The Leopard Hunts In Darkness Part 35

"General Peter Fungabera is an officer of impeccable reputation, a high official of the state. "Me Third Brigade is an elite unit of the state's regular army, its members, although battle-hardened veterans, are disciplined and trained soldiers.

"The court, therefore, categorically rejects the accused's contention that either General Fungabera or his men could have, even in the remotest possibility, const.i.tuted a threat to his safety, let alone his life. The court also rejects the contention that the accused believed this to be the case.

"Accordingly, I come to the first charge. Namely, that of trading or dealing in the products of scheduled wild animals. I find the accused guilty as charged and I sentence him to the maximum penalty under the law. Twelve years at hard labour.

"On the second charge of abducting and holding a hostage, I find the accused guilty as charged and I sentence him to ten years at hard labour.

"On the third charge of a.s.sault with a deadly weapon, I find the accused guilty and sentence him to six years at hard labour a.s.sault with intent to do grievous bodily harm six years at hard labour.

Attempted murder six years at hard labour I order that these sentences run consecutively and that no part of them be suspended-" Even Abel Khori's head jerked up at that. The sentences totalled forty years. With full remission for good behaviour, Tungata could still expect to serve over thirty years, the rest of his useful life.

At the back of the -court a black woman shrieked in Sindebele, "Babo! The father! They are taking our father from us!" Others took up the cry. "Father of the people!

Our father is dead to us." A man began to sing in a soaring baritone voice.

"Why do you weep, widows of Shangani... Why do you weep, little sons of the Moles, When your' fathers did the king's bidding?" It was one of the ancient fighting songs of the imp is of King Lobengula, and the singer was a man in his prime with a strong intelligent face and a short-cropped, spade shaped beard barely speckled with grey. As he sang, the tears ran down his cheeks into his beard. In another time he might have been an induna of one of the royal imp is

His song was taken up by the men around him, and Mr. justice Domashawa came to his feet in a fury.

"If there is not silence this instant, I will have the court cleared and the offenders charged with contempt," he shouted over the singing, but it was five minutes more of pandemonium before the ushers could restore order.

Through it all, Tungata Zebiwe stood quietly in the dock, with just the barest hint of a mocking smile on his lips. When at last it was over, but before his guards led him away, he gazed across the courtroom at Craig Mellow and he made a last hand-signal. They had only used it playfully before, perhaps after a hard-contested bout of wrestling or some other friendly compet.i.tion. Now Tungata used it in deadly earnest. The sign meant: "We are equal the score is levelled," and Craig understood completely. Craig had lost his leg and Tungata had lost his freedom. They were equal.

He wanted to call out to the man who had once been his friend that it was a sorry bargain, not of his choosing, but Tungata had turned away. His warders were trying to lead him out of the dock, but Tungata pulled back, his head turning as he searched for someone else in the crowded court.

Sarah Nyoni climbed up onto her bench, and over the heads of the crowd she reached out both hands towards him. Now Tungata made his last hand signal to her. Craig read it clearly. "Take cover! Tungata ordered her. "Hide your se If. You are in danger." By the altered expression on her face, Craig saw that the girl had understood the command, and then the warders were dragging Tungata Zebiwe down the stairs that led to the prison cells below ground.

raig Mellow shoved his way through the singing, lamenting crowds of Matabele who overflowed the buildings of the Supreme Court and disrupted the lunch-hour traffic in the broad causeway that it fronted.

He dragged Sally-Anne by her wrist and brusquely shouldered aside the press photographers who tried to block his way.

In the car park he boosted Sally-Anne into the front seat of the Land-Rover, and ran around to the driver's side, threatening with a raised fist the last and most persistent photographer in his path. He drove directly to her apartment and halted at the front door. He did not turn off the engine.

"And now?" Sally' Anne asked.

"I don't understand the question, "he snapped.

"Hey!" she said. "I'm your friend remember me?"

"I'm sorry." He slumped over the wheel. J feel rotten plain b.l.o.o.d.y rotten." She did not reply, but her eyes were full of compa.s.sion for him.

"Forty years," he whispered. "I never expected that. If only I'd known-"

"There was nothing you could do then, or now." He balled his fist and hammered it on the steering wheel "The poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d forty years!"

"Are you coming up?" she asked softly, but he shook his head.

"I have to get back to King's Lynn. I've neglected everything while this awful b.l.o.o.d.y business has been going on."

"You're going right now?" She was startled.

"Yes."

"Alone?" she asked, and he nodded.

"I want to be alone."

"So you can torture yourself." Her voice firmed. "And I'll be d.a.m.ned if I'll allow that. I'm coming with you. Wait! I am going to throw some things in a bag you needn't even kill the engine, I'll be that quick." She was five minutes, and then ran back down the stairs lugging her rucksack and her camera bag. She slung them into the back of the Land-Rover.

"Okay, let's go." They spoke very little on the long journey, but soon Craig was thankful to have her beside him, grateful for her smile when he glanced at her, for the touch of her hand on his when she sensed the black mood too strong upon him, and for her undemanding silence.

They drove up the hills of King's Lynn in the dusk.

Joseph had seen them from afar, and was waiting on the front veranda.

"I see you, Nkosazana." From their first meeting Joseph had taken an instant liking to Sally-Anne. Already she was his "little mistress" and his welcoming grin kept breaking through his solemn dignity as he ordered his servants to unload her meagre luggage.

"I run bath for you very hot."

"That will be marvelous, Joseph." After her bath she came back to the veranda and Craig went to the drinks table and mixed a whisky for her the way she liked it, and another one for himself that was mainly Scotch and very little soda.

"Here's to judge Domashawa," he lifted his gla.s.s ironically, "and to Mashona justice. All forty years of it." Sally-Anne refused wine at dinner despite his protest.

"Baron Rothschild would be frightfully affronted. His very best stuff. My last bottle, smuggled in personally." Craig's In gaiety was forced.

After dinner he lifted the brandy decanter and as he was about to pour, she said, "Craig, please don't get drunk." He paused with the decanter over the snifter and studied her face.

"No," she shook her head. "I'm not being bossy I'm being entirely selfish. Tonight I want you sober." He set down the decanter, pushed back his chair and came around the table to her. She stood up to meet him.

He paused in front of her. "Oh, my darling, I've waited so "I know, "she whispered. "Me too." He took her carefully into his arms, something precious and fragile, and felt her changing slowly. She seemed to soften, and her body became malleable, shaping itself to his own, so he could feel her against him from knees to firm young bosom, the heat of her soaking quickly through their thin clothing.

He bowed his head as she lifted her chin and their mouths came together. Her lips were cool and dry, but almost immediately he felt the heat rising in them and they parted, moist and sweet as a sun-warmed fig freshly plucked and splitting open with its ripe juices.

He looked into her eyes as he kissed her, and marvelled at the colours and the patterns that formed a nimbus around her pupils, green shot through wid-i golden arrowheads, and then her eyelids fluttered down over them, and her long crisp lashes interlocked. He closed his own eyes, and the earth seemed to tilt and swing under him, he rode it easily, holding her to him, but not trying yet to explore her body, content with t4b wonder of her mouth, and the velvet feel of her tongge against his.

Joseph opened the door from the kitchen, and stood for a moment with the coffee tray in his hands, and then he smiled smugly and drew back, closing the door behind him.

Neither of them had heard him come or go. When she took her mouth away, Craig felt deprived and cheated, and reached for it again. She laid her fingers across his lips, restraining him for a moment, and her whisper was so husky that she had to clear her throat and start again. "Vt

"Let's go to your bedroom, darling," she said.

There was one awkward moment when he sat naked on the edge of the bed to remove his leg, but she knelt quickly in front of him, naked also, pus.h.i.+ng his hands away and undid the straps herself. Then she bowed her head and kissed the neat hard pad of flesh at the extremity of his leg.

"Thank you," he said. "I'm glad you could do that."

"It's you," she said, "and part of you," and she kissed it again, and then ran her lips gently up to his knee and beyond.

He woke before she did, and lay with his eyes closed, surprised at the sense of wonder that possessed him, not knowing why, until suddenly he remembered and joy came upon him, and he opened his eyes and rolled his head, for an instant terrified that she would not be there but she was.