Assegai - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Wilbur Smith (ч. 55)

It was still early when they returned to camp. The princess went to her tent to bathe, and Leon hurried to his own and scribbled a hasty note to Penrod in his game book:

Uncle, I have such stories to tell you of my new friend and her old friends in the highest places as will turn your hair white. However, I am now in the coils of this monster. She demands that I commit an unspeakably foul act for her amusement. Both my own conscience and the law forbid me to give in to her. If I am forced to refuse her outright, she will take great offence. She will shut down the conduit of information from Germany that you are so carefully nurturing. I implore you to devise some means of diplomatically removing her from British East Africa before this happens. Your aff. nephew.

He tore the page from the book, folded it and buttoned it into the breast pocket of his bush jacket. He left his tent and went back towards the mess tent, passing close enough to the royal tent to hear the princess furiously haranguing Heidi and the maid’s muffled sobs. He walked on down to the servants’ compound where he found Manyoro and Loikot sitting outside their hut, taking snuff. They fell silent as they saw him approaching.

With a quick glance around to make certain they were not watched, he handed the folded note to Manyoro. ‘Take Loikot with you. Go to Nairobi at once with all speed. Give this paper to my uncle, Colonel Ballantyne, at KAR Headquarters. Do not dawdle along the way. Leave now. Speak to nobody of this business except my uncle.’

They stood up immediately and reached for their spears, which were planted in the earth on each side of the hut doorway.

Leon took Manyoro’s shoulders to reinforce his orders. ‘My brother,’ he said softly, ‘run fast and the witch will soon be gone.’

‘Ndio, M’bogo.’ Manyoro smiled for the first time in weeks, and he was not limping when he and Loikot trotted out of the camp and set off in the direction of Nairobi.