperiously.

"If you _will_ ride in a hammock, you ought to teach your men to
shoot," was Kingozi's greeting. "It's absurd to go barging through a
rhino country like this. You look strong and healthy. Why don't you
walk?"

Her crest reared and her nostrils expanded haughtily. For a half-minute
she stared at him, her sea-green eyes darkening to greater depths. This
did not disturb Kingozi in the least: indeed he did not see it. His
eyes were taking in the surroundings.

The dead rhinoceros lay a scant fifteen paces distant; loads were
scattered everywhere; the _askaris_, their ancient muskets reloaded,
had drawn near in curiosity. From the thorn trees across the tiny grass
opening porters were descending, very gingerly, and with lamentations.
It is comparatively easy to ascend a thorn tree with the fear of death
snapping at your heels: to descend in cold blood is another matter.

"Why don't you do your work!" he addressed the soldiers. "Do you want
to catch _kiboko_?"

The startled _askaris_ scuttled away about their business, which was,
at this moment, to herd and hustle the reluctant porters back to their
job. Kingozi, his head and jaw thrust forward, stared after them, his
eyes--indeed, his whole personality--projecting aggressive force. The
men hurried to their positions, their loud laughter stilled, glancing
fearfully and furtively over their shoulders, whipped by the baleful
glare with which Kingozi silently battered them.

[Illustration: "'If you _will_ ride in a hammock, you ought to teach
your men to shoot,' was Kingozi's greeting"]

Only when the last man had picked up his load did Kingozi turn again to
the woman. Although her bosom still heaved with emotion, it was a
suppressed emotion. He met a face slightly and inscrutably smiling.

"You take it upon yourself to manage my safari?" she said. "You think I
cannot manage my men? It is kind of you."

Her English was faultless, but some slight unusual spacing of the
words, some ultra-clarity of pronunciation, rather than a recognizable
accent, made evident that the language was not her own.

"Your _askaris_ are slack," said Kingozi briefly.

"And how of these?" she demanded imperiously, sweeping with an almost
theatrical gesture the miserable-looking group of hammock bearers.

"They are at fault," replied Kingozi indifferently, "but after all they
are common porters. You can't expect gun-bearer service or _askari_
service from common porters, now can you?"

He looked at her directly, his clear, steady eyes conveying nothing but
a mild interest in the obvious. In contrast to his detached almost
indifferent calm, the woman was an embodiment of emotions. Head erect,
red lips compressed, breast heaving, she surveyed him through narrowed
lids.

"So?" she contented herself with saying.

"It's the nature of the beast to run crazy," pursued Kingozi
tranquilly. "You really can't blame them."

"Then am I to be thrown down, like a sack, when it pleases them to
run?" she demanded tensely. "Really, you are incredible."

"I should expect it. The real point is that you have no business to
ride in a hammock through a rhino country."

The woman's control slipped a very little.

"Who are you to teach me my business?"

For the first time Kingozi's careless, candid stare narrowed to a focus.

"You have not told me what your business is," he replied with an edge
of intention in his tones. Their glances crossed like rapiers for the
flash of an instant.

She turned to the hammock bearers.

"Lie down!" she commanded. Then to the impassive Nubian, "The _kiboko!_
I suppose," she observed politely to Kingozi, "that you will admit
these men should be punished, and that you will permit me to do so?"

"Surely they should be punished; that goes without saying."

"Give them thirty apiece," she ordered the Nubian.

"That is too many," interposed Kingozi. "Six is a great plenty for such
people. It is their nature to run away."

"Thirty," she repeated to the Nubian, without a glance in the white
man's direction.

The huge negro produced the rhinoceros-hide whip, and went to his task.
To lay thirty lashes on sixteen backs and to do justice to the occasion
is a great task. The Nubian's face streamed sweat when he had finished.
The bearers, who had taken the punishment in silence, arose, saluted,
and begun to skylark among themselves, which was their way of working
off emotion.

"_Askaris!_" summoned the woman.

They came trotting.

"Lay down your guns! Lie down!"

A mild wonder appeared in Kingozi's gray eyes.

"Do you _kiboko_ your _askaris?_" he asked.

She jerked her head in his direction.

"Do you presume to question my actions?"

"By no means; I am interested in methods."

She paid him no more attention. Kingozi waited patiently until this
second bout of punishment was over. The _askaris_ lay quietly face down
until their mistress gave the word, then leaped to their feet, saluted
smartly, seized their guns, and marched jauntily to their appointed
positions. The woman watched them for a moment, and turned back to
Kingozi.

Her mood had completely changed. The orgy of punishment had cleared
away the nervous effects of the fright she had undergone.

"So; that is done," she said. "I have travelled much in Africa. I what
you call know my way about. See how my men fall into line. It will be
so at camp. _Presto!_ Quick! The tents will be up, the fires made."

Her lips smiled at him, but her sea-green eyes remained steady and
inscrutable.

"They seem smart enough," acknowledged Kingozi without interest. "Have
you ever tried them out?"

"Tried them out?" she repeated. "I do not understand."

"You never know what hold you really have until you get in a tight
place."

"And if I get in a 'tight place,'" she rejoined haughtily, "I shall get
out again--without help from negroes--or anybody."

"Quite so," conceded Kingozi equably. His attitude and the tone of his
voice were indifferent, but the merest flicker of the tail of his eye
touched the dead rhino. His expression remained quite bland. She saw
this. The pallor of her cheek did not warm, but her strangely
expressive eyes changed.

"_Bandika!_" she cried sharply. The men began to take up their loads.

"I will wish you a good afternoon," observed Kingozi as though taking
his leave from an afternoon tea. "By the way, do you happen to care for
information about the next water, or do you know all that?" "Thank you,
I know all that," she replied curtly.

The _askaris_ began to shout the order for the advance, "_Nenda!
nenda!_" the men to swing forward. Kingozi stared after them, watching
with a professional eye the way they walked, the make-up of their
loads, the nature of their equipment; marking the lame ones, or the
weak ones, or the ones recently sick. His eye fell on the figure of the
strange woman. She was striding along easily, the hammock deserted,
with a free swing of the hips, an easy, slouch of the relaxed knees
that indicated the accustomed walker. Kingozi smiled.

"'I know all that,'" he repeated. "Now I wonder if you do, or if some
idea of silly pride makes you say so." He was talking aloud, in
English. Mali-ya-bwana stood attentive, waiting for something he could
understand. Kingozi's eye fell on the dead rhinoceros.

"There is good meat; tell the men they can come out to get what they
wish of it. There will be lions here to-night."

"Yes, _bwana_."

"If she 'knew all that,'" observed Kingozi, "she knew more than I did.
Small chance. Still, if she has information or guides, she may know the
next water. But how? Why?"

He shifted his rifle to the crook of his arm.

"That _bibi_ is a great _memsahib_," he told Mali-ya-bwana. "And this
evening we will go to see her. Be you ready to go also."



CHAPTER VI


THE LEOPARD WOMAN

In the early darkness of equatorial Africa Kingozi, accompanied by
Mali-ya-bwana with a lantern, crossed over to the other camp. Simba and
Cazi Moto had come in almost at dusk; but they were very tired, and
Kingozi considered it advisable to let them rest. They had covered
probably thirty-five miles. Cazi Moto had found no water, and no traces
of water. Furthermore, the game had thinned and disappeared. Only old
tracks, old trails, old signs indicated that after the Big Rains the
country might be habitable for the beasts. But Simba had discovered a
concealed "tank" in a kopje. He had worked his way to it by "lining"
the straight swift flight of green pigeons, as a bee hunter on the
plains used to line the flight of bees. The tank proved to be a deep,
hidden recess far back under overhanging rocks, at once concealed and
protected from the sun and animals. Its water was sweet and abundant.

"No one has used that water. It is an unknown water," concluded Simba.

"How far?"

"Four hours."

"_Vema_." Kingozi bestowed on him the word of highest praise.

The stranger woman's camp was not far away; in fact, but just across
the little dry stream-bed. Her safari was using the same pool with
Kingozi's.

At the edge of the camp he paused to take in its disposition. From one
detail to another his eye wandered, and in it dawned a growing
approval. Your native, left to his own devices, pitches his little
tents haphazard here, there, and everywhere, according as his fancy
turns to this or that bush, thicket, or clump of grass. Such a camp
straggles abominably. But here was no such confusion. Back from the
water-hole a hundred yards, atop a slight rise, and under the thickest
of the trees, stood a large green tent with a projecting fly. A huge
pile of firewood had been dumped down in front of it, and at that very
moment one of the _askaris_, kneeling, was kindling a fire. Behind the
big tent, and at some remove, gleamed the circle of porters' tents each
with its little blaze. Loads were piled neatly, covered with a
tarpaulin, and the pile guarded by an _askari_.

Kingozi strode across the intervening space.

Before the big tent a table had been placed, and beside the table a
reclining canvas chair of the folding variety. On a spread of figured
blue cloth stood a bottle of lime juice, a sparklets, and an enamelware
bowl containing flowers. The strange woman was stretched luxuriously in
the chair smoking a cigarette.

She wore a short-sleeved lilac tea gown of thin silk, lilac silk
stockings, and high-heeled slippers. Her hair fell in two long braids
over her shoulders and between her breasts, which the thin silk
defined. Her figure in the long chair fell into sinuous, graceful,
relaxed lines. As he approached she looked at him over the glowing
cigarette; and her eyes seemed to nicker with a strange restlessness.
This contrast--of the restless eyes and the relaxed, graceful
body--reminded Kingozi of something. His mind groped for a moment; then
he had it.

"_Bibi ya chui!_" he said, half to himself, half to his companion, "The
Leopard Woman!"

And, parenthetically, from that moment _Bibi-ya-chui_--the Leopard
Woman--was the name by which she was known among the children of the
sun.

She did not greet him in any way, but turned her head to address
commands.

"Bring a chair for the _bwana_; bring cigarettes; bring _balauri--lime
juice_----"

Kingozi found himself established comfortably.

She moved her whole body slightly sidewise, the better to face him. The
soft silk fell in new lines about her, defining new curves. Her red
lips smiled softly, and her eyes were dark and inscrutable.

"I was what you call horrid to-day," she said. "It was not me: it was
the frightenedness from the rhinoceros. I was very much frightened, so
I had the porters beaten. That was horrid, was it not? Do you
understand it? I suppose not. Men have no nerves, like women. They are
brave always. I have not said what I feel. I have heard of you--the
most wonderful shot in Central Africa. I believe it--now."

Kingozi's eyes were lingering on her silk-clad form, the peep of ankles
below her robe. She observed him with slanted eyes, and a little breath
of satisfaction raised her bosom. Abruptly he spoke.

"Aren't you afraid of fever mosquitoes in that rig?" said he.

Her body stirred convulsively, and her finely pencilled eyebrows, with
their perpetual air of surprise, moved with impatience; but her voice
answered him equably:

"My friend, at the close of the hard day I must have my comfort. There
can be no fever here, for there are no people here. When in the fever
country I have my 'rig'"--subtly she shaded the word--"just the same.
But I have a net--a big net--like a tent beneath which I sit. Does that
satisfy you?"

She spoke with the obvious painstaking patience that one uses to
instruct a child, but with a veiled irony meant for an older
intelligence.

Kingozi laughed.

"I do appear to catechize you, don't I? But I am interested. It is
difficult to realize that a woman alone can understand this kind of
travel."

He had thrown off his guarded abstraction, and smiled across at her as
frankly as a boy. The gravity of his face broke into wrinkles of
laughter; his steady eyes twinkled; his smile showed strong white
teeth. In spite of his bushy beard he looked a boy. The woman stared at
him, her cigarette suspended.

"You have instructed me about my camp; you have instructed me about my
men; you have instructed me about my marching; you have even instructed
me about my clothes." She tallied the counts on her slender fingers.
"Now I must instruct you."

"Guilty, I am afraid," he smiled; "but ready to take punishment."

"Very well." With a sinuous movement she turned on her elbow to face
him. "Listen! It is this: you should not wear that beard."

She fell back, and raised the cigarette to her lips.

For a moment Kingozi stared at her speechless with surprise; but
immediately recovered.

"I shall give to your advice the same respectful consideration you
accord mine," he assured her gravely.

She laughed in genuine amusement.

"Only I have more excuse," continued Kingozi. "A woman--alone--so far
away----"

"You said that before," she interrupted. "In other words, what
in--what-you-call? Oh, yes! what in hell am I doing up here? Is that
it?"

She turned on him a wide-eyed stare. Kingozi chuckled.

"That's it. What in--in hell _are_ you doing up here?"

"Listen, my friend. In this world I do what I please--always. And when
I find that which people tell me cannot be done, that I do--at once. My
life is full of those things which could not be done, but which I have
done."

"I believe you," said Kingozi, but he said it to himself.

"I have done them at home--where I live. I have done them in the cities
and courts. Whatever the people tell me is impossible--'Oh, it cannot
be done!'--with the uplifted hand and eye--you understand--that I do.
Four years ago I came to Africa, and in Africa I have done what they
tell me women have never done. I have travelled in the Kameroons, in
Nyassaland, in Somaliland, in Abyssinia. Then they tell me--'yes, that
is very well, but you follow a track. It is a dim track; but it is
there. You go alone--yes; but you have us at your back.' And I ask
them: 'What then? where is this place where there is no track?' And
they wave their hands, and say 'Over yonder'; so I come!"

She recited all this dramatically, using her hands much in
gesticulation, her eyes flashing. In proportion as she became animated
Kingozi withdrew into his customary stolid calm.

"Quite so," he commented, "spirit of adventure, and all that sort of
thing. Where did you get this lot?"

"What?"

He waved his hand.

"Your men."

She considered him a barely appreciable instant.

"Why--the usual way--from the coast."

"They are strange to me--I do not recognize their tribes," Kingozi
replied blandly. "So you are pushing out into the Unknown. How far do
you consider going?"

"Until it pleases me to stop."

Kingozi produced his pipe.

"If you do not mind?" he requested. He deliberately filled and lighted
it. After a few strong puffs he resumed:

"The country, you say, is unknown to you."

"Of course."

"I imagined you told me this afternoon that you knew of this water. I
must have been mistaken."

He blew a cloud, gazing straight ahead of him in obviously assumed
innocence. She examined him with a narrow, sidelong glance.

"No," she said at last, "you were not mistaken. I did tell you so."

"Well?" Kingozi turned to her.

"I was very angry, so I lied," she replied naively. "Women always lie
when they get very angry."

"Or tell the truth--uncomfortably," grinned Kingozi.

"Brava!" she applauded. "He does know something about women!" With one
of her sudden smooth movements she again raised herself on her elbow.
"How much?" she challenged.

"Enough," he replied enigmatically.

They both laughed.

Across the accustomed night noises came a long rumbling snarl ending
sharply with a snoring gasp. It was succeeded by another on a different
key. The two took up a kind of antiphony, one against the other, now
rising in volume, now dying down to a low grumble, again suddenly
bursting like an explosion.

"The lions have found that rhino," remarked Kingozi indifferently.

For a moment or so they listened to the distant thunders.

"I have not sufficiently thanked you even yet for this afternoon," she
said. "You saved my life--you know that."

"Happened to be there; and let off a rifle."

"I know shooting. It was a wonderful shot at that distance and in those
circumstances."

"Chancy shot. Had good luck," replied Kingozi shortly.

Undeterred by his tone, she persisted.

"But you are said by many to be the best shot in Africa."

He glanced at her.

"Indeed! I think that a mistake. For whom do you take me?"

"You are Culbertson," she told him. She pronounced the name slowly,
syllable by syllable, as though English proper names were difficult to
her.

He laughed.

"Whoever he may be. I am known as Kingozi hereabouts."

"You are not Cul-bert-son?"

"I am anything it pleases you to have me. And who are you?"

She had become the spoiled darling, pouting at him in half-pretended
vexation.

"You are playing with me. For that I shall not tell you who I am."

"It does not matter; I know."

"You know! But how?"

"I know many things."

"What is it then? Tell me!"

He hesitated, smiling at her inscrutably. The flames from the fire were
leaping high now, throwing the lantern-light into eclipse. An _askari_,
wearing on his head an individual fancy in marabout feathers, leaned on
his musket, his strong bronze face cast into the wistful lines of the
savage countenance in repose. The lions had evidently compounded their
quarrel. Only an occasional rasping cough testified to their presence.
But in the direction of the dead rhinoceros the air was hideous with
the plaints of the waiting hyenas. Their peculiarly weird moans came in
chorus; and every once in a while arose the shrill, prolonged titter
that has earned them the name of "laughing hyena."

"_Bibi-ya-chui_," he told her at length.

She considered this, her red lower lip caught between her teeth.

"The Leopard Woman," she repeated, "and it is thus that I am known!
You, Kingozi--the Bearded One; I, Bibi-ya-chui--the Leopard Woman!" She
laughed. "I think I like it," she decided.

"Now we know all about each other," he mocked.

"But no: you have asked many questions, which is your habit, but I have
asked few. What do you do in this strange land? Is
it--what-you-call--'spirit of adventure' also?"

"Not I! I am an ivory hunter."

"You expect to find the elephant here?"

"Who knows--or ivory to trade."

"And then you get your ivory and make the magic pass, and presto! it is
in Mombasa," she said, with a faint sarcasm.

"You mean I have not men enough to carry out ivory. Well, that is true.
But you see my habit is to get my ivory first and then to get _shenzis_
from the people roundabout to act as porters," he explained to her
gravely.

Apparently she hesitated, in two minds as to what next to say. Kingozi
perceived a dancing temptation sternly repressed, and smiled beneath
his beard.

"I see," she said finally in a meek voice.

But Kingozi knew of what she was thinking. "She is a keen one," he
reflected admiringly. "Caught the weak point in that yarn straight off!"

He arose to his feet, knocking the ashes from his pipe.

"You travel to-morrow?" he asked politely.

"That I have not decided."

"This is a dry country," Kingozi suggested blandly. "Of course you will
not risk a blind push with so many men. You will probably send out
scouts to find the next water."

"That is possible," she replied gravely; but Kingozi thought to catch a
twinkle in her eye.

He raised his voice:

"Boy!"

Mali-ya-bwana glided from one of the small porters' tents.

"_Qua heri_." Kingozi abruptly wished her farewell in Swahili.

"_Qua heri_," she replied without moving.

He turned into the darkness. The tropical stars blazed above him like
candles. Kingozi lapsed into half-forgotten slang.

"Downy bird!" he reflected, which was probably not exactly the
impression the Leopard Woman either intended or thought she had made.



CHAPTER VII


THE WATER-HOLE

A seasoned African traveller in ordinary circumstances sleeps very
soundly, his ear attuned only to certain things. So Kingozi hardly
stirred on his cork mattress, although the lions roared full-voiced
satisfaction when they left the rhinoceros, and the yells of the hyenas
rose to a pandemonium when at last they were permitted to join the
feast. Likewise the nearer familiar noises of men rising to their daily
tasks at four o'clock--the yawning, stretching, cracking of firewood,
crackling of fire, low-voiced chatter--did not disturb him. Yet, so
strangely is the human mind organized, had during the night a soft
whisper of padded feet, even the deep breathing of a beast, sounded
within the precincts of the camp, he would instantly have been broad
awake, the rifle that stood loaded nearby clasped in his hand. Thus he
lay quietly through the noises of men working, but came awake at the
sound of men marching. He arose on his elbow and drew aside the flap of
his tent.

At the same instant Cazi Moto stopped outside. The usual formula ensued.

"_Hodie!_" called Cazi Moto.

"_Karibu_," replied Kingozi.

Thus Cazi Moto at once awakened and greeted his master, and Kingozi
acknowledged.

Cazi Moto entered the tent and lighted the tiny lantern, for it was
still an hour and a half until daylight.

"I hear men marching," said Kingozi.

Cazi Moto stopped.

"It is the safari of Bibi-ya-chui." Already Kingozi's nickname for her
had been adopted.

Cazi Moto disappeared, and a moment later was heard outside pouring
water into the canvas basin.

Instead of arising immediately, as was his ordinary custom, Kingozi lay
still. The Leopard Woman was already travelling! What could that mean?
She was certainly taking some chances hiking around thus in the dark.
Perhaps some aged or weak lion had not been permitted a share of that
rhinoceros. And again she was taking chances pushing out blindly with
over a hundred men into the aridity of the desert. Kingozi contemplated
this thought for some time. Then, making up his mind, he arose and
began to dress.

As he was drying his face Simba came for the guns, and a half-dozen of
the porters prepared to strike and furl the tent. Already the canvas
washstand had disappeared.

"Simba," observed Kingozi in English, of which language Simba knew but
three words, "she is no fool. She knows where there is water out
yonder; but it is water at least forty miles away. She's got to push
and push hard to make it, and that's why she's making so early a start.
I had a notion this 'country of the great Unknown' wasn't quite so
'unknown' as it might be."

He finished this speech coincidentally with the drying of his hands.
The impatient Cazi Moto snatched the towel deftly but respectfully and
packed it away. Simba, who had listened with deference until his
_bwana_ should finish this jargon, grinned.

"Yes, suh!" he used two of his English words at a bang.

Kingozi ate his breakfast by firelight. With the exception of his camp
chair and the eating service, the camp was by now all packed, and the
men were squatting before their fires waiting.

But there was a hitch. Kingozi called up Simba and began to question
him.

"You say the water is four hours' march?"

"Yes, _bwana_."

"Four hours for you, or four hours for laden men?"

"The safari can go in four hours, _bwana_."

"Is there game there?"

"No, _bwana_. It is a guarded water, and there is no game."

Kingozi considered.

"Very well. I want six men. Before the march we must get meat."

Some time since the flames of the African sunrise had spread to the
zenith, glowing and terrible as a furnace. Although the sky was thus
brilliantly illuminated, the earth, strangely enough, was still gray
with twilight. Objects fifty yards distant were indeterminate. Objects
farther away were lost. The light was daylight, but it was inadequate,
as though charged with mist.

And then suddenly the daylight was clear.

It was like the turning on by a switch. The dim shapes defined clearly,
becoming trees, rocks, distant hills. And almost immediately the rim of
the sun showed above the horizon.

Kingozi had already decided on the best direction in which to hunt.
Neither the direction taken by the Leopard Woman's safari nor the
immediate surroundings of the night's orgy over the rhino carcass was
desirable. The fact that the big water-hole below camp had not only
remained unvisited, but apparently even desired, led him to deduce the
existence of another, alternative, drinking place. He had yesterday
explored some distance downstream; therefore he now turned up.

Simba with the big rifle followed close at his heels. The six porters
stole along fifty yards in the rear. They were quite as anxious for
meat--promptly--as anybody, and were as unobtrusive as shadows.

For upward of a mile the hunters encountered nothing but a few dik-dik
and steinbuck--tiny grass antelope, too small for the purpose. Then a
shift of wind brought to them a medley of sound--a great persistent
barking of zebras supplying the main volume. At the same time they saw,
over a distant slight rise, a cloud of dust.

Simba's eyes were gleaming.

"Game! Much game there, _bwana!_" he cried.

"I see," replied Kingozi quietly.

The porters accompanied them to within a few rods of the top of the
rise. There they squatted, and the other two crawled up alone.

Below them, probably three hundred yards away, was a larger replica of
the other water-hole. At its edge and in its shallows stood a few
beasts. But the sun was now well above the horizon, the drinking time
was practically over.

Three long strings of game animals were walking leisurely away in three
different directions. They were proceeding soberly, in single file,
nose to tail. The ranks ran with scarcely a break, to disappear over
the low swells of the plain. Alongside the plodders skipped and ran,
rushed back and forth the younger, frivolous characters, kicking up
their heels, biting at one another, or lowering their horns in short
mimic charges--gay, animated flankers to the main army. There were
several sorts, each in its little companies or bands, many times
repeated, of from two or three to several score; although occasionally
strange assortments and companionships were to be seen, as a black,
shaggy-looking wildebeeste with a troop of kongoni. Kingozi saw,
besides these two, also the bigger and smaller gazelles, many zebra,
topi, the lordly eland; and, apart, a dozen giraffes, two rhinoceros,
and some warthogs. There were probably two thousand wild animals in
sight.

The hunters lay flat, watching. This multiplicity afforded them a
wonderful spectacle, but that was about all. If they should crawl three
yards farther they would indubitably be espied by some one. It was
impossible to single out a beast as the object of a stalk: all the
others must be considered, too. There was no cover.

Kingozi was too old at the business to hurry. He considered the
elements of his problem soberly before coming back to his first and
most obvious conclusion. Then he raised himself slowly to his favourite
sitting position and threw off the safety.

The distance was a fair three hundred yards, which is a long shot--when
it _is_ three hundred yards. The fireside and sporting magazine hunters
of big game are constantly hitting 'em through the heart at even
greater distances--estimated. It is actually a fact, proven many times,
that those estimates should be divided by two in order to get near the
measured truth! The "four hundred yards if it's an inch!" becomes two
hundred--and even two hundred yards at living game in natural
surroundings is a long and creditable shot.

In taking his aim Kingozi modified his usual custom because of the
distance. When one can get his beast broadside on, the most immediately
fatal shot is one high in the shoulder, about three-quarters of the way
up. That drops an animal dead in his tracks. The next best is a bullet
low in the shoulder. Third is a really accurate heart shot. This latter
is always fatal, of course; but ordinarily the quarry will run at
racing speed for some little distance before falling dead. In certain
types of country this means considerable tracking, may even mean the
loss of the animal. Next comes anywhere in the barrel forward of the
short ribs--a chancy proceeding, and one leading to long chases. After
that the likelihood of a cripple is too great.

Now it is evident that one must aim at what he can be sure of hitting.
The high shoulder shot is all right if the distance is so short that
one can be absolutely certain of placing his bullet within a six-inch
circle. Otherwise the chance of over-shooting--always great--becomes
prohibitive. The low shoulder shot increases the circle to from eight
to twelve inches, with the chance outside that of merely breaking a
foreleg, grazing brisket, or missing entirely under the neck. The heart
shot--or rather an attempt at it--is safer for a longer range, not
because the mark is larger, but because even if one misses the heart,
he is apt to land either the shoulder or the ribs well forward. The
only miss is beneath, and that is clear, as the heart is low in the
body. And at extreme ranges, the forward one-third of the barrel is the
point of aim. It should only rarely be attempted. Unless a man is
certain he can hit that mark, _every time_, he is not justified in
taking the shot.

This principle applies to every one: as well to the beginner as to the
expert. The only difference between the two is the range at which this
certainty exists. The tyro's limit of absolute certainty for the heart
shot may be--and probably is--a hundred yards; for the high shoulder it
may be as near as thirty. This takes into consideration his
inexperience in the presence of game as well as his inaccuracy with the
rifle, and it keeps in mind that he must hit that mark not merely nine
times out of ten, but _every time_. If he cannot get within the hundred
yards by stalking, then he should refuse the chance. As expertness
rises in the scale the distances increase. Provided there were no such
things as nerves, luck, faulty judgment, and the estimate of distances
one man should be as mercifully deadly as another. Naturally the man
who had to stalk to within a hundred yards would not get as many shots
as the one who could take his chance at two hundred. This conduct of
venery is an ideal that is only approximated. Hence misses.

But even if a man lives rigorously up to his principles and knowledge,
there are other elements that bring in uncertainty. For one thing, he
must be able to estimate distance with some degree of accuracy. It
avails little to know that you can hit a given mark at two hundred and
fifty yards, if you do not know what two hundred and fifty yards is.
And here enter a thousand deceits: direction of light, slope of ground,
nature of cover, temperature, mirage, time of day, and the like. An
apparent hundred yards over water or across a cañon would--were, by
some dissolving-view-change, bush-dotted plain to be
substituted--become nearer three hundred in the latter circumstances.
There is a limit to the best man's experience; a margin of error in the
best man's judgment. Hence more misses.

There is only one method for any man to acquire even this proximate
skill; and that requires long and patient practice. It is this: he
should sight over his rifle at a wild animal, noting carefully the
apparent relative size of the front sight-bead and the animal's body.
He should then pace the distance between himself and that animal. After
he has done this a hundred times, he will be able to make a pretty
close guess by marking how large the beast shows up through the sights.
That is, for that one species of game! In Central Africa, where in a
well-stocked district there are from twenty to thirty species, the
practice becomes more onerous. This same practice--of pacing the
distances--however, has also trained a man's eye for country. He is
able to supplement the front-sight method by the usual estimate by eye.
Most men do not take this trouble. They practise at target range until
they can hit the bull's-eye with fair regularity, miss with nearly
equal regularity in the hunting field, and thenceforth talk vaguely of
"missed him at five hundred yards." It must have been five hundred. The
beast looked very small, there was an awful lot of country between him
and it, and "I wasn't a bit rattled--cool as a cucumber--and I _know_ I
never miss an object of that size at any reasonable range." He was
right: he shot as deliberately as he ever did at the butts. He missed,
not because of the distance, but because he did not know the distance.
It was exactly the range at which he had done the most of his
practice--two hundred yards!

All these considerations have taken several pages to tell. Kingozi
weighed each one of them. Yet so long had been his experience, so
habitual had become his reactions, that his decision was made almost
instantly. A glance at the intervening ground, another through his
sights. The top of the bead covered half a zebra's shoulder. The
distance was not far under or over three hundred. Kingozi knew that,
barring sheer accident, he could hit his mark at that distance.

The animals meantime were moving forward slowly along the three
diverging trails. The last of them had left the water-hole. Kingozi
nodded to Simba. Simba, understanding from long association just what
was required of him, rose slowly and evenly to his feet.

The apparition of this strange figure on the skyline brought a score of
animals to a stand. They turned their heads, staring intently, making
up their minds, their nostrils wide. Kingozi, who had already picked
his beast and partially assured his aim, almost immediately squeezed
the trigger.

Over a second after the flat crack of the rifle a hollow _plunk_
indicated that the bullet had told. It was a strange sound,
unmistakable to one who has once heard it, much as though one brought a
drinking glass smartly, hollow down, into the surface of water.

[Illustration: "After the flat crack of the rifle a hollow _plunk_
indicated that the bullet had told"]

"Hah!" ejaculated Simba.

"Where?" asked Kingozi, who knew by long experience that Simba's sharp
eyes had noted the smallest particular of the beast's behaviour when
the bullet landed, and thence had already deduced its location.

Without removing his eyes, Simba indicated with his forefinger a shot
about midway of the ribs.

At the sound the rear guard of the animals raced madly away for about
seventy yards, whirled in a phalanx, and gazed back. Neither man moved.
Simba continued to stare, and Kingozi had lifted his prism glasses. A
tyro would have attempted to draw near for a finishing shot, and so
would probably have been let in for a long chase. A freshly wounded
animal, if kept moving, is capable of astonishing endurance. But these
two knew better than that. In a very few minutes the zebra, without
fright, without suffering--for a modern bullet benumbs--toppled over
dead. Again Simba raised his voice exultantly to the waiting porters.

"_Nyama! nyama!_" he shouted.

And they, racing eagerly forward, their faces illuminated with one of
the strongest joys the native knows, shouted back:

"_Nyama! nyama!_"

For another two days the provisioning was assured.



CHAPTER VIII


THE THIRST

The little safari made the distance to Simba's guarded water in a
trifle over the four hours. Camp was made high up on the kopje whence
the eye could carry to immense distances. The wall of mountains was now
nearer. Through his glasses Kingozi could distinguish rounded
foothills. He tried to make out whether certain dark patches were
groves or patches of bush--they might have been either--but was unable
to determine. Relative sizes did not exist. The mountains might be five
thousand feet tall or only a fifth of that. And by exactly that
proportion they might be a day's or a five days' journey distant!

Carefully Kingozi examined the length of the range. At length his
attention was arrested. A thread of smoke, barely distinguishable
against the gray of distance, rose within the shadow of the hills.

"Simba!" Kingozi summoned. Then, on the gun bearer's approach: "Look
through the glasses and tell me whether that smoke is a house or a fire
in the grass."

Simba accepted the glasses, but first took a good look with the naked
eye. He caught the location of the smoke almost at once. Then for a
full two minutes he stared through the lenses.

"It is a house, _bwana_," he decided.

As though the words had been a magic spell the mountains seemed in
Kingozi's imagination to diminish in size and to move forward. They had
assured a definite proportion, a definite position. Their distance
could be estimated.

"And how far?" he asked.

"Very far, _bwana_," replied Simba gravely, "eleven hours; twelve
hours."

Kingozi reflected. The safari of the Leopard Woman had passed the kopje
not over a mile away; indeed Kingozi had left her trail only a short
distance back. On the supposition that she was well informed, it seemed
unlikely that she could expect to make the whole distance from the last
camp to the mountains in one march. Therefore there must be another
water between. In that case, if Kingozi followed her tracks, he would
arrive at that water. On the other supposition--that she was striking
recklessly into the unknown--well, all the more reason for following
her tracks!

They commenced their journey before daylight the following morning.
Each man was instructed to fill his water bottle; and the instructions
were rigidly enforced. In the darkness they stumbled down the gentle
slopes of the kopjes, each steering by the man ahead, and Kingozi
steering by the stars. The veldt was still, as though all the silences,
driven from those portions inhabited by the beasts, had here made their
refuge. The earth lay like a black pool becalmed. Overhead the stars
blazed clearly, slowly faded, and gave way to the dawn. The men spoke
rarely, and then in low voices.

Kingozi led the way steadily, without hurrying, but without loitering.
Daylight came: the sun blazed. The country remained the same in
character. Behind them the kopje dwindled in importance until it took
its place with insignificant landmarks. The mountains ahead seemed no
nearer.

At the end of three hours, by the watch Kingozi carried on his wrist,
he called the first halt. The men laid down their loads, and sprawled
about in abandon. Kingozi produced a pipe.

The rest lasted a full half hour. Then two hours more of marching, and
another rest. By now a normal day's march would be about over. But this
was different. Kingozi rigidly adhered to the plan for all forced
marches of this kind: three hours, a half-hour's rest; then two hours,
a half-hour's rest; and after that march and rest as the men can stand
it, according to their strength and condition.

This latter is the cruel period. At first the ranks hold together.
Then, in spite of the efforts of the headman to bring up the rear, the
weaker begin to fall back. They must rest oftener, they go on with
ever-increasing difficulty. The strong men ahead become impatient and
push on. The safari is no longer a coherent organization, but an
aggregate of units, each with his own problem of weariness, of thirst,
finally of suffering. More and more stretches the distance between the
_bwana_ and his headman.

No native of the porter intelligence has the slightest forethought for
the morrow, and very little for the day. If it is hot and he has
started early, his water bottle is empty by noon.

This wise program Kingozi entered upon carefully. The three hours'
march went well; the two hours followed with every one strong and
cheerful; then two hours more without trouble. Kingozi's men were
picked, and hard as nails. By now it was one o'clock; coming the
hottest part of the day. The power of the vertical sun attained its
maximum. Kingozi felt as though a heavy hand had been laid upon his
head and was pressing him down. The mirage danced and changed, its
illusions succeeding one another momently as the successive veils of
heat waves shimmered upward. Reflected heat scorched his face. His
spirit retired far into its fastness, taking with it all his energies.
From that withdrawn inner remoteness he doled out the necessary
vitality parsimoniously, drop by drop. Deliberately he withdrew his
attention from the unessentials. Not a glance did he vouchsafe to the
prospect far or near; not a thought did he permit himself of
speculation or of wandering interest. His sole job now was to plod on
at an even gait, to keep track of time, to follow the spoor of the
Leopard Woman's safari, to save himself for later. If he had spared any
thought at all, it would have been self-congratulation that Simba and
Cazi Moto were old and tried. For Simba relieved him of the necessity
of watching for dangerous beasts, and Cazi Moto of the responsibility
of keeping account of the men.

At the rest periods Kingozi sat down on the ground. Then in the
relaxation his intelligence emerged. He took stock of the situation.

Mali-ya-bwana and nine others were always directly at his heels. They
dropped their loads and grinned cheerfully at their _bwana_, their
bronze faces gleaming as though polished. If only they were all like
this! Then perhaps five minutes later a smaller group came in, strongly
enough. The first squad shouted ridiculing little jokes at them; and
they shrieked back spirited repartee, whacking their loads vigorously
with their safari sticks. These, too, would cause no anxiety. But then
Kingozi sat up and began to take notice. The men drifted in by twos and
threes. Kingozi scrutinized them closely, trying to determine the state
of their strength and the state of their spirit. And after twenty
minutes, or even the full half hour allotted to the rest period, Cazi
Moto came in driving before him seven men.

The wizened little headman was as cheerful and lively and vigorous as
ever. He, too, grinned, but his eyes held a faint anxiety, and he had
shifted his closed umbrella to his left hand and held the _kiboko_ in
his right. At the fifth rest period five of the seven men stumbled
wearily in; but Cazi Moto and the other two did not appear before
Kingozi ordered a resumption of the march.

But the mountains had moved near. When this had happened Kingozi could
not have told. It was between two rest periods. From an immense
discouraging distance, they towered imminent. It seemed that a
half-hour's easy walk should take them to the foothills. Yet not a man
there but knew that this nearness was exactly as deceitful as the
distance had been before.

The afternoon wore on. Kingozi's canteen was all but empty, though he
had drunk sparingly, a swallow at a time. His tongue was slightly
swollen. The sun had him to a certain extent; so that, although he
could rouse himself at will, nevertheless, he moved mechanically in a
sort of daze.

He heard Simba's voice; and brought himself into focus.

The gun bearer was staring at something on the ground. Kingozi followed
the direction of his gaze. Before him lay a dead man.

It was one of the common porters--a tall, too slender savage, with
armlets of polished iron, long, ropy hair--a typical _shenzi_. His load
was missing: evidently one of the _askaris_ had taken it up.

Kingozi's safari filed by, each man gazing in turn without expression
at the huddled heap. Only Maulo, the camp jester, hurled a facetious
comment at the corpse. Thereupon all the rest laughed after the
strange, heartless custom of the African native. Or is it heartless? We
do not know.

The day's march had passed through the phase of coordinated action. It
was now the duty of each man to get in if he could. It was Kingozi's
duty to arrive first, and to arrange succour for Cazi Moto and those
whom he drove.

Twenty minutes beyond the dead man they came upon three porters sitting
by the wayside. They were men in the last extremity of thirst and
exhaustion, their eyes wide and vacant, their tongues so swollen that
their teeth were held apart. Nothing was to be done here, so Kingozi
marched by.

Then he came upon a half-dozen bags of _potio_. They were thrown down
pellmell, anyhow; so that Kingozi concluded they had been
surreptitiously thrown away, and not temporarily abandoned with intent
to return for them.

After that the trail resembled the traces of a rout. Every few yards
now were the evidences of desperation: loads of _potio_, garments,
water bottles emptied and cast aside in a gust of passion at their
emptiness. At intervals also they passed more men, gaunt, incredibly
cadaverous, considering that only the day before they had been strong
and well. They sat or lay inert, watching the safari pass, their eyes
apathetic. Kingozi paid no attention to them, nor to the loads of
_potio_, nor to the garments and accoutrements; but he caused Simba to
gather the water bottles. After a time Simba was hung about on all
sides, and resembled at a short distance some queer conical monster.

Then they topped the bank of a wide shallow dry streambed and saw the
remnants of other safari below them.

The Leopard Woman sat on a tent load. Even at this distance her erect
figure expressed determination and defiance. The Nubian squatted beside
her. Men lay scattered all about in attitudes of abandon and
exhaustion; yet every face was turned in her direction.

Kingozi descended the bank and approached, his experienced eye
registering every significant detail.

She turned to him a face lowering like a thundercloud, her eyes
flashing the lightnings, her lips scarlet and bitten. Kingozi noted the
bloodied _kiboko_.

"They won't go on!" she cried at him harshly. "I can't make them! It is
death for them here, but all they will do is to sit down! It is
maddening! If they must die----"

She leaped to her feet and drew an automatic pistol.

"_Bandika!_" she cried. "Take your loads! Quickly!"

She threatened the man nearest her. He merely stared, his expression
dull with the infinite remoteness of savage people. Without further
parley she fired. Although the distance was short, she missed, the
bullet throwing up a spurt of sand beneath the man's armpit. He did not
stir, nor did his face change.

Kingozi's bent form had straightened. An authority, heretofore latent,
flashed from his whole personality.

"Stop!" he commanded.

She turned toward him a look of convulsed rage. Then suddenly her
resistance to circumstances broke. She hurled the automatic pistol at
the porter, and flopped down on the tent load, hiding her face in her
hands.

Kingozi paid her no further attention.

"Simba!" he called.

"Yes, suh!"

"Take one man. Collect all water bottles. Take a lantern. Go as rapidly
as you can to find water. Fill all the bottles and bring them back.
There are people in the hills. There will be people near the water. Get
them to help you carry back the water bottles."

Simba selected Mali-ya-bwana to accompany him, but this did not meet
Kingozi's ideas.

"I want that man," said he.

Simba and one of the other leading porters started away. Kingozi gave
his attention to the members of the other safari.

They sat and sprawled in all attitudes. But one thing was common to
all: a dead sullenness.

"Why do you not obey the _memsahib?_" Kingozi asked in a reasonable
tone.

No one answered for some time. Finally the man who had been shot at
replied.

"There is no water. We are very tired. We cannot go on without water."

"How can you get water if you do not go on?"

"_Hapana shauri yangu_," replied the man indifferently, uttering the
fatalistic phrase that rises to the lips of the savage African almost
automatically, unless his personal loyalty has been won--"that is not
my affair." He brooded on the ground for a space then looked up. "It is
the business of porters to carry loads; it is the business of the white
man to take care of the porters." And in that he voiced the philosophy
of this human relation. The porters had done their job: not one inch
beyond it would they go. The white woman had brought them here: it was
now her _shauri_ to get them out.

"You see!" cried the Leopard Woman bitterly. "What can you do with such
idiots!"

Kingozi directed toward her his slow smile.

"Yes, I see. Do you remember I asked you once when you were boasting
your efficiency, whether you had ever tried your men? Your work was
done smartly and well--better than my work was done. But my men will
help me in a fix, and yours will not."

"You are quite a preacher," she rejoined. "And you are exasperating.
Why don't you do something?"

"I am going to," replied Kingozi calmly.

He called Mali-ya-bwana to him.

"Talk to these _shenzis_," said he.

Mali-ya-bwana talked. His speech was not eloquent, nor did it flatter
the Leopard Woman, but it was to the point.

"My _bwana_ is a great lord," said he. "He is master of all things. He
fights the lion, he fights the elephant. Nothing causes him to be
afraid. He is not foolish, like a woman. He knows the water, the sun,
the wind. When he speaks it is wisdom. Those who do what he says follow
wisdom. _Bassi!_"

Immediately this admonition was finished Kingozi issued his first
command:

"Bring all loads to this place."

Nobody stirred at first.

"My loads, the loads of Bibi-ya-chui--all to this place."

Mali-ya-bwana and the other fourteen of Kingozi's safari who were now
present brought their loads up and began to pile them under Kingozi's
direction.

"Quickly!" called Kingozi in brisk, cheerful tones. "The water is not
far, but the day is nearly gone. We must march quickly, even without
loads."

The import of the command began to reach the other porters. This white
man did not intend to camp here then--where there was no water! He did
not mean to make them march with loads! He knew! He was a great lord,
and wise, as Mali-ya-bwana had said! One or two arose wearily and
stiffly, and dragged their loads to the pile. Others followed.
Kingozi's men helped the weakest. Kingozi himself worked hard,
arranging the loads, covering them with tarpaulins, weighting the edges.

His intention reached also the Leopard Woman. She watched proceedings
without comment for some time. Then she saw something that raised her
objection.

"I shall want that box," she announced. "Leave that one out. And that
is my tent being brought up now."

Apparently Kingozi did not hear her. He bestowed the box in a space
left for it, and piled the two tent loads atop. The Leopard Woman arose
and glided to his side.

"That box----" she began.

"I heard you," replied Kingozi politely, "but it will really be
impossible to carry anything at all."

"That box is indispensable to me," she insisted haughtily.

"You have no men strong enough to carry a load: and mine will need all
the strength they have left before they get in."

He went on arranging the loads under the tarpaulins.

"Those loads are my tent," she said, as Kingozi turned away.

"We cannot take them."

Her eyes flashed. She whirled with the evident intention of issuing her
commands direct. Kingozi's weary, slow indifference fell from him. In
one bound he faced her, his chin thrust forward. His blue eyes had
focussed into a cold, level stare.

"Don't dare interfere!" he ordered. "If you attempt it, I shall order
you restrained--physically. Understand? I do not know how far you
intend to travel--or where; but if you value your future authority and
prestige with your own men, do not make yourself a spectacle before
them."

"You would not dare!" she panted.

The tenseness relaxed. Kingozi became again the slow-moving, slouching,
indifferent figure of his everyday habit.

"Oh, I can dare almost anything--when I have to. You do not seem to
understand. You have come a cropper--a bad one. Left to yourselves you
are all going to die here. If I am to help you to your feet, I must do
it without interference. I think we shall get through: but I am not at
all certain. Go and sit down and save your strength."

"I hate you!" she flashed. "I'd rather die here than accept your help!
I command you to leave me!"

"Bless you!" said Kingozi, as though this were a new thought. "I wasn't
thinking especially of _you_; I am sorry for your boys."

Mali-ya-bwana, under his directions, had undone the loads containing
the lanterns. Everything seemed now ready for the start. All of
Kingozi's safari had arrived except Cazi Moto and five men.

"Have you any water left?" Kingozi asked the Leopard Woman.

She stared straight ahead of her, refusing to answer. Unperturbed,
Kingozi turned to the Nubian.

"Which is _memsahib's_ canteen?"

The Nubian silently indicated two of the three hung on his person.
Kingozi shook them, and found them empty. His own contained still about
a pint, and this he poured into one of hers. She appeared not to notice
the act.

The march was resumed. Mali-ya-bwana was instructed to lead the way
following the scraped places on the earth, the twigs bent over, and the
broken branches by which Simba had marked his route for them. Kingozi
himself brought up the rear. Reluctantly, apathetically, the Leopard
Woman's men got to their feet. Kingozi was everywhere, urging,
encouraging, shaming, joking, threatening, occasionally using the
_kiboko_ he had taken from one of the _askaris_. At last all were under
way. The Leopard Woman sat still on the load, the Nubian crouched at
her back. The long, straggling, staggering file of men crawled up the
dry bank and disappeared one by one over the top. Each figure for a
moment was silhouetted against the sky, for the sun was low. Kingozi
toiled up the steep, his head bent forward. In his turn he, too, stood
black and massive on the brink, the outline of his powerful stooped
shoulders gold-rimmed in light. She watched him feverishly, awaiting
from him some sign that he realized her existence, that he cared
whether or not she was left behind. He did not look back. In a moment
he had disappeared. The prospect was empty of human life.

She arose. For an instant her face was convulsed with a fairly demoniac
fury. Then a mask of blankness obliterated all expression. She followed.



CHAPTER IX


ON THE PLATEAU

Two hours into the night Kingozi, following in the rear, saw a cluster
of lights, and shortly came to a compact group of those who had gone
before him. They were drinking eagerly from water bottles. Simba,
lantern in hand, stood nearby. A number of savages carrying crude
torches hovered around the outskirts. Kingozi could not make out the
details of their appearance: only their eyeballs shining. He drew Simba
to one side.

"There are many _shenzis_?"

"Many, like the leaves of the grass, _bwana_."

"The huts are far?"

"One hour, _bwana_, in the hills."

"These _shenzis_ are good?"--meaning friendly.

"_Bwana_, the _sultani_ of these people is a great lord. He has many
people, and much riches. He has told, his people to come with me. He
prepares the guest house for you."

"Tired, Simba?"

"It has been a long path since sunup, _bwana_. But I had water, and the
people gave me _potio_ and meat. I am strong."

"Cazi Moto is back there--in the Thirst," suggested Kingozi, "and many
others. And there is no water."

"I will go, _bwana_, and take the _shenzis_ with me."

He set about gathering the water bottles and gourds that had not been
emptied. Mali-ya-bwana and, unexpectedly, a big Kavirondo of Kingozi's
safari, volunteered. The rest prepared to continue the journey.

But another delay occurred. The Leopard Woman, who had walked
indomitably, now collapsed. Her eyes were sunken in her head, her lips
had paled; only the long white oval of her face recalled her former
splendid and exotic beauty. When the signal to proceed was given, she
stepped forward as firmly as ever for perhaps a dozen paces, then her
knees crumpled under her.

"I'm afraid I'm done," she muttered to Kingozi.

In the latter's eyes, for the first time, shone a real and ungrudging
admiration. He knelt at her side and felt her pulse. Without
hesitation, and in the most matter-of-fact way, he unbuttoned her
blouse to the waist and tore apart the thin chemise beneath.

"Water," he commanded.

With the wetted end of his neck scarf he beat her vigorously below the
left breast. After a little she opened her eyes.

"That's better," said Kingozi, and began clumsily to rebutton her
blouse.

A slow colour rose to her face as she realized in what manner she had
been exposed, and she snatched her garments together. Kingozi, watching
her closely, seemed to see in this only a satisfactory symptom.

"That's right; now you're about again. Blood going once more."

They proceeded. A man on either side supported the Leopard Woman's
steps.

Shortly the hills closed around them. The dark velvet masses compassed
them about, and the starry sky seemed suddenly to have been thrust
upward a million miles. The open plain narrowed to a track along which
they groped single file. They caught the sound of running water to
their left; but far below. There seemed no end to it.

But then, unexpectedly, they found themselves on a plateau, with the
mass of the mountains on one side and the sea of night on the other, as
though it might be the spacious deck of a ship. A multitude of people
swarmed about them, shining naked people, who stared; and there seemed
to be huts with conical roofs, and a number of little winking fires
that shifted position. The people led the way to a circular hut of good
size, with a conical thatched roof and wattle walls. Kingozi stooped
his head, thrusting the lantern inside. The interior had been swept. A
huge earthen tub full of water stood by the door. The place contained
no other furnishings.

"Bring the _memsahib_ here," he commanded.

She was half dragged forward. Kingozi took her in his arms to prevent
her falling.

"Bring grass," he ordered.

The request was repeated outside in Swahili, and turned into a strange
tongue. Kingozi heard many feet hurrying away.

He stood supporting the half-fainting form of the Leopard Woman. Her
head rested against his shoulder. Her eyes were closed, her muscles had
all gone slack, so that her body felt soft and warm. Kingozi, waiting,
remembered her as she had looked the evening of his call--silk-clad,
lithe, proud, with blood-red lips, and haughty, fathomless eyes, and
the single jewel that hung in the middle of her forehead. Somehow at
this moment she seemed smaller, in her safari costume, and helpless,
and pathetic. He felt the curve of her breast against him, and the
picture of her as he had seen her out there in the Thirst arose before
his eyes. At that time it had not registered: he was too busy about
serious things. But now, while he waited, the incident claimed,
belated, his senses. His antagonism, or distrust, or coldness, or
suspicion, or indifference, or whatever had hardened him, disappeared.
He stared straight before him at the lantern, allowing these thoughts
and sensations to drift through him. Subconsciously he noted that the
lamp flame showed a halo, or rather two halos, one red and one green.
By experience he knew that this portended one of his stabbing headaches
through the eyes. But the thought did not hold him. He contemplated
unwaveringly the spectacle of this soft, warm, helpless but indomitable
piece of femininity fronting the African wilderness unafraid.
Unconsciously his arms tightened around her, drawing her to him. She
gave no sign. Her form was limp. Apparently she was either half asleep
or in a stupor. But had Kingozi looked down when he tightened his arms,
instead of staring at the halo-encircled lantern, he would have seen
her glance sidewise upward into his face, he would have discerned a
fleeting smile upon her lips.

Almost immediately the people were back with armfuls of the long grass
that grows on the edge of mountainous country. Under Kingozi's
directions they heaped it at one side. He assisted the Leopard Woman to
this improvised couch and laid her upon it. She seemed to drop
instantly asleep.

They brought more grass and piled it in another place. Mali-ya-bwana
superintended these activities zealously. He had drunk his fill, had
bolted a chunk of goat's flesh one of the savages had handed him, now
he was ready to fulfil his _bwana's_ commands.

"You will eat?" he asked.

But Kingozi was not hungry. His strong desire was for a tall _balauri_
of hot tea, but this could not be. He knew it Was unsafe to drink the
water unboiled--it is unsafe to drink any African water unboiled--but
this time it could not be helped. He was not even very tired, though
his eyes burned. There was nothing more to do. Kingozi knew that Simba
and Cazi Moto would not attempt to come in.

They now had both food and water, and would camp somewhere out on the
plain.

"I will sleep," he decided.

Mali-ya-bwana at once thrust the savages outside, without ceremony,
peremptorily. When the _bwana_ of an African belonging to the safari
class wants anything, the latter gets it for him. The headman of the
author of these lines went single handed and stopped in its very
inception a royal _n'goma_, or dance, to which men had come a day's
journey, merely because his _bwana_ wanted to sleep! Kingozi was here
alone, in a strange country, for the moment helpless; but Mali-ya-bwana
hustled the tribesmen out as brusquely as though a regiment were at his
back. Which undoubtedly had its effect.

Kingozi sat down on the straw and blew out his lantern. The wattle
walls were not chinked; so the sweet night wind blew through freely;
and elusively he saw stars against the night. The Leopard Woman
breathed heavily in little sighs. He was not sleepy. Then everything
went black----


When Kingozi awakened it was full daylight. A varied murmur came
happily from outside, what the Africans call a _kalele_--a compound of
chatter, the noise of occupation, of movement, the inarticulate voice
of human existence. He glanced across the hut. The Leopard Woman was
gone.

"Boy!" he shouted.

At the sound of his voice the _kalele_ ceased. Almost immediately Cazi
Moto stooped to enter the doorway. Cazi Moto was dressed in clean
khaki, and bore in his hand a _balauri_ of steaming tea. Kingozi seized
this and drained it to the bottom.

"That is good," he commented gratefully. "I did not expect to see you,
Cazi Moto. Did all the men get in?"

"Yes, _bwana_."

"_Vema!_ And the men of the Leopard Woman?"

"Many died, _bwana_; but many are here."

Kingozi arose to his feet.

"I must have food. These _shenzis_ eat what?"

"Food is ready, _bwana_."

"I will eat. Then we must make _shauri_ with these people to get our
loads. My men must rest to-day."

"Come, _bwana_," said Cazi Moto.

Kingozi stooped to pass through the door. When he straightened outside,
he paused in amazement. Before him stood his camp, intact. The green
tent with the fly faced him, the flaps thrown back to show within his
cot and tin box. White porters' tents had been pitched in the usual
circle, and before each squatted men cooking over little fires. The
loads, covered by the tarpaulin, had been arranged in the centre of the
circle. At a short distance to the rear the cook camp steamed.

Cazi Moto stood at his elbow grinning.

"Hot water ready, _bwana_," said he; and for the first time Kingozi
noticed that he carried a towel over his arm.

"This is good, very good, Cazi Moto!" said he. "_Backsheeshi m'kubwa_
for this; both for you and for Simba."

"Thank you, _bwana_," said Gaza Moto. "Simba brought the water, and it
saved us; and I thought that my _bwana_ should not sleep on grass a
second time before these _shenzis_."

"Who carried in the loads? Not our porters?"

"No, _bwana_, the _shenzis_."

Kingozi glanced at his wrist watch. It was only ten o'clock. "When?"

"Last night."

"They went back last night?"

"Yes, _bwana_. Mali-ya-bwana considered that it was bad to leave the
loads. There might be hyenas--or the _shenzis_----"

Kingozi slapped his thigh with satisfaction. This was a man after his
own heart.

"Call Mali-ya-bwana," he ordered.

The tall Baganda approached.

"Mali-ya-bwana," said Kingozi. "You have done well. For this you shall
have _backsheeshi_. But more. You need not again carry a load. You will
be--" he hesitated, trying to invent an office, but reluctant to
infringe upon the prerogatives of either Simba or Cazi Moto. "You will
be headman of the porters; and you, Cazi Moto, will be headman of all
the safari, and my own man besides."

The Baganda drew himself erect, his face shining. Placing his bare
heels together, he raised his hand in a military salute. Kingozi was
about to dismiss him, but this arrested his intention.

"Where did you learn to do that?" he asked sharply.

"I was once in the King's African Rifles."[7]

[Footnote 7: Only, of course, Mali-ya-bwana gave the native name for
these troops.]

"You can shoot, then?"

"Yes, _bwana_."

"Good!" commented Kingozi thoughtfully. Then after a moment: "_Bassi_."

Mali-ya-bwana saluted once more and departed. Kingozi turned toward his
tent.

It had been pitched under a huge tree, with low, massive limbs and a
shade that covered a diameter of fully sixty yards. Before it the usual
table had been made of piled-up chop boxes, and to this Cazi Moto was
bearing steaming dishes. The threatened headache had not materialized,
and Kingozi was feeling quite fit. He was ravenously hungry, for now
his system was rested enough to assimilate food. His last meal had been
breakfast before sunup of the day before. Without paying even casual
attention to his surroundings he seated himself on a third chop box and
began to eat.

Kingozi's methods of eating had in them little of the epicure. He
simply ate all he wanted of the first things set before him. After this
he drank all he wanted from the tall _balauri_. Second courses did not
exist for Kingozi. Then with a sigh of satisfaction, he fumbled for his
pipe and tobacco, and looked about him.

The guest house had been built, as was the custom, a little apart from
the main village. The latter was evidently around the bend of the hill,
for only three or four huts were to be seen, perched among the huge
outcropping boulders that were, apparently, characteristic of these
hills. The mountains rose rather abruptly, just beyond the plateau;
which, in turn, fell away almost as abruptly to the sweep of the
plains. The bench was of considerable width--probably a mile at this
point. It was not entirely level; but on the other hand not
particularly broken. A number of fine, symmetrical trees of unknown
species grew at wide intervals, overtopping a tangle of hedges, rank
bushes, vines, and shrubs that appeared to constitute a rough sort of
boundary between irregular fields. A tiny swift stream of water hurried
by between the straight banks of an obviously artificial ditch.

But though the village was hidden from view, its inhabitants were not.
They had invaded the camp. Kingozi examined them keenly, with
curiosity. Naked little boys and girls wandered gravely about; women
clung together in groups; men squatted on their heels before anything
that struck their attention, and stared.

These people, Kingozi noted, were above middle size, of a red bronze,
of the Semitic rather than the Hamitic type, well developed but not
obviously muscular, of a bright and lively expression. The women shaved
their heads quite bare; the men left a sort of skull cap of hair atop
the head. Earlobes were pierced and stretched to hold ivory ornaments
running up to the size of a jampot. There were some, but not many,
armlets, leglets, and necklets of iron wire polished to the appearance
of silver. The women wore brief skirts of softened skins: the men
carried a short shoulder cape, or simply nothing at all. Each man bore
a long-bladed heavy spear. Before squatting down in front of whatever
engaged his attention for the moment, the savage thrust this upright in
the ground. Kingozi, behind his pipe, considered them well: and
received a favourable impression. An immovable, unblinking semicircle
crouched at a respectful distance taking in every detail of the white
man's appearance and belongings, watching his every move. Nobody spoke;
apparently nobody even winked.

Now appeared across the prospect two men walking. One was an elderly
savage, with a wrinkled, shrewd countenance. He was almost completely
enveloped in a robe of softened skins. Followed him a younger man,
dangling at the end of a thong a small three-legged stool cut entire
from a single block of wood. The old man swept forward with
considerable dignity; the younger, one hand held high in the most
affected fashion, teetered gracefully along as mincingly as any dandy.

The visitor came superbly up to where Kingozi sat, and uttered a
greeting in Swahili. He proved to possess a grand, deep, thunderous
voice.

"_Jambo!_" he rolled.

Kingozi stared up at him coolly for a moment; then, without removing
his pipe from his teeth, he remarked:

"_Jambo!_"

The old man, smiling, extended his hand.[8]

[Footnote 8: Many African tribes shake hands in one way or another.]

Kingozi, nursing the bowl of his pipe, continued to stare up at him.

"Are you the _sultani?_" he demanded abruptly.

The old man waved his hand in courtly fashion.

"I am not the _sultani_," he answered in very bad Swahili; "I am the
headman of the _sultani_."

Kingozi continued to stare at him in the most uncompromising manner. In
the meantime the younger man had loosed the thong from his wrist and
had placed the stool on a level spot. The prime minister to the
_sultani_ arranged his robe preparatory to sitting down.

Kingozi removed his pipe from his lips, and sat erect.

"Stand up!" he commanded sharply. "If you are not the _sultani_ how
dare you sit down before me!"

The youth whisked the stool away: the old man covered his discomfiture
in a flow of talk. Kingozi listened to him in silence. The visitor
concluded his remarks which--as far as they could be understood--were
entirely general: and, with a final courtly wave of the hand, turned
away. Then Kingozi spoke, abruptly, curtly.

"Have your people bring me eggs," he said, "milk, _m'wembe_."[9]

[Footnote 9: A sort of flour ground from rape seeds.]

The old man, somewhat abashed, made the most dignified retreat possible
through the keenly attentive audience of his own people.

Kingozi gazed after him, his blue eyes wide with their peculiar
aggressive blank stare. A low hum of conversation swept through the
squatting warriors. Those who understood Swahili murmured eagerly to
those who did not. These uttered politely the long drawn "A-a-a-a!" of
savage interest.

"Cazi Moto, where is my chair?" Kingozi demanded, abruptly conscious
that the chop box was not very comfortable.

"Bibi-ya-chui has it."

"Where is she?"

"Right behind you," came that young woman's voice in amused tones. "You
have been so busy that you have not seen me."

Kingozi turned. The chair had been placed in a bare spot close to the
trunk of the great tree. He grinned cheerfully.

"I was pretty hungry," he confessed, "and I don't believe I saw a
single thing but that curry!"

[Footnote 9: A sort of flour ground from rape seeds.]

"Naturally. It is not to be wondered at. Are you all rested?"

"I'm quite fit, thanks. And you?"

She was still in her marching costume; but her hair had been smoothed,
her face washed. The colour had come back to her lips, the light to her
expression. Only a faint dark encircling of the eyes, and a certain
graceful languor of attitude recalled the collapse of yesterday.

"Oh, I am all right; but perishing for a cigarette. Have you one?"

"Sorry, but I don't use them. Are not all your loads up yet?"

"None of them."

"Well, they should be in shortly. Cazi Moto has given you breakfast, of
course."

"Yes. But nobody has yet gone for my loads."

"What!" exclaimed Kingozi sharply. "Why did you not start men for them
when you first awakened?"

She smiled at him ruefully.

"I tried. But they said they were very tired from yesterday. They would
not go."

"Simba!" called Kingozi.

"Suh!"

"Bring the headman of Bibi-ya-chui. Is he that mop-headed blighter?" he
asked her.

"Who? Oh, the Nubian, Chaké. No; he is just a faithful creature near
myself. I have no headman."

"Who takes your orders, then?"

"The _askaris_."

"Which one?"

"Any of them." She made a mouth. "Don't look at me in that fashion. Is
that so very dreadful?"

"It's impossible. You can never run a safari in that way. Simba, bring
all the _askaris_."

Simba departed on his errand. Kingozi turned to her gravely.

"Dear lady," said he gravely, "I am going to offend you again. But this
won't do. You are a wonderful woman; but you do not know this game well
enough. I acknowledge you will handle this show ordinarily in tiptop
style; but in a new country, in contact with new peoples--it's a
specialist's job, that's all."

"I'm beginning to think so," she replied with unexpected humility.

"Already you've lost control of your organization: you nearly died from
lack of water--By the way, why didn't you push ahead with your Nubian,
and find the water?"

"I had to get my men on."

He looked on her with more approval.

"Well, you're safe out of it. And now, I beg of you, don't do it any
more."

"Is my little scolding all done?" she asked after a pause.

"Forgive me. I did not mean it as a scolding."

She sat upright and rested her elbows on her knees, her chin in her
hands. Her long sea-green eyes softened.

"Listen: I deserve that what you say. I thought I knew, because always
I have travelled in a good country. But never the hell of a dry
country. I want you to know that you are quite right, and I want to
tell you that I know you saved me and my men: and I would not know what
to do now if you were not here to help me. There!" she made a pretty
outward-flinging gesture. "Is that enough?"

Kingozi, like most men whose natural efficiency has been hardened by
wide experience, while impervious to either open or wily antagonism,
melted at the first hint of surrender. A wave of kindly feeling
overwhelmed the last suspicions--absurd suspicions--his analysis had
made. He was prevented from replying by the approach of Simba at the
head of eight of the _askaris_. They slouched along at his heels,
sullen and careless, but when they felt the impact of Kingozi's cold
glare, they straightened to attention. Kingozi ran his eye over them.

"Where are the other four?" he demanded.

"Three are in the _shenzis'_ village. One says he is very tired."

"Take Mali-ya-bwana and Cazi Moto. Take the leg chains. Bring that one
man before me with the chains on him. Have him bring also his gun; and
his cartridges."

Ignoring the waiting eight, Kingozi resumed his conversation with the
Leopard Woman.

"They are out of hand," said he. "We must impress them."

"_Kiboko?_" she inquired.

"Perhaps--but you have rather overdone that. We shall see."

"I heard you talk with that old man a few moments ago," she said. "And
I heard also much talk of our men about it. He is a very powerful
chief--next to the _sultani_. Are not you afraid that your treatment of
him will make trouble? You were not polite."

"What else have you heard?"

"This _sultani_ has apparently several hundred villages. They keep
goats, fat-tailed sheep, and some few cattle. They raise _m'wembe_,
beans, peanuts, and bananas. They have a war caste of young men."

Kingozi listened to her attentively.

"Good girl!" said he. "You use your intelligence. These are all good
points to know."

"But this old man----"

"No; I have not insulted him. I know the native mind. I have merely
convinced him that I am every bit as important a person as his
_sultani_."

"What do you do next? Call on the _sultani_."

"By no means. Wait until he comes. If he does not come by, say
to-morrow, send for him."

Simba appeared leading a downcast _askari_ in irons. Kingozi waved his
hand toward those waiting in the sun; and the new captive made the
ninth.

"Now, Simba, go to the village of these _shenzis_. Tell the other three
_askaris_ to come; and at once. Do not return without them."

Simba, whose fierce soul all this delighted beyond expression, started
off joyfully, trailed by a posse of his own choosing.

"What are you going to do?" asked the Leopard Woman curiously.

"Get them in line a bit," replied Kingozi carelessly. "I feel rather
lazy and done up to-day; don't you?"

"That is so natural. And I am keeping your chair----"

"I've been many trips without one. This tree is good to lean
against----"

They chatted about trivial matters. A certain ease had crept into their
relations: a guard had been lowered. To a small extent they ventured to
question each other, to indulge in those tentative explorations of
personality so fascinating in the early stages of acquaintanceship. To
her inquiries Kingozi repeated that he was an ivory hunter and trader;
he came into this country because new country alone offered profits in
ivory these days; he had been in Africa for fifteen years. At this last
she looked him over closely.

"You came out very young," she surmised.

"When my father took me out of the medical school to put me into the
ministry. I had a knack for doctoring. I ran away."

"Why did you come to Africa?"

"Didn't particularly. Started for Iceland on a whaling ship. Sailed the
seven seas after the brutes. Landed on the Gold Coast--and got left
behind."

She looked at him hard, and he laughed.

"'Left' with my kit and about sixty pounds I had hung on to since I
left home--my own money, mind you! _And_ a harpoon gun! Lord!" he
laughed again, "think of it--a harpoon gun! You loaded it with about a
peck of black powder. Normally, of course, it shot a harpoon, but you
could very near cram a nigger baby down it! And kick! If you were the
least bit off balance it knocked you flat. It was the most
extraordinary cannon ever seen in Africa, and it inspired more respect,
acquired me more _kudos_ than even my beard."

"So _that's_ why you wear it!" she murmured.

"What?"

"Nothing; go on."

"Just the sight of that awe-inspiring piece of ordnance took me the
length of the Congo without the least difficulty."

"Tell me about the Congo."

Apparently, at this direct and comprehensive question, there was
nothing to tell about the Congo. But adroitly she drew him on. He told
of the great river and its people, and the white men who administered
it. The subject of cannibals seemed especially to fascinate her. He had
seen living human beings issued as a sort of ration on the hoof to
native cannibal troops.

Simba returned with the other three _askaris_.

Kingozi arose from the ground and stretched himself.

"I'm sorry," said he, "I'm afraid I shall have to ask you for the chair
now."

She arose, wondering a little. He placed the chair before the waiting
line of _askaris_, and planted himself squarely in it as in a judgment
seat. He ran his eye over the men deliberately.

"You!" said he suddenly, pointing his forefinger at the man in irons.
"You have disobeyed my orders. You are no longer an _askari_. You are a
common porter, and from now on will carry a load. It is not my custom
to use _kiboko_ on _askaris_; but a common porter can eat _kiboko_, and
Mali-ya-bwana, my headman of safari, will give you twenty-five lashes.
_Bassi!_"

Mali-ya-bwana, well pleased thus early to exercise the authority of his
new office, led the man away.

Kingozi dropped his chin in his hand, a movement that pushed out his
beard in a terrifying manner. One after another of the eleven men felt
the weight of his stare. At last he spoke.

"I have heard tales of you," said he, "but I who speak know nothing
about you. You are _askaris_, soldiers with guns, and next to gun
bearers are the greatest men in the safari. Some have told me that you
are not _askaris_, that you are common porters--and not good ones--who
carry guns. I do not know. That we shall see. This is what must be done
now, and done quickly: the loads of your _memsahib_ must be brought
here, and camp made properly, according to the custom. Perhaps your men
are no longer tired: perhaps you will get the _shenzis_. That is not my
affair. You understand?"

The answer came in an eager chorus.

He ran his eye over them again.

"You," he indicated, "stand forward. Of what tribe are you?"

"Monumwezi, _bwana_."

"Your name?"

The man uttered a mouthful of gutturals.

"Again."

He repeated.

"That is not a good name for me. From now on you are--Jack."

"Yes, _bwana_."

"Do you know the customs of _askaris?_"

"Yes, _bwana_."

"H'm," Kingozi commented in English, "nobody would guess it. Then
understand this: You are headman of _askaris_. You take the orders: you
report to me--or the _memsahib_," he added, almost as an afterthought.
"To-morrow morning _fall in_, and I will look at your guns. _Bassi!_"

They filed away. Kingozi arose and returned the chair.

"Is that all you will do to them?" she demanded. "I tell you they have
insulted me; they have refused to move; they should be punished."

"That's all. They understand now what will happen. You will see: they
will not refuse again."

She appeared to struggle against a flare of her old rebellious spirit.

"I will leave it to you," she managed at last.

The squatting savages had not moved a muscle, but their shining black
eyes had not missed a single detail.



CHAPTER X


THE SULTANI

Six hours later the Leopard Woman's camp had arrived, had been pitched,
and everything was running again as usual. The new _askari_ headman,
Jack, had reported pridefully to Kingozi. The latter had nodded a
careless acknowledgment; and had referred the man to his mistress. She
had disappeared for a time, but now emerged again, bathed, freshened,
dainty in her silken tea gown, the braids of hair down her back, the
band of woven gold encircling her brow, the single strange jewel
hanging in the middle of her forehead. For a time she sat alone under
her own tree; but, as Kingozi showed no symptoms of coming to her, and
as she was bored and growing impatient, she trailed over to him, the
Nubian following with her chair. Kingozi was absorbed in establishing
points on his map. He looked up at her and nodded pleasantly, then
moved his protractor a few inches.

"Just a moment," he murmured absorbedly.

She lit a cigarette and yawned. The immediate prospect was dull.
Savages continued to drift in, to squat and stare, then to move on to
the porters' camps. There a lively bartering was going on. From some
unsuspected store each porter had drawn forth a few beads, some snuff,
a length of wire, or similar treasure; and with them was making the
best bargain he could for the delicacies of the country. The process
was noisy. Four _askaris_, with their guns, stood on guard. The shadows
were lengthening in the hills, and the heat waves had ceased to shimmer
like veils.

"That's done," said Kingozi at last.

"Thank the Lord!" she ejaculated. "This bores me. Why do we not do
something? I should like some milk, some eggs--many things. Let us
summon this king."

But Kingozi shook his head.

"That's all very well where the white man's influence reaches. But not
here. I doubt if there are three men in this people who have ever even
seen a white man. Of course they have all heard of us, and know a good
deal about us. We must stand on our dignity here. Let the _sultani_
come to us, all in his own time. Without his goodwill we cannot move a
step farther, we cannot get a pound of _potio_."

"How long will it take? I want to get on. This does not interest me. I
have seen many natives."

Kingozi smiled.

"Two days of visit. Then perhaps a week to get _potio_ and guides."

"Impossible! I could not endure it!"

"I am afraid you will have to. I know the untamed savage. He is
inclined to be friendly, always. If you hurry the process, you must
fight. That's the trouble with a big mob like yours. It is difficult to
feed so many peacefully. Even in a rich country they bring in _potio_
slowly--a cupful at a time. With the best intentions in the world you
may have to use coercion to keep from starving. And coercion means
trouble. Look at Stanley--he left hostilities everywhere, that have
lasted up to now. The people were well enough disposed when he came
among them with his six or eight hundred men. But he had to have food
and he had to have it quickly. He could not wait for slow, diplomatic
methods. He had to _take_ it. Even when you pay for a thing, that
doesn't work. The news travelled ahead of him, and the result was he
had to fight. And everybody else has had to fight ever since."

"That is interesting. I did not know that."

"A small party can negotiate. That's why I say you have too many men."

"But the time wasted!" she cried aghast.

"Time is nothing in Africa." He went on to tell her of the two
travellers in Rhodesia who came upon a river so wide that they could
but just see from one bank to the other; and so swift that rafts were
of little avail. So one man went back for a folding boat while the
other camped by the stream. Four months later the first man returned
with the boat. The "river" had dried up completely!

"They didn't mind," said Kingozi, "they thought it a huge joke."

An hour before sundown signs of activity manifested themselves from the
direction of the invisible village. A thin, high, wailing chant in
female voices came fitfully to their ears. A compact little group of
men rounded the bend and approached. Their gait was slow and stately.

"Well," remarked Kingozi, feeling for his pipe, "we are going to be
honoured by that visit from his majesty."

The Leopard Woman leaned forward and surveyed the approaching men with
some interest. They were four in number. Three were naked, their bodies
oiled until they glistened with a high polish. One of them carried a
battered old canvas steamer chair; one a fan of ostrich plumes; and one
a long gourd heavily decorated with cowrie shells. The fourth was an
impressive individual in middle life, hawkfaced, tall and spare,
carrying himself with great dignity. He wore a number of anklets and
armlets of polished wire, a broad beaded collar, heavy earrings, and a
sumptuous robe of softened goatskins embroidered with beads and cowrie
shells. As he strode his anklets clashed softly. His girt was free, and
he walked with authority. Altogether an impressive figure.

"The _sultani_ is a fine-looking man," observed Bibi-ya-chui. "I
suppose the others are slaves."

Kingozi threw a careless glance in the direction of the approaching
group.

"Not the _sultani_--some understrapper. Chief Hereditary Guardian of
the Royal Chair, or something of that sort, I dare say."

The tall man approached, smiling graciously. Kingozi vouchsafed him no
attention. Visibly impressed, the newcomer rather fussily superintended
the unfolding and placing of the chair. The slaves with the plumed fan
and the gourd stationed themselves at either side. The other two men
fell back.

Now the shrill chanting became more clearly audible. Shortly appeared a
procession. Women bearing burdens walked two by two. Armed men with
spears and shields flanked them. As they approached, it could be seen
that they were very gorgeous indeed; the women hung with strings of
cowries, bound with glittering brass and iron, bedecked with strings of
beads. To one familiar with savage peoples there could be no doubt that
these were close to the purple. Each bead, each shell, each bangle of
wire had been passed through many, many hands before it reached this
remote fastness of barbarity; and in each hand, you may be sure,
profits had remained. But the men were more impressive still. Stark
naked of every stitch of cloth or of tanned skins, oiled with an
unguent carrying a dull red stain, their heads shaved bare save for a
small crown patch from which single feathers floated, they symbolized
well the warrior stripped for the fray. A beaded broad belt supported a
short sword and the _runga_, or war club; an oval shield of buffalo
hide, brilliantly painted, hung on the left arm; a polished long-bladed
spear was carried in the right hand. And surrounding the face, as a
frame, was a queer headdress of black ostrich plumes. Every man of them
wore about his ankles hollow bangles of considerable size; and these he
clashed loudly one against the other as he walked.

It made a great uproar this--the clang of the iron, the wild wailing of
the women's voices.

Kingozi moved his chair four or five paces to the front.

"I'm sorry," he told her, "but I must ask you to stay where you are.
This is an important occasion."

He surveyed the oncoming procession with interest.

"Swagger old beggar," he observed. "His guard are well turned out. You
know those markings on the shields are a true heraldry--the patterns
mean families, and all that sort of thing."

The chanting grew louder as the procession neared. The warriors stared
fiercely straight ahead. Before Kingozi they parted to right and left,
forming an aisle leading to his chair. Down this the women came, one by
one, still singing, and deposited their burdens at the white man's
feet. There were baskets of _m'wembe_, earthen bowls of eggs, fowls,
gourds of milk, bundles of faggots and firewood, woven bags of _n'jugu_
nuts, vegetables, and two small sheep. Kingozi stared indifferently
into the distance; but as each gift was added to the others he reached
forward to touch it as a sign of acceptance. Their burdens deposited,
they took their places in front of the ranks of the warriors.

"Am I supposed to speak?" asked the Leopard Woman.

"Surely."

"Shouldn't we order out our _askaris_ with their guns to make the
parade?"

"No. We could not hope to equal this show, possibly. Our lay is to do
the supercilious indifferent." He turned to his attentive satellite.
"Cazi Moto," he ordered, "tell our people, quietly, to go back to their
camps. They must not stand and stare at these _shenzis_. And tell
M'pishi to make large _balauris_ of coffee, and put in plenty of sugar."

Cazi Moto grinned understandingly, and glided away. Shortly the safari
men could be seen sauntering unconcernedly back to their little fires.

Suddenly the warriors cried out in a loud voice, and raised their right
arms and spears rigidly above their heads. A tall, heavily built man
appeared around the bend. He was followed by two young women, who
flanked him by a pace or so to the rear. They were so laden with savage
riches as to be almost concealed beneath the strings of cowrie shells
and bands of beads. In contrast the man wore only a long black cotton
blanket draped to leave one shoulder and arm bare. Not an earring, not
a bangle, not even a finger ring or a bead strap relieved the sombre
simplicity of the black robe and the dark skin.

"But this man is an artist!" murmured Bibi-ya-chui. "He understands
effect! This is stage managed!"

The _sultani_ approached without haste. He stopped squarely before
Kingozi's chair. The latter did not rise. The two men stared into each
other's eyes for a full minute, without embarrassment, without contest,
without defiance. Then the black man spoke.

"_Jambo, bwana_," he rumbled in a deep voice.

"_Jambo, sultani_" replied Kingozi calmly.

They shook hands.

With regal deliberation the visitor arranged his robes and sat down in
the battered old canvas chair. A silence that lasted nearly five
minutes ensued.

"I thank you, _sultani_, for the help your men have given. I thank you
for the houses. I thank you for these gifts."

The _sultani_ waved his hand magnificently.

"It is not the custom of white men to give gifts until their
departure," continued Kingozi, "but this knife is yours to make
friendship."

He handed over a knife, of Swedish manufacture, the blade of which
disappeared into the handle in a most curious fashion. The _sultani's_
eyes lit up with an almost childish delight, but his countenance showed
no emotion. He passed the knife on to the dignitary who stood behind
his chair.

"This," said Kingozi, taking one of the steaming _balauris_ from Cazi
Moto, "is the white man's _tembo_."

The _sultani_ tasted doubtfully. He was pleased. He gave back the
_balauri_ at last with a final smack of the lips.

"Good!" said he.

Another full five minutes of silence ensued. Then the _sultani_ arose.
He cast a glance about him, his eye, avid with curiosity, held rigidly
in restraint. It rested on the Leopard Woman.

"I see you have one of your women with you," he remarked.

He turned, without further ceremony, and stalked off, followed at a few
paces by the two richly ornamented girls. The warriors again raised
their spears aloft, holding them thus until their lord had rounded the
cliff. Then, the women in precedence, they marched away. Kingozi puffed
his pipe indifferently.

The Leopard Woman was visibly impatient, visibly roused.

"Are you letting him go?" she demanded. "Do not you inquire the
country? Do not you ask for _potio_, for guides?"

"Not to-day," replied Kingozi. He turned deliberately to face her, his
eyes serious. "Please realize once for all that we live here only by
force of _prestige_. My only chance of getting on, our only chance of
safety rests on my ability to impress this man with the idea that I am
a bigger lord than he. And, remember, I have lived in savage Africa for
fifteen years, and I know what I am doing. This is very serious. You
must not interfere; and you must not suggest."

The Leopard Woman's eyes glittered dangerously, but she controlled
herself.

"You talk like a sultan yourself," she protested at length. "You should
not use that tone to me."

Kingozi brushed the point aside with a large gesture.

"I will play the game of courtesy with you, yes," said he, "but only
when it does not interfere with serious things. In this matter there
must be no indefiniteness, no chance for misunderstanding. Politeness,
between the sexes, means both. I will repeat: in this you must leave me
free hand no interference, no suggestion."

"And if I disobey your commands?" she challenged, with an emphasis on
the last word.

He surveyed her sombrely.

"I should take measures," he replied finally.

"You are not my master: you are not the master of my men!"

Kingozi permitted himself a slight smile.

"If you believe that last statement, just try to give an order to your
men counter to an order of mine. You would see. And of course in case
of a real crisis I should have to make myself master of you, if you
seemed likely to be troublesome."

"I would kill you! I warn you; I go always armed!"

From the folds of her silken robe she produced a small automatic pistol
which she displayed. Kingozi glanced at it indifferently.

"In that case you would have to kill yourself, too; and then it would
not matter to either of us."

"I find you insufferable!" she cried, getting to her feet.

She moved away in the direction of her camp. The faithful Nubian folded
her chair and followed. At the doorway of her tent she looked back.
Kingozi, his black pipe in his mouth, was bending absorbedly over his
map.



CHAPTER XI


THE IVORY STOCKADE

The Leopard Woman, emerging from her tent shortly after sunup the next
morning, saw across the opening her own _askaris_ being drilled by
Kingozi, Simba, and Cazi Moto. Evidently the instruction was in rifle
fire. Two were getting individual treatment: Simba and Cazi Moto were
putting them through a careful course in aiming and pulling the trigger
on empty guns. Kingozi sat on a chop box in the shade, gripping his
eternal pipe, and issuing curt orders and criticisms to the baker's
dozen, before him. When he saw the Leopard Woman he arose and strolled
in her direction.

"That's the worst lot of so-called _askaris_ I ever saw," he remarked.
"Where did you pick them up?"

His manner was entirely unconscious of any discussions or dissentions.
He looked into her eyes and smiled genially.

"I took them from the recruiting man, as they came," she replied. As
always the deeps of her eyes were enigmatical; but the surfaces, at
least, of her mood answered his.

"They know how to load a gun, and that is about all. I don't believe
one of them ever fired a weapon before this trip. They haven't the most
rudimentary ideas of aiming. Don't even know what sights are for. My
boys will soon whip them into some sort of shape. I came over to see
how much ammunition you have for their muskets. They really ought to
fire a few rounds--after a week of aiming and snapping. Then they'll be
of some use. Not much, though."

"I really don't know," she answered his question. "Chaké will look and
see."

"Send him over to report when he finds out," requested Kingozi,
preparing to return.

"What move does your wisdom contemplate to-day?" she called after him.

"Oh, return his majesty's visit this afternoon. Like to go?"

"Certainly."

"Well, I'll let you know when. And if you go, you must be content to
stand two or three yards behind me, and to say nothing."

She flushed, but answered steadily enough:

"I'll remember."

It was nearing sundown when Kingozi emerged from his tent and gave the
signal to move. He had for the first time strapped on a heavy revolver;
his glasses hung from his neck; his sleeve was turned back to show his
wrist watch; and, again for the first time, he had assumed a
military-looking tunic. He carried his double rifle.

"Got on everything I own," he grinned.

Simba and Cazi Moto waited near. From the mysterious sources every
native African seems to possess they had produced new hats and various
trinkets. Their khakis had been fresh washed; so they looked neat and
trim.

The Leopard Woman wore still one of her silken negligées, and the jewel
on her forehead; but her hair had been piled high on her head. Kingozi
surveyed her with some particularity. She noted the fact. Her
satisfaction would have diminished could she have read his mind. He was
thinking that her appearance was sufficiently barbaric to impress a
barbaric king.

They rounded the point of cliffs, and the village lay before them. It
rambled up the side of the mountain, hundreds of beehive houses perched
and clinging, with paths from one to the other. The approach was
through a narrow straight lane of thorn and aloes, so thick and so
spiky that no living thing bigger than a mouse could have forced its
way through the walls. The end of this vista was a heavy palisade of
timbers through which a door led into a circular enclosure ten feet in
diameter, on the other side of which another door opened into the
village. Above each of these doors massive timbers were suspended ready
to fall at the cut of a sword. Within the little enclosure, or double
gate, squatted a man before a great drum.

"They're pretty well fixed here," observed Kingozi critically. "Nobody
can get at them except down that lane. The mountains are impassable
because of the thorn. They must use arrows."

"Why?" asked the Leopard Woman.

"The form of their defence. They shoot between the logs of the palisade
down the narrow lane. If they fought only with spears, the lane would
be shorter, and it would be defended on the flank."

"Why don't they defend it on the flank also, even with arrows?" asked
the Leopard Woman shrewdly.

"'It is not the custom,'" wearily quoted Kingozi in the vernacular.
"Don't ask me _why_ a savage does things. I only know he does."

Their conversation was drowned by the sound of the drum.

The guardian did not beat it, but rubbed the head rapidly with the
stick, modifying the pressure scientifically until the vibrations had
well started. It roared hollowly, like some great bull.

The visitors passed through the defensive anteroom and entered the
village enclosure.

On the flat below the hills, heretofore invisible, stood a half-dozen
large houses. At the end, where the cañon began to narrow, a fence
gleamed dazzlingly white. From this distance the four-foot posts,
planted in proximity like a stockade, looked to have been whitewashed.

People were appearing everywhere. The crags and points of the hills
were filling with bold black figures silhouetted against the sky. Men,
women, children, dogs sprang up, from the soil apparently. As though by
magic the flat open space became animated. Plumed heads appeared above
the white fence in the distance, where, undoubtedly, their owners had
been loafing in the shade. Another drum began to roar somewhere, and
with it the echoes began to arouse themselves in the hills.

Paying no attention to any of this interesting confusion Kingozi
sauntered straight ahead. At his command the Leopard Woman had dropped
a pace to the rear.

"The royal palace is behind the white fence," he volunteered over his
shoulder.

They approached the sacred precincts. But while yet fifty yards
distant, Kingozi stopped with an exclamation. He turned to the Leopard
Woman, and for the first time she saw on his face and in his eyes a
genuine and unconcealed excitement.

"My Lord!" he cried to her, "saw ever any man the likes of that!"

The white posts of which the fence was made were elephants' tusks!

"Kingdom coming, what a sight!" murmured Kingozi. "Why, there are
hundreds and hundreds of them--and the smallest worth not less than
fifty pounds!"

Her eyes answered him whole-heartedly, for her imagination was afire.

"What magnificence!" she replied. "The thought is great--a palace of
ivory! This is kingly!"

But the light had died in Kingozi's eyes. "Won't do!" he muttered to
her. "Compose your face. Come."

Without another glance at the magnificent tusks he marched on through
the open gate.

Other drums, many drums, were roaring all about. The cliff of the cañon
was filled with sound that buffeted back and forth until it seemed that
it must rise above the hills and overflow the world. A chattering and
hurrying of people could be heard as an undertone.

The small enclosure was occupied by a dozen of the plumed warriors who
had now snatched up emblazoned shield and polished spear; and stood
rigidly at attention. Women of all ages crouched and squatted against
the fence and the sides of a large wattle and thatch building.

Kingozi walked deliberately about, looking with detached interest at
the various people and objects the corral contained. He had very much
the air of a man sauntering idly about a museum, with all the time in
the world on his hands, and nowhere much to go. Simba and Cazi Moto
remained near the gate. The Leopard Woman, not knowing what else to do,
trailed after him.

This continued for some time. At last her impatience overcame her.

"I suppose I may talk," said she resentfully. "How much longer must
this go on? Why do not you make your call and have it over?"

Kingozi laughed.

"You do not know this game. Inside old Stick-in-the mud is waiting in
all his grandeur. He expects me to go in to him. I am going to wait
until he comes out to me. _Prestige_ again."

Apparently without a care in the world, he continued his stroll. Small
naked children ventured from hiding-places and stared. To some of these
Kingozi spoke pleasantly with the immediate effect of causing them to
scuttle back to cover. He examined minutely the tusks comprising the
stockade. They had been arranged somewhat according to size, with the
curve outward. Kingozi spent some time estimating them.

"Fortune here for some one," he observed.

At the end of an hour the _sultani_ gave up the contest and appeared,
smiling, unconcerned. The men greeted each other, exchanged a few
words. Women emerged from the house carrying _tembo_ in gourd bottles,
and smaller half-gourds from which to drink it. Their eyes were large
with curiosity as to this man and woman of a new species. Kingozi
touched his lips to the _tembo_. They exchanged a few words, and shook
hands again. Then Kingozi turned away, and, followed by the Leopard
Woman and his two men, walked out through the ivory gateway, down
through the open flat, under the fortified portal, and so down the lane
of spiky walls. The drums roared louder and louder. Warriors in spear,
shield, and plumed headdress stood rigid as they passed. People by the
hundreds gazed at them openly, peered at them from behind doors, or
looked down on them from the crags above. They rounded the corner of
the cliff. Before them lay their own quiet peaceful camp. Only the
voice of the drums bellowed as though behind them in the cleft of the
hills some great and savage beast lay hid.

[Illustration: "Their eyes were large with curiosity as to this man and
woman of a new species.... Kingozi touched his lips to the _tembo_"]

"That seemed to be all right," suggested the Leopard Woman, ranging
alongside again.

"They didn't spear us, if that's what you mean. We can tell more about
it to-morrow."

"What will happen to-morrow?"

"Yesterday and to-day finished the 'side' and ceremony. If to-morrow
old Stick-in-the-mud drifts around quite on his own, like any other
_shenzi_, and if the women come into camp freely, why then we're all
right."

"And otherwise?"

"Well, if the _sultani_ stays away, and if you don't see any women at
all, and if the men are painted and carry their shields--they will
always carry their spears--that won't be so favourable." "In which case
we fight?"

"No: I'll alter my diplomacy. There's a vast difference between mere
unfriendliness and hostility. I think I can handle the former all
right. I wish I knew a little more of their language. Swahili hardly
fills the bill. I'll see what I can do with it in the next few days."

"You cannot learn a language in a few days!" she objected incredulously.

"Of course not. But I seem to know the general root idea of this
patter. It isn't unlike the N'gruimi--same root likely--a bastard
combination of Bantu-Masai stock."

She looked at him.

"You know," she told him slowly, "I am beginning to believe you
_savant_. You make not much of it, but your knowledge of natives is
extraordinary. You better than any other man know these people--their
minds--how to influence them."

"I have a little knowledge of how to go at them, that's true. That's
about the only claim I have to being _savant_, as you call it. My book
knowledge and fact knowledge is equalled by many and exceeded by a
great many more. But mere knowledge of facts doesn't get far in
practice," he laughed. "Lord, these scientists! Helpless as children!"
He sobered again. "There's one man has the science and the psychology
both. He's a wonderful person. He knows the native objectively as I
never will; and subjectively as well if not better. It is a rare
combination. He's 'way over west of us somewhere now--in the Congo
headwaters--a Bavarian, name Winkleman."

Had Kingozi been looking at her he would have seen the Leopard Woman's
frame stiffen at the mention of this name. For a moment she said
nothing.

"I know the name--he is great scientist," she managed to say.

"He is more than a scientist; he is a great humanist. No man has more
insight, more sympathetic insight into the native mind. A man of vast
influence."

They had reached Kingozi's camp under the great tree. He began to
unbuckle his equipment.

"I'll just lay all this gorgeousness aside," said he apologetically.

But the Leopard Woman did not proceed to her own camp.

"I am interested," said she. "This Winkleman--he has vast influence?
More than yourself?"

"That is hard to say," laughed Kingozi. "I should suppose so."

She caught at a hint of reluctant pride in his voice.

"Let us suppose," said she. "Let us suppose that you wanted one thing
of natives, and Winkleman wanted another thing. Which would succeed?"

"Neither. We'd both be speared," replied Kingozi promptly. "Positive
and negative poles, and all that sort of thing."

She puzzled over this a moment, trying to cast her question in a new
form.

"But suppose this: suppose Winkleman had obtained his wish. Could you
overcome his influence and what-you-call substitute your own?"

"No more than he could substitute his were the cases reversed. I've
confidence enough in myself and knowledge enough of Winkleman to
guarantee that."

"So it would depend on who got there first?" she persisted; "that is
your opinion?"

"Why, yes. But what does it matter?"

"It amuses me to get knowledge. I admire your handle of these people.
You must be patient and explain. It is all new to me, although I
thought I had much experience."

She arose.

"I am tired now. I go to the _siesta_."

Kingozi stared after her retreating figure. The direct form of her
questions had stirred again suspicions that had become vague.

"What's she driving at?" he asked the uncomprehending Simba in English.
He considered the question for some moments. "Don't even know her name
or nationality," he confessed to himself after a while. "She's a queer
one. I suppose I'll have to give her a man or so to help her back
across the Thirst." He pondered again, "I might take her _askaris_.
Country will feed them now. I'll have a business talk with her."

As the tone of voice sounded final to Simba he ventured his usual reply.

"Yes, suh!" said Simba.



CHAPTER XII


THE PILOCARPIN

The _sultani_ duly appeared the next morning; women brought in firewood
and products of the country to trade; all was well. The entire day, and
the succeeding days for over a week, Kingozi sat under his big tree,
smoking his black pipe. The _sultani_ sat beside him. For long periods
at a time nothing at all was said. Then for equally long periods a
lively conversation went on, through an interpreter mostly, though
occasionally the _sultani_ launched into his bastard Swahili or Kingozi
ventured a few words in the new tongue. Once in a while some intimate
would saunter into view, and would be summoned by his king. Then
Kingozi patiently did the following things:

(a) He performed disappearing tricks with a rupee or other small
object; causing it to vanish, and then plucking it from unexpected
places.

(b) With a pair of scissors--which were magic aplenty in themselves--he
cut a folded paper in such a manner that when unfolded a row of paper
dolls was disclosed. This was a very successful trick. The pleased
warriors dandled them up and down delightedly in an _n'goma_.

(c) He opened and shut an opera hat. The ordinary "plug hat" was known
to these people, but not an opera hat.

(d) He allowed them to look through his prism glasses.

(e) On rare occasions he lit a match.

This vaudeville entertainment was always a huge success. The newcomers
squatted around the two chairs, and the conversation continued.

Bibi-ya-chui occasionally stood near and listened. The subjects were
trivial in themselves, and repeated endlessly.

Ten minutes of this bored her to the point of extinction. She could not
understand how Kingozi managed to survive ten hours day after day. Only
once was he absent from his post, and then for only a few hours. He
went out accompanied by Simba and a dozen _shenzis_, and shot a
wildebeeste. The tail of this--an object much prized as a fly whisk--he
presented to his majesty. All the rest of the time he talked and
listened.

"It is such childish nonsense!" the Leopard Woman expostulated. "How
can you do it?"

"Goes with the job. It's a thing you must learn to do if you would get
on in this business."

And once more she seemed to catch a glimpse of the infinity of savage
Africa, which has been the same for uncounted ages, impersonal, without
history, without the values of time!

But had she known it, Kingozi was getting what he required. Information
came to him a word now, a word then; promises came to him in single
phrases lost in empty gossip. He collected what he wanted grain by
grain from bushels of chaff. The whole sum of his new knowledge could
have been expressed in a paragraph, took him a week to get, but was
just what he wanted. If he had asked categorical questions, he would
have received lies. If he had attempted to hurry matters, he would have
got nothing at all.

About sundown the _sultani_ would depart, followed shortly by the last
straggler of his people. The succeeding hours were clear of _shenzis_,
for either the custom of the country or the presence of strangers
seemed to demand an _n'goma_ every evening. In the night stillness
sounds carried readily. The drums, no longer rubbed but beaten in
rhythm; the shrill wailing chants of women; the stamp and shuffle of
feet; the cadenced clapping of hands rose and fell according to the
fervour of the dance. The throb of these sounds was as a background to
the evening--fierce, passionate, barbaric.

After the departure of the _sultani_ Kingozi took a bath and changed
his clothes. The necessity for this was more mental than physical. Then
he relaxed luxuriously. It was then that he resumed his relations with
the Leopard Woman, and that they discussed matters of more or less
importance to both.

The first evening they talked of the wonder of the ivory stockade.
Kingozi had not yet had an opportunity to find out whence the tusks had
come, whether the elephants had been killed in this vicinity, or
whether the ivory had been traded from the Congo.

"It is very valuable," he said. "I must find out whether old
Stick-in-the-mud knows what they are worth, or whether he can be traded
out of them on any reasonable basis."

"You will not be going farther," she suggested one evening, apropos of
nothing.

"Farther? Why not?" he asked rather blankly.

"You told me you were an ivory hunter," she pointed out.

"Ah--yes. But I have hardly the goods to trade--come back later," he
stumbled, for once caught off his guard. "I'm really looking for new
hunting grounds."

She did not pursue the subject; but the enigmatic smile lurked for a
moment in the depths of her eyes.

Every night after supper Kingozi caused his medicine chest to be
brought out and opened, and for a half-hour he doctored the sick. On
this subject he manifested an approach to enthusiasm.

"I know I can't doctor them all," he answered her objection, "and that
it's foolish to pick out one here and there; but it interests me. I
told you I was a medical student by training." He fingered over the
square bottles, each in its socket. "This is not the usual safari drug
list," he said. "I like to take these queer cases and see what I can do
with them. I may learn something; at any rate, it interests me. McCloud
at Nairobi fitted me out; and told me what it would be valuable to
observe."

She appeared interested, and shortly he became enough convinced of this
to show and explain each drug separately. The quinine he carried in the
hydrochlorate instead of the sulphate, and he waxed eloquent telling
her why. Crystals of iodine as opposed to permanganate of potash for
antiseptic he discussed. From that he branched into antisepsis as
opposed to asepsis as a practical method in the field.

"Theory has nothing to do with it," said he. "It's a matter of which
will _work!_"

It was all technical; but it interested her for the simple reason that
Kingozi was really enthusiastic. True enthusiasm, without pose or
self-consciousness, invariably arouses interest.

"Now here's something you'll never see in another safari kit," said he,
holding up one of the square bottles filled with small white crystals,
"and that wouldn't be found in this one except for an accident. It's
pilocarpin."

"What is pilocarpin?" she asked, making a difficulty of the word.

"It is really a sort of eye dope," he explained. "You know atropin--the
stuff an oculist uses in your eyes when he wants to examine
them--leaves your vision blurred for a day or so."

"Yes, I know that."

"The effect of atropin is to expand the pupil. Pilocarpin is just the
opposite--it contracts the pupil."

"What need could you possibly have of that?"

"There's the joke: I haven't. But when I was outfitting I could not get
near enough phenacetin. I suppose you know that we use phenacetin to
induce sweating as first treatment of fever."

"I am not entirely ignorant. I can treat fevers, of course."

"Well, I took all they could spare. Then McCloud suggested pilocarpin.
Though it is really an eye drug, to be used externally, it also has an
effect internally to induce sweating. So that's why I have it."

She was examining the bottles.

"But you have atropin also. Why is that?"

"There's a good deal of ophthalmia or trachoma floating around some
native districts. I thought I might experiment."

"And this"--she picked up a third bottle--"ah, yes, morphia. But how
much alike they all are."

"In appearance, yes; in effect most radically and fatally
different--like people," smiled Kingozi.

But though Kingozi's scientific interest was keen in certain
directions--as ethnology, drugs, and zoology--it had totally blind
spots. Thus the Leopard Woman kept invariably on her table the bowl of
fresh flowers; and she manifested an unfailing liking to investigate
such strange shrubs, trees, flowers, or nondescript growths as
flourished thereabouts.

"Do you know how one names these?" she asked him concerning certain
strange blooms.

"I know nothing whatever about vegetables," he replied with indifferent
scorn.

Several times after that, forgetting, she proffered the same question
and received exactly the same reply. Finally it became a joke to her.
Slyly, at sufficient intervals so that he should not become conscious
of the repetition, she took delight in eliciting this response, always
the same, always delivered with the same detached scorn:

"I know nothing whatever about vegetables."

In the meantime Simba, with great enthusiasm, continued his drill of
the _askaris_. Kingozi gave them an hour early in the day. They
developed rapidly from wild trigger yanking. An allowance of two
cartridges apiece proved them no great marksmen, but at least steady on
discharge.

The "business conversation" Kingozi projected with the Leopard Woman
did not take place until late in the week. By that time he had pieced
together considerable information, as follows:

The mountain ranges at their backs possessed three practicable routes.
Beyond the ranges were grass plains with much game. Water could be had
in certain known places. No people dwell on these plains. This was
because of the tsetse fly that made it impossible to keep domestic
cattle. Far--very far--perhaps a month, who knows, is the country of
the _sultani_ M'tela. This is a very great _sultani_--very great
indeed--a _sultani_ whose spears are like the leaves of grass. His
people are fierce, like the Masai, like the people of Lobengula, and
make war their trade. His people are known as the Kabilagani. The way
through the mountains is known; guides can be had. The way across the
plains is known; but for guides one must find representatives of a
little scattered plains tribe. That can be done. _Potio_ for two weeks
can be had--and so on.

Kingozi was particularly interested in these Kabilaganis: and pressed
for as much information as he could. Strangely enough he did not
mention the ivory stockade, nor did he attempt either to trade or to
determine whether or not the _sultani_ knew its value.

At the end of eight days he knew what he wished to know.

"I shall leave in two days," he told the Leopard Woman. "I should
suggest that you go to-morrow. I will send Simba with you to show you
the water-hole in the kopje. After that you know the country for
yourself."

"But I am not going back!" she cried. "I am going on."

"That is impossible." He went on to explain to her what he had learned
of the country ahead: omitting, however, all reference to M'tela and
his warrior nation. "More plains: more game. That's all. You have more
of that than you can use back where we came from. And with every step
you are farther away. I am going on--very far. I may not come back at
all."

She listened to all his arguments, but shook her head obstinately at
their end.

"Your plan does not please me," said she. "I will go and see these
plains for myself."

This was final, and Kingozi at last came to see it so.

"I was going to suggest that I relieve you of your _askaris_," said he,
"but if you persist in this foolish and aimless plan, you will need
them for yourself."

"Cannot we go together, at least for a distance?"

But to this he was much opposed.

"I shall be travelling faster than your cumbersome safari," he
objected. "I could not delay."

And in this decision he seemed as firm as had she in her intention to
proceed. After a light reconnaissance, so to speak, of argument,
appeal, and charm, she gave over trying to persuade him, and fell back
on her usual lazily indifferent attitude. Kingozi went ahead with his
preparations, laying in _potio_, examining kits, preparing in every way
his compact little caravan for the long journey before it. Then
something happened. He changed his mind and decided to combine safaris
with the Leopard Woman.



CHAPTER XIII


THE TROPIC MOON

For several nights the plain below the plateau had been a sea of
moonlight, white, ethereal, fragile as spun glass. Each evening the
shadow of the mountains had shortened, drawing close under the skirts
of the hills. In stately orderly progression the quality of the night
world was changing. The heavy brooding darkness was being transformed
to a fairy delicacy of light.

And the life of the world seemed to feel this change, to be stirring,
at first feebly, then with growing strength. The ebb was passed; the
tides were rising to the brim. Each night the throb of the drums seemed
to beat more passionately, the rhythm to become quicker, wilder: the
wailing chants of the women rose in sudden gusts of frenzy. Dark
figures stole about in shadows; so that Kingozi, becoming anxious, gave
especial instructions, and delegated trusty men to see that they were
obeyed.

"If our men get to fooling with their women, they'll spear the lot of
us!" he explained.

And at last, like a queen whose coming has been prepared, a queen in
whose anticipation life had quickened, the moon herself rose serenely
above the ranges.

Immediately the familiar objects changed; the familiar shadows
vanished. The world became a different world, full of enchantment, of
soft-singing birds, of chirping insects, of romance and recollections
of past years, of longings and the spells of barbaric Africa.

Kingozi sat with the Leopard Woman "talking business" when this miracle
took place. When the great rim of the moon materialized at the
mountain's rim, he abruptly fell silent. The spell had him, as indeed
it had all living things. From the village the drums pulsed more
wildly, shoutings of men commenced to mingle with the voices of the
women; a confused clashing sound began to be heard. In camp the fires
appeared suddenly to pale. A vague uneasiness swept the squatting men.
Their voices fell: they exchanged whispered monosyllables, dropping
their voices, they knew not why.

The Leopard Woman arose and glided to the edge of the tree's shadow,
where she stood gazing upward at the moon. Kingozi watched her. He, old
and seasoned traveller as he was, had indeed fallen under the spell. He
did not consider it extraordinary, nor did it either embarrass or stir
his senses, that standing as she did before the moon and the little
fires her body showed in clear silhouette through her silken robe.
Apparently this was her only garment. It made a pale nimbus about her.
She seemed to the vague remnant of Kingozi's thinking perceptions like
a priestess--her slim, beautiful form erect, her small head bound with
the golden fillet from which, he knew, hung the jewel on her forehead.
As though meeting this thought she raised both arms toward the moon,
standing thus for a moment in the conventional attitude of invocation.
Then she dropped her arms, and came back to Kingozi's side.

Again it was like magic, the sudden blotting out of the slim human
figure, the substitution of the draped form as she moved from the light
into the shadow. But on Kingozi's retina remained the vision of her as
she was. He shifted, caught his breath.

As she came near him his hand closed over hers, bringing her to a halt.
She did not resist, but stood looking down at him waiting. He struggled
for an appearance of calm.

"Who are you?" he asked unsteadily. "You have never told me."

"You have named me--Bibi-ya-chui--the Woman of the Leopards."

She was smiling faintly, looking down at him through half-closed eyes.

"But who are you? You are not English."

"My name: you have given it. Let that suffice. Me--I am Hungarian." She
stooped ever so slightly and touched the upstanding mop of his wavy
hair. "What does it matter else?" she asked softly.

She was leaning: the moonlight came through the branches where she
leaned; the little fires--again the silken robes became a nimbus--and
the drums of the _n'goma_, the drums seemed to be throbbing in his
veins----

He leaped to his feet and seized her savagely by the shoulders. The
soft silk slipped under his fingers. She threw back her head, looking
at him steadily. Her eyes glowed deep, and the jewel on her forehead.
Kingozi was panting.

"You are wonderful--maddening!" he muttered. This sudden unexpected
emotion swept him away, as a pond, quiet behind the dam, becomes a
flood.

"I knew we could be such friends!" she said.

And then one of those tiny incidents happened that so often change the
course of greater events. In the darkness that still lingered the other
side of the camp an _askari_ challenged sharply some lurking wanderer.
According to his recent teaching he used the official word.

"_Samama!_" said he.

The metallic rattle of his musket and the brief official challenge
awakened Kingozi as would a dash of cold water. His instinct to crush
to his breast this alluring, fascinating, willing goddess of the moon
was as strong as ever. But across that instinct lay the shadow of a
former day. A clear picture flashed before his mind. He saw a man in
the uniform of a high office, and heard that man's words of instruction
to himself. The words had concluded with a few informal phrases of
trust and confidence. While these were being spoken, outside a sentry
had challenged: "_Samama!_" and as he moved, the metal of his
accoutrements had clicked.

With a wrench Kingozi turned, dropping her shoulders. He deliberately
ran away. At the edge of his own camp he looked back. She was still
standing as he had left her. The moonlight, striking through the
opening in the branches, fell across her. At this distance she was
merely a white figure; but Kingozi saw her again as she had stood in
invocation to the moon. As though she had only awaited his turning, she
raised her hand in grave salutation and disappeared.

Kingozi was too restless, too stirred, to sit still. After a vain
attempt to smoke a quiet and ruminative pipe he arose and began to
wander about. The men looked up at him furtively from their little
fires where perpetually meat roasted. He strode on through the camp.
His feet bore him to the narrow lane leading to the village. Down the
vista he saw flames leaping, and figures leaping wildly, too, and the
drums beat against his temples. He turned back seeking quiet, and so on
through camp again, and past the Leopard Woman's tent. His mind was in
a turmoil. No perception reached him of outside things--once the
disturbance of human creatures was past. His feet led him unconsciously.

It was the old struggle. He desired this woman mightily. That he had
been totally indifferent to her before argued nothing. He had been
suddenly awakened: and he was in the prime of life. But the very
strength of his desire warned him. If he had really been on a hunt for
ivory--well--he wrenched his mind savagely from even a contemplation of
possibilities. Still, it would be a very sweet relation in a lonely
life--a women of this quality, this desirability, this understanding,
able to travel the wilderness of Africa, eager for the life, young,
beautiful, tingling with vitality. In spite of himself Kingozi played
with the thought. The fever was in his brain, the magic of the tropic
moon was flooding his soul.

Some warning instinct brought him back to the world about him. His
steps had taken him down the cañon trail. He stood at the edge of the
open plain.

Facing him and not twenty yards distant stood a lion.

The sight cleared Kingozi's brain of all its vapours. For the first
time he realized clearly what he had done. He, a man whose continued
existence in this dangerous country had depended on his unfailing
readiness, his ever-present alertness and presence of mind, had
committed two of the cardinal sins. In savage Africa no man must at any
time stir a foot into the veldt or jungle unarmed; in savage Africa no
man must go at night fifty feet from a fire without a torch or lantern.

By day a lion is usually harmless unless annoyed. Game herds manifest
no alarm at his presence, merely opening through their ranks a lane for
his indifferent passing. But at night he asserts his dominion.

Kingozi realized his deadly peril. The beast bulked huge and black--a
wild lion is a third larger than his menagerie relative--looking as big
as a zebra against the moonlight. His eyes glowed steadily as he
contemplated this interloper in his domain. After a moment he sank
prone, extending his head. The next move, Kingozi knew, would be the
flail-like thrash of the long tail, followed immediately by the rush.

Nothing was to be done. The immediate surroundings were bare of trees,
and in any case the lightning charge of the beast would have caught his
victim unless the branches had happened to be fairly overhead.

The glowing eyes lowered. A rasping gurgling began deep in the animal's
throat, rising and falling in tone with the inhaling and exhaling of
the breath. This increased in volume. It became terrifying. The long
tail stiffened, whacked first to one side, then to the other. The
moment was at hand.

Kingozi stood erect, his hands clenched, every muscle taut. All his
senses were sharpened. He heard the voices of the veldt, near and far,
and all the little sounds that were underneath them. His vision seemed
to pierce the darkness of the shadows, so that he made out the details
of the lion's mane, and even the muscles stiffening beneath the skin.

And then at the last moment a kongoni, panic stricken, running blind,
its nose up, broke through the thin bush to the left and dashed across
the trail directly between the man and the lion.

African animals are subject to these strange, blind panics, especially
at night. The individual so affected appears to lose all sense of its
surroundings. It has been known actually to bump into and knock down
men in plain and open sight. What had so terrified the kongoni it would
be impossible to say. Perhaps a stray breeze had wafted the scent of
this very lion; perhaps some other unseen danger actually threatened,
or perhaps the poor beast merely awakened from the horror of a too
vivid dream.

The diversion occurred at the moment of the lion's greatest tension.
His body was poised for the attack, as a bow is bent to drive forth the
arrow. Probably without conscious thought on his part, instinctively,
he changed his objective. The huge body sprang; but instead of the man
the kongoni was struck down!

Kingozi stooped low and ran hard to the left. When at a safe distance
he straightened his back, and set his footsteps rapidly campward.

The incident had thoroughly awakened him. His brain was working clearly
now, and under forced draught. The magic of moonlight had lost its
power. Habits of years reasserted themselves. His usual iron common
sense regained its ascendency; though, strangely enough, there
persisted in his mind a mystic feeling for the symbolism of this missed
danger.

"Settles it!" he said, in his usual fashion of talking aloud. "I'm on a
job, and I must do it. Came near being a messy ass!"

He saw plainly enough that a mission such as his had no place in it for
women--even such women as Bibi-ya-chui. She must go back--or stay
here--didn't matter much which. The call of duty sounded very clear. By
the time he had reached the level of the upper plateau his mind was
fully made up. As far as he was concerned the Leopard Woman had
definitely lost all chance of going alone.

The frosted moonlight still lay across the world. It meant nothing but
illumination to Kingozi. By its light he discerned a paper lying
against a bush; and since paper of any sort is scarce, he picked it up.

At camp he lighted his lantern and spread out his find on the table. It
proved to be a map.

A glance proved to Kingozi that it was not his property. He remembered
a sudden wind squall early in the afternoon. Evidently it had swept the
Leopard Woman's table.

The map was in manuscript, very well drawn, and the text was German.
From long habit Kingozi glanced first at the scale of miles, then
raised his eyes to determine what country was represented. After a
moment he arose, took his lantern into his tent, and there spread his
find on his cot.

For it was a map of this very locality!

Kingozi examined it with great attention, finally getting out for
comparison his own sketch maps. The German map was a more finished
product; otherwise they were practically the same. Kingozi searched for
and found records of the various waters along his back track. Each was
annotated in ink in a language strange to him--probably Hungarian, he
reflected. At the dry _donga_ where he had overtaken and rescued the
Leopard Woman's water-starved safari he found the legend _wasser_ also.

"Explorations for this map made after the rains," he concluded.

Here the Leopard Woman had written the German word _nein!_ underscored
several times.

So far Kingozi's sketches and the German map were the same. But the
German map furnished all details for some distance in advance. This
village was indicated, and the mountains, and plains beyond. The three
practical routes were plotted by means of red lines. These lines
converged at the far side of the ranges, united in one, and proceeded
out across the plains. Kingozi counted days' journeys by the indicated
water-holes up to eleven. Then the map ceased; but an arrow at the end
of the red line was explained by a compass bearing, and the name
M'tela. And, as far as Kingozi could see, the sole purport of the whole
affair was not topography but a route to the country of M'tela!

Here was a facer! As far as any one knew, the country he had just
traversed was unexplored. Yet here was a good detailed map of just that
route. Furthermore, a copy was in the hands of this woman who claimed
she was out for sport merely, and had no knowledge of the country.
Yes--she had made just that statement. Of course she might be out
merely for adventure, just as she said. If she were of prominence and
influence, she might easily enough have obtained a copy of a private
map. But then why did she pretend ignorance? She seemed never to have
heard of the name of M'tela; yet this map's sole reason for being was
that it indicated at least the beginning of a route to M'tela's country.

Could she be on the same errand as himself?

That sounded fantastic. Kingozi reviewed the circumstances. M'tela was
a formidable myth, gradually taking shape as a reality. He was reported
as a mighty chief of distant borders. Tales of ten thousand spears
drifted back to official attention. Allowing the usual discount, M'tela
still loomed as a powerful figure. Nobody had paid very much attention
to him until this time, but now his distant border had become
important. Through it a new road from the north was projected. The
following year the route was to be explored. The friendship of M'tela
and his umpty-thousand spears became important. His hostility could
cause endless trouble and delay. Kingozi's present job was to lay the
foundations for this friendship.

"You have a free hand, Culbertson," the very high official had said to
him. "We are not going to suggest or advise. Choose your own men; take
as many or as few as you please. Take your own time and your own
methods. But get the results."

"I appreciate your confidence, sir," Kingozi had replied.

"You and that man Winkleman are the best hands on earth with natives,
and we know it. Requisition what you want."

This woman was a Hungarian: she possessed a German official map. Could
she be on official business? It did not seem likely. Women are not much
good at that sort of thing in Africa. What official business could she
be on? The same as his own? That seemed still more unlikely; but if so,
why should they not work together? Germany and England had an equal
stake in the opening of this new route. An amical Boundary Commission
had just completed a satisfactory survey between the German and British
East African Protectorates. But she had lied to him, and she had acted
lies of apparent ignorance! Why that?

Having examined the subject from all sides, and having discovered it as
yet incapable of solution, Kingozi, characteristically, decided to go
slow. If she were on the same mission as himself, that fact would
develop in due time, and then they could work together. If she were
still on some mission, but a mission other than his own, that fact,
too, would in due time develop. If she were merely travelling in idle
curiosity--well, she ought not to lie!

For Kingozi had changed his mind. No longer was he determined that she
must turn back at this point. Now he was equally determined that she
must accompany him.

"I'll keep an eye on you, young woman," said he. "You pretend to be
very eager to go on with me. We'll see! But now you'll find it
difficult to quit this game. You may get more of it than you bargained
for. If you are really out just for sport and curiosity, I'm sorry for
you. But you shouldn't lie!"

He copied the map roughly; then returned it to the spot under the
bushes where he had found it.

Next morning he announced to the Leopard Woman his changed decision. He
was self-contained and direct. She smiled secretly to herself. She
thought she understood both the change of decision and the brusqueness.
One was the magic of the tropic moon; the other was the shy,
half-ashamed reaction of the strong man whose emotions have controlled
him. The proof--that she was going with him.

She was wrong!



CHAPTER XIV


OVER THE RANGES

When the day came for departure the Leopard Woman was indisposed, and
could not travel. At the end of that period eight bags of _potio_
disappeared. They had to be replaced. Kingozi occupied the time on the
details of his preparations. Then three men deserted, and all loads had
to be redistributed. At last they were off.

A horde of savages accompanied them at first. These dropped off one by
one until there remained only the guides appointed. The trail led
steeply upward. It soon shook free of the thorn tangle and debouched on
grassy rolling shoulders from which a wide, maplike view could be seen
of the country through which they had passed. Shortly they skirted a
deep deft cañon in which sang a brook; and at its head came to a
forest. The trees were tall, their cover dense; long, ropelike vines
hung in festoons. It was very still. A colobus barked somewhere in the
tops; the small green monkeys swung from limb to limb, or scampered
along the rope vines, chattering. Silent, gaudy birds swooped across
dusky spaces. The dripping of water reached the ear; the smell of
dampness the nostrils.

This was as far as they went the first day. The climb had been severe;
and at the end of three and a half hours the woman announced that she
was done up. Nothing remained but to make camp. This was done,
therefore; and all the afternoon Kingozi lay flat on the cot he had
caused to be brought into the open air, and blew smoke upward, and
stared at the maze of limbs in the forest roof. The Leopard Woman kept
her tent; but he did not offer to disturb her. He was thinking.

Next day they marched for hours through the forest, and at last came
out on more rolling grass shoulders. Evidently this side of the
mountains was not abrupt, but slanted off in a gentle slope to unknown
distances. There the game began to reappear; and Kingozi dropped two
hartebeeste for the safari. Here Cazi Moto came up in great
perturbation to announce that two of the _memsahib's_ porters were
missing. The little headman did not understand how it happened, as he
had zealously brought up the rear. Unless, of course, it was a case of
desertion.

Kingozi looked thoughtful, then ordered camp to be pitched. Accompanied
by Simba, Mali-ya-bwana, and three _askaris_ he took the back track. At
the end of an hour and a half of brisk walking he met the two missing
porters. Their explanation was voluble. They had fallen out for a few
moments, and when they had resumed their loads, the safari was ahead.
Then they had hastened, but the road had divided. They had taken the
wrong fork.

"Show me where the road divided," ordered Kingozi.

The loads were deposited by the side of the trail, and the delinquents,
with every appearance of confidence, led the way back another hour's
march to a veritable fork. Kingozi examined the earth for tracks.

"Could you not see that the safari had gone this way and not that way?"
he asked.

"Yes, _bwana_," they said together; "we saw it after a little. That is
why we came back."

Kingozi grunted, but said nothing. The nine men retraced their steps.
Both porters were on a broad grin, laughing and talking in subdued
tones to the _askaris_. The _bwana_ strode on rapidly ahead. They
followed at a little dogtrot, carrying their loads easily.

At camp Kingozi ordered them to place the loads in place beneath the
tarpaulin.

"Simba," said he in a casual voice, "these men get _kiboko_."

"Yes, _bwana_. How many?"

"Fifty."

The bystanders gasped, and the shining countenances of the culprits
turned a sickly gray. Fifty lashes is a maximum punishment, inflicted
only for the gravest crimes. More cannot be administered without fear
of grave consequences. The offence of straggling is generally
considered not serious. Even Simba was not certain he had heard aright.

"How many, _bwana_?" he asked again.

"Fifty," repeated Kingozi tonelessly, and turned his blank, baleful
glare in their direction.

The punishment was administered. When it was finished the porters,
shaking like leaves, blankets drawn over their bleeding flanks, were
brought to face the white man seated in his chair.

"_Bassi_," he pronounced. The word went out into a dead silence, so
that it was heard to the farthest confines of the hushed camp. "Let no
man hereafter miss the trail."

He arose and entered his tent. Cazi Moto was there, unfolding the
canvas bath tub, laying out the clean clothes. He looked up from his
occupation, his wizened face contorted in a shrewd smile.

"No more will we make camp when the sun is only a few hours high," he
surmised.

Kingozi looked at him.

"You and I have handled many safaris, Cazi Moto," he replied.

Delays from these causes ceased, but other delays supervened. Never
were the reasons for them attributable to accident; but they were more
numerous than ordinarily. Kingozi said nothing.

All the day's march he walked fifty yards ahead of the long procession.
The Leopard Woman walked part of the time; part of the time she rode a
donkey procured from the _sultani_. The two necessarily held little
converse during the day. At camp Kingozi had many tasks--camp to
arrange, meat to procure, sick to doctor, guides to interrogate. Only
at the evening meal, which now they shared, did he and his travelling
companion resume their intimacies.

The relation had developed into a curious one. For one thing, it was
more expansive. They discussed many subjects of what might be called
general interest, talking interestedly on books, world politics,
colonial policies, even the larger problems of life. In these
discussions they explored each other's intelligence, came to a mental
approachment, a cold, clear respect for each other's capacity and
experience. Never did they approach the personal. At no time in their
acquaintance had they talked so unrestrainedly, so freely, with so much
genuine pleasure; at no time did they touch so little the mysteries of
personality.

If the Leopard Woman felt this, or wondered at the cloaked withdrawal,
she gave no sign. Apparently she was all candour. She seemed to throw
herself frankly and with pleasure into this relationship of the head,
to have forgotten the possibilities so richly though so momentarily
disclosed by the magic of the moon. She lounged in her canvas chair,
twisting her lithe body within her silks; she smoked her cigarettes;
the jewel of changing lights glowed on her forehead; she talked in her
modulated voice and quaint, precise English. The man's pulses remained
calm. His eyes did not miss the beauty of her form, as frankly defined
beneath the silk as the forms of the naked _bibis_ of the village; nor
the alluring paleness of her face in contrast to the red lips; nor the
drowning passion of her wide eyes. But they did not reach his senses.
Were the insulation of his plain duty--which to Kingozi meant quite
sincerely his whole excuse for existence in this puzzling life--were
this to be withdrawn--he never even contemplated the thought. Reminders
from that night of the moon prevented him from doing so.

After this fashion they came to the grass plains of the uplands. Here
ensued more delays. These did not spring from delinquencies in the
safari: the exemplary punishment assured that. But things broke, and
things were forgotten, and things had to be done differently. The
guides, procured with difficulty from the little hunting peoples of the
plain, disappeared at the end of the second day. They professed
themselves afraid of Chaké, the Nubian. The latter vehemently denied
having spoken a word to them. Day's marches were shortened because the
woman could not stand long ones. Kingozi found it a great bother to
travel with a woman.

Nevertheless, he made no attempts to separate the safaris. He had been
watching closely. These difficulties, the delays, breakages, and
abbreviations of day's journeys had, nine times out of ten, their
origin in the camp of the Leopard Woman. In ordinary circumstances he
would have put this down to inferior organization. But there was the
mysterious, unmentioned map, whose accuracy, by the way, he found
exact. Gradually he came to the conclusion that the delays were not
entirely accidental. The conclusion became a conviction that the
Leopard Woman was making as much of a drag and as big a nuisance of
herself as possible.

Why?

She wanted to become such a burden that Kingozi would go on without
her. Again, why? At the village she had vehemently refused to go back,
and had pleaded to join forces with Kingozi. This puzzled him for some
time. Then he saw. Of course she did not want to turn back. If, as he
surmised, she had some errand with M'tela, like his own, she would not
want to turn back, but she would like a plausible excuse to separate
from him once the ranges of mountains were crossed. Why did she not
drop off then on the excuse, say, of the wonderful new hunting grounds?
That would be simple. Kingozi concluded that she wished the initiative
to come from him. And the more convinced h

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