The Leopard Woman Part 37

CHAPTER XXVI

WAITING

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

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

"I am pleased to see the white man," he said. "Never has the white man come to my country before; but always I knew he would come. One time long ago my brother who is king of the people near the Great Water said these words to me: 'My brother, some day white men will come to you.

They will be few, and they will come with a small safari, and their wealth will look small to you. But make no mistake. Where these few white men who look poor come from are many more--like the leaves of the gra.s.s--and their wealth is great and their wonders many; and for each white man that is speared ten more come, without end, like water flowing down a hill. I know this to be so, for I am an old man, and I have fought, and of all those who fought the white man in my youth only I remain.' So I remembered these words of my brother always."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kingozi's figure stiffened.

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

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

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

"Get my gla.s.ses," he told Cazi Moto. Then to her, his voice vibrating with emotion too long controlled: "Look and tell me, fairly. I must know. Whatever the outcome you must tell me truth. It will not matter.

I can do nothing."

"I will tell you the truth," she promised, raising the gla.s.ses.

For some moments she looked intently.

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

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

CHAPTER XXVII

THE MAGIC BONE

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

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

Here they encountered people belonging to M'tela's tribes; but their guides seemed to vouch for them, and they pa.s.sed without trouble.

Indeed they were here enabled to get more food, and to waste no time hunting. At noon of another day, surmounting a ridge, they looked down on a marching safari. The two _shenzi_ guides pointed and grinned, much pleased with themselves. Their pleasure was short lived; for they were promptly seized, disarmed, and tied together. The grieved astonishment of their expressions almost immediately faded into fatalistic stolidity. So many things happen in Africa!

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

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

It came within the hour. Simba almost unremarked regarded it curiously.

There were over a hundred men, all of tribes unknown to him with the exception of a dozen who evidently performed the higher offices. The common porters were indeed _shenzis_--wild men--picked up from jungle and veldt as they were needed; and not at all of the professional porter cla.s.s to be had at Mombasa; Nairobi, Dar-es-salaam, or Zanzibar.

Simba's eyes pa.s.sed over them contemptuously, but rested with more interest on the smaller body of _askaris_, headmen, and gun bearers.

These also were of tribes strange to him; but of East African types with which he was familiar. They were all dressed in a sort of uniform of khaki, wore caps with a curtain hanging behind, and arm bands gayly emblazoned with imperial eagles. All this was very impressive. Simba conceived a respect for this white man's importance. Evidently he was a _bwana m'kubwa_. The supposed savage experienced a growing excitement over the task he had undertaken. All his training had taught him to respect the white man, as such; and now he was called upon to abduct forcibly one of the sacred breed--and such a specimen! Only Simba's undoubted force of character, and the veneration his long a.s.sociation with Kingozi had inculcated, sustained him.

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

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

For at sight of the bone _Bwana_ Nyele's eyes lit up, he uttered an astonis.h.i.+ng bellow of delight, and sprang forward with such agility for so large a man that he almost succeeded in s.n.a.t.c.hing the talisman from Simba's hands. Acting precisely on his instructions the latter backed away, pointing over the hill.

"Where did you get that?" Winkleman demanded.

Simba continued to point.

"Give it me."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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