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Title: The Leopard Woman

Author: Stewart Edward White et al

Release Date: December, 2005  [EBook #9401]
[This file was first posted on September 29, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: iso-8859-1

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




E-text prepared 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 he was that she wanted to get rid of him, the more firmly
he resolved that she must remain.

But it did make for slow travel.

What of it? There was no haste. There was plenty of game, the days passed
pleasantly, the evenings were delightful. A moonbeam flashed in his brain
showing him vistas----He firmly shut the window!

Certainly if Bibi-ya-chui harboured any active desire to drive Kingozi
into leaving her to her own devices, she concealed it well. Occasionally
in the evening, when he stared into the distance, she twisted herself to
look at him. Then her eyes widened, no one could have told with what
emotion. In her fixed stare could have been many things--or nothing. Did
she desire this man, as she had seemed to the night of the full moon, and
did she but bide her time, knowing this was not the moment? Did she desire
this man, and hate him because he had touched her only to turn away? Did
the very simplicity and directness of his nature baffle her? Did she hate
him for his mastering of circumstances but not herself? Any or all of
these emotions might have lain beneath the smoulder in her eyes. One thing
Kingozi would not have seen, had he turned his head suddenly enough, and
that was indifference. But he continued to stare out into the veldt, and
she continued to stare at him; while around them the chatter of men, the
wail of hyenas, the thunder of lions, the shrill, thin cries of night
birds, and the mighty brooding silence that took no account of them all
attended the African night.



CHAPTER XV


THE SHARPENING OF THE SPEAR

Thus passed six weeks. By the end of this time the combined safaris had
progressed out into the unknown country about a normal three weeks'
journey. The rest was delay.

They had ventured out into the plain as into an enchanted sea. The
mountains had dropped below the horizon behind them; none had as yet
arisen before. The veldt ran in long, low undulations, so that always they
walked up or down gentle slopes. It was as though a ground swell had set
in toward distant, invisible shores. Here the short grass was still green
from the rains. Water lay in pools at the bottom of _dongas_. By this good
fortune travel was independent of the permanent water, and hence safe and
easy. Game was everywhere. Not for a single hour in all that six weeks
were they out of sight of it. Scattered over the sward like deer in a pack
the beasts grazed placidly in twos or threes, or in great bands. Without
haste, almost imperceptibly, they drew aside to allow the safari to pass,
and closed in again behind it. Thus the travellers were always the centre
of a little moving oasis of clear space five hundred yards in diameter.
Occasionally some unusual and unexpected crease in the earth or density of
brush in the _dongas_ brought them in surprise fairly atop an unsuspecting
herd. Then ensued a wild stampede. This communicated itself visually to
all the animals in sight. They moved off swiftly. And then still other
remote beasts, unaware of the cause of disturbance, quite out of sight of
the safari, but signalled by twinkle of stripe or flash of rump, also took
flight. So that far over the veldt, at last, the game hordes shifted
uneasily until the impulse died.

In this country were many lions. Most of the requisites of a lion were
here present--abundant game, water, the cover of the low brush in the
_dongas_. Only lacked a few rocky kopje fastnesses to make it ideal; but
that lack could be, and was, overlooked. The members of the safari often
saw the great beasts sunning themselves atop ant hills; walking with
dignity across the open country; sitting on their haunches to stare with
great yellow eyes at these strangers passing by. Here they had never been
annoyed or hunted; so here they had not become as strictly nocturnal as
nearer settlement. In all their magnificence they stalked abroad, lords of
the veldt. Kingozi's finger itched for the trigger. There is no more
exciting sport than that of lion shooting afoot. It is a case of kill or
be killed; for a lion, once the issue is joined, never gives up. He fights
literally to the death; and when he is so crippled that he can no longer
keep his feet, he drags himself forward, and dies facing his opponent
dauntlessly. No other beast furnishes the same danger, the same thrill.
His mere appearance stirs the most sluggish spirit.

"_Simba! Simba! Simba!_" the exclamation ran back the line of the safari,
the sibilant hissed excitedly. Kingozi's heart bounded, and his knuckles
whitened as he gripped his rifle.

"_Bwana hapana piga?_" Simba implored. "Is not _bwana_ going to shoot?"

But Kingozi shook his head. The temptation was strong, but he resisted it.
He refrained from shooting at the lions for exactly the same reason that
he had insulated himself against the Leopard Woman's charms.

In all this wide country were no settled habitations. Your African native
requires hills or forests; he will not dwell on open plains at any great
distance from his natural protection. A few people there were, hunters and
nomads, living on wild honey and game. They were solitaries and lived
where night found them, a little race, shyer than the game. For days and
days they flanked the safari before venturing to approach. Then one would
appear a hundred yards away and open shouted negotiations with the
porters. Perhaps after a few hours he would venture into camp. Invariably
Kingozi interrogated these people. They stood before him palpitating like
birds, poised, tense for flight. He asked them of water, of people, of
routes. By means of kind treatment and little presents he tried to gain
their confidence. Sometimes thus he induced them to talk freely, but never
did he succeed in persuading them to guide him. The mere fact of
interrogation rendered them uneasy. Probably they could not themselves
have understood that uneasiness; but invariably at nightfall they
disappeared. They made fire by the rubbing of sticks, shot poisoned arrows
at game.

From them Kingozi gained little but chatter. They knew accurately every
permanent water, to be sure. This information, in view of the abundance of
rain pools, was not at present valuable; nevertheless Kingozi questioned
them minutely, and made many marks on the map he was preparing. Always he
mentioned M'tela. At first he introduced the name at any time in the
course of the interview; but soon he found that this dried up all
information. So then he reserved that subject for the last. They were
afraid of the very syllables. They spoke them under their breaths, with
side glances. M'tela was a great lord; a lord of terror, to be feared.

At first the information was most vague. M'tela was over yonder--a long
distance--who knows how far? He possessed more or less mythical
characteristics, ranging from a height of forty or fifty feet down to the
mere possession of a charm by which he could kill at a distance. Then, as
the journey went on, the vagueness began to define. M'tela took form as a
big man with a voice like the lion at night. His surroundings began to be
described. He lived in the edge of a forest; his people were many; he had
forty wives, and the like. Still it was far, very far. Kingozi concluded
that none of these people had in person visited the Kabilagani, but were
talking at second hand.

And finally direct information came to him--in the form of fear. M'tela
was a great lord, a lord of many spears, his hand was heavy, he took what
he desired, his warriors were fierce and cruel and could not be gainsaid.
Told under the breath, with furtive glances to right and to left. And not
far: a three days' journey. Kingozi translated this into terms of safari
travel and made it about eight days. And, indeed, though no mountains as
yet raised their peaks above the horizon, fleets of clouds setting sail
from the distant ranges winged their way joyously down a growing wind.

The Leopard Woman fell ill and kept her tent. Kingozi waited two days,
then sought her out. His patience over delay was about gone. The headaches
to which physical exhaustions always made him subject had annoyed him
greatly of late, had rendered him irritable. His eyes bothered him--a
reflex from his run-down condition, he thought, combined with a slight
inflammation due to the glare of sun or yellowing grass. Boracic acid
helped very little. The halo he had noticed around the light that evening
when they had first arrived at the _sultani's_ village returned. He saw it
about every campfire, every lantern flame, even around the, brightest of
the stars. Altogether he approached the interview in a strongly impatient
mood.

The Leopard Woman lay abed beneath silken sheets. This was the first time
Kingozi had ever seen sheets of any kind on any kind of a safari. In
reality the Leopard Woman was an enticing, luring vision, but Kingozi,
through the lenses of his mood, saw only the silkiness and "sheetiness" of
those covers. He began to comprehend the numerous tin boxes.

"I'm going to leave you here and push on," he began abruptly. "You will be
all right with the men I shall leave you. When you feel able to do so,
follow on. I'll leave a plain trail."

She objected feebly; but immediately, seeing that this would not touch his
mood, she asked him the reason of his haste.

"I'll tell you," he replied, "about a week distant is a chief named
M'tela. Did you ever hear of him?"

"M'tela?" she repeated the name thoughtfully. "No--but I don't know much
about native tribes."

Remembering her map Kingozi's lips compressed under his beard. What
earthly object could she have in lying?--unless her errand was as secret
as his own.

"Well, he is described as being very powerful. And of course he will hear
of us. It is well to make friends with him before he has had a chance to
think us over too long. I'll just go on and see him."

"When will you start?" she asked, conceding the point without discussion.

"To-morrow morning. I shall make the distance in about five days,
probably: you should be able to do so in eight or ten. How are you feeling
to-day?"

"Better. I wondered would you ask."

He picked up her wrist.

"Pulse seems steady. Any fever?"

"A little early and late."

"Well, keep on with the hydrochlorate. You'll pull out in a day or so."

But the Leopard Woman pulled out in a second or so after Kingozi's
departure. As soon as he was safe away, she threw back the covers and
swung to the edge of the cot. At her call Chaké, the Nubian, appeared. To
him she immediately began to give emphatic directions, repeating some of
them over and over vehemently. He bent his fuzzy head listening, his
yellow eyeballs showing, his fang-like teeth exposed in a grin of
comprehension. When she had finished he nodded, said a few words in his
own tongue, and glided from the tent.

At his own camp he stooped and picked up a weapon. This was a spear, and
belonged to him personally. He had brought it all the way from Nubia. It
differed from any of the native spears of East Africa both in form and in
weight. Its blade was broad and shaped like a leaf; its haft was of wood;
and its heel was shod with only the briefest length of iron. Chaké kept
this spear in a high state of polish, so that its metal shone like silver.
He lifted it, poised it, made as though to throw it, to thrust with it.
Then with a sigh of renunciation he laid it aside. From behind one of the
porters' tents he took another spear, one typical of this country that had
been traded for only a day or two before. This Chaké considered clumsy and
unnecessarily heavy. Nevertheless he bore it out into the long grass where
he squatted in concealment; and, producing a stone, began painstakingly to
sharpen the point and edges. As the slow labour went on he seemed to work
himself gradually to a pitch of excitement. A little crooning song began
to rise and fall, to flow and ebb. His eyes flashed, his back bent to a
tense crouch. Every few moments he dashed the spear against an imaginary
shield, poised it, thrust with it strongly, the chant rising. Then
abruptly his voice fell, his muscles relaxed, he resumed the rythmical
whetting with the stone.

All afternoon he squatted, passing the stone over the steel; polishing
long after the point and edges were as sharp as they could be made. When
the sun grew large at the world's edge he threw himself flat on his belly
and wormed his way to a position a few yards from Kingozi's tent. There he
left the spear. When he had gained a spot a hundred yards away, he arose
to his feet and walked quietly into camp. A moment later he was sitting on
his heels before his fire, eating his evening meal.



CHAPTER XVI


THE MURDER

That night Kingozi was restless and could not sleep. His vision had been
blurring badly during the day, and now his eyeballs ached as though they
had been seared. After his solitary evening meal he wandered about
restlessly, gripping his pipe strongly between his teeth. Shortly after
dark he entered his tent with the idea of turning in early; but the pain
drove him out again. He remained only long enough to substitute his
mosquito boots for his day boots. The Nubian, lying in the long grass
beside the newly sharpened spear, settled himself to wait.

Kingozi's figure lost itself among the men of the camp. The strong, clean
wind that blew every day from distant ranges, was falling with the night.
A breath of coolness came with it. Chaké shivered and wished he had
brought his blanket. The time was very long; but back of Chaké were
generations of men who had lain patiently in wait. He gripped the haft of
the heavy spear.

Black night descended in earnest. The little fires were dying down. Still
Kingozi, tortured by his headache, wandered about. Upward of two hours
passed. Then at last the crouching Nubian saw dimly the silhouette of the
white man returning, caught in the glimmer of coals the colour of the
khaki coat he wore. The moment was at hand. Chaké arose to his knees, his
spear in his right hand. As soon as his victim should lie down on the cot,
it was his intention to thrust him through the canvas. It must be
remembered that the cot was placed close to the wall, and that the body of
the sleeper was defined against it.

But unexpectedly the wearer of the khaki coat passed the tent door and
proceeded to the rear where he reached upward to the rear guy rope where
hung a towel, or some such matter. This brought him to within four feet of
the kneeling Nubian, the broad of his back exposed, both arms upraised.
Without hesitation Chaké drove the spear into his back. The sharp long
blade slipped through the flesh as easily as a hot knife into butter. The
murdered man choked once and pitched forward headlong on his face. Chaké,
leaving the weapon, glided swiftly away.

Once well beyond the chance of a fire glimmer he arose to his feet and
quickly regained his own camp. This was exactly on the opposite side of
the circle. The four men with whom he shared his tiny cotton tent,
_askaris_ all as beseemed his dignity, were sound asleep. He squatted on
his heels, pushed together the embers of his fire, staring into the coals.
His ugly face was as though carved from ebony. Only his wild savage eyes
glowed and flashed with a brooding lambent flame; and his wide nostrils
slowly expanded and contracted as though with some inner heaving emotion.

Thus he sat for perhaps ten minutes. Then on the opposite side of the
circle a commotion began. Some one cried out, figures ran to and fro,
commands were given, brands were snatched from dying fires, torches were
lit. Elsewhere, all about camp, sleepers were sitting up, were asking one
another what was the matter. The _askaris_ in Chaké's tent grumbled, and
turned over, and asked what it was all about. Chaké shook his mop of hair,
staring into the fire.

From the Leopard Woman's tent came a sharp summons. The Nubian arose and
stalked boldly across the open space. At the closed tent he scratched his
fingernail respectfully against the canvas.

"_Karibu, karibu!_" summoned his mistress impatiently. He slipped between
the flaps and stood inside.

The Leopard Woman was seated upright in her cot. On the tin box near the
head of the bed burned a candle in a mica lantern. By its dim light her
face looked paler than ever, and deep black circles seemed to have defined
themselves under her eyes. The Nubian and the white woman stared at each
other for a moment.

"It is done?" she asked finally, in a hoarse whisper.

"It is done, _memsahib_," he replied calmly.

For another pause she stared at him, her eyes widening. "You have done
well. _Bassi!_" she enunciated at last.

The tent flaps still quivered behind the Nubian's exit, when she threw
herself face downward on the cot. Her body shook with convulsive dry sobs.
After a moment she twisted on her side. Both hands clutched her throat, as
though she strangled for air. Her eyes were round and rolling. It was as
if some mighty pent force were struggling for release. Suddenly the
release came. She began to weep, the tears streaming down her face.
Shortly she commenced to mutter little short disjointed phrases in her own
language. She wrung her hands.

"I had to do it!" she gasped in German. "I had to do it! It was the only
way! Tell me it was the only way!" she seemed to appeal to some one
invisible. And then she resumed her lament in the Hungarian.

But all at once something dried this emotion as the sear of a flame would
dry water over which it passed. The tears ceased, her eyes flashed, she
jerked her body upright, listening. The commotion of pursuit and
investigation was sweeping past her tent.

Distinctly she heard the voice of Kingozi giving commands.

An instant later Chaké darted into the tent and fell to the ground. His
face was the sickly gray of a negro in terror, his eyes rolled in his
head, his teeth chattered, his every muscle trembled.

"_Memsahib! Memsahib!_" he gasped.

Her eyes were blazing with an anger the more fierce in that some of it was
reaction.

"Fool!" she spat at him.

"I killed him, _memsahib!_ I drove the _shenzi_ spear through his back! I
left him lying there! He is a god! He has come back from the dead!"

"Fool!" she repeated, and swung her feet to the floor. "Stay here! Do not
go out!" she commanded, when she had assumed her mosquito boots. She
slipped out between the tent flaps.

Torches were everywhere flickering about. She stopped one of the men as he
passed.

"A _shenzi_ has killed Mavrouki with a spear," the man answered her
question.

She stood for some time watching the torches. Then she saw Kingozi himself
take his place by the pile of loads.

"Fall in!" he commanded sharply.

She returned to her tent.

"Here!" she addressed the crouching Nubian. "It is as I said. You have
been a fool. You have killed a porter by mistake. Now the _bwana_ has
ordered to _fall in_. He wishes to see if any are missing. Go take your
place, and answer to your name."

"Oh, _memsahib!_ Oh, _memsahib!_" the man was groaning.

"Go, I say!" she cried. "And hold up your head. If this is suspected of
you, you will surely die."

Kingozi called the roll by the light of a replenished fire.

As each man was named, he was required to step forward to undergo
Kingozi's scrutiny.

Most were uneasy, many were excited. Kingozi passed them rapidly in
review. But when Chaké came forward, he paused in the machine-like
regularity of his inspection.

"Hullo, my bold buccaneer," said he in English, "what ails you?"

The Leopard Woman had drawn near. Kingozi glanced at her over his
shoulder.

"I know these Fuzzy-Wuzzies pretty well," he remarked. "This man has the
blood look in his eye."

"He's been sick all day," she ventured.

"Sick, eh? Have you had him about you all evening?"

The Leopard Woman hesitated the least appreciable portion of a second.

"No," she answered, "he was sick; I let him sleep in his own camp."

She withdrew a pace, almost as though washing her hands of the affair.
Kingozi whirled and levelled his forefinger at the Nubian.

"Why did you use a _shenzi_ spear?" he demanded.

Over Chaké's face had come the blank, lifeless expression of the obstinate
savage. Kingozi recognized it, and knew that further interrogation was a
matter of much time and patience. His eyes and head ached cruelly.

"Very well," he answered the Nubian's unspoken opposition. "You'll keep.
Simba, get me the hand irons and the leg irons. Guard this man. To-morrow
we will look into it." He turned away without waiting to see his commands
carried out. "I've got a beastly headache," he remarked to Bibi-ya-chui.
"This affair--this whole affair--will keep. Cazi Moto, I want two men with
guns--my men--to stand by my tent, one in front, one in the rear."

The Leopard Woman watched his drooping, wearied form making its way to his
tent. He walked shuffling, almost stumbling. The habitual masking stare of
her eyes changed. Something softer, almost yearning, crept into them. When
the tent flaps had fallen behind him she threw both arms aloft in a
splendid tragic gesture, careless of the staring men. Her face was
convulsed by strong emotion. She turned and fled to her own tent, where
she threw herself face down on her cot.

"It must be done! It must be done!" she groaned to her pillow.



CHAPTER XVII


THE DARKNESS

Kingozi retired again to his cot; but for a long time he could not get to
sleep. Little things annoyed him. A fever owl in a thorn tree somewhere
nearby called over and over again monotonously, hurriedly, without pause,
without a break in rhythm. Kingozi knew that the bird would thus continue
all night long, and he tried to adjust his mind to the fact, but failed.
It seemed beyond human comprehension that any living creature could keep
up steadily so breathless a performance. Some of the men were chatting in
low voices. Ordinarily he would not have heard them at all; now they
annoyed him. He stood it as long as he could, then shouted "_Kalele!_" at
them in so fierce a tone that the human silence was dead and immediate.
But this made prominent other lesser noises. Kingozi's headache was worse.
He tossed and turned, but at last fell into a half-waking stupor.

He was brought to full consciousness by the entrance of Cazi Moto. He
opened his eyes. It was still night--a very black night, evidently, for
not a ray of light entered the tent.

"What time is it, Cazi Moto?" he asked.

"Five o'clock, _bwana_."

It was time to rise if a march was to be undertaken. Kingozi waited a
moment impatiently.

"Why do you not light the candle?" he demanded.

"The candle is lighted, _bwana_" replied Cazi Moto, with a slight tone of
surprise.

Kingozi reached his outspread hand across to his tin box. His fingers
encountered a flame, and were slightly scorched. He lay back and closed
his eyes.

"The men have struck their tents?" he asked Cazi Moto after a moment.

"Yes, _bwana_, all is prepared."

Then there must be a dozen little fires, and the tent must be filled with
flickering reflections. Kingozi lay for some time, thinking. He could hear
Cazi Moto moving about, arranging clothes and equipment. When by the
sounds Kingozi knew that the task was finished and Cazi Moto about to
depart, he spoke.

"We shall not make safari to-day," he said. Cazi Moto stopped.

"_Bwana?_"

"We shall not make safari to-day."

Cazi Moto's mind adjusted itself to this new decision. Then, without
comment, he glided out to reverse all his arrangements.

Left alone Kingozi lay on his back and bent his will power to getting
control of the situation.

He was blind.

At first the mere thought sent so numbing a chill through all his
faculties that he needed the utmost of his fortitude to prevent an
insensate and aimless panic. Gradually he gained control of this.

Then he groped for the candle. By experiment he found that at a distance
of a foot or so the illumination registered. Then there was no paralysis
of the nerve itself. Desperately he marshalled his unruly thoughts,
striving to look back into the remote past of his student days. Fragments
of knowledge came to him, but nothing on which to build a theory of what
was wrong.

"It's mechanical; it's mechanical," he muttered over and over to himself,
but could not seem to progress beyond this point. All he could conclude
was that it was _not_ ophthalmia or trachoma. He had seen a good deal of
these two plagues of Egypt, and their symptoms were absent here. He
concentrated until his mind was weary, and his will slipped. At last in
despair he relaxed and in an unconscious gesture rubbed his eyes with his
forefingers and thumbs. The contact brought him to with a jerk.

The eyeballs, instead of feeling soft and velvety under the lids, were as
hard as marbles.

The shock of this phenomenon rang a bell in his memory. A distinct picture
came to him of his classroom and old Doctor Stokes. He could fairly hear
the slow, impressive voice.

"There is one symptom," the past was saying to him, "one symptom, young
gentlemen, that is not always present; but when present establishes the
diagnosis beyond any doubt. I refer to a peculiar hardening of the eyeball
itself----"

"Glaucoma!" cried Kingozi aloud.

His thoughts, like hounds on a trail, raced off after this new scent.
Desperately he tried to recollect. In snatches he captured knowledge. Of
its accuracy he was sometimes in doubt; but little by little that doubt
grew less. To change the figure, the latent images of his past science
developed slowly, like the images on a photographic plate.

Glaucoma--a hardening, an enlarging of the pupil, a change in the shape
and consistency of the iris--yes, he had it fairly well. Treatment? Let's
see--an operation on the iris, delicate. That was it. Impossible, of
course. But there was something else, a temporary expedient, until the
surgeon could be reached--an undue expansion of the pupil----

"Why," shouted Kingozi aloud, sitting up in bed. "Pilocarpin, of course!"

What luck! He fervently blessed the shortage of phenacetin that had forced
him to take pilocarpin as a sweating substitute for fever.

"Cazi Moto!" he called. Then, as the headman hurried up: "Get me the box
of medicines, quick!"

He waited until he heard the little man reenter the tent.

"Place it here," he commanded. "Now go."

He groped for the case, opened it----

The bottles it contained were all of the same shape. He remembered that
the pilocarpin was at the right-hand end--or was it the left? Hastily he
uncorked the left-hand bottle, and was immediately reassured. It contained
tablets. The right-hand bottle, on the contrary, held the typical small
crystals. But a doubt assailed him. At the same end of the case were the
receptacles also of the atropin and the morphia. He remembered the Leopard
Woman's remarking how much alike they all were. Kingozi seemed to see
plainly in his mind's eye the precise arrangement, to visualize even the
exact appearance of the labels on the bottles--first the morphia, next to
it the pilocarpin, and last the atropin. But while he contemplated this
mental image, it shifted. The pilocarpin and atropin changed places. And
this latter recollection seemed as distinct to him as the first had been.

He fingered the three bottles, his brows bent. And across his mental
travail floated another thought that brought him up all standing.

Pilocarpin and atropin had exactly the opposite effect.

"Here, this won't do!" he said aloud. "If I get the wrong stuff in my eyes
it will destroy them permanently."

He raised his voice for Cazi Moto.

"When Bibi-ya-chui is awake," he told the headman, "I want to see her.
Tell her to come."



CHAPTER XVIII


THE LEOPARD WOMAN CHANGES HER SPOTS

Kingozi washed, dressed, had his breakfast, and sat quietly in his chair.
In the open he found that he had a dim consciousness of light, but that
was all. There was no pain.

After a while Cazi Moto came to report that the Leopard Woman was out and
about. Kingozi's message had been delivered.

"She says you shall come to her tent," concluded Cazi Moto. Kingozi
considered. To insist that she should come to him might lead to a
downright refusal, unless he sent her word of his condition. This he did
not wish to do. His recollections of the classroom were now distinct. He
knew that the pilocarpin would restore his vision within a few hours; and
while the alleviation would be temporary, it might last some months, or
until he could get the proper surgical aid. Therefore it would be as well
not to let the men know anything was even temporarily the matter.

"Take my chair," he ordered Cazi Moto. Then when the latter started off,
he followed, touching lightly the folded seat. As he felt the shade of the
tree under which the Leopard Woman's tent had been pitched, he chanced a
"good morning." Her reply gave him her direction, and he seated himself
facing her.

"I am stupid this morning," he said. "Had a bad night. I wanted you to do
something for me--read a label, as a matter of fact--and it never occurred
to me that I might bring the label to you. Cazi Moto, go get my box of
medicines."

"I do not quite understand," replied the Leopard Woman. "What is it you
would have me do?"

"Read a label--on a bottle."

"Why is it you do not read it yourself?"

"My eyes do not focus well this morning."

"I see," she said slowly. "And you would have me indicate for you the
remedy. That is it?"

"Yes, that is it. I've stupidly forgotten which the bottle is I want."

He heard her moving slightly here and there. He strained his ears to
understand what she was about.

"You are blind!" she cried suddenly.

"Temporarily--until I get my remedy. How did you know?"

"The look of you; and just this moment I thrust suddenly at your face."

Cazi Moto arrived with the medicine chest which he placed at his master's
feet, and opened. Kingozi extracted the three bottles.

"The table is directly in front of you," came the Leopard Woman's voice.

He reached out, and after a moment deposited the vials on the table.

"It's one of these," he said, "but I don't know which. Just read them for
me."

"This remedy will cure you?"

"It will give me my sight. I have what is known as glaucoma. It is an
undue expansion of the pupil. This remedy contracts it again. The only
real cure is an operation."

A silence ensued.

"Well?" asked Kingozi at length.

"It interests me," came her voice. "Suppose you had not this remedy?"

"I should remain blind," replied Kingozi simply.

"Until you obtained the remedy?"

"Probably for always. One must not let glaucoma run or it becomes chronic.
It's God's own luck that I have this stuff with me--it's the pilocarpin I
told you of. The other stuff--atropin--would blind me for sure!"

He thrust forward the three bottles.

"Here," he urged.

"If you had not the remedy--this what-you-call--pilocarpin, what would you
do?" An edge of eagerness had crept into her tones.

"Do?" said Kingozi, a little impatiently. "I'd streak it for a surgeon. I
have no desire to lose my sight."

Another pause.

"I shall not read your labels," she decided. Her voice now was low and
decided.

"What!" cried Kingozi.

He could hear the rustle of her clothes as she leaned forward.

"Listen," she said. "Why should I do this for you? You have treated me as
a man treats his dog, his horse, his servant, his child--not as a man
treats a woman. Do you think because I have been the meek one, the quiet
one, that I have not cared?"

"But this--my sight----"

"Your sight is safe. You tell me so yourself. Go back to your surgeon. And
if you suffer inconvenience on the way--or pain--or humiliation--or anger
--why that is what you have made me suffer."

"I----?"

"You! You have treated me with scorn, with contempt, like a little child,
as though I did not exist! You have--what-you-call--ridden over--
overridden what I propose, what I try to do. You and your lordly way! You
are not a man--you are a fish of cold blood; a statue of iron! You have
nothing but the head! You 'know nothing whatever about vegetables'--nor
women! Bah! Shall I read your labels and give you your sight? Ah, no! ah,
_non!_"

Kingozi was stunned. Idly his hand slid forward across the table. It
encountered and closed upon her wrist. Instantly she struggled to be free,
whereupon mechanically he tightened his clasp. She made a desperate effort
to do something. His other hand sought hers. It grasped one of the three
bottles, and even as he determined this fact, she tried again to hurl it
to the ground. Frustrated, she relaxed her grip, and he released her.

He could hear the fling of her body as she stood upright; could catch the
indrawing of her breath.

"Read them for yourself!" was her parting shot as she withdrew.

Kingozi sat very still for a long time. Then he arose abruptly and
commanded Cazi Moto to return with him to his own camp. There he caused
his chair to be placed in the shade.

"Cazi Moto," said he, "listen well. You are my other hands; now you must
be something else. I am sick in the eyes; I can see nothing. In one of
these bottles is the medicine that will cure me, and in one of them is the
medicine that will make me blind forever. I do not know which it is; and I
cannot read the _barua_ because I cannot see it. And Bibi-ya-chui cannot
read it. So you must be my eyes. Take a 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."

[Illustration: "'Cazi Moto, take a 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'"]

Cazi Moto sharpened a stick, smoothed out a piece of earth, and squatted
beside it.

The Central African native is untrained either to express himself or to
see pictorially. We have been so trained since the building blocks of our
infancy, so that a photograph of a scene is to us an exact replica of that
scene in miniature. As a matter of fact, it is only an arbitrary and
conventional arrangement of black and white. A raw native sees nothing
more than that even in a portrait of him self.

So Cazi Moto went at this task absolutely unequipped both of brain and of
hand. In addition the label was rather difficult. The printed body of it
contained the firm name of the chemists and their address; the drug itself
was written, Kingozi remembered with exasperation, in his own not very
legible script.

"Dashed fool!" he told himself aloud in his usual habit. "Deserve what
you've got. Ought to have segregated the drugs--ought to have printed the
labels--no use thinking of that now."

Cazi Moto worked painstakingly, his shrewd and wizened face puckered in
absorption. He accomplished a legible _Borroughs & Wellcome_ after many
trials. Then he proceeded with the script. It seemed impossible to make a
start; he did not even begin at the beginning, but was inclined to view
the work as an entity and to begin drawing it at the top of the middle.
Kingozi corrected that. At last the white man's fingers made out
distinctly a capital M. He erased it with a sweep of the hand.

"That part of the _barua_ again," he ordered.

After a time Cazi Moto repeated the feat.

"Once more."

This was quicker.

Kingozi dropped that bottle into his side pocket with a sigh of relief.

"Evidently the morphine," he said. "We'll try it again later to be sure.
Wish I didn't scribble such a rotten hand. My capital As and Ps are
something alike."

He had a new idea. For fifteen minutes he tried to get from Cazi Moto at
first the number of letters on each label; and later, when the flowing
script proved this impractical, an idea of the relative lengths of the
words. Neither method was certain enough; another argument for printing
your labels, thought Kingozi.

"We'll get it, old sportsman!" he cried aloud in English. "We'll try for
the first letter."

He bent forward, but the lesson went no further.

For an hour the Leopard Woman had been watching, curious as to what these
two were doing so quietly in the shade of the tree. At last she evidently
made up her mind she must find out. Quietly she drew near them unnoticed,
so that at last she was standing only a few feet to one side. There she
witnessed the final triumph as to the morphine, and heard Kingozi's last
confident speech. As he leaned forward to place another bottle for Cazi
Moto to copy from, she gathered her forces, rushed forward between them,
snatched the vial, and dashed it violently against a rock, where it
naturally broke into innumerable pieces. Cazi Moto stared up at her,
astounded into immobility. Kingozi, without a trace of emotion, leaned
back in his chair.

"I think I am losing my wits," he remarked. "I have been criminally stupid
through this whole affair. I might have foreseen something of the kind."

She stood there panting excitedly, her hands clinched at her sides.

"I will read your label for you now--the bottle you hold in your hand! It
is atropin--atropin--" She laughed wildly.

"I thank you, madam," he said ironically.

"Now you must go back!"

"Yes. Now I must go back. I thank you."

"You may well thank me. I have saved your life!" she cried hysterically,
and was gone.

Kingozi did not examine the meaning of this; indeed, it hardly registered
at all as it was to him evidently the product of excitement.

He forgot even the scandalized Cazi Moto squatting at his feet. For a long
time he stared sightlessly straight ahead. He could not explain this
woman. The whole outburst, the complete about-face in what had been their
apparent relations, overwhelmed him. He had had no idea of the slow
damming back of resentments; in fact, he really had no idea that there
were causes for resentment at all! He had done the direct, obvious,
efficient thing in a number of instances when naturally her powers or
abilities were inadequate. Characteristically, he forgot utterly the night
of the full moon!

First of all, it was evident that he must turn back if he was to save his
eyesight. As he remembered glaucoma, it ought to be surgically treated
within two months, at most.

The second point was whether he could turn back. His mission was a simple
one. Would it wait? He could not see why not. He had been sent to gain the
friendship and active alliance of M'tela and his spears; and had been
given _carte blanche_ in the matters of equipment, methods, and time.
Inside a year or so the International Boundary Commission would be running
boundary lines through that country. Until then the Kabilagani could very
well go on as they probably had gone on for the last five hundred years.

Very well; as far as his job was concerned, he could go back; as far as
his eyes were concerned, he must go back.

Remained the problem of Bibi-ya-chui.

Why was she in the country? For the same purpose as himself? It seemed
unlikely; she appeared to have slight qualifications for such a task.
Indeed, in the candour of his own inner communings Kingozi acknowledged
that he and the German, Winkleman, alone could be held really fitted for
that sort of negotiation. But if she were? Why did she not say so? Their
object would be the same. It was as much to Germany's interest to pacify,
to make friendly this hinterland before the advent of the Boundary
Commission. All this was a puzzle. But there was the indubitable secret
map, and the indubitable concealment of purpose; and--to Kingozi's mind--
the indubitable attempt to make travelling so tedious that he would split
safaris and permit her to go alone.

This led to another conclusion. He could not see the reason for it all,
but one thing was clear: she must not even now be allowed to take her own
course. Whatever she was up to, she did not intend to let him know about
it; ergo it was something inimical to him, either personally or
officially. Probably personally, Kingozi thought with a grim smile. He was
no fool about women when his mind was sufficiently disengaged from other
things; and now he remembered the inhibited promise of the tropic moon.
Still he could take no chances. He could turn back; he must turn back; and
as a corollary the Leopard Woman must turn back with him!



CHAPTER XIX


THE TRIAL

He remembered Cazi Moto squatting, undoubtedly horrified to the core.

"Cazi Moto, are you there?"

"Yes, _bwana_."

"Where has the _memsahib_ gone?"

"Into her tent, _bwana_."

"Listen well to me. She has destroyed the medicine. Now we must go back to
where _Bwana_ Marefu can come to fix my eyes. We shall go with all the men
as far as the people of the _sultani_. There we will leave many porters
and many loads. With a few men we will go to Bwana Marefu. When he has
fixed my eyes, then we will come back. I will fix a _barua_ for _Bwana_.
This must be sent on ahead of us so he can come to meet us. Pick two good
men for messengers. Is all that understood?"

"Yes, _bwana_."

"Tell me, then, what is to be done?"

Cazi Moto repeated the gist of what had been said. Kingozi nodded.

"That is it."

"_Bwana?_" Cazi Moto hesitated.

"Yes. Speak."

"That woman. Shall she be _kibokoed_ or killed?"

Kingozi caught back a chuckle.

"No," he said gravely. "That will wait for later. But see that she is
watched; do not permit her to talk to her men; take all her guns and
pistols, and bring them to me."

"And this Chaké?"

"Of course." Kingozi had really forgotten the man in the concentrations of
the past few hours. "Let him be brought before me an hour before sundown."

He found himself all at once overcome with sleep. Hardly was he able to
stagger to his cot before he fell into a deep, refreshing slumber.

At the appointed hour Cazi Moto scratched on his tent door. Kingozi arose
and walked confidently into the opening. Cazi Moto deftly indicated the
location of the chair. Kingozi sat down.

Although he could not see, he visualized the scene well enough.
Immediately in front of him, and ten feet away, stood the manacled Nubian,
with an armed man at either elbow. Behind them, in turn, were grouped
silently all the combined safaris. At his own elbows stood Cazi Moto and
Simba--possibly Mali-ya-bwana.

He allowed an impressive wait to ensue. Then abruptly he began his
interrogation. He had been thinking over the circumstances, off and on,
since last night, and had determined on his line. Ordinarily he would have
called for witnesses of various sorts, but this would have been not at all
for the purpose of piling up evidence against the accused. That is the
civilized fashion; and is superfluous among savages. Kingozi's witnesses
would have been called solely for the purpose of furnishing information to
himself. He needed only one piece of information here, and that only one
witness could furnish him--the man before him.

"Why did you kill Mavrouki?" he demanded.

"I did not kill Mavrouki, _bwana_."

"That is a lie," rejoined Kingozi calmly.

Chaké became voluble.

"All night I sat by my fire cooking _potio_ and meat," he protested. "This
the _askaris_ will tell you. And my spear lay in the tent with the
_askaris_," he went on at great length, repeating these two points,
babbling, protesting, pleading. Kingozi listened to him in dead silence
until he had quite run down.

"Listen," said he impressively, "all these words are lies. This is what
happened: from one of the _shenzis_ you traded a spear, or a spear was
given you. Your own spear you left in the tent. All day you sat in the
grass and sharpened the _shenzi_ spear." This was a wild guess, based on
probabilities, but by the uneasy stir in the throng Kingozi knew he had
scored. "Then at night you waited, and you speared Mavrouki with the
_shenzi_ spear, and you left it in his back, for you said to yourself,
'men will think a _shenzi_ has done this thing.' Then you went quietly to
your fire, and cooked _potio_, and your own spear was all the time where
the _askaris_ were lying."

Kingozi paused. He knew without Cazi Moto's whispered assurance that every
shot had told. It was a simple bit of deduction, but to these simpler
minds it seemed miraculous.

"Why did you wish to kill me?" he demanded.

The Nubian, taken completely by surprise, began to chatter with fright.

"I did not wish to kill you, _bwana_. I wished to kill Mavrouki."

"That is a lie," said Kingozi equably. "Why should you wait for Mavrouki
near my tent? Was Mavrouki my gun bearer, or even my cook, that he should
come to my tent? Mavrouki was a porter, and if you wished to kill Mavrouki
you would wait by the porters' camp."

He said these words slowly, without emphasis, in almost a detached manner.
By the murmur he knew that this amazing reasoning had, as usual, struck
the men with deep astonishment. The African native is a simple creature.
He waited a full minute.

"Mavrouki wore a khaki coat. He and I were the only people of all the
safari who had khaki coats. That is why in the darkness you mistook
Mavrouki for me. That is why you killed Mavrouki."

He said this in a firm voice, as though making an indisputable statement.
The buzz of low-voiced comment increased. This time he did not pause.

"Why did you wish to kill me?" he repeated.

But again he sensed the fact that Chaké had taken refuge in the dull
stupidity that is an acknowledgment of defeat. He knew that he would get
no more replies. After waiting a few moments he went on. His voice had
become weighty with authority and measured with doom.

"You will not tell. Let it be so. And now listen; and you other safari men
listen also. Because you have wished to kill me, you shall have two
hundred lashes with the _kiboko_; and then you shall be hanged."

A moment of horror was followed by a low murmur of comment. Not a man
there but realized that the unfortunate Nubian would never live to be
hanged. A punishment of twenty-five is as much as the most stoical can
stand in silence; fifty as much as can be absorbed without permanent
injury; seventy-five an extreme resorted to on a very few desperately rare
occasions. Beyond that no experience taught the result. Kingozi's sentence
was equivalent to death by torture.

He leaned forward in his chair, listening intently. He heard his victim's
gasp, the mutter of the crowd. They passed him by. Then he sank back, a
half smile on his lips. He had caught the rustle of silks, the indignant
breathing of a woman. He knew that Bibi-ya-chui stood before him.

"But this is atrocious!" she cried. "This cannot go on!"

"It shall go on," he replied steadily. "Why not?"

"He is my man. I forbid it!"

"He is my man to punish when he attempts my life."

"I shall prevent this--this--oh, this outrage!"

"How?" he asked calmly.

She turned to the men and began to talk to them in Swahili, repeating
emphatically what she had just said to Kingozi in English, uttering her
commands. They were received in a dead silence.

"You have heard the _memsahib_ speak, you men of the _memsahib's_ safari,"
remarked Kingozi; then: "You, Jack, whom I made chief of _askaris_, you
speak."

"What does the _bwana_ say of this?" came Jack's deep voice after a
moment.

"You have heard."

"What the _bwana_ says is law."

"Does any man of you think differently? Speak!"

No voice answered. Kingozi turned to where, he knew, the Leopard Woman
stood.

"You see?"

He heard only a choked sob of rage and impotence. After waiting a minute
he resumed:

"Do my command. Let three men, in turn, give the _kiboko_. You, Simba, see
that they strike hard."

A faint clink of manacles indicated that the guards had laid hands on
their victim.

"Wait!" cried the Leopard Woman in a strangled voice.

Kingozi raised his hand.

"You--you brute!" she cried. "You shall not do this! Chaké is not to
blame! It is I--I, who speak. I did this. I ordered him to kill you. I
alone should be punished!"

He drew a deep breath.

"I thought so," he said softly; then in Swahili: "These are my orders. Let
this man be well guarded. Let him be treated well, and given _potio_ and
meat. He shall be punished later. And now," he turned to Bibi-ya-chui in
English again, "let us drop the excitement and the hysterics. Let us sit
down calmly and discuss the matter. Perhaps you are now ready to tell me
why you have lied to me; why you have concealed your possession of a
secret map and other information; why you have deliberately delayed my
march; and, above all, why you have refused to aid my blindness and have
attempted to kill me."



CHAPTER XX


KINGOZI'S ULTIMATUM

But she did not immediately answer this. She was on fire with a new
thought.

"This is another of your--what you call--traps!" she cried. "You never
intended to kill this man with the _kiboko!_ You intended to make me
speak--as I did!"

"That's as may be," he rejoined. "At least I should have tried how far he
would have been faithful to you before telling what he knew--if you had
not spoken."

"He is faithful--to the death," she asseverated with passion.

"I am inclined to believe you are right. But that is neither here nor
there. I am waiting answers to my questions."

"And you shall wait," she took him up superbly. "I shall not answer!"

He shrugged his shoulders wearily.

"That is your affair. I must confess that I am curious to know, however,
why you did not shoot me. You have a pistol."

"Your men took that pistol."

"But not until late this morning. You had plenty of chance."

"I could not," she said, her voice taking on a curious intonation; "there
was no need."

"You mean since I went blind there was no need," he interjected quickly.

She hesitated whether to reply. Then:

"Yes, that is it," she assented.

Kingozi leaned forward, gripping the arms of his chair.

"I must tell you that my blindness is not going to help you in the way you
believe," he said.

"What do I believe?" The animation of curiosity crept into her voice.

"For one thing, you believe I am no ivory hunter; and you know perfectly
why I am in this country."

"Do I?"

"Do you not?"

"Well--yes."

"Why is it, tell me."

She pondered this, then made up her mind

"I do not know why not. The time for fencing is over. I know perfectly
that you are sent by your government to make treaty with M'tela. And I
know," she added with the graciousness of one who has got back to sure
ground, "that no one could do it better; and no one as well."

"Except Winkleman," said Kingozi simply.

"Except Winkleman--perhaps."

"As you say, the time for fencing is over," pursued Kingozi. "That is
true. And it is true also that you are not merely travelling for pleasure.
You are yourself on a mission. You are Hungarian, but you are in the
employ of the German Government."

She laughed musically.

"_Bravo!_" she cried. "That is true. But go on--how do you make the
guess?"

"Your maps, your--pardon me--equivocations, and a few other matters of the
sort. Now it is perfectly evident that you are trying to forestall me in
some manner."

"Point number two," she agreed mockingly.

"I am free to confess I do not know why; and at present I do not care.
That's why I tell you. You are so anxious to forestall me--for this
unknown reason--that when smaller things fail----"

"You are of an interest--what smaller things?"

"Various wiles--some of them feminine. Delays, for example. Do you suppose
I believed for a moment those delays were not inspired? That is why my
punishments were so severe--and other wiles," he concluded vaguely.

She did not press the point.

"When smaller things failed," he repeated, "you would have resorted even
to murder. Your necessity must have been great."

"Believe me--it was!" she answered.

He brought up short at the unexpected feeling that vibrated in her voice.
His face expressed a faint surprise, and he returned to his subject with
fresh interest.

"And when my eyes failed me, and you could have given me my sight by the
mere reading of a label, you refused; you condemned me to the darkness.
And, further, when I had a chance to learn my remedy for myself, you
destroyed it. I wonder whether that cost you anything, too?"

He sat apparently staring out into the distance, his sightless eyes wide
with the peculiar blank pathos of the blind. The Leopard Woman's own eyes
were suffused with tears!

"I remember now something you said when you broke the bottle of
pilocarpin," he said slowly. "I did not notice it at the time; now it
comes to me. 'I have saved your life,' you said. I get the meaning of that
now. You would have killed me rather than not have forestalled me; but the
blindness saved you that necessity. You know, I am a little glad to learn
that you did not _want_ to kill me."

"Want!" she cried. "How could I want?"

Kingozi chuckled.

"You told me enough times just what you thought of me."

Her crest reared, but drooped again.

"No women likes to be treated so. And if you had your eyes, so I would
hate you again!"

"I don't know why you want to prevent me from reaching M'tela, nor why you
want to reach him first, nor why in its wisdom your government sent you at
all. I'd like to know, just as a matter of curiosity. But it doesn't
really matter, because it does not affect the essential situation in the
least."

"You are going to M'tela just the same?" she inquired anxiously.

"Bless you, no. I have no desire to go blind. It's the beastliest
affliction can come to an active man. And glaucoma is a tricky thing. I'd
like to get to McCloud tomorrow. But still you are not going to get to
M'tela before me."

"No?"

"I am sorry; but you will have to go with me."

"You have the force," she acknowledged after a moment. Somewhat surprised
at her lack of protest--or was it resignation to the inevitable?--Kingozi
checked himself. After a moment he went on.

"Somehow," he mused, "in spite of your amiable activities, I have a
certain confidence in you. It would be much more comfortable for both of
us if you would give me your word not to try to escape, or to go back, or
to leave my camp, or cause your men to leave my camp, or anything like
that."

"Would you trust my word?"

"If you would give it solemnly--yes."

"But to do what I wished to do--as you say just now yourself--I am ready
to use all means--even to killing. Why do you not think I would also
break, my word to do my ends?"

"I think you would not."

"But do you think I would, what you call--consider your trust in me more
great than my government's trust in me?"

"No. I do not think that either."

"Well?"

"I do not think you will give your word to me unless you mean to keep it.
If you do give it, I am willing to rely upon it."

The Leopard Woman moved impulsively to his side.

"Very well. I give it," she said with a choke.

"That you go with my safari, without subterfuge, without sending word
anywhere--in other words, a fair start afresh!"

"Just that," she replied.

"That is your word of honour?"

"My word of honour."

"Give me your hand on it."

She laid her palm in his. His hand closed over hers, gripping it tightly.
Her eyes were swimming, her breast heaved. Slowly she swayed toward him,
leaned over him. Her lips touched his. Suddenly she was seized hungrily.
She abandoned herself to the kiss.

But after a moment she tore herself away from him, panting.

"This must not be!" she cried tragically. "I know not what I do! This is
not good! I am a woman of honour!"

Kingozi, his blind face alight, held out his arms to her.

"Your honour is safe with me," he said.

But he had mistaken her meaning. Step by step she recoiled from him until
she stood at the distance of some paces, her hands pressed against her
cheeks, her eyes fixed on him with a strange mixture of tenderness, pity,
and sternness.

"What is it?" he begged, getting uncertainly to his feet. "Where are you?"

But she did not answer him. After a moment she slipped away.



CHAPTER XXI


THE MESSENGERS

The return trip began promptly the following morning, and progressed
uninterruptedly for two weeks. One by one they picked up the water-holes
found on the journey out.

A few details had to be adjusted to compensate for Kingozi's lack of eyes.
The matter of meat supplies, for example.

"Good luck I gave some attention to your shooting, old sportsman," he
remarked to Simba in English, then in Swahili: "Here are five cartridges.
Go get me a zebra and a kongoni."

Simba was no shot, but Kingozi knew he would stalk, with infinite patience
and skill, fairly atop his quarry before letting off one of the precious
cartridges.

In the matter of rhinoceros and similar dangers, they simply took a
chance.

Kingozi marched at the end of a stick held by Simba. He gave his whole
energies to getting over the day's difficulties of all sorts. His
relations with the Leopard Woman swung back. Perhaps vaguely, in the back
of his mind, he looked forward to the interpretation of that
unpremeditated kiss; but just now a mixed feeling of responsibility and
delicacy prevented his going forward from the point attained. During the
march they walked apart most of the time. The weariness of forced travel
abridged their evenings.

Chaké walked guarded, and slept in chains.

Whenever the location of water-holes permitted, the safari made long
jumps. The two messengers sent out with a scrawled letter to Doctor
McCloud--whom they knew as Bwana Marefu--were of course far ahead. With
any luck Kingozi hoped to meet the surgeon not far from the mountains
where dwelt the _sultani_ of the ivory stockade.

Thus the march went through a fortnight. The close of the fourteenth day
found them camped near water in a _donga_. The dim blue of mountains had
raised itself above the horizon ahead. This rejoiced the men. They were
running low of _potio_, and they knew that from the _sultani's_ subjects
in these mountains a further supply could be had. As a consequence, an
unwonted _kalele_ was smiting the air. Each man chatted to his next-door
neighbour at the top of his lungs, laughing loudly, squealing with
delight. Kingozi sat enjoying it. He had been so long in Africa that this
happy rumpus always pleased him. Suddenly it fell to silence. He cocked
his ear, trying to understand the reason.

Across the open veldt two figures had been descried. They were coming
toward the camp at a slow dogtrot; and as they approached it could be seen
that save for a turban apiece they were stark naked; and save for a spear
and a water gourd apiece they were without equipment. One held something
straight upright before him, as medieval priests carried a cross. The
turbans were formed from their blankets; mid-blade of each spear was wound
with a strip of red cloth; the object one carried was a letter held in the
cleft of a stick.

By these tokens the safari men knew the strangers to be messengers.

The mail service of Central Africa is slow but very certain. You give your
letter to two reliable men and inform them that it is for _Bwana_ So-and-
so. Sooner or later _Bwana_ So-and-so will get that letter. He is found by
a process of elimination. In the bazaars the messengers inquire whether he
has gone north, south, east, or west. Some native is certain to have known
some of his men. So your messengers start west. Their progress
thenceforward is a series of village visits. The gossip of the country
directs them. Gradually, but with increasing certainty, their course
defines itself, until at last--months later--they come trotting into camp.

These two jogged in broadly agrin. Cazi Moto and Simba led them at once to
Kingozi's chair.

"These men bring a _barua_ for you, _bwana_," said Cazi Moto.

Kingozi took the split wand with the letter thrust crosswise in the cleft.

"Who sent them?" he asked.

"The _Bwana_ M'Kubwa[10], _bwana_."

[10: _Bwana M'Kubwa_--the great lord, i.e., the chief officer of any
district.]

"Have they no message?"

"They say no message, _bwana_."

"Take them and give them food, and see that they have a place in one of
the tents."

"Yes, _bwana_."

"And send Bibi-ya-chui to me."

The Leopard Woman sent word that she was bathing, but would come shortly.
Kingozi sat fingering the letter, which he could not read. It was long and
thick. He could feel the embossed frank of the Government Office. The
situation was puzzling. It might contain secret orders, in which case it
would be inadvisable to allow the Leopard Woman a sight of its contents.
But Kingozi shook off this thought. At about the time he felt the cool
shadow of the earth rise across his face as the sun slipped below the
horizon, he became aware also by the faint perfume that the Leopard Woman
had come.

"I am in a fix," he said abruptly. "Runners have just come in with this
letter. It is official, and may be secret. I am morally certain you ought
not to know its contents; but I don't see how I am to know them unless you
do. Will you read it to me, and will you give me your word not to use its
contents for your own or your government's purposes?"

She hesitated.

"I cannot promise that."

"Well," he amended after a moment, "you will stick to the terms of your
other promise--that you will not attempt to leave my safari or send
messages until we arrive."

"The fresh, even start," she supplied. "That promise is given."

He handed her the envelope.

A crackle of paper, then a long wait.

"I shall not read you this," she said finally in a strangled, suppressed
voice.

"Why not?" he demanded sharply.

"It contains things I would not have you know."

He felt the paper thrust into his hands, reached for her wrists, and
pinioned them. For once his self-control had broken. His face was suffused
with blood and dark with anger.

But his speech was cut short by an uproar from the camp. Cries, shrieks,
shouts, yells, and the sound of running to and fro steadily increased in
volume. It was a riot.

In vain Kingozi called for Cazi Moto and Simba. Finally he grasped his
_kiboko_ and started in the direction of the disturbance. The Leopard
Woman sprang to his side, and guided him. He laid about him blindly with
the _kiboko_, and in time succeeded in getting some semblance of order.

"Cazi Moto! Simba!" he shouted angrily.

"Bwana?" "Sah?" two panting voices answered.

"What is this?"

They both began to speak at once.

"You, Cazi Moto," commanded Kingozi.

"These men are liars," began Cazi Moto.

"What men?"

"These men who brought the _barua_. They tell lies, bad lies, and we beat
them for it."

"Since when have you beaten liars? And since when have I ceased to deal
punishment? And since when has it been permitted that such a _kalele_ be
raised in my camp?" pronounced Kingozi coldly. "For attending to such
things you are my man; and Simba is my man; and Mali-ya-bwana is my man;
and Jack is my man. Because you have done these things I fine you six
rupees each one."

"Yes, _bwana_," said Cazi Moto submissively.

"These other men--what manner of 'lie' do they tell? Bring them here."

The messengers were produced.

"What is it you tell that my men beat you for telling lies? They must be
bad lies, for it is not the custom of men to beat men for telling lies."

"We tell no lies, _bwana_" said one of the messengers earnestly. "We tell
the truth."

"What is it you tell?"

"We said what has happened: that across the Serengëtti came white men from
the country of Taveta, and that these white men were many, and had many
_askaris_ with them, and our white men from Nairobi met them, and fought
so that those from Taveta were driven back and some were killed. And down
the N'Gouramani River many of our white men with _Mahindi_[11] fought with
strange white men on a hill below Ol Sambu, but were driven off. And many
_Mahindi_ are coming in to Mombasa, all with guns, and all the _askaris_
are brought into Nairobi. And we told these safari men that the white men
were making war on the white men, so they cried out at this, and beat us."

[Footnote 11: Mahindi--East Indians.]

Kingozi had listened attentively.

"Well, Cazi Moto?" he demanded.

"But this is a lie; a bad lie," said Cazi Moto, "to say that white men
make war on white men!"

"Nevertheless it is true," rejoined Kingozi quietly. "These other white
men are the _Duyches_[12], and they make war."

[Footnote 12: Duyches--Germans.]

He turned and walked back to his camp unassisted. He groped for his chair
and sat down. His hand encountered the letter.

"You do not need to read this to me now," he told the Leopard Woman
quietly. "I know what it tells." He thought a moment. "It is clear to me
now. You knew, this war was to be declared."

She did not reply.

"You know about _when_ this war was to be declared," he pursued his
thought. "Yes, it fits."

Her silence continued.

"You should have killed me," he thought aloud. "That alone could have
accomplished your mission properly. You might have known I would make you
go back, too. Or perhaps you thought you could command your own men in
spite of me?"

"Perhaps," she said unexpectedly.

He raised his voice:

"Cazi Moto!"

The chastened headman came running.

"To-morrow," Kingozi told him, "the men go on half _potio_. There will be
plenty of meat but only half _potio_."

"Yes, _bwana_."

"And if any man grumbles, or if any man objects even one word to what I do
or where I go, bring him to me at once. Understand?"

"Yes, _bwana_."

"_Bassi_."

"What is it you intend to do now?" asked the Leopard Woman curiously.

"Go back, of course."

"Back--where?"

"To M'tela."

She gasped.

"But you cannot do that! You have not considered; you have not thought."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"But it means blindness; blindness for always!"

"I know my duty."

"But to be blind, to be blind always; never to see the sun, the wide
veldt, the beasts, and the birds! Never to read a book, to see a man's
face, a woman's form; to sit always in darkness waiting--you cannot do
that!"

He winced at her words but did not reply. Her hands fluttered to his
shoulders.

"Please do not do this foolishness," she pleaded softly; "it is not worth
it! See, I have given my word! If you had thought I would go ahead of you
to M'tela, all that danger is past. A fresh start, you said it yourself.
Do you think I would deceive you?"

She was hovering very close to him; he could feel her breath on his cheek.
Firmly but gently he took her two wrists and thrust her away from him.

"Listen, my dear," he said gently, "this is a time for clear thinking. My
country is at war with Germany; and my whole duty is to her. You are an
Austrian."

"My country, too, is at war," she said unexpectedly.

"Ah, you knew that would happen, too," he said after a startled pause. "I
know only this: that if in times of peace it was important to my
government that M'tela's friendship be gained, it is ten times as
important in time of war. I must go back and do my best."

"But why?" she interjected eagerly. "This savage tribe--it is in the
remote hinterland; it knows nothing of the white man or the white man's
quarrels. What difference can it make?"

"That is not my affair. For one thing, he is on the border."

"But what difference of that? The border means nothing. The fate of their
colonies will be fought in Europe, not here. What happens to this country
depends on who wins there below."

"Can you state positively of your own knowledge that no invasion or
movement of German troops is planned across M'tela's country? On your
sacred word of honour?" propounded Kingozi suddenly.

"On my word of honour," she repeated slowly, "no such movement."

"Do you know what you are talking about?"

She was silent.

"It doesn't sound reasonable--an invasion from that quarter--what could
they gain either on that side or on this?" Kingozi ruminated. A sudden
thought struck him. "And that there is no reason whatever, from my point
of view as a loyal British subject, against my going out at this time? On
your word?"

"Oh!" she cried distressedly, "you ask such questions! How can I
answer----"

He stopped her with grave finality.

"That is sufficient. I go back."

She did not attempt to combat him.

"I have done my duty, too," she said dully. "Mine is not the Viennese
conscience. My parole; I must take that back. From to-morrow I take it
back."

"I understand. I am sorry. To-morrow I place my guard."

"Oh, why cannot you have the sense?" she cried passionately. "I cannot
bear it! That you must be blind! That I must kill you if I can, once
more!"

Kingozi smiled quietly to himself at this confession.

"So you would even kill me?" he queried curiously.

"I must! I must! If it is necessary, I must! I have sworn!"

"Don't you suppose I shall take precautions?"

"Oh, I hope so! I do hope so!" she cried.

Her distress was so genuine, her unconsciousness of the anomaly of her
attitude so naïve that Kingozi forbore even to smile.

"I must go on," he concluded simply.



CHAPTER XXII


THE SECOND MESSENGERS

The return journey began. A remarkable tribute to Kingozi's influence, not
only over his own men, but over those of the new safari, might have been
read from the fact that there was brought for correction not one grumble,
either over the halving of the _potio_ or the apparently endless counter-
marching. As far as the white members were concerned the journey was one
of doggedness and gloom. Kingozi's strong will managed to keep to the
foreground the details of his immediate duty; but to do so he had to sink
all other considerations whatever. The same effort required to submerge
all thought of the darkened years to come carried down also every
recollection of the past. The Leopard Woman ceased to exist, not because
she had lost importance, but because Kingozi's mind was focussed on a
single point.

And she. Perhaps she understood this; perhaps the tearing antagonism of
her own purposes, duties, and desires stunned or occupied her--who knows?
The outward result was the same as in the case of her companion. They
walked apart, ate apart, lived each in his superb isolation, going forward
like sleep-walkers to what the future might hold.

Thus they travelled for ten days. In mid-march, then, Cazi Moto came to
tell Kingozi that two more messengers had arrived.

"They are not people of our country," he added. "They are _shenzis_ such
as no man here ever saw before."

"What sort of _shenzis?_"

"Short, square men. Very black. Hair that is long and stands out like a
little tree."

"What do they say?"

"_Bwana_, they speak a language that no man here understands. And this is
strange: that they do not come from the direction of Nairobi."

"Perhaps they are men from M'tela."

"No, _bwana_, that cannot be, for they carry a _barua_. They came from a
white man."

"That is strange, very strange," said Kingozi quickly. "I do not
understand. Is there water near where we stand?"

"There is the water of the place we called _Campi ya Korungu_ when we
passed before."

"Make camp there."

"The sun is at four hours[13], _bwana_."

[Footnote 13: 10:00 o'clock.]

"It makes no difference."

When camp had been pitched Kingozi caused the new messengers to be brought
before him. A few moments' questioning elicited two facts: one, that there
existed no medium of communication known to both parties; two, that the
strangers were from some part of the Congo basin. The latter conclusion
Kingozi gained from catching a few words of a language root known to him.
He stretched his hand for the letter.

It was in a long linen envelope, unsealed, and unembossed.

Not from the government. He unfolded the sheets of paper and ran his
fingers over the pages. Written in pencil; he could feel the indentations
where the writer had borne down. Some private individual writing him from
camp on the Congo side. Who could it be? Kingozi's Central African
acquaintance was wide; he knew most of the gentlemen adventurers roaming
through that land of fascination. A good many were not averse to ivory
poaching; and the happy hunting ground of ivory poaching was at that time
the French Congo. It might be any of them. But how could they know of his
whereabouts in this unknown country? And how could they know he was in
this country at all? These last two points seemed to him important.
Suddenly he threw his head back and laughed aloud.

"Self-centred egotist!" he addressed himself. "Cazi Moto, tell Bibi-ya-
chui I wish to see her."

Cazi Moto departed to return immediately with the Leopard Woman who, at
this hour, was still in her marching clothes. If she felt any surprise at
this early abandonment of the day's march she did not show it. Two
_askaris_, confided with the task of guarding her, followed a few paces to
the rear. She glanced curiously at the bushy savages.

"Here," said Kingozi, holding out the letter, "is a _barua_ for you--from
your friend Winkleman in the Congo."

The shock of surprise held her speechless for a moment.

"Your blindness is well! You can see!" she cried then.

Kingozi raised his head sharply, for there was a lilt of relief and
gladness in her voice.

"No," he answered, "just ordinary deduction. Am I right?"

He heard her slowly unfolding the paper.

"Yes, you are right," she said in sober tones, after a moment. She uttered
a happy exclamation, then another; then ran to his side and threw her arms
around his neck in an impulsive hug. Kingozi remembered the waiting men
and motioned them away. She was talking rapidly, almost hysterically, as
people talk when relieved of a pressure.

"Yes, it is from Winkleman. He has come in from the Congo side. When this
letter was written he was only ten days' march from M'tela."

"How do you know that?" interjected Kingozi sharply.

"Native information, he says. Oh, I am so glad! so glad! so glad!"

"That was the plan from the start, was it?" said Kingozi. "I don't know
whether it was a good plan or that I have been thick. My head is in rather
a whirl. It was Winkleman right along, was it?"

She laughed excitedly.

"Oh, such a game! Of course it was Winkleman. Did you think me one to be
sent to savage kings?"

"It didn't seem credible," muttered Kingozi. "It is a humiliating
question, but seems inevitable--were you actually sent out by your
officials merely to delay _me?_"

"So that Winkleman might arrive first--surely."

"I see." Kingozi's accent was getting to be more formally polite. "But why
you? Why did not your most efficient employers dispatch an ordinary
assassin? I do not err in assuming that you all knew that this war was to
be declared at this time."

"That is true." Her voice still sang, her high spirits unsubdued by his
veiled sarcasm.

"Then since it is war, why not have me shot and done with it? Why send a
woman?"

"That was arranged, truly. A man of the Germans was following you. He was
as a sportsman, for it would not do to rouse suspicion. Then he had an
accident. I was in Nairobi. I heard of it. I did not know you, and this
German did not know you. It seemed to us very simple. I was to follow
until I came up with you. Then I was to delay you until I had word that
Winkleman had crossed the _n'yika_."

"All very simple and easy," murmured Kingozi.

"It was not simple! It was not easy!" she cried in a sudden flash of
resentment. "You are a strange man. When you go toward a thing, you see
down a narrow lane. What is either side does not exist." Her voice
gradually raised to vehemence. "I am a woman. I am weak and helpless. Do
you assist me, comfort me, sustain me in dreadful situation? No! You march
on, leaving me to follow! I think to myself that you are a pig, a brute,
that you have no chivalry, that you know not the word gentleman; and I
hate you! Then I see that I am wrong. You have chivalry, you are a true
gentleman; but before you is an object and you cannot turn your eyes away.
And I think so to myself that when this object is removed, is placed one
side for a time, then you will come to yourself. Then will be my chance.
For I study you. I look at your eyes and the fire in them, and the lips,
and the wide, proud nostril; and I see that here is no cold fish creature,
but a strong man. So I wait my time. And the moon rises, and the savage
drums throb, throb like hearts of passion, and the bul-buls sing in the
bush--and I know I am beautiful, and I know men, and almost I think you
look one side, and that I win!"

"So all that was a game!" commented Kingozi.

"A game? But yes--then!"

"For the sake of winning your point--would you--would you----"

"For the sake of winning my point did I not command to kill you--you--my
friend?" she commented, her manner falling from vehemence to sadness. "If
I could do that, what else would matter!" She paused; then went on in a
subdued voice: "But even then your glance but wavered. You are a strong
man; and you are a victim of your strength. When an idea grips hold of
you, you know nothing but that. And so I saw the delaying of you was not
so simple, so easy. It was not as a man to a woman, but as a man to a man.
It was war. I did my best," she concluded wearily.

Kingozi was staring in her direction almost as though he could see.

"Why do you tell me all this?" he asked at length.

"I want you to know. And I am so glad!" The lilt had crept back into her
voice.

"I congratulate you," he replied drily.

"Stupid! Oh, stupid!" she cried. "Do you not see why I am glad? It is you!
Now you shall not sit forever in the darkness. You shall go back to your
doctor, who will arrange your eyes."

"Why?" asked Kingozi.

"Why!" she repeated, astonished. "But it is 'why not!' Listen! Have you
thought? Winkleman is now but a week's march from M'tela. And here, where
we stand, it is perhaps twenty days, perhaps more. Winkleman would arrive
nearly two weeks ahead of you. Tell me, how long would it take you to win
M'tela's friendship so it would not be shaken?"

Kingozi's face lit with a grim smile.

"A week," he promised confidently.

"You see! And Herr Winkleman is equal to you; you have said so yourself.
Is not it so?"

"It's so, all right."

"Then--you see?"

"I see."

"Then we shall go back to the doctor. Oh, do you not see it is for that I
am glad--truly, truly! You must believe me that!"

"I believe you," said Kingozi. "Nevertheless, I do not think I shall go
back."

"But that is madness. You cannot arrive in time. And it is to lose your
eyes all for nothing, for a foolish idea that you do your duty!"

Kingozi shook his head. She wrung her hands in despair.

"Oh, I know that look of you!" she cried. "You see only down your narrow
lane!"



CHAPTER XXIII


THE COUNCIL OF WAR

That evening Kingozi called to him Cazi Moto, Simba, and Mali-ya-bwana. He
commanded them to build a little fire, and when the light from the leaping
flames had penetrated his dull vision, he told them to sit down before
him. Thus they knew that a serious council was intended. They squatted on
their heels below the white man in his chair, and looked up at him with
bright, devoted eyes.

"Listen," he said. "The matter is this: the _Inglishee_ are at war with
the _Duyche_. Over from the Congo comes a _Duyche_ known as _Bwana_
Nyele.[14] It is his business to reach this _shenzi_ king, M'tela, and
persuade M'tela to fight on the side of the _Duyche_. It is our business
to reach M'tela and persuade him to fight on the side of the _Inglishee_.
Is that understood?"

[Footnote 14: _Bwana_ Nyele--the master with the mane, i.e., beard or
hair.]

"It is understood, _bwana_" said they.

"But this _Duyche, Bwana_ Nyele, is only one week's march from M'tela; and
he undoubtedly has many gifts for M'tela and the Kabilagani. And we are
many days' safari distant, and I am blind and cannot hurry." he three
uttered little clucks of sympathy and interest.

"But for all that we may win. You three men are my eyes and my right hand.
I have a plan, and this is what you must do: Cazi Moto must stay with me
to be headman of safari, and to be my eyes when we come to M'tela's land.
You Simba, and you Mali-ya-bwana, must go with six of the best men to
where _Bwana_ Nyele is marching. These two strange _shenzis_ will guide
you. Then when you are near the safari of _Bwana_ Nyele you must arrange
so that these _shenzis_ can have no talk with any of the safari of _Bwana_
Nyele. That is understood?"

"Yes, _bwana_," said Simba. "Do we kill these _shenzis?_"

"No, do not kill them. Tie them fast."

"Yes, _bwana_, and then?"

"This is the most difficult. You must get hold of _Bwana_ Nyele, and you
must tie him fast also, and keep him from his safari. He is a
_m'zungu_[15], yes--but he is a _Duyche_, and my enemy, and these things
are right, because I command it."

[Footnote 15: _M'zungu_--white man.]

"Yes, _bwana_."

"Then you must keep _Bwana_ Nyele and these two _shenzis_ close in camp,
hidden where their safari cannot find them. And after two weeks you must
send two men to M'tela's to find me, and to tell me where you are hidden.
Now is all that understood? You, Simba, tell me what you are to do."

"Mali-ya-bwana, myself, six men and these _shenzis_ travel to where the
safari of _Bwana_ Nyele marches. When we are near that safari we tie up
the two _shenzis_. Then we get _Bwana_ Nyele and tie him up in a secret
camp. Then after two weeks we send two men to tell the _bwana_ where we
are. But, _bwana_, how do we get _Bwana_ Nyele?"

"That I will tell you soon. One thing you forgot: you must reach the
_Duyche_ before he gets into M'tela's country. This means travel night and
day--fast travel. Can this be done?"

"We shall pick good men, _bwana_, runners of the Wakamba. We shall do our
best."

"Good. Each man four days' _potio_, and what biltong he can use. Simba,
take my small rifle and fifty cartridges. Take some snuff, beads, and
wire--only a little--to trade for _potio_ if you meet with other people.
Understood?"

"Yes, _bwana_."

"Cazi Moto," he directed, "bring me the small box of wood from my
_sandoko_."

He slid the cover off this box when it was delivered into his hands,
fumbled a moment, and held up an object.

"What is this?" he asked.

"It is a bone, _bwana_."

"Yes, it is a bone; but it is more. It is a magic. With this you will take
_Bwana_ Nyele."

He could sense the stir of interest in the three men before him.

"Listen carefully. This is what you must do. When you have come near to
this safari, you must follow it until it has put down its loads and is
just about to make camp. Not a rest period on the road; not after camp is
made--just at the moment when the men begin to untie the loads, when they
begin to pitch the tents. That is the magic time. Understand?"

"Yes, _bwana_," they chorused breathlessly.

"Simba must be ready. He must take off his clothes, and he must oil his
body and paint it, and put on the ornaments of a _shenzi_ of this country.
For that purpose he must take with him the necklace, the armlets, anklets,
and belt that I traded for with the _shenzis_, and which Cazi Moto will
get from my tent. Do you know the style of painting of these _shenzis_ of
the plains, Simba?"

"Yes, _bwana_."

"It is important that you make yourself a _shenzi_. This magic is a bad
magic otherwise. Then at the moment I have named, Simba as a _shenzi_ will
take this magic bone and hold it out to _Bwana_ Nyele saying nothing.
_Bwana_ Nyele will say words, perhaps in Swahili which Simba will
understand; perhaps in some other language which he will not understand.
Simba must point thus; and then must start in that direction. _Bwana_
Nyele will follow a few steps. Then Simba will say: 'Many more, _bwana_,
over there only a little distance.'" Kingozi uttered this last sentence in
atrocious Swahili. "You must say it in just that way, like a _shenzi_. Say
it."

Simba repeated the words and accent.

"Yes, that is it. Then say nothing more, no matter what he asks; and do
not let him touch the magic bone. Point. He will follow you; and when he
has followed out of sight of the safari you will all seize him and tie him
fast. The rest is as I have commanded."

"How does _bwana_ know how these things will happen thus?" breathed Simba
in awestricken tones.

"It is a magic," replied Kingozi gravely.

Over and over he drilled them until the details were thoroughly
understood. Then he dismissed them and leaned back with a sigh. The plan
was simple, but ought to work. At the moment of making camp Winkleman
would be less apt than at any other time to take with him an escort--
especially if his interest or cupidity were aroused--for every one would
be exceedingly busy. And no fear about the interest and cupidity! The
"magic" bone Kingozi had confided to Simba was a fragment of a Pleistocene
fossil. Kingozi himself valued it highly, but he hoped and expected to get
it back. It made excellent bait, which no scientist could resist. Of
course there might be a second white man with Winkleman, but from the
reported size of the latter's safari he thought not. All in all, Kingozi
had great reliance in his magic.

At the end of fifteen minutes Simba came to report.

"All is ready, _bwana_," he said, "and we start now. But if _bwana_ could
let me take a lantern, which I have in my hand, we could travel also at
night."

The lantern, as Kingozi well knew, was not for the purpose of casting
light in the path, but as some slight measure of protection against lions.

"Let me have it," he ordered. It was passed into his hands, and proved to
be one of the two oil lanterns kept for emergencies.

But Kingozi sent the headman for one of the candle lanterns in everyday
use, and a half-dozen short candles.

"These are better," he said; "and _qua heri_, Simba. If you do these
things well, large _backsheeshi_ for you all."

"_Qua heri, bwana_" said Simba, and was gone.



CHAPTER XXIV


M'TELA'S COUNTRY

To the bewilderment of the Leopard Woman the pace of the safari now
slackened. Heretofore the marches had been stretched to the limit of
endurance; now the day's journey was as leisurely as that of a sportsman's
caravan. It started at daybreak, to be sure, but it ended at noon, unless
exigencies of water required an hour or two additional. As a matter of
fact, Kingozi knew that he had done everything possible. If Simba & Co.
succeeded, then there was no immediate hurry; if they failed, hurry would
be useless.

Bibi-ya-chui noticed the absence of two such prominent members of the
safari as Simba and Mali-ya-bwana, of course, but readily accepted
Kingozi's explanation that he had sent them "as messengers."

The little safari for the third time crawled its antlike way across the
immensities of the veldt. Cazi Moto managed to keep them supplied with
meat, but at an excessive expenditure of cartridges. As he used the
Leopard Woman's rifle, this did not so much matter, for she was abundantly
supplied. At last the blue ranges rose before them; each day's journey
defined their outlines better. The foothills began to sketch themselves,
to separate from the ranges, finally to surround the travellers with the
low swells of broken country. Running water replaced the still water-
holes. Cazi Moto reported herds of goats in the distance. One evening
several of the goatherds ventured into camp. They spoke no Swahili, but at
the name M'tela they nodded vigorously, and at the mention of Kabilagani
they pointed at their own breasts.

"I wish I had eyes!" cried Kingozi petulantly. "What kind of people are
they?"

The Leopard Woman told him as best she could--tall, well-formed, copper in
hue, of a pleasing expression, clad scantily in goat skins.

"Their ornaments, their arms?" cried Kingozi with impatience.

"They are poor people," replied Bibi-ya-chui. "They have armlets of iron
beaten out, and necklaces of shell fragments or bone. They carry spears
with a short blade, broad like a leaf."

"Their armlets are not of wire? They have no cowrie shells?"

"No, it is beaten iron----"

"Good!" cried Kingozi. "There has been little or no trading here!"

One of the goatherds went with them as guide to M'tela.

"Without doubt," Kingozi surmised, "others have run on to warn M'tela of
our coming."

Their way led on a gentle, steady up grade without steep climbs. The
hills, at first only scattered, low hummocks, became higher, more
numerous, closed in on them; until, before they knew it, they found
themselves walking up the flat bed of a cañon between veritable mountains.
The end of the view, the Leopard Woman said, was shut by a frowning,
unbroken rampart many thousands of feet high.

"Then we are due for a climb," sighed Kingozi. "These native tracks never
hunt for a grade! When they want to go up, why up they go!"

But the head of the cañon, instead of stopping against the wall, bent
sharply to the left. A "saddle" was disclosed.

Toward this the hard-beaten track led. Shortly it began to mount steeply,
and shortly after it entered a high forest growing on the abrupt slopes.
Here it was cool and mysterious, with green shadows, and the swing of rope
vines, and the sudden remoteness of glimpsed skies. The earth was soft and
moist under foot; so the dampness of it rose to the nostrils. Vines and
head-high bracken and feather growths covered the ground. In every shallow
ravine were groves of tree ferns forty feet tall. A silence dwelt there, a
different silence from that of the veldt at night; compounded of a few
simple elements, such as the faint, incessant drip of hidden waters and
occasional loud, hollowly echoing noises such as the bark of a colobus or
the scream of a hyrax. There were birds, rare, flashing, brilliant,
furtive birds, but they said nothing.

Through this forest on edge the path led steeply upward. Sometimes it was
almost perpendicular; sometimes it took an angle; sometimes--but rarely--
it paused at a little ledge wide enough to rest nearly the whole safari at
once.

For an hour and a half they climbed, then topped the rim of the escarpment
and emerged from the forest at the same time.

Immediately they were a thousand leagues from the Africa they knew. A
gently rolling country stretched out before them with sweeps of green
grass shoulder high, and compact groves of trees as though planted. For
miles it undulated away until the very multitude of its low, peaceful
hills shut in the horizon. Cattle grazed in the wide-flung hollows, and
little herds of game; goats and sheep dotted the hills. The groves of
trees were very green. Everything breathed of peace and plenty. Almost
would one with proper childhood recollections listen for a church-going
bell, search for spires and cottage roofs among the trees. Slim columns of
smoke rose straight into the motionless air. The very sun seemed to have
abated its African fierceness, and to have become mild.

Some of these things Kingozi learned from Cazi Moto; some from the Leopard
Woman; each after his kind.

About a half-mile away a number of warriors in single file walked across
the wide valley and disappeared in the forest to the left. They carried
heavy spears and oval shields painted in various designs. A fillet bound
long ostrich plumes that slanted backward on either side the head; and as
they walked forward in the rather teetery fashion of the savage dandy
these plumes waved up and down in rhythm.

"M'tela," said the _shenzi_ goatherd waving his hand abroad.

They camped at the edge of a pleasant grove near running water. The donkey
that the Leopard Woman rode fell to the tall lush grasses with a
thankfulness beyond all expression. All the safari was in high spirits.
They saw _potio_ in sight again; and, immediately, long grass for beds.

Visitors came in shortly--a dozen armed men, like the warriors seen
earlier in the day, and a dignified older man who spoke a sufficient
Swahili. Kingozi received these in a friendly fashion, did not permit them
to sit, but at once began to cross-question them. The Leopard Woman
emerged from her tent.

"Stay where you are," Kingozi called to her in decided tones. "You must in
this permit me to judge of expediencies. I forbid you to hold any
communication with these people. I hope you will not make it necessary for
me to take measures to see that my wishes are carried out."

She showed no irritation, not even at the "forbid," but smiled quietly,
and without reply returned to her tent.

"Yes," said the old man, "this was M'tela's country, these were M'tela's
people." He disclaimed having been sent by M'tela.

At this point Kingozi, apparently losing all interest, dismissed them into
the hands of Cazi Moto. The latter, previously instructed, took his guests
to his own camp. There he distributed roast meat, one _balauri_ of coffee
to the old man, and many tales, some of them true. These people had never
before laid eyes on a white man, but naturally, at this late date in
African history, all had heard more or less of the phenomenon. Cazi Moto
found that the distinction between _Inglishee_ and _Duyche_ was known. He
left a general impression that Kingozi was the favourite son of the King,
come from sheer friendship and curiosity to see M'tela, whose fame was
universal. For two hours the warriors squatted, or walked about camp
examining with carefully concealed curiosity its various activities and
strange belongings. Then all disappeared. No more people appeared that
day.

Kingozi knew well enough that this was a spying party sent directly from
M'tela's court; and that, pending its report, nothing more was to be done.
Cazi Moto's detailed description of what had been said and done cheered
his master wonderfully. By all the signs the simplest of the white man's
wonders were brand new to the visitors; _ergo_ Winkleman could not have
arrived. If he were not yet at M'tela's court, the chances seemed good
that Simba and the magic bone had succeeded.

Nothing at present could be done. Kingozi sent Cazi Moto out to kill an
abundance of game. The little headman returned later to report the
extraordinary luck of two zebra to two cartridges (at thirty yards to be
sure!) and that after each kill very many _shenzis_ gathered to examine
the bullet wound, the gun, and the distance. They were immensely excited,
not at all awestricken, entirely friendly. There was no indication of any
desire to rob the hunters. Evidently, Kingozi reflected, they were
familiar with firearms by hearsay, and were deeply interested at this
first hand experience.

The safari remained encamped at this spot all the next day, and the day
succeeding. Natives came into camp, at first only the men, hesitatingly;
then the women. A brisk little trade sprang up for yams, bananas,
_m'wembe_ meal, eggs, and milk. No shrewder bargainer exists than your
African safari man, and these soon discovered that beads and wire
possessed great purchasing power in this unsophisticated country. The
bartering had to be done in sign language, as Swahili seemed to be
unknown; and no man in the safari understood this unknown tongue. Kingozi
sat in state before his tent, smoking his pipe--which he still enjoyed in
spite of his blindness--and awaiting events in that vast patience so
necessary to the successful African traveller. Occasionally a group of the
chatting natives would drift toward his throne, would fall into
awestricken silence, would stare, would drift away again; but none
addressed him. The Leopard Woman, obeying rules that Kingozi had managed
to convey as very strict, held apart. Only in the evening, after the lion-
fearing visitors had all departed, did they sit together sociably by the
fire. The nights at this elevation were cool--cold they seemed to the
heat-seasoned travellers.

There was not much conversation. Kingozi was lost in a deep brooding,
which she respected. The occasion was serious, and both knew it. During
the moment of decision the man's duty and principle had been the most
important matters in the world. Once the decision was irrevocably made,
however, these things fell below the horizon. There loomed only the
thought of perpetual blindness. Kingozi faced it bravely; but such a fact
requires adjustment, and in these hours of waiting the adjustments were
being made.

Only once or twice did Bibi-ya-chui utter the thoughts that continually
possessed her.

"It seems so foolish!" she complained to him. "You are making yourself
blind for always; and you are going to be a prisoner for long! If you
would go back, you would not be captured and held by Winkleman when you
reach M'tela!"

But such expostulations she knew to be vain, even as she uttered them.

At about nine o'clock of the third day Cazi Moto reported a file of
warriors, many warriors--"like the leaves of grass!" armed with spears and
shields, wearing black ostrich plumes, debouching from the grove a mile
across the way. At the same instant the Leopard Woman, her alarm causing
her to violate her instructions, came to Kingozi's camp.

"They attack us!" she cried. "They come in thousands! How can we resist so
many--and you blind! Tell me what I shall do!"

"There is no danger," Kingozi reassured her. "This is undoubtedly an
escort. No natives ever attack at this hour of the day. Their time is just
at first dawn."

She sighed with relief. Then a new thought struck her.

"But if they had wished to attack--at dawn--we have had no extra guards--
we have not fortified! What would prevent their killing us all?"

"Not a thing," replied Kingozi calmly. "We are too weak for resistance.
That is a chance we had to take. Now please go back to your tent. Cazi
Moto, strike camp, and get ready to safari."

The warriors of M'tela debouched on the open plain, seemingly without end.
The sun glinted from their upraised, polished spears; their ostrich plumes
swayed gently as though a wind ruffled a field of sombre grain tassels;
the anklets and leg bracelets clashed softly together to produce in the
aggregate a rhythmic marching cadence. Their front was nearly a quarter of
a mile in width. Rank after rank in succession appeared: literally
thousands. Drums roared and throbbed; and the blowing of innumerable
trumpets, fashioned mostly from the horns of oryx and sing-sing, added to
the martial ensemble.

The members of the safari were gathered in little knots, staring, wide
eyed with apprehension. Upon them descended zealous Cazi Moto. Even his
_kiboko_ had difficulty in breaking up the groups, in setting the men at
the commonplace occupations of breaking camp. Yet that must be done, in
all decent dignity; and at length it was done.

The first ranks were now fairly at the outskirts of camp; the last had but
just left the woods. The plains were literally covered with spearmen. A
magnificent sight! They came to a halt, raised their spears horizontally
above their heads; the horns and drums redoubled their din; a mighty,
concerted shout rent the air. Then abruptly fell dead silence.

From the front rank a tall, impressive savage stepped forward, pacing with
dignified stride. He walked directly to Kingozi's chair.

"_Jambo, bwana!_" He uttered his greeting in deep chest tones that rumbled
like distant thunder.

"_Jambo, n'ympara_," responded Kingozi in a mild tone. By his use of the
word _n'ympara_--headman--he indicated his perfect understanding of the
fact that this man, for all his magnificence, for all the strength of his
escort, was not M'tela himself, but only one of M'tela's ministers.

"_Jambo, bwana m'kubwa!_" rolled the latter.

"_Jambo_" replied Kingozi.

"_Jambo, bwana m'kubwa-sana!_"

"_Jambo_."

"_Jambo, bwana m'kubwa-sana!_"

"_Jambo_."

Having thus climbed by easy steps to the superlative greeting, the
minister uttered his real message. As befitted his undoubted position in
court, he spoke excellent Swahili.

"I am come to take you to the _manyatta_ of M'tela," he announced.

"That is well," replied Kingozi calmly. "In one hour we shall go."



CHAPTER XXV


M'TELA

They set off through the beautiful country in their usual order of march.
The warriors of M'tela accompanied them, walking ahead, behind, and on
either flank. The drums roared incessantly, the trumpets of horn sounded.
It was a triumphal procession, but rather awe-inspiring. The safari men
did their best to imitate Kingozi's attitude of indifference; and
succeeded fairly well, but their eyes rolled in their heads.

The Leopard Woman sat her donkey, and surveyed it all with appreciative
eyes. In spite of Kingozi's reassuring words, the impression of savage
power as the warriors debouched from the wood had been vivid enough to
give emphasis to a strong feeling of relief when their intentions proved
peaceful. The revulsion accentuated her enjoyment of the picturesque
aspects of the scene. The shining, naked bodies, the waving ostrich
plumes, the glitter of spears, the glint of polished iron, the wild,
savage expression of the men, the throb of barbaric music appealed to her
artistic sense. In a way her mind was at rest. At least the striving was
over. Kingozi had made his decision; it was no use to struggle against it
longer. She had no doubt that now they were virtually prisoners, that they
were being conducted in this impressive manner to a chieftain already won
over by Winkleman. The latter had had more than the time necessary to
carry out his purpose. Kingozi's persistence was maddeningly futile; but
it was part of the man, and she could not but acquiesce.

They marched across the open grassy plain, and into the woods beyond. A
wide, beaten track took them through, as though they walked in a lofty
tunnel with green walls through which one could look, but beyond which one
might not pass. Then out into the sunlight again, skirting a swamp of
plumed papyrus with many waterfowl, and swarms of insects, and birds
wheeling swiftly catching the insects, and other larger birds soaring
grandly above on the watch-out for what might chance. This swamp was like
a green river flowing bank high between the hills. It twisted out of sight
around wooded promontories. And the hills, constantly rising in height,
crowned with ever-thickening forests, extended as far as the eye could
reach.

At the end of the straight vista they turned sharp to the right and
climbed a tongue of land--what would be called a "hog's-back" in the West.
It was grown sparsely with trees, and commanded a wide outlook. Now the
sinuous course of the papyrus swamp could be followed for miles in its
vivid green; and the tops of the forest trees lay spread like a mantle.
The top of the "hog's-back" had been flattened, and on it stood M'tela's
palace.

The Leopard Woman stared curiously. There was not much to be seen. A high
stockade of posts and wattle shut off the view, but over it could be
distinguished a thatched roof. It was rectangular instead of circular and
appeared to be at least forty feet long--a true, royal palace. Smaller
roofs surrounded it. Outside the gate stood several more of the gorgeous
spearmen, rigidly at attention. Not another soul was in sight.

But whatever seemed to lack either in the cordiality or curiosity of the
inhabitants was more than made up for by the escort. With admirable
military precision, a precision that Kingozi would have appreciated could
he have seen it, they deployed across the wide open space at the front of
the plateau. The drums lined up before them. In the echoing enclosure of
the forest walls the noise was prodigious. And then abruptly, as before,
it fell. In the silence the voice of the old headman was heard:

"Here will be found the way to the guest houses," he urged gently.

The ragged safari, carrying its loads, plunged again into a forest path,
walking single file, a tatterdemalion crew. And yet a philosophic observer
might have caught a certain nonchalance, a faint superiority of bearing on
the part of these scarecrows; ridiculous when considered against the
overwhelming numbers, the military spruceness, the savage formidability of
the wild hordes that surrounded them. And if he had been an experienced as
well as a philosophic observer he could have named the quality that
informed them. Even in these truly terrifying, untried conditions it
persisted--the white man's _prestige_.

The forest path, wide and well-trodden, led them a scant quarter mile to a
cleared wide space on the very edge of the hill, which here fell abruptly
away. A large circular guest house occupied the centre point, and other
smaller houses surrounded it at a respectful distance. To the right hand
were the tops of trees on a lower elevation; to the left and at the rear
the solid wall of forest; immediately in front a wide outlook over the
papyrus swamp and the partly clothed hills beyond.

Their guides--for there were several--indicated the guest houses, and
silently disappeared. The safari was alone with its own devices.

Kingozi's practical voice broke the slight awe that all this savage
magnificence had imposed.

"Cazi Moto!" he commanded, "tell me what is here."

He listened attentively while the wizen-faced little headman gave a
detailed account, not only of the present dispositions, but also of what
had been seen during the short march to M'tela's stronghold. At the
conclusion of this recital he called to the Leopard Woman.

"I am here, near you," she answered.

"You must be my eyes for this," he told her. "Look into the large guest
house. Is it clean? Is it fairly new?"

She reported favourably as to these points.

"I am sorry, but I must take it over for myself," he said. "Matter not of
comfort, but of prestige. You would do best to pitch your tent somewhere
near. Cazi Moto, let the men make camp as usual."

"Very well," she agreed to her part of this program. Her manner was very
gentle; and she looked on him, could he have known it, with eyes of a
tender compassion. His was a brave heart, but Winkleman must long since
have arrived----

She moved slowly away to superintend the placing of her tent, reflecting
on these matters. It was decent of Winkleman to keep himself in the
background just at first. Time enough to convince poor blind Kingozi that
the game was up when he had to some extent recovered from the strain and
fatigue of the long journey. But Winkleman was a good sort. She knew him:
a big, hearty, bearded Bavarian, polyglot, intensely scientific, with a
rolling deep voice. He must have had ten days--a week anyway--to use his
acknowledged arts and influence on the savage king. Kingozi had said a
week would be enough--and Kingozi knew! She sighed deeply as she thought
of the doom to which his own obstinacy had condemned that remarkable man.
Her eyes wandered to where he sat in his canvas chair, superintending
through the ever-efficient Cazi Moto the details of the camp. His
shoulders were sagging forward wearily, and his face in repose fell into
lines of infinite sadness. Her heart melted within her; and in a sudden
revulsion she flamed against Winkleman and all his diabolical efficiency.
After all, this little corner of an unknown land could not mean so much to
the general result, and it would be so glorious a consolation to a brave
man's blindness! Then she became ashamed of herself as a traitor. Her tent
was now ready; so she entered it, bathed, clad herself in her silks, and
hung the jewel on her forehead. Once more the serene mistress of herself,
she came forth to view the sights.

It was by now near the setting of the sun. The forest shadows were rising.
Colobus were calling, and birds. Up a steep trail from the swamp came a
long procession of women and little girls. They were all stark naked, and
each carried on her head an earthen vessel or a greater or lesser gourd
according to her strength. They passed near the large guest house, and
there poured the water from their vessels into a series of big jars. Thus
every drop of water had to be transported up the hill, not only for the
guest camp, but for all M'tela's thousands somewhere back in the
mysterious forest. These women were of every age and degree of
attractiveness; but all were slender, and each possessed a fine-textured
skin of red bronze. Except the very old, whose breasts had fallen, they
were finely shaped. The rays of the sun outlined them. They seemed quite
unaware of their nakedness. Their faces were good-humoured; and some of
them even smiled shyly at the white woman standing by her tent. Having
poured out the water, they disappeared down the forest path.

Thence shortly appeared other women with huge burdens of firewood carried
by means of a strap, after the fashion of the Canadian tump-line; and
still others with _m'wembe_, bananas, yams, eggs, _n'jugu_ nuts, and
gourds of smoked milk. Evidently M'tela did not do things by halves.

The customary routine of the camp went on. Supper was served as usual; and
as usual the Leopard Woman joined Kingozi for the meal. The occasion was
constrained on her side, easy on his. He asked her various questions as to
details of the surroundings which she answered accurately but a little
absently. She spoke from the surface of her mind. Within herself she was
listening and waiting--listening for the first sound of shod feet, wailing
for the moment when Winkleman should see fit to declare himself and end
the suspense.

So high was this inner tension that she fairly jumped from her chair as a
demoniac shrieking wail burst from the forest near at hand. It was
answered farther away. Other voices took up the cry. It was as though a
thousand devils in shuddering pain were giving tongue.

"Tree hyraxes," Kingozi reassured her.

"Those tiny beasts!" she cried incredulously.

"Just so. Sweet voices, haven't they? Some of these people must be wearing
hyrax robes."

And indeed she remembered seeing some of the soft, beautiful karosses.

But now from the direction of M'tela's palaces arose a confused murmur
that swelled as a multitude drew near. The drums began again. Soon, the
Leopard Woman described, torches began to flash through the trees. At the
same moment Cazi Moto came to report.

"Build up a big fire," commanded Kingozi. He turned to the Leopard Woman.

"This is likely to be an all-night session," he said resignedly. "If you
want to get out of it, I advise you to go now. Not that you'll be able to
get any sleep. But if you stay, you must stick it out. It would never do
to leave in the middle of the performance. Some of it you won't like."

"What is it to be?"

"Ceremonial dances, I fancy."

"I think I shall stay," she said slowly.

In her heart she thought it extremely unlikely that the performance would
last all night. Indeed her own opinion was that Kingozi would be a
prisoner within an hour.

Kingozi settled himself stolidly in his chair before the fire that was now
beginning to eat its way through an immense pile of fuel, where, during
all subsequent events, he remained in the same attitude.

The Leopard Woman, on the contrary looked with all her eyes. The torches
came nearer. People began to pour out from the woods. There were warriors
in full panoply; lithe, naked men carrying only wands peeled fresh to the
white; women hung heavily with cowries; other women with neither garment
nor ornament, their bodies oiled and glistening. A deep, rolling chant
arose from hundreds of throats, punctuated and carried by a sort of
shrill, intermittent ululation. The drums were there, but for the moment
they were not being beaten in cadence, only rubbed until they roared in
undertone to the men's chanting.

All these people divided to right and left in the clearing of the guest
camp, and took their stations. More and more appeared. The space filled,
filled solidly, until at last there was no break in the mass of humanity
except for a circle forty feet in diameter about the fire.

Suddenly a group of fifteen or twenty men detached themselves from the
main body and leaped into this cleared space. The great chant still rolled
on; but now a varied theme was introduced by a chorus of the nearby women.
The dancers were oiled to a high state of polish, naked except for a
single plume apiece and a sort of tasselled tail hung to a string belt.
They clustered in a close group near the fire, facing a common centre. In
deep chest tones they pronounced the word _goom_, at the same time half
crouching; then in sharp staccato head tones the word _zup_, at the same
time rising swiftly up and toward their common centre. It was like the ebb
and surge of a wave, the alternate smooth crouch and spring over and over
again--_goom, zup! goom, zup! goom, zup!_--and behind it the twinkle of
torches, the gleam of eyes, the roll of the deep-voiced chanting.

Endlessly they repeated this performance. The Leopard Woman, watching, at
last had to close her eyes in order to escape the hypnotic quality of it.
In spite of herself her senses swam in the rhythmic monotony. All outside
the focus of the dancers turned gray--_goom, zup! goom, zup!_--was it
never to end? And then it seemed to her that it never would end, that thus
it would go on forever, and that so it was just and right. The men were
tireless. The sweat glistened on their bodies, but their eyes gleamed
fanatically. She floated off on a tide of irrelevant thoughts.

Hours later, as it seemed to her, she came to herself suddenly. Kingozi
still sat stolidly in his chair. The dancers were retiring step by step,
still with unabated vigour, continuing their performance. They melted into
the crowd.

Now a pellmell of bizarre figures broke out. They were bedecked
fantastically: some of them were painted with white clay; one was clad in
the skins of beasts. There was no rhythm or order to their entrance; but
immediately they began to dash here and there shouting.

"It is the Lion Dance, _memsahib_," Cazi Moto told her in a low voice.
"That one is the lion; and they hunt him with spears in the long grass."

The chase went forward with some verisimilitude, and yet with a symbolic
syncopation that indicated the Lion Dance was a very ancient and
conventional ceremony. These dancers gave way to a chorus of singers. For
interminable hours, so it seemed, they chanted a high, shrill recitative,
carried in fugue by deeper voices. The burden of the song was evidently an
impromptu. Occasionally some peculiarly apt or pleasing phrase was caught
up for endless repetition. And in the background, against the farther
background of the undistinguished masses, those who had formerly carried
on their performances in the full glare of front-row publicity and the
campfire, now continued their efforts almost unabated. The impressive
utterers of the _goom-zup_ shibboleth, the slayers of the symbolical lion,
carried on still. Indeed as the night wore on, and one group of dancers
succeeded another, the homogeneous crowd began to break into varied
activity. Each took his turn as principal, then fell back to form part of
the variegated background. Each dance was different. Warriors fully armed
clashed shield and spear; witch doctors crouched and sprang; women stamped
in rhythm; the elephant was hunted, the crops sown and gathered, all the
activities of community and individual life were danced, the frankness of
some saved from obscenity only by the unconscious earnestness of their
exposition and the evidence of their symbolism that they were not the
expression of the moment but very ancient customs.

The Leopard Woman watched it all with shining eyes. The emotion of the
picturesque, the call of savage wildness, the contagion of a mounting
community excitement caused the blood to race through her veins. The drums
throbbed against her heart as the pulse throbbed against her temples. She
resisted an actual impulse to rise from her chair, to throw herself with
abandon into an orgy of rhythm and motion. Perfectly she understood those
who, having reached the breaking point, dashed madly through the fire
scattering embers and coals, or who darted forward to kiss ecstatically
the white man's feet, or who reached a wild paroxysm of nerves to collapse
the next instant into exhaustion. She was brought to herself by Kingozi's
calm voice.

"Sweet riot, isn't it?" he remarked. "They're working themselves up to a
high pitch. It's always that way. You would think they'd drop from sheer
weariness."

"How long will they keep it up?" she asked, drawing a deep breath, and
trying to speak naturally.

"So it got you, too, a little, did it?" he said curiously.

"What do you mean?"

"The excitement. It's contagious unless you are accustomed to it. I've
seen safe and sane youngsters go quite off their heads at these shows, and
dash down and caper around like the maddest _shenzi_ of them all. Felt it
myself at first. It draws you; like wanting to jump off when you look down
from a high place." He was talking evenly and carelessly. "Enough of this
sort of thing will make a crowd see anything. Devil-worshippers for
instance, they see red devils, after they work up to it, not a doubt of
it."

"Thank you," she answered his evident purpose of bringing her to herself.

"All right now, eh?"

"Yes."

"Well, to answer your question; I've known dances to last two days."

"Heaven!" she cried, dismayed.

"But this is to prepare a suitable entrance for his majesty. We'll hear
from him along toward daylight." He held out his wrist watch toward her.
"What time now?"

Somehow the simple action seemed to her pathetic. Her eyes filled, and she
stooped as though to kiss the outstretched hand. Never again would the
worn old wrist watch serve its owner, except thus, vicariously!

"It is ten minutes past the twelve," she answered in a stifled voice.

"We must settle down to it. If you want tea or something to eat, tell Cazi
Moto."

He resumed his stolid demeanour.

The dancing continued. Every once in a while women threw armfuls of fuel
on the blaze. The tree hyraxes, out-screeched and outnumbered, fell into
silence or withdrew. Above the stars shone serenely; and all about stood
the trees of the ancient forest. Outside the hot, leaping red light they
drew back aloof and still. They had seen many dances, many ebbs and flows
of men's passions; for they were very old.

The Leopard Woman's vision blurred after a time. She was getting drowsy.
Her thoughts strayed. But always they circled back to the same point. She
found herself wondering whether Winkleman would appear to-night.

A few hours earlier than Kingozi had predicted, in fact not far after two
o'clock, the wild dancing died to absolute immobility and absolute
silence, and M'tela arrived.

He appeared walking casually as though out for a stroll, emerging from the
end of the wide forest path. Central African natives are never obese--
comic papers to the contrary notwithstanding. Nevertheless, M'tela was a
large man, amply built, his muscles overlaid by smoother, softer flesh. He
possessed dignity without aloofness, a rare combination, and one that
invariably indicates a true feeling of superiority. As he moved forward he
glanced lazily and good-humouredly to right and left at his people, in the
manner of a genial grown-up among small children. He wore a piece of
cotton cloth dyed black, so draped as to leave one arm and shoulder bare,
a polished bone armlet, and a tarboush that must have been traded through
many hands.

"The _sultani, bwana_," murmured the ever-alert Cazi Moto.

M'tela wandered to where Kingozi sat. The white man did not move, but
appeared to stare absently straight before him. At ten paces M'tela
stopped and deliberately inspected his visitor for a full half-minute.
Then he advanced and dropped to the stool an obsequious and zealous slave
placed for him.

"_Jambo_, papa," he said casually.

His manner was perfect. The thousand or so human beings who crowded the
clearing might not have existed. Himself and Kingozi, two equals, were
settling themselves for an informal little chat in the midst of solitudes.
His large intelligent eye passed over the Leopard Woman, but if her
appearance aroused in him any curiosity or other interest no flicker of
expression betrayed the fact.

As he heard the form of address a brief gleam of satisfaction crossed
Kingozi's face. Whether it has been transferred from the English, or has
been adopted more directly from the babbling of infants, "papa" is
perfectly good Swahili. When M'tela addressed Kingozi as "papa" he not
only acknowledged him as a guest, but he admitted the white man to the
intimacy that exists between equals in rank.

M'tela was friendly.



CHAPTER XXVI


WAITING

Two days passed. By the end of that time it had been borne in on the
Leopard Woman that Winkleman had not yet arrived. Kingozi and M'tela
circled each other warily, like two strange dogs, though all the time with
an appearance of easy and intimate cordiality. As yet Kingozi had neither
confided to the savage the fact of his blindness nor visited the royal
palace. The latter ceremony he had evaded under one plea or another; and
the infliction he had managed to conceal by the simple expedient of
remaining in his canvas chair. Later would be time enough to acknowledge
so great a weakness; later when the subtle and specialized diplomacy he so
assiduously applied would have had time to do its work.

For M'tela was initially friendly. This was a great satisfaction to
Kingozi, though none knew better than he how any chance gust of influence
or passion could veer the wind. Still it was something to start on; and
something more or less unexpected and unhoped for. M'tela himself supplied
the reason in the course of one of their interminable conversations.

"I am pleased to see the white man," he said. "Never has the white man
come to my country before; but always I knew he would come. One time long
ago my brother who is king of the people near the Great Water said these
words to me: 'My brother, some day white men will come to you. They will
be few, and they will come with a small safari, and their wealth will look
small to you. But make no mistake. Where these few white men who look poor
come from are many more--like the leaves of the grass--and their wealth is
great and their wonders many; and for each white man that is speared ten
more come, without end, like water flowing down a hill. I know this to be
so, for I am an old man, and I have fought, and of all those who fought
the white man in my youth only I remain.' So I remembered these words of
my brother always."

"You are a wise man, oh, King," said Kingozi, "for those words are true."

Hourly Kingozi cursed his eyes. With this man so well-disposed a day--a
single hour--of the white man's miracles would have cemented his
friendship. But Kingozi was deprived at a stroke of the great advantages
to be gained by cutting out paper dolls, making coins disappear and appear
again, and all the rest of the bag of tricks. He had not even the
alternative advantage of a store of rich gifts with which to buy the
chief's favour. This crude alternative to subtle diplomacy he had scorned
when making out a small safari for a long journey.

To be sure he was not doing badly. A box of matches and instructions in
the use thereof went far as an evidence of munificence. Sparingly he doled
out his few treasures--the gaudy blankets; coils of brass, copper, and
iron wires; beads; snuff; knives, and the like. They were received with
every mark of appreciation. In return firewood, water, and food of all
sorts came in abundantly. But these, Kingozi well knew, were only
temporizing evidences of good feeling. Time would come when M'tela would
ceremoniously bring in his real present--assuredly magnificent as
beseeming his power. Then, Kingozi knew, he should be able to reciprocate
in degree. He could not do so; he could not use his accustomed methods; he
could not even exhibit his trump card--the deadly wonder of the weapon
that could kill at a distance.

Nevertheless he would have awaited the outcome with serene indifference
could he have been certain of a dear field. The arrival of Winkleman
would, he secretly admitted, upset him completely. Winkleman--another
white man, possessed of powers he did not possess, of wonders he did not
own, of knowledge equal to his--would have no difficulty in taking the
lead from him. Certainly Winkleman had not yet arrived, and he was long
overdue. On the other hand, neither had Simba nor Mali-ya-bwana reported;
and they were equally overdue. These were ticklish times; and Kingozi had
great difficulty in sitting calmly in his canvas chair listening to the
endless inconsequences of a savage.

The Leopard Woman could not understand how he did it. Her inner nervous
tension, due as much to a conflict as to suspense, drove her nearly
frantic. She knew that Winkleman's appearance spelled defeat for Kingozi;
she knew that she should hope for that appearance--and deep in her heart
she knew that she dreaded it! But as time went on without tangible
results, she began to long for it as a relief. At least it would be over
then. And Kingozi--oh, brave heart! oh, pathetic figure--if anything could
make it up to him----!

The morning of the third day came. Usual camp activities carried them on
until nine o'clock. Kingozi was settled in his chair awaiting what the day
would bring forth. The Leopard Woman coming across from her tent to the
guest house stopped short at what she saw.

Across the way, a half or three-quarters of a mile distant, beyond the
green papyrus swamp, on the slope from the edge of the forest, appeared a
long file of men bearing burdens on their heads. Even at this distance she
made out the colour of occasional garments of khaki cloth, or the green of
canvas on the packs.

She arrived at Kingozi's side simultaneously with Cazi Moto.

"A safari comes, _bwana_," said the latter. "It is across the swamp."

Kingozi's figure stiffened.

"What kind of a safari?" he asked quietly.

The Leopard Woman answered him. There was no note of jubilation in her
voice.

"It is a white man's safari," she told him. "I can see khaki--and they are
marching as a white man's safari marches."

"Get my glasses," he told Cazi Moto. Then to her, his voice vibrating with
emotion too long controlled: "Look and tell me, fairly. I must know.
Whatever the outcome you must tell me truth. It will not matter. I can do
nothing."

"I will tell you the truth," she promised, raising the glasses.

For some moments she looked intently.

"It is Winkleman's safari," she announced sadly. "I have been able to see.
It is a very large safari with many loads," she added.

Kingozi's face turned gray. He dropped his face into his hands. Gently she
laid her hand on his bowed head. Thus they waited, while the safari,
evidently under local guidance, plunged into some hidden path through the
papyrus, and so disappeared.



CHAPTER XXVII


THE MAGIC BONE

Let us now follow Simba, Mali-ya-bwana, and their six men and the two
strange _shenzis_ who were to act as guides.

They started off across the veldt at about four o'clock of the afternoon
and travelled rapidly until dark. The gait they took was not a run, but it
got them over the ground at four and a half to five miles an hour. Shortly
after sundown they stopped for an hour, ate, drank, and lay flat on their
backs. Then they arose, lighted a candle end in the mica lantern, and
resumed their journey. Thus they travelled day and night for three days.
There seemed to be neither plan nor regularity to their journeying.
Whenever they became tired enough to sleep, they lay down and slept for a
little while; whenever they became hungry, they ate; and whenever they
thirsted, they drank, paying no attention whatever to the time of day, the
state of their larder, or the distance to more water. No ideas of
conservation hampered them in the least. If the water gave out, they
argued, they would be thirsty; but it was as well to be thirsty later from
lack of water than to be thirsty now from some silly idea of abstention.
No white man could have travelled successfully under that system.
Nevertheless, the little band held together and arrived in the fringe of
hills fit and comparatively fresh.

Here they encountered people belonging to M'tela's tribes; but their
guides seemed to vouch for them, and they passed without trouble. Indeed
they were here enabled to get more food, and to waste no time hunting. At
noon of another day, surmounting a ridge, they looked down on a marching
safari. The two _shenzi_ guides pointed and grinned, much pleased with
themselves. Their pleasure was short lived; for they were promptly seized,
disarmed, and tied together. The grieved astonishment of their expressions
almost immediately faded into fatalistic stolidity. So many things happen
in Africa!

Mali-ya-bwana and one of the other men proceeded rapidly ahead on the
general line of march. The rest paralleled the safari below. After an hour
the scouts returned with news of a water-hole where, undoubtedly, the
strange safari would camp. All then hurried on.

Concealed in a thicket Simba proceeded with great zest to make himself
over into a _shenzi_. In every savage is a good deal of the small boy; so
this disguising himself pleased him immensely. Taking the spear in one
hand and the "sacred bone" reverently in the other, he set out to
intercept the safari.

It came within the hour. Simba almost unremarked regarded it curiously.
There were over a hundred men, all of tribes unknown to him with the
exception of a dozen who evidently performed the higher offices. The
common porters were indeed _shenzis_--wild men--picked up from jungle and
veldt as they were needed; and not at all of the professional porter class
to be had at Mombasa; Nairobi, Dar-es-salaam, or Zanzibar. Simba's eyes
passed over them contemptuously, but rested with more interest on the
smaller body of _askaris_, headmen, and gun bearers. These also were of
tribes strange to him; but of East African types with which he was
familiar. They were all dressed in a sort of uniform of khaki, wore caps
with a curtain hanging behind, and arm bands gayly emblazoned with
imperial eagles. All this was very impressive. Simba conceived a respect
for this white man's importance. Evidently he was a _bwana m'kubwa_. The
supposed savage experienced a growing excitement over the task he had
undertaken. All his training had taught him to respect the white man, as
such; and now he was called upon to abduct forcibly one of the sacred
breed--and such a specimen! Only Simba's undoubted force of character, and
the veneration his long association with Kingozi had inculcated, sustained
him.

For Winkleman was a big man in every way: tall, broad, thick, with a
massive head, large features, and such a tremendous black beard! Well had
he deserved his native name of _Bwana_ Nyele--the master with the mane.

Simba awaited the moment of greatest confusion in the placing and pitching
of the camp, and then advanced timidly, holding out the bone Kingozi had
given him. His courage and faith were very low. They revived instantly as
he saw the immediate effect. It was just as Kingozi had told him it would
be; and as there was nothing on earth in a bit of dry bone that could
accomplish such an effect except magic, Simba thenceforward went on with
his adventure in completed confidence.

For at sight of the bone _Bwana_ Nyele's eyes lit up, he uttered an
astonishing bellow of delight, and sprang forward with such agility for so
large a man that he almost succeeded in snatching the talisman from
Simba's hands. Acting precisely on his instructions the latter backed
away, pointing over the hill.

"Where did you get that?" Winkleman demanded.

Simba continued to point.

"Give it me."

Simba started away, still pointing. Winkleman followed a few steps.

"There is more?" he asked. "Do you speak Swahili?"

"Many more, _bwana_," Simba replied in the atrocious Swahili Kingozi had
ordered. "Over there only a little distance."

Everything turned out as Kingozi had promised. Bwana Nyele asked several
more questions, received no replies, finally bellowed:

"But lead me there, _m'buzi!_ I would see!"

Simba guided him up the hill. At the appointed spot they fell upon him and
bore him to the earth in spite of his strength, and bound his hands behind
his back. Then Simba wrapped the magic bone reverently in its cloth.
Certainly it was wonderful magic.

Winkleman put up a good fight, but once he felt himself definitely
overpowered he ceased his struggles. He was helped to his feet. A glance
at his captors taught him that these were safari men and not savages of
the country; and, with full knowledge of the general situation, he was not
long in guessing out his present plight. But now was not the time for
talk.

A half-hour's walk took the party to a second water-hole, the indications
for which Simba had already noted on his little scouting tour. There they
proceeded to make camp. The six porters began with their swordlike
_pangas_ to cut poles and wattles, to peel off long strips of inner bark
from the thorn trees which would serve as withes. Then they began the
construction of a _banda_, one of the quickly built little thatched sheds,
open at both ends. At sight of this Winkleman swore deeply. He was fairly
trapped, and knew it; but the _banda_ indicated that he was to be held
prisoner in this one spot for at least some days. However, wise man in
native ways, he said nothing and made no objection. But his keen wide
eyes took in every detail.

When the _banda_ was finished and a big pile of the dried hay had been
spread as a couch Simba approached respectfully but firmly, took _Bwana_
Nyele's helmet from his head, his spine-pad from his back, and his shoes
from his feet. In this strategy Winkleman with reluctance admired the
white man's hands. Without head and spine covering of some sort he could
not travel a mile under the tropic sun; without foot covering or a light
he would be helpless at night. Of course these things could be improvised;
but not easily. He stretched himself on the hay and awaited events.

The men built a fire and gathered around it. They were cooking, but at the
same time the two whom Winkleman recognized as leaders conferred earnestly
and at great length. Had he been at their elbows he would have heard the
following:

"The magic of this bone is a very great magic," Simba was saying. "All
happened exactly as _Bwana_ Kingozi told us. Now is the fifth day. There
remain now nine days to wait until we must bring this _m'zungu_ to _Bwana_
Kingozi at the _manyatta_ of M'tela."

"It is indeed great magic," agreed Mali-ya-bwana. "How many days is the
_manyatta?_"

"I do not know. These _shenzis_ should know; but they talk only monkey
talk. Here, let us try." He drew one of the prisoners one side. "M'tela,"
he enunciated slowly.

The savage nodded, and pointed the direction with his protruded lower lip.

Simba indicated the sun, and swept his hand across the arc of the heavens.
Then he looked inquiringly at the other and held up in rapid success first
one, then two, then three fingers. The savage was puzzled. Simba went
through the movements of a man walking, pronounced the name of M'tela,
pointed out the direction, and then repeated his previous pantomime.
A light broke on the _shenzi_. He held up four fingers.

Simba next called to Mali-ya-bwana to interrogate the other prisoner
apart. As the latter also reported M'tela four days distant--when he
understood--this was accepted as the truth.

"Then we remain in camp five days," they concluded, after working out the
subtraction.

"But," intervened one of the porters, "we have no more _potio_."

"I have the _bwana's_ gun," Simba pointed out, "and also the gun of this
_m'zungu_. There is here plenty of game."

"To eat meat always is not well," grumbled the porter.

"To eat _kiboko_ (whip) is always possible," replied Simba grimly.

"Nevertheless," said Mali-ya-bwana, who as co-leader was privileged to
more open speech, "_potio_ and meat are better than meat only."

Simba looked at him inquiringly.

"You have a thought?"

Mali-ya-bwana leaned forward.

"It is this: If the bone has such great magic that thus we can take
prisoner a mighty _bwana_ like this, surely it is powerful enough to fight
also against safari men."

Simba pondered this.

"Every one knows that a white man is a great Lord," urged Mali-ya-bwana,
"and that it is useless for the black man to fight against him. This is
true always. Every man knows this."

"Black men have killed white men," Simba objected.

"Only when the numbers were many. Even then many more black men also have
died, so that the painting for mourning went through many tribes. Never
before have men like us taken a white man thus easily."

"That is true."

"Then since this magic bone can subdue for us a great lord of a _m'zungu_,
surely it will also subdue for us a safari of black men like ourselves, a
safari that the _m'zungu_ has held in his hand."

"That is true."

"And that safari must have much _potio_"

"That also is true."

"Let you--or me, it does not matter--take the magic bone, and with it take
also this safari and its _potio_."

"I will do it," assented Simba after a moment. "You will stay here to
carry out the _bwana's_ orders."



CHAPTER XXVIII


SIMBA'S ADVENTURE

In the course of the evening Winkleman, conceiving that the right moment
had come, set himself seriously to establishing a dominance over these
members of an inferior race. He was a skilled man at this, none more so;
nevertheless he failed. For in the persons of Simba and Mali-ya-bwana he
was dealing not with natives, but with another white man as shrewd and
experienced as himself. Kingozi had from the abundance of his knowledge
foreseen exactly what methods and arguments the Bavarian would use, and in
his final instructions he had dramatized almost exactly the scene that was
now taking place. Simba had his replies ready made for him. When an
unexpected argument caught him unaware, he merely fingered surreptitiously
his magic bone, and remained serenely silent. Winkleman might as well have
talked at a stone wall. He soon recognized this, as also that the man had
been coached minutely.

"Who is your _bwana?_" he asked at length.

"He is a very great _bwana_," Simba replied.

"His name?"

"He has many names among many people."

"What name do you call him?"

"I call him _bwana m'kubwa_ (great master)," replied Simba blandly.

Winkleman gave up this tack and tried another.

"What is his business? What does he do here?"

"His business is to fight."

"Ah!" ejaculated Winkleman. "To fight!"

"Yes. His business is to fight the elephant."

Winkleman swore. He could get at nothing this way. He must give his mind
to escape.

Early the next morning Simba started. He took with him, of course, his
magic bone; but, like a canny general, he carried also the rifle. Mali-ya-
bwana was left sufficiently armed by Winkleman's weapon and the sixteen
cartridges captured on his person.

By the water-hole Simba found the safari encamped. At sight of his khaki-
clad figure several men ran to meet him. Their countenances were of a cast
unfamiliar to Simba. He looked at them calmly.

"Does some one speak Swahili?" he inquired.

"_N'dio!_" they assented in chorus.

Simba looked about him. This was indeed a great safari, and a rich
_bwana_. The tent, of green canvas, was what is known as a "four-man
tent"; that is, it took four men to carry it. The pile of loads in the
centre of the cleared space was high. There were three tin boxes and many
chop boxes among them.

The group moved slowly across the open space, stared at by curious eyes,
and came to a halt before a drill tent slightly larger than the little
kennels assigned to the ordinary porters. Here over a fire bubbled a
_sufuria_, the African cooking pot, tended by a naked small boy. A clean
mat woven in bright colours carpeted the ground; on this all seated
themselves.

It would be tedious to relate each step of the ensuing negotiations. These
simple Africans would have needed no instruction from civilization to
carry on the most long-winded submarine controversy in the most approved
and circuitous manner. At the end of one solid hour of grave and polite
exchange it developed that the white man was not at present in camp.
Somewhat later Simba permitted it to be understood that his own white man
was not in the immediate neighbourhood. These gems of knowledge were
separated by much leisurely chatter, and occasional and liberal dippings
into the _sufuria_. And thus was the beginning and the end of the first
day.

At noon of the second day, after a refreshing night's sleep, Simba moved
up his forces.

"Your white man is known to me," said he.

Some one remarked appropriately.

"He is a prisoner in my camp."

"In the camp of your white man."

"In my camp. I myself have taken him prisoner," insisted Simba.

"You are telling lies," said the headman of the safari.

Simba took this calmly. In Africa to call a man a liar is no insult.

"It is the truth," said he. "With my own hands I took him; and he lies
bound in my camp."

"These are lies," persisted the headman. "How can such things be? That you
took a white man, a great _bwana?_ That is foolishness. That has never
been and could never be. How could you accomplish such a feat?"

"I have a magic."

"Ho!" cried the headman derisively. "Everybody knows that a magic is not
good against the white man. That has been tried many times!"

"This is a white man's magic."

The statement made a visible impression.

"Let us see it," they demanded.

But Simba refused. He was entirely at ease. In his ordinary habit he would
have become excited over being doubted, he would have wrangled, have
shouted--in short, would have been but one unit among many equals. But the
possession of the magic bone gave him a confidence from outside himself.
For the time being he slipped genuinely into the attitude of the white
man; became a super-Simba, as it were. This dignity and sureness commenced
to have its effect. Almost they began to believe that Simba's words might
be true!

At three o'clock the battle closed in.

"My men need _potio_" said Simba. "Let ten loads be put aside, and let ten
of these _shenzis_ be told to carry them where I shall say."

But the headman leaped to his feet.

"Who are you to give orders?" he cried. "These things belong to my white
man."

"Your white man is my property," replied Simba superbly; and with no
further parley he shot the headman dead.

Here indeed showed the super-Simba. The dispute might in the ordinary
course of events have come to shooting; but only after hours of excited
wrangling, and as a climax worked up to in a crescendo of emotion. This
expeditious nipping in the bud was a thoroughly white-manly proceeding.

The headman whirled about under the impact of the high-power bullet at so
close a range, and collapsed face down. Simba sat calmly in his place. He
did not even trouble to place himself in a better defensive attitude
against possible attack. His confidence in his magic bone was growing to
sublimity as he noted how efficiently it carried him through every crisis.
All over the camp the porters, startled, leaped to their feet. But at the
headmen's fire no one moved. They would ordinarily have been afraid
neither of Simba nor Simba's weapons. Firearms were familiar to them. The
usual sequence to Simba's deed would have been an immediately defunct
Simba. But his serene confidence in his magic caught their credulity.

The white man's _prestige_ and privileges were invested in him.

"Yours is undoubtedly a great magic," said Winkleman's gun bearer
politely. "Let us talk."

They talked at great length, without bothering to remove the dead headman.
The result was finally a continued respect for Simba, his magic bone, and
his ready rifle; but a lingering though polite incredulity as to the
matter of Winkleman--_Bwana_ Nyele. It was possible that Simba had killed
the latter, of course. But to have taken him alive--and to be holding him
prisoner----

It was suggested that the various upper men of this safari accompany Simba
to the place of incarceration. Declined for obvious reasons. Proposition
modified to exclude all visitors but one. Still declined.

The debate summarized in the above short paragraph consumed six hours.
What is time in the face of an African eternity? And in Africa, as every
one knows, the feeling of eternity is an accompaniment of every-day life.

After some refreshments the sitting rose. Simba did not spend the night in
camp. That did not seem to him wise. Instead he withdrew to a place he had
already marked, deftly built himself a withe platform in the spread of an
acacia, and slept soundly above the danger line.

Next morning the discussion was resumed. It was all on an amicable basis.
A bystander would have seen merely a group of lazy native servants
gossiping idly. And, indeed, for one word of relevance were a dozen of
sheer chatter. That is the African way.

Since it was impossible to visit _Bwana_ Nyele, why could not _Bwana_
Nyele be brought to within sight? Simba considered this; but finally
rejected it. The risk was too great, magic bone or no magic bone.

"It is probable you speak lies," said the gun bearer at last. "You say you
want _potio_ and that you hold _Bwana_ Nyele prisoner. But you do not
bring us orders from _Bwana_ Nyele for _potio_. Nor do you give us proof.
We must have proof before we believe or before we obey."

"I will bring you _Bwana_ Nyele's gun; or his coat; or anything that is
his that you may see that I hold him prisoner."

"Those things prove nothing," the gun bearer pointed out. "They might have
been taken from a dead man."

They negotiated further. One gifted with the power of seeing only
essential things would have found here a strange parallel. For these two
men, talking cautiously, clinging with tenacity to single points, yielding
grudgingly, would have been the same to him as two shrewd business men
coming together on the phrases of a contract, or two diplomats framing the
terms of a treaty.

Thus well into the third day. By that time an agreement had been reached.
It was very simple and direct and practical, when one thinks of it;
covered the situation fully; involved few compromises; and gained each man
his point.

Simba demanded _potio_ and obedience because he held the mighty _m'zungu_
prisoner. The gun bearer wanted indubitable proof not only that Simba held
the white man, but that he held him alive.

It was agreed that Simba was to return to his own camp, was to procure the
proof agreed upon, and was promptly to return. The said proof was to be
one of _Bwana_ Nyele's fingers, which all agreed would be easily
recognizable both as to identity and freshness!

The divulgence of this simple little plan by a Simba quite in earnest
dissipated Winkleman's last hope of doing anything by means of persuasion.
He knew his African well enough to realize that this fantastic method of
identification seemed quite a matter of course. In fact, Simba was at the
moment sharpening his hunting knife in preparation. Winkleman swore
heartily and fluently, then grinned. He was at heart a good soul,
Winkleman, with a sense of amusement if not of humour, and a philosophy of
life denied most of his inexperienced and theoretical countrymen. And also
he realized that he had his work cut out to prevent the program being
carried through. The African is slow to come to a definite conclusion, but
once it is arrived at it is apt to look to him like a permanent structure.
It was a wonderful tribute to Winkleman that it took him only four hours
to persuade Simba that there might be another way; and two hours more to
convince him that there might even be a better way. When Simba reluctantly
and a little doubtfully sheathed his knife, the big Bavarian wiped his
brow with genuine thankfulness.

The reader need not be wearied by a detailed report of the interminable
conferences that led up to the substitute plan. It would be a picture of a
big bearded man smoking slowly--for until affairs were decided he could
get no more of his own tobacco--leaning on his elbow beneath the roof of
the _banda_. Before him squatted on their heels in the posture white men
find so trying Mali-ya-bwana and Simba, entirely respectful, their shining
black eyes fixed on the white man. The open ends of the _banda_ gave out
on a dry boulder-strewn wash and the parched side of a hill. All else was
sky. Morning coolness was succeeded by the blaze of midday, when the very
surface of the ground danced in the shimmer; then slowly the shadows crept
out, the veils of mirage sank to earth, a coolness wandered in from some
blessed region; darkness came suddenly; over the parched hill--now looming
mysterious in black garments--the tropic stars blazed out. Then outside
some one lighted a fire. The flames cast lights and shadows within the
_banda_ where still the white man leaned on his elbow, the black men
squatted on their heels, and the murmur of talk went on and on.

But Winkleman got his way. At an appointed hour and at an appointed place
Winkleman, Mali-ya-bwana, and two of the carriers met Simba conducting the
gun bearer from the other camp. The interview was very short. Indeed it
had all been carefully rehearsed. Winkleman said only what he had agreed
to say; and thereby earned his finger.

"This man holds me prisoner," he told the gun bearer. "What he says is
true. Do what he asks you to do. It is my command."

"Yes, _bwana_," agreed the gun bearer.

Then they parted. The immediate result was five loads of _potio_ brought
by safari men to "somewhere in Africa," and thence transported by Simba's
men to Simba's camp. As game was thereabout abundant and undisturbed
everybody was happy.

Thus passed a week, which brought time forward to the moment when Simba,
following his instructions, was to report to Kingozi at the village of
M'tela. Therefore Simba set forth, taking with him, according to African
custom, one of the porters as companion. He carried Kingozi's rifle, but
left that belonging to Winkleman with Mali-ya-bwana.

Winkleman watched Simba go with considerable satisfaction. Mali-ya-bwana
was a man much above average African intelligence, but he had not the
experience, the initiative, the _flaire_ of Simba. Nor had he Simba's
magic bone. Simba took that with him. Winkleman knew nothing of the
supposed virtues of that property; and in consequence entertained a
respect for qualities of Simba that were not entirely inherent in that
individual. He began to flatter Mali-ya-bwana; to fraternize just enough;
to assume complete resignation to his plight--in short, to use just those
tactics a clever man would use to lull the alertness of any bright child.
Naturally he succeeded. At sundown of the second day he began to complain
of the irksomeness of his bonds.

"This is foolishness, so to treat a _m'zungu_," said he. "Nothing is
gained. I cannot sleep; and the skin of my wrists is sore. He who watches
has only to keep the fire bright. I cannot go like smoke."

To Mali-ya-bwana, in his flattered and unsuspicious mood, this seemed
reasonable. He was no such fool as to turn Winkleman loose to his own
devices; but he compromised by untying the Bavarian's wrists, and doubling
the thongs by which the latter's ankles were hitched to the larger timbers
of the _banda_. Also he instructed the sentinel to keep the fire bright,
to watch _Bwana_ Nyele, and to stop instantly any and all movements of the
hands toward the feet.

The early watches passed quietly. A second sentinel replaced the first. Up
to this time Winkleman had slept quietly. Now he began to shift position
often, to twist and turn, finally to groan softly. The sentinel came to
the end of the _banda_ and looked in. To him _Bwana_ Nyele raised a face
so ghastly that even the half-savage porter was startled. The man's eyes
seemed to have sunk into his head, deep seams to have creased his brow and
jaws. Apparently Winkleman was on the point of dissolution.

"_Magi! nataka magi!_"[16] he gasped.

[Footnote 16: Water! I want water!]

The sentinel took the canteen from the peg where it hung and bent over the
dying man. Instantly his throat was clasped by a pair of heavy and
powerful hands.

Two minutes later Winkleman rose to his feet free. The porter's knife in
his hand, he looked down on that unfortunate securely bound and gagged.
Treading softly Winkleman stepped through the sleeping camp into the
clear. He drew a deep breath. Then unconsciously wiping from his face the
mixture of grease and ashes that had constituted his "make-up," he strode
grimly away toward his own safari.



CHAPTER XXIX


WINKLEMAN'S SAFARI ARRIVES

The Leopard Woman watched the safari file down the distant hill and lose
itself beneath the green plumes of the papyrus swamp. By all right she
should have rejoiced. Against every probability she had succeeded. The
stars had worked for her. Though the prearranged plan had not carried in
any of its details, nevertheless the sought-for result had been gained.
She had herself done little to detain Kingozi; yet he had been detained;
and here was Winkleman, belated but in time, to carry out triumphantly the
wishes of the Imperial Government. But her heart was like lead.

After the first droop Kingozi had straightened beneath the blow, and now
sat bolt upright, staring straight before him, as a king might have sat
alone on his throne. Whatever was coming, he would front it serenely.

The head of the safari appeared at the foot of the slope. It seemed a
trifle uncertain as to where to go next, but catching sight of Kingozi's
tents, it turned up the hill. Cazi Moto's keen eyes were searching out
every detail; those of the Leopard Woman had suddenly become suffused with
tears.

"It is a rich safari, _bwana_," Cazi Moto reported; "many loads." His
voice sharpened with surprise, but he did not raise his tones. "Simba is
there," said he.

"Simba! So they caught him," muttered Kingozi. "Well, that play failed. Do
you see the white man?" he asked.

"No, _bwana_. The white man has not yet come. But Simba now sees us, and
is coming."

"He is guarded?"

"No, _bwana_; he is alone."

"_Jambo, bwana_," said Simba's voice a moment later.

Something in his tone caught Kingozi's ear.

"Yes, Simba?" was all he replied.

"All has been done as you ordered, _bwana_. This is the fourteenth day,
and I am here to tell you."

Kingozi caught his breath sharply.

"_Bwana_ Nyele was captured?"

"Mali-ya-bwana holds him prisoner at a certain water."

"There was no trouble?"

"None, _bwana_. All happened as you told. This magic is a very great
magic," said Simba piously.

Kingozi paused.

"The safari," he suggested at last. "I am told of a safari; indeed, I can
hear it. What of that? No orders were given as to a safari."

"That is true, _bwana_," explained Simba earnestly, "but this is a very
great safari. It has tents and _potio_, and _chakula_[17], and blankets
and beads and wire and many other things to a quantity impossible to say.
And it came to my mind that _shenzis_ like these things, as do all men,
and that in this _shenzi_ country my _bwana_ might make use of them; so I
brought them with me for your use, _bwana_."

[Footnote 17: _Chakula_--white man's food.]

"You had no trouble bringing this great safari?" asked Kingozi.

"I used again the magic bone," replied Simba.

"Simba, you jewel!" cried Kingozi in English, "you've saved the day! I
should think _shenzis_ did like these things! And oh, haven't I needed
them! You old tar-baby, you!"

And Simba replied as usual to this incomprehensible gibberish with his own
full stock of English:

"Yes, suh!"

"You have done well, very well," Kingozi shifted to Swahili. "I am pleased
with you. For this work you shall have much _backsheeshi_--a month's wages
extra, and twenty goats for your farm, and any other thing that you want
most. What is it?"

Simba appeared to hesitate and boggle.

"Speak up! I am Very pleased."

"This is a very great thing I would ask," said Simba in a low voice.

"It is a great thing you have done."

"_Bwana_," cried Simba earnestly. "It is this: I would have the magic bone
for my own. For it is a very great magic," he added wistfully.

Kingozi choked back an impulse to shout aloud.

"It is yours," he said gravely.

"Oh, _bwana! bwana!_" choked Simba. "_Assanti! assanti sana!_"

His sob was echoed at Kingozi's elbow.

"Oh," cried the Leopard Woman, "I know I should be sorry that this has
come this way! But I'm not; I am glad!"



CHAPTER XXX


WINKLEMAN APPEARS

With the riches thus unexpectedly placed at his disposal, and legitimately
his by the fortunes of war, Kingozi was enabled to proceed to the final
grand exchange of gifts that assured his friendship with M'tela and sealed
the alliance. He was spurred to his best efforts in this by the news,
brought in by an alarmed Mali-ya-bwana, that Winkleman had escaped.
However, by dint of rich presents, supplementing the careful diplomatic
negotiations that had gone before, he arrived at an understanding.

"And now, oh, King, I must tell you this," he said boldly. "Of white men
there is not merely one but many kinds, just as among the African peoples.
There are strong men and weak men, good men and bad men, and men of
different tribes. Of the tribes are the _Inglishee_ to which I belong,
which is the most powerful of all--like your own people of the Kabilagani
in this land--and also another tribe called the _Duyche_, only a little
less powerful. These two tribes are now at war."

"A-a-a-a," observed M'tela interestedly.

"One of the _Duyche_ is in your country, oh, King. I have met him and
defeated him by my magic. Some of these people you see here were his
people; and of his goods I have everything."

"But it may be," suggested M'tela with a slight cooling of cordiality,
"that many more _Duyche_ will follow this one."

"They cannot prevail against my magic. Talk with Simba, with my men, and
know what virtue is in my magic. But beyond that, oh, King, have you not
heard of the wars of the Wakamba? of Lobengula? of the Matabele and the
Basuto? has not news come to you from the north of the battles of the
Sudan? Have you not heard of Lenani, the king of all Masai, and of his
advice to his people? All these wars were won by _Inglishee_; Lenani's
words of wisdom spoke of _Inglishee_. Have you ever heard of the victories
of the _Duyche?_ No. There were no such victories!"[18]

[Footnote 18: Kingozi here took shrewd advantage of the fact that German
East Africa was peacefully occupied without necessity of the spectacular
tribal wars of Matabeland, Zululand, Basutoland, and the Wakamba district
of British East Africa. Lenani's advice to his people was given at the
close of the Wakamba war. Said he: "There is no doubt that the Masai are a
greater people than the Wakamba, and in case of war we could fight the
white man harder than the Wakamba fought him. Undoubtedly, too, my people
could kill a great many of the English. But this I have noticed: that when
a Wakamba is dead, he remains dead; but when a white man is dead ten more
come to take his place." In consequence of this advice the Masai--one of
the most warlike of all the tribes--negotiated with the English, and today
remain both at peace and unconquered.]

After an hour's elaboration of this theme Kingozi judged the moment
propitious to return to the original subject. M'tela offered the
opportunity.

"This _Duyche_ whom you have conquered--you killed him?"

"He escaped."

"A-a-a-a."

"He is still alive and in your land. Let order be given to search him
out."

"That shall be done," said M'tela after a moment's thought.

Mali-ya-bwana and Simba set out with a posse of M'tela's men. They had no
great difficulty in getting track of the missing Bavarian. Winkleman had
arrived to find the camping site deserted. He had, indomitably, set out on
the track of his safari. To eat he was forced at last to beg of the wild
herdsmen. M'tela's dread name elicited from these last definite
information. The search party found Winkleman, very dirty, quite hungry,
profoundly chagrined, but still good humoured, seated in a smoky hut
eating soured smoky milk. He wore sandals improvised from goatskin, a hat
and spine-pad made from banana leaves ingeniously woven.

[Illustration: "The search party found Winkleman, very dirty, quite
hungry, profoundly chagrined"]

"_Ach!_" he cried, recognizing Kingozi's two men. "So it is you! What have
you done with my safari?"

"I led it to my _bwana_," replied Simba.

"Where you may now lead me," said Winkleman resignedly. "By what means
have you thought of these things, N'ympara?" "By the magic of this,"
replied Simba with becoming modesty, producing the precious bone.

"_Ach_ the _saurian!_" cried Winkleman. "I remember. It had gone from my
mind. It is a curious type; I do not quite recognize. Let me see it."

But Simba was replacing carefully the talisman in its wrappings. He had no
mind to deliver the magic into other hands--perhaps to be used against
himself!

They led Winkleman directly to Kingozi's camp. Winkleman followed, looking
always curiously about him. His was the true scientific mind. He was quite
capable of forgetting his plight--and did so--in the interest of new fauna
and flora, or of ethnological eccentricities. Once or twice he insisted on
a halt for examination of something that caught his notice, and insisted
so peremptorily when the savages would have forced him on, that they
yielded to his wish.

It was early in the morning. Kingozi, as ever, sat in his canvas chair
atop the hill. He was alone, for the Leopard Woman, always on the alert
and always staring through her glasses, had caught sight of the little
group before it plunged into the papyrus; and had retired to her tent.
Winkleman plowed up the hill blowing out his cheeks in a full-blooded
hearty fashion.

"Oho!" he cried in his great voice when he had drawn near. "This is not so
bad! It is Culbertson!"

"I am sorry about this," said Kingozi briefly--"a man of your eminence--
very disagreeable."

Winkleman dropped heavily to the ground.

"That is nothing," he waved aside the half-apology, "though it would not
be bad to have the bath and change these clothes. But fortunes of war--it
is but the fortunes of war--I would have done worse to you. How long is it
that you have arrived?"

"Long enough," replied Kingozi briefly. "Oh, Cazi Moto, bring tea! I have
had your tent pitched, Doctor Winkleman; and you must bathe and change and
rest. But before you go we must understand each other. This is war time,
and you are my prisoner. You must give me your parole neither to try to
escape nor to tamper with my men, with M'tela, or any of his people. If
you feel you cannot do this I shall be compelled to hold you closely
guarded."

Winkleman laughed one of his great gusty laughs.

"I give it willingly. What foolishness otherwise. What foolishness anyway,
all this. War is nonsense. It destroys. It interferes. Consider, my dear
Culbertson, here was I safely in the Congo forests, and for two, three
months I have lived there, like a native quietly; and of all the world
there is to amuse me only the fauna and the flora--which I know like my
hand. But I discover a new species--a _papilio_. But all the time I live
quiet, and I wait. And at last the people, the little forest people,
little by little they get confidence; they come to the edge of the forest,
they venture to camp, slow. Suppose I wave my hand like that--pouf! They
have run away. But I wait; and they come forth. So I camp by myself in the
forest--for I leave my safari away that it may not frighten this people.
And by and by we talk. I am beginning to learn their language. Culbertson,
I find these people speak the true click language, but also I find it true
sex-denoting language most resembling in that respect the ancient Fula!"

"Where was this? Impossible!" cried Kingozi, interested and excited.

"Ah!" roared Winkleman with satisfaction. "I thought I would your interest
catch! But it is true; and in the central Congo."

"But that would throw the prehistoric Libyan and Hamitic migrations
farther to the west than----"

"Pre-cisely!" interrupted Winkleman.

"What sort of people were they? Did they show Hamitic characteristics
particularly? or did they incline to the typical prognathous, short-
legged, stealopygous type of the Bushmen?"

But Winkleman reverted abruptly to his narrative.

"That is a long discussion to make. It will wait. But just as I get these
people where I can put them beneath my observation, so, there comes an
ober-lieutenant with foolishness in the way of guns and uniform and
_askaris_ and that nonsense; and my little people run into the forest and
are no more to be seen."

"Hard luck!" commented Kingozi feelingly.

"Is it not so? This ober-lieutenant is a fool. He knows nothing.
_Dumkopf!_ All he knows is to give me a letter from the _Kaiserliche
dumkopf_ at Dar-es-salaam. I read it. It tells me I must come here, to
this place, with speed, and get the military aid of this M'tela and so
forth with many details. It was another foolishness. I know this type of
people well. There is nothing new to be learned. They are of the usual
types. It is foolishness to come here. But it is an order, so I come, and
I do my best. But now I am a prisoner, while I might be with the little
people in the Congo. I talk much."

"I fancy we are going to have a good deal to talk about," interjected
Kingozi.

"_Ach!_ that is true! That is what I said--that I am glad this is
Culbertson who catches me. Yes! We must talk!"

Cazi Moto glided to them.

"Bath is ready, _bwana_," said he.

Winkleman puffed out his chest and protruded his great beard.

"This war--foolishness!" he mumbled.

"Yes, we have much to talk about. Nevertheless," said Kingozi with slight
embarrassment, "it is necessary that I do my duty according to my orders.
And my orders were much like yours--to get the alliance of this M'tela.
But I have told him that you are my enemy; and he sent his men with mine
to find you; and now, as you can well comprehend, I must----"

But Winkleman's quick comprehension leaped ahead of Kingozi's speech.

"I must play the prisoner, is it not?" he cried with one of his big
laughs. "But so! Of course! That is comprehend. How could it be otherwise?
I know my native! I know what he expects. I shall be humble, the slave,
your foot upon my neck. Of course! Do you suppose I do not know?"

"That is well," said Kingozi, much relieved, "I shall tell him that you
are a man of much wisdom and great magic; and that I have saved your life
to serve me."

"So!" cried Winkleman delightedly; and departed to his tent and the
waiting bath. A few moments later he could be heard robustly splashing in
the tent. A roar summoned Cazi Moto.

"Tell your _bwana_ I want _n'dowa_--medicine--understand? Need some boric
acid," he yelled at Kingozi. "Eyes in bad shape."

Kingozi ordered Cazi Moto to take over the entire medicine chest; then
sent a messenger for M'tela, who shortly appeared.

"This enemy of mine is taken, thanks to your men, oh, King. I have him
here in the tent, well guarded."

"How shall we kill him, papa?" inquired M'tela.

"That has not yet been decided," replied Kingozi carelessly. "He must, of
course, be taken to the great King of all _Inglishee_."

M'tela looked disappointed.

"In the meantime," pursued Kingozi, "as he has much knowledge, and great
magic, I shall talk much with him, and get that magic for the benefit of
us both, oh, King. He cannot escape, for my magic is greater than his."

This M'tela well believed, for the reports industriously circulated by
Simba anent his magic bone had reached the King, and had not lost in
transit.

So when Winkleman came swashbuckling up the hill M'tela was prepared. The
blue-black beard and hearty, deep-chested carriage of the Bavarian
impressed him greatly.

"But this is a great _bwana_, papa," he said to Kingozi. "Like you and
me."

"This is the prisoner of which I spoke to you," said Kingozi in a loud
voice.

Winkleman, a twinkle in his wide eyes, but with his countenance composed
to gravity, stepped forward, salaamed, and placed his forehead beneath
Kingozi's hand in token of submission. Thus proper relations were
established. Winkleman seated himself humbly on the sod, and kept silence,
while high converse went forward. At length M'tela departed. Winkleman
immediately plunged into the conversational gap around which, mentally, he
had been, impatiently hovering for an hour.

"But this articulation of the _saurus_" he broke out. "What of it?"

"The magic bone," chuckled Kingozi.

"Pouf! Pouf! It resembled much the _cinoliosaurus_, but that could not
be."

"Why not?" demanded Kingozi quickly.

"It has been found only in the lias formations of the Jurassic," stated
Winkleman dogmatically, "and that type of Jurassic is not here. It is of
England, yes; of Germany, yes; of the Americas, yes. Of central Africa,
no!"

"Nevertheless----" interposed Kingozi.

"But the _cryptoclidus_--that greatly resembles the _cinoliosaurus_--
perhaps. Or even a subspecies of the _plesiosaurus_----"

"Simba," called Kingozi.

"Suh!"

"Bring here the magic bone. The _bwana_ wishes to look at it. No; it is
all right. I myself tell you; no harm can come."

Reluctantly Simba produced the bone, now fittingly wrapped in clean
_mericani_ cloth, and still more reluctantly undid it and handed it to
Winkleman. The latter seized it and began minutely to examine it,
muttering short, disconnected sentences to himself in German.

"Now here is what I have said," he spoke aloud. "See. By this curve----"

He broke off, staring curiously into Kingozi's face. The latter sat
apparently looking out across the hills, paying no attention to the fact
that Winkleman had thrust the bone fairly under his nose. The pause that
ensued became noticeable. Kingozi stirred uneasily, turning his eyes in
the direction of the scientist.

"Glaucoma!" ejaculated Winkleman.

Kingozi smiled wearily.

"Yes. I wondered when you would find it out."

"You are all blind?"

"I can distinguish light." Kingozi straightened his back, and his voice
became incisive. "But I can still see through eyes that are faithful to
me! Make no mistakes there."

"My dear friend; have I not given my parole?" gently asked the Bavarian.

"Beg your pardon. Of course."

"It is serious. You should have a surgeon. But why have you not used the
temporary remedy? Of course you know the effect of drugs?"

"I know that atropin is ruin, right enough," said Kingozi grimly.

"But the pilocarpin----"

"Of course. I only wish I had some."

"But you have!" came Winkleman's astonished voice. "There is of it a large
vial!"

Kingozi gripped the arm of his chair for a full minute. Then he spoke to
Cazi Moto in a vibrating voice.

"Bring me the chest of medicines. Now," he went on to Winkleman, when this
command had been executed, "kindly read to me the labels on all these
bottles; begin at the left. All, please."

He listened attentively while Winkleman obeyed. The pilocarpin was
present; the atropin was gone.

"You have not deceived me?" he cried sharply. "No--why should
you--wait----"

He thought for some moments. When he raised his face it was gray.

"One of the bottles was broken. I had reason to believe it the
pilocarpin," he said quietly. "Can I trespass on your good nature to make
the proper solution for my eyes?"

"It is but a temporary expedient," warned Winkleman. "It is surgery here
demanded. I know the operation, but I cannot perform. One makes a
transverse incision above the cornea----"

"I know, I know," interrupted Kingozi. "But the pilocarpin will give me my
sight. Let us get at it."



CHAPTER XXXI


LIGHT AGAIN

Three hours later Kingozi stepped into the open, his vision cleared. Such
is often the marvellous--though temporary--effect of the proper remedies
in this disease. He looked about him with a thankfulness not to be
understood save by one whose sight has been thus unexpectedly restored.
Winkleman followed him full of deep sympathy.

"But I understand," he repeated over and over, "but it is like water on a
weary march, _nicht wahr_. But this is bad, very bad! You say it has been
going on for a month? And a month back! Too late. _Ach, schrecklich!_ It
is so much a pity! You have, the youth, the strength, the knowledge! You
could so far go! But you must learn the dictation; the great book, the
_magnum opus_, it is there. Cheer up, my boy! Work, much work! That is
what will cure your sick courage even if it cannot cure your sick eyes.
Now, while we have the sight--see--the bone--this curve clearly indicates
to me----"

Winkleman produced the saurian bone. And for the first time Kingozi
noticed Simba hovering anxiously near. Request and blandishments had
proved of no avail in getting the magic bone from _Bwana_ Nyele.

"It is all right," Kingozi reassured him. "We but use the magic for a
little while. See; it has given me back my eyes."

"A-a-a-a!" ejaculated Simba, deeply astonished.

"We will use it but a little while longer," Kingozi concluded. "Then you
shall have it again."

"But to give this specimen to a gun bearer!" cried Winkleman in English.
"That is craziness! It is a museum piece."

"It belongs to him; and I have promised," said Kingozi.

Winkleman subsided with deep rumblings. After a moment he renewed his
discussion.

Kingozi only half heard him. His mind was occupied by another, more human
problem. The discovery that the atropin and not the pilocarpin had been
destroyed agitated him profoundly; not, as might be believed, because it
enabled him at a critical time to regain the use of his sight, but because
it threw before him an insistent question. Did, or did not, Bibi-ya-chui
know? He recalled the incident in all its little details--himself in his
chair and Cazi Moto squatting before the three bottles set up before them,
carefully tracing in the sand with a stick the characters on the labels;
the Leopard Woman's sudden dash forward; the tinkle of smashed glass, and
her voice panting with excitement: "I will read your labels for you now--
the bottle you hold in your hand! It is atropin, atropin"--and her wild
laugh.

Did she know, or was she guessing or bluffing?

It hurt him, hurt him inconceivably to think that she might have deceived
him thus; might have broken the wrong bottle, and then deliberately have
kept him in darkness with the very remedy at hand. That would seem the
refinement of cruelty.

But he must be fair. She was then fighting, fighting with all her power
against odds, for her sworn duty. Deceit was her natural weapon. And at
that time such deceit seemed very likely to win for her her point. No, he
could not blame her there; he could not consistently even feel hurt. The
few moments' reasoning brought him to the point where he did not feel
hurt. After a little he even admired the quickness of wit.

The instinctive depression vanished before this reasoning. He suddenly
became light-hearted.

But immediately the dark mood returned. Granted all this; how about the
last two days? Before that it might well be that her sense of duty to her
country, her firmness of spirit, her honour itself would impel her to
cling to the last hope of gaining her end. Until his influence over M'tela
was quite assured, Winkleman's arrival would probably turn the scale. She
had not prevented Kingozi's arriving before the Bavarian; but she might
hold the Englishman comparatively powerless. That was understandable.
Kingozi felt he might even love her the more for this evidence of a
faithful spirit. But the last few days! It must have become evident to her
that her cause was lost; that M'tela's friendship had been gained for the
English. If she had cared for him the least in the world would not she
have hastened to produce the pilocarpin for his relief? What could she
hope to gain by concealing it? And then the other words insisted on his
recollection, bitter words--when, first blinded, he had asked her to read
the labels on the bottle that would have given him sight. "Why should I do
this for you? You have treated me as a man treats his dog, his horse, his
servant, his child--not as a man treats a woman!" What real reason--
besides his hopes--had he for thinking she did not still hate him, or at
least remain indifferent to him? So indifferent that even after her chance
had passed she still neglected to inform him that the pilocarpin was not
destroyed after all.

Winkleman talked on and on about his saurian. Would he never stop and go
away?

"I agree with you; you are probably right," said Kingozi at last, driven
by sheer desperation to the endorsement of he knew not what scientific
heresy. Winkleman snorted heavily in triumph, and returned the bone to a
vastly relieved Simba. Kingozi interposed in haste before the introduction
of a new topic.

"Undoubtedly you will wish to see the palace of M'tela," said he with deep
wile. "Of course you are supposed to be my prisoner, so I must send you
under guard. You might take a small present to M'tela from me. I have not
yet visited his place of course. This might be considered a preliminary to
my first visit. Does it appeal to you?"

"But yes! And I shall behave. I have given my parole. I shall be the good
boy!"

"Of course. I understand that. Do you eat at noon? No? Well, good luck.
Cazi Moto, take Mali-ya-bwana and two _askari_ guns, and go with _Bwana_
Nyele to the palace of M'tela."

Scarcely had the group disappeared down the forest path when Kingozi was
at the tent door of the Leopard Woman.

"_Hodie?_" he pronounced the native word of one desiring entrance.

"Who is there?" she asked in Swahili.

"I--Culbertson."

A slight pause; then her voice:

"Come."

He drew aside the tent flaps and entered. She was half reclining on the
cot, her back raised by pillows stuffed with sweet grass. Her silk
garment, carelessly arranged, had fallen partly open, so that the gleam of
her flesh showed tantalizingly here and there. The blood leaped to
Kingozi's forehead. She did not alter her pose. Suddenly he realized: of
course, she thought him blind!

The embarrassment met his sterner mood in a head-on collision, so that for
a moment the impulsive speech failed him. She spoke first.

"That was Winkleman, I suppose," she said. "I did not want to appear. What
is decided?"

"Decided?" he stammered, not knowing where to look, but unable to keep his
eyes from straying.

"Yes. Is it too late? Can he prevail with this M'tela after all?"

"He is my prisoner; he has given his parole."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, raising herself on her elbow in excitement. The
abrupt movement dropped the robe from her shoulder. "You can see!" she
cried; and huddled the garment about her in a panic. "You can see!" she
repeated amazedly. "How is that? What has happened?"

The words brought him to himself and to his need for definite knowledge.

"Winkleman read the labels on my bottles," he said sternly. "I have simply
used the pilocarpin."

"The pilocarpin! But that was destroyed!"

So unmistakably genuine was her cry of amazement that Kingozi's heart
leaped with joy. She had not known! He took a step toward the couch.

But at this moment a wild hullabaloo broke out in the camp. Men yelled and
shouted. Some one began to blow a horn. There came the sound of many
running to and fro. "Damn!" ejaculated Kingozi fervently; and ran out of
the tent.



CHAPTER XXXII


THE COLOURS

The whole camp was gathered about a number of M'tela's people, who were
all talking at once. The din was something prodigious. Kingozi pushed his
way rather angrily to the centre of disturbance.

"Here, what is this?" he demanded to know.

But a dead, astonished silence fell upon them all. They stared at him
gaping.

"What is it?" repeated Kingozi impatiently.

"But _bwana!_" cried Cazi Moto. "You see!"

"That is a magic," replied Kingozi curtly. "Now what is all this _kalele_
about?"

"Bwana, these people say that messengers have come in telling of many
white men and _askaris_ marching in this direction."

"From where? But that does not matter--are they _Inglishee_ or _Duyche?_"

"These _shenzis_ do not know the difference."

"That is true. How far away are they?"

"Very near, _bwana_."

"Get my gun. Have Simba follow me. Here, you lead the way." They marched
rapidly through the forest path and past the palace of M'tela, which
Kingozi had never seen. The savage king came out, and Winkleman and his
bodyguard soon followed.

"Oh, King," said Kingozi. "Now is the time to show to me that your
friendship is true. As you know, other white men are coming, with
warriors. I do not know yet whether these are _Inglishee_, who are my
friends--and yours--or _Duyche_, who are my enemies. If they are _Duyche_
they must be attacked and killed or captured, for we are at war."

He watched M'tela carefully while he spoke, and felt satisfaction at what
he saw.

"Have no fear, papa," replied M'tela easily. "I will cause the great drums
to be beaten. My warriors are as the leaves of the grass; and these are
few."

"Nevertheless they will kill many of yours," said Kingozi with great
earnestness; "for they have guns that kill many times and at a long
distance. When your warriors hear the great noise they make, and see the
dead men, they will run." "You do not know the warriors of M'tela,"
replied the king with dignity. "Should the half of them fall, the other
half will give these to the hyenas. Yes, even if they had the thunder
itself as weapon!"

"How many are there, oh, King?" asked Kingozi, greatly relieved.

"My men report thirty-one white men and many black men."

"I go now," advised Kingozi, "to look upon these men. Give me guides, and
a messenger to send back with news of what I find."

M'tela issued the orders. A moment later Kingozi started on. Winkleman,
who had spoken no word, waved him a friendly good-bye. Before they had
reached the forest edge the great war drums began to roar.

The guides took them swiftly down the forest path and across the rolling
country with the groves. Kingozi looked at it all with curiosity and
delight. It seemed to him that never in all his wanderings had he seen so
beautiful and variegated a prospect. His blindness had overtaken him, it
must be remembered, out on the open dry veldt, between the Great and the
Little Rains. It was as though he had awakened from a sleep to find
himself in this watered, green, and wooded paradise.

At the top of a hill the guide stopped and pointed. Kingozi gathered that
through the distant cleft he indicated the strangers must come. All sat
down and waited.

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

An hour passed. Simba uttered an exclamation. Kingozi raised his glasses.
Tiny figures on foot were debouching from the forest. They spread in all
directions, advancing in fan-formation. Evidently the scouts. Then more
tiny figures, figures on horseback. Kingozi counted them. There were, as
M'tela had said, just thirty-one; a gallant little band, but at this
distance indistinguishable. They rode out some distance. And at last the
first files of the black troops appeared. Kingozi dropped his glasses to
the end of its thong with a cheer. Drooping in the still air the colours
were nevertheless easily recognized. The flag was of England.

"_Inglishee! Inglishee!_" he repeated to M'tela's messengers, and made a
motion back toward the palace. The men departed at a lope. Kingozi and
Simba took the other direction.

They met the newcomers halfway across the long, shallow dish between the
wooded hills. On catching sight of them the mounted white men spurred
forward. A confusion of greetings stormed them.

"It's Culbertson!" "Where did _you_ rain down from?" "We've been looking
for you without end! Isn't this a lark, old man!"

In the meantime, in the personal attendants of these white men, Simba had
discovered acquaintances; among them the two messengers Kingozi had
despatched back in quest of Doctor McCloud.

Kingozi stood in the middle of the group, his heart overflowing. It was
good to see so many white faces again; it was good to see the faces of
friends; it was good to know that his labours had not been in vain, and
that the border was assured. And underneath it was a great exaltation. He
walked on air. For she had not known! The blank astonishment of her face
had proved that to him beyond a doubt. She really thought that she had
destroyed the pilocarpin; she had not deliberately held from him the light
of day!

His high spirits expressed themselves in an animation and volubility so
unlike the taciturn Culbertson that many of his acquaintances stared.

"Seems quite bucked up," commented one to another. "Must have had a deuce
of a time back here."

"What is this arm of His Majesty's Service, anyway?" Kingozi was asking in
general. "I mean the mounted and disreputable portion, not the decent
infantry."

"This, my son, is the Settlers' Own Irregulars; and we've come out for to
hunt the shy and elusive German."

"Good heads scarce up this way," rejoined Kingozi. "I've caught one
specimen myself, however."

"Specimen of what?"

"German. Ever hear of Winkleman?"

"Rather! The native _fundi?_[19] You don't mean to say you've got him!"

[Footnote 19: Fundi--expert.]

"I've got him. He's the only specimen in these parts. But I can show you
several thousand of the best fighting men in Africa--all loyal British
allies."

"Good man!" cried a grizzled old settler. "I told 'em you'd do it!"

"But the war?" demanded Kingozi eagerly. "What of the war? Tell me? I know
nothing whatever."

One of the younger men dismounted and insisted on delivering his animal to
Kingozi.

"Do me good to stretch my legs," said he. "And you've walked your share."

Riding in a little group of the officers Kingozi listened attentively to
an account of affairs as far as they were known. The Marne, and the
Retreat from Mons straightened him in his saddle. It was worth it; he had
done his bit! Whatever the price, it was worth it!

The account finished, Captain Walsh began questioning in his turn.

"Excellent!" he greeted Kingozi's account. "Couldn't be better! We have
reasons to believe that the water-holes on this route are mapped by the
Germans."

"They are," interrupted Kingozi.

"And that the plan contemplated coming through here, gathering the tribes
as they advanced, and finally cutting in on us with a big force from the
rear."

"They'll run against a stone wall hereabouts," said Kingozi with
satisfaction.

"Lucky for us. I've only four companies--and these settlers. We are really
only a reconnaissance."

"How did you happen to follow my route?"

"Ran against the messengers you sent back to get Doctor McCloud. They
guided us. By the way, what is it? Must have been serious. You're not a
man to run to panics. You look fit enough now."

"Eyes," explained Kingozi. His heart sank, for the failure of his
messengers to go on after McCloud took away the last small hope of saving
his eyesight.

"Fancy it will be all right," said Captain Walsh vaguely. He was thinking,
quite properly, of ways and means and dispositions. "About this sultan,
now; what do you advise----"

They rode forward slowly through the high, aromatic grasses, discussing
earnestly every angle of policy to be assumed in regard to M'tela. At its
close all the white men were called together and given instructions. Even
the youngest and most flippant knew natives well enough to realize the
value of the structure Kingozi had built, and to listen attentively.

These alternate marches and halts had permitted the foot troops to close
up. Kingozi turned in his saddle to look at them. Fine, upstanding black
men they were, marching straight and soldierly, neat in their uniforms of
khaki, with the dull red tarboush, the blue leggings, the bare knees and
feet. They were picked troops from the Sudan, these, fighting men by
birth, whose chief tradition was that in case his colonel was killed no
man must come back to his woman short of wiping out the last of the enemy.
In spite of a long march they walked jauntily. Two mounted white men
brought up the rear.

Now they entered the cool forest trail. The sound of distant drums became
audible. Men straightened in their saddles. Captain Walsh gave crisp
orders. They entered the cleared space before M'tela's palace with colours
flying and snare drums tapping briskly.

The full force of M'tela's power seemed to have been gathered, gorgeous in
the panoply of war. The forest threw back the roar of drums, of horns, of
people chanting or shouting. Straight to the middle of the square marched
the Sudanese, wheeled smartly into line. At a command they raised their
rifles and fired a volley, the first gunfire ever heard in this ancient
forest.



CHAPTER XXXIII


CURTAIN

The sun was setting. In a few minutes more the swift darkness would fall.
After delivering the astonishing volley the troops wheeled and under
Kingozi's guidance proceeded down the forest path to the great clearing.
It was the close of a long, hard day, but under the scrutinizing eyes of
these thousands of proud _shenzis_ the Sudanese stepped forth jauntily.
Camping places were designated. All was activity as the tents were raised.

But now rode in the two white men who had closed the rear of the column,
not only of the fighting men, but of the burden bearers as well. They were
covered with dust and apparently very glad to arrive. One of them rode
directly to the group of officers and dismounted stiffly.

"McCloud!" cried Kingozi.

"The same," replied that efficient surgeon. "And now let's see the eyes. I
have your scrawl." He stumped forward, looking keenly for what he wanted.
"Sit here in this chair. Boy!" he bawled. "_Lete taa_--bring the lantern.
And my case of knives. No, my lad, I'm not going to operate on you
instanter, but I do want my reflector. Hold the light just here. Now,
don't any of you move. Tip your head back a bit, that's a good chap." He
went methodically forward with his examination as though he were at home
in his white office. "H'm. How long this been going on? Five weeks, eh!
Been blind? Oh--why didn't you use that pilocarpin I gave you--I see."
The officers and other white men stood about in a compact and silent
group. A sudden grave realization of the situation had descended upon
them, sobering their careless or laughing countenances. No one knew
exactly what it was all about, but some had caught the word "blindness"
and repeated it to others. Some one yelled "_kalale_" savagely at the
chattering men. Almost a dead stillness fell on the clearing, so that in
the falling twilight the tree hyraxes took heart and began to utter their
demoniac screams. The darkness came down softly. Soon the group in the
centre turned to silhouettes against the light of the two lanterns held
head high on either side the patient.

Absorbedly Doctor McCloud proceeded. Kingozi sat quietly, turning his head
to either side, raising or lowering his chin as he was requested to do so.
At last McCloud straightened his back.

"It is glaucoma right enough," said he; "fairly advanced. The pilocarpin
has been a palliative. An operation is called for--iridectomy."

He paused, wiping his mirror. Nobody dared ask the question that Kingozi
himself at last propounded.

"Can you do it--have you the necessary instruments?'"

"Fine spade scalpel, small tweezers, scissors--_and_ a lot of experience.
I've got all the former."

"And the latter?"

"I've done the operation before," said McCloud dryly.

"Will it restore my sight permanently."

"If successful the job will be permanent."

"What chance of success?"

"Fair--fair," rejoined McCloud with a touch of impatience. "How can I
tell? But I'll just inform you of this, my lad, without the operation
you're stone blind for the rest of your days, and it must be done now or
not at all. So there's your Hobson's choice; and we'll get at it
comfortably in the morning."

He turned away and stopped with a frank stare of astonishment. The other
men followed his gaze, and also stared.

The Leopard Woman stood just within the circle of illumination. So intent
was she on the examination and on Kingozi that she seemed utterly
unconscious of the men standing over opposite. Her soft silk robe fell
about her body in classic folds; the single jewel on its chain fillet
blazed on her forehead; her hair fell in its braid to her hips, and her
wide, gray-green eyes were fixed on the seated man. A more startlingly
exotic figure for the wilds of Central Africa could not be imagined. The
expressions on the faces of the newcomers were varied enough, to be sure,
but all had a common groundwork of fair imbecility.

[Illustration: "So intent was the Leopard Woman on the examination that
she seemed utterly unconscious of the men standing over opposite."]

She seemed to be unaware of even their presence. When. McCloud had
pronounced his opinion, she glided forward and laid her hand on Kingozi's
shoulder.

"I am glad--but I am afraid," she said softly. Kingozi covered her hand
with one of his own. His eyes twinkled with quiet amusement as he looked
about him at the stricken faces of his friends. She whirled on the gaping
McCloud. "But you must have a care!" she cried at him vehemently. "You
must save his eyes. I wish it!"

McCloud, recovering himself, bowed.

"Madam," said he with a faint, amused irony. "It shall be my pleasure to
do my best in fulfilling your commands."

"It must be," she repeated; and turned to face the rest. "He is a great
man; he must be saved. All this is folly. I have fought him to my best,
for long, and I have used all means--good and bad. He conquered me as one
who--what you call--subdues a child. And he is generous, and brave, and
when the darkness comes to him he does not sit and weep. He is a great
soul, and all things must be done!"

She was superb, her head thrown back. Captain Walsh was the first to
recover from the stunned condition in which all found themselves. He
bowed.

"Madam," said he, "in what you say we heartily concur. We add our urgence
to yours. You must forgive our stupidity to the surprise of your
appearance. Even yet my astonishment has not abated." He turned easily to
Kingozi: "I hope you will afford me the pleasure of naming me to madam."

Kingozi arose to his feet.

"I do not know your name," he muttered to her.

"I am the Leopard Woman," she smiled back on him enigmatically.

Kingozi paused, embarrassed as to what to do. He could not use that name
in an introduction to these men. She was looking at him mischievously.

"Captain Walsh--and gentlemen," said Kingozi suddenly, "I want the
pleasure of presenting you to--my future wife!"

Her gasp of astonishment was lost in the chorus of congratulatory cries.
It was all mysterious, profoundly astonishing. Much was to be explained.
But for the moment each man was ready to believe the evidences of his own
senses--that no matter how incongruous the fact of her presence might be,
there she was, beautiful as the night. And every man facing her had seen
the glory that shone from within when Kingozi had pronounced his
introduction. Captain Walsh was speaking.

"This is an occasion," he said, "and the King's African Rifles cannot have
it otherwise than that you become their guests. I see our camp is in
preparation. We have nothing beyond the ordinary stores, but you must all
dine with us." He paused, considering. "Say in an hour," he continued. "It
must be early, for I do not doubt we must receive his royal highness this
evening."

"You're right," said Kingozi, "and unless I miss my guess it will be an
all-night job."

The travel-wearied men groaned.

"No help for it," said Captain Walsh cheerfully.

They pressed forward to shake the hands of this strange couple. The
Leopard Woman carried herself with the ease and poise of one accustomed to
receiving homage. She had drawn near Kingozi again, and managed to reach
out and press his arm.

"Ye'll be married soon, I'm thinking," surmised McCloud.

"Depends," replied Kingozi, his brow darkening. "Part of it's up to you,
you know," he added briefly. "A blind man is a poor man."

"We shall be married soon--now, if there is a priest among you!" cried the
Leopard Woman vehemently, "As for poor man--pouf!" She turned to Walsh
with an engaging smile. "And you, where you came, did you pass the people
who live in the mountains back there, with a _sultani_ who dressed in
black----"

"I know," supplemented Captain Walsh, "very well."

"The _sultani_ whose place has a fortified gate."

"Really? We did not get to his village; too much of a hurry."

The Leopard Woman shot a glance at Kingozi. He saw the triumph in it, and
understood. The ivory stockade was unknown to any but themselves; still
remained there in all its wealth awaiting the first trader. And that
trader should be himself!

"Poor, indeed!" she whispered to him.

At this moment a roar of astonishment came up to them from down the slope.
All turned to see Winkleman, the forgotten Winkleman, standing at the door
of his tent. He was in pajamas, and his thick hair was tousled about.

"But how I have slept!" he cried, "and the English, they have come! Well,
well!" He came out, stretching his great arms lazily over his head. They
stiffened in surprise as he caught sight of the Leopard Woman. For a
second he stared; then dropped his arms with one of his big, gusty laughs.

"_Kolossal!_" he roared. "The Countess Miklos! I was wondering! So he has
captured you, too, has he!"

With a simple and unembarrassed gesture she laid her arm across Kingozi's
shoulders.

"But yes," she repeated softly. "He has captured me, too."

At the tiny fire burning before the tent reserved for the headmen of the
camp sat Simba, Cazi Moto, and Mali-ya-bwana. The bone of the _saurian_
lay before Simba, who was bragging.

"Great is the magic of this bone, which is mine. It has brought us a long
journey; it has won us the friendship of the great chief; it has revealed
to us much riches in the teeth of _tembo_, the elephant, though that must
not be spoken aside from us three; it has restored the light to _Bwana_
Kingozi, our master; it has captured for us a great _bwana_ and a rich
safari; it has brought to us _Bwana_ Bunduki[20] and many _bwanas_ and
_askaris_; it has brought to our master a woman for his own--though to be
sure there are many women. Great is this magic; and it is mine. With it I
shall be lucky always."

[Footnote 20: The Master of the Rifle--Captain Walsh.]

"A-a-a-a!" agreed Cazi Moto and Mali-ya-bwana respectfully.

From the darkened mysterious forest the tree hyraxes, excited by the
numerous fires and the voices of so large an encampment, were wailing and
shrieking.

"The dead are restless tonight," said Simba, poking the fire.




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