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.



"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, Chake. 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. "Chake 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 negligees, 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 canon 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 canon 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.



"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.