"It will take even Xhia many days and weeks to reach the Cape and then return," Jim demurred. "By then we will be hundreds of leagues away."



"Xhia can follow a spoor that is a year old, unless it has been carefully wiped clean."



"How will you wipe our spoor, Bakkat?" Jim asked.



"We have many horses," Bakkat pointed out, and Jim nodded. "Perhaps too many," Bakkat persisted.



Jim looked over the herd of mules and captured horses. There were over thirty. "We do not need so many," he agreed.



"How many do you need?" Bakkat asked.



Jim considered. "Drumfire and Trueheart, Frost and Crow to ride, Stag and Lemon as spares and to carry the packs."



"I will use the rest, horses and mules, to wipe our spoor and act as a decoy to lead Xhia away," Bakkat declared.



"Show me!" Jim ordered, and Bakkat set about the preparations. While Zama watered the herd above the black rock weir, Louisa and Jim fashioned leather booties from the captured saddlebags and the skins of the eland and rhebuck. These would muffle the hoofs of the six horses they were taking with them. While they were busy with this task, Bakkat scouted downstream. He kept well up on the slope of the valley and never approached the river bank. When he returned they cut out the six chosen horses and strapped the booties over their hoofs. It would not take long for the steel shoes to bite through the leather, but it was only a few hundred yards to the river bank.



They secured the equipment to the backs of the six horses. Then, when all was in readiness, they assembled the entire herd of horses and mules into a tight bunch and walked them easily across the black rock. Half-way across they held the six loaded horses, and let the rest go on and start grazing on the far slope of the valley.



Jim, Louisa and Zama removed their own boots, strapped them on to the backs of their mounts, then led them barefoot along the black stone pathway. Bakkat came behind them, examining each inch of the ground



they had covered. Even to his eye they left no sign. The leather booties had padded the hoofs, the bare human feet were soft and pliant, and they had walked slowly, not adding their weight to that of the horses. The hoofs had neither scored nor scratched the rock.



When they reached the river bank Jim told Zama, "You go first. Once they hit the water the horses will want to swim straight to the bank. Your job will be to prevent them doing that."



They watched anxiously as Zama waded out along the natural causeway, with the water reaching first to his knees, then to his waist. In the end he did not have to dive over the edge, the racing waters simply carried him away. He struck the surface of the pool twenty feet below and disappeared for what seemed to the watchers an age. Then his head broke out and he lifted one arm and waved up at them. Jim turned to Louisa.



"Are you ready?" he asked. She lifted her chin and nodded. She did not speak, but he saw the fear in her eyes. She walked firmly to the river's edge, but he could not let her go alone. He took her arm, and for once she made no move to pull away from him. They waded out side by side until the water reached over their knees. Then they stopped and teetered slightly, Jim bracing himself to hold her. "I know you swim like a fish. I have seen you," he said. She looked up and smiled at him, but her eyes were huge and dark blue with terror. He released his grip on her arm, and she did not hesitate but dived forward and instantly disappeared in the spray and thunder. Jim felt his heart go with her, and was frozen with dread as he peered down.



Then her head burst out of the creaming foam. She had tucked her hat under her belt, and her hair had come down. It streamed over her face like a sheet of shining silk. She looked up at him and, incredulously, he saw that she was laughing. The sound of the waterfall smothered her voice, but he could read her lips: "Don't be afraid. I'll catch you."



He guffawed with relief. "Saucy wench!" he shouted back, and returned to the bank where Bakkat was holding the horses. He led them out one at a time, Trueheart first because she was the most tractable. The mare had watched Louisa take the leap and she went readily enough. She landed with a tall splash. As soon as she came up she tried to head for the bank, but Louisa swam to her head and turned her downstream. When they reached the tail of the pool the bottom shelved and they were able to stand. Louisa waved up at Jim again to signal that they were all right. She had replaced her hat on her head.



Jim brought out the other horses. Crow and Lemon, the two mares, went over without any ado. The geldings Stag and Frost were more



difficult, but in the end Jim forced them to take the plunge. As soon as they hit the water Zama swam to them and steered them downstream to where Louisa waited to hold them, belly deep in the middle of the river.



Drumfire had watched the other horses jump, and when his turn came he decided he wanted no part of such madness. In the middle of the stone weir, with turbulent waters booming around them, he staged a battle of wills with Jim. He reared and plunged, losing his footing, then regaining it, backing away and throwing his head around. Jim hung on as he was tossed about, reciting a string of insults and threats in a tone that was meant to sound endearing and soothing. "You demented creature, I'll use you as lion bait." In the end he managed to wrestle Drumfire's head around into a position where he could make a flying mount. Once he was astride, he had the upper hand and he forced Drumfire to the edge, where the current did the rest. They went over together, and during the long drop Jim twisted free. If Drumfire had landed on top of him he would have been crushed, but he threw himself clear and as soon as Drumfire's head broke the surface he was ready to seize a handful of his mane, and swim him down to where Louisa and the rest of the horses stood.



Bakkat alone was still at the top of the waterfall. He gave Jim a brief hand signal to urge him on downstream, then went back along the black rock stratum, for a second time scrutinizing the surface for any sign he might have overlooked.



Satisfied at last, he reached the point where the rest of the herd had crossed the black rock. There he worked the masking spell for blinding the enemy. He lifted his leather skirt and urinated, intermittently pinching off the stream between thumb and forefinger as he turned in a circle.



"Xhia, you murderer of innocent women, with this spell I close your eyes so you cannot see the sun above you at noon." He let fly a mighty squirt.



"Xhia, beloved of the darkest spirits, with this spell I seal your ears so that you might not hear the trumpeting of wild elephants." He farted with the effort of expelling the next spurt, jumped in the air and laughed.



"Xhia, you stranger to the customs and traditions of your own tribe, with this spell I seal your nostrils so that you might not even smell your own dung."



His bladder empty, he un stoppered one of the duiker horns on his belt, shook out the grey powder and let it blow away on the breeze. "Xhia, you who are my enemy unto the death, I dull all your senses so that you will pass this place without divining the parting of the spoors."



Then, at last, he lit a dried twig of the long tree from his clay fire-pot and waved it over the spoor. "Xhia, you nameless filth and excrement, with this smoke I mask my spoor that you may not follow."



Satisfied at last, he looked down the valley and, in the distance, saw Jim and the others leading the horses away, keeping to the middle of the fast-flowing stream. They would not leave the water until they reached the place he had picked out for them almost a league downstream. Bakkat watched them disappear round the bend of the river.



The horses and mules they were leaving behind as decoys were already spread out down the valley, grazing quietly. Bakkat followed them, picked out a horse and mounted it. In an unhurried manner, not alarming the herd, he gathered it up and began to move it away from the river, crossing the divide into the next steep valley.



He went on for another five days, an aimless meandering through the mountainous terrain, making no effort to hide the spoor. On the evening of the fifth day he strapped the hoofs of the dead rhebuck back-to-front on his own feet. Then he abandoned the herd of remaining horses and mules, and minced away imitating the gait and the length of stride of the living rhebuck. Once he was well clear he laid another magical spell to blind Xhia, in the unlikely event that his enemy had been able to unravel the spoor this far.



He was confident at last that Xhia would not find where the party had split on the rock, and that he would follow the more numerous, undisguised spoor of the herd. When he caught up with it, he would find a dead end.



Now, at last, he could circle back towards the riverine valley where he had parted from Jim and the others. When he reached it, he was not surprised to find that Jim had followed his instructions exactly. He had left the river on the rocky stretch of the bank that Bakkat had selected and doubled back towards the east. Bakkat followed, carefully wiping clean the light spoor the party had left. He used a broom made from a branch of the magical long tree. When he was well clear of the river, he cast a third magical spell to confuse any pursuit, then followed at a faster pace. By this time he was almost ten days behind Jim, but he travelled so swiftly that even on foot he caught up with them four days later.



He smelt their campfire long before he reached it. He was pleased to find that, once they had eaten the evening meal, Jim had doused the fire under a heavy blanket of sand, then moved on in the dark to spend the night in another better-protected place.



Bakkat nodded his approval: only a fool sleeps beside his own campfire when he knows he may be followed. When he crept up to the



camp he found Zama was the sentry. Bakkat bypassed him effortlessly, and when Jim woke in the first light of dawn he was sitting close beside him.



"Somoya, when you snore you shame the lions," he greeted him.



When Jim recovered from the shock, he embraced him. "I swear to the Kulu Kulu, Bakkat, that you have grown even smaller since last I saw you. Soon I will be able to carry you in my pocket."



Bakkat rode ahead on the gelding, Frost. He led them straight towards the cliff that blocked off the head of the valley like a mighty fortress. Jim pushed his hat to the back of his head and gazed up at the wall of rock.



There is no way through." He shook his head. High above them the vultures sailed across the rock face on wide wings, coming in to land on the ledges beside their bulky nests of sticks and twigs.



"Bakkat will find the way," Louisa contradicted him. Already she had complete confidence and trust in the little Bushman. They shared not a single word of a common language, but in the evenings at the campfire the two often sat close together, communicating with hand signs and facial expressions, laughing at jokes that they both seemed to understand perfectly. Jim wondered how he could be jealous of Bakkat, but Louisa was not as at ease with him as she was with the Bushman.



They climbed on upwards, straight towards the solid wall of rock. Louisa had dropped back to ride with Zama, who was bringing up the two spare horses at the rear of the column. Zama had been her protector and constant companion during all the long, hard days of the flight from Keyser, while Jim had been occupied with guarding the back trail and keeping the pursuit at bay. They had developed a rapport too. Zama was teaching her the language of the forests, and as she had an ear for the language she was learning swiftly.



Jim had come to realize that Louisa possessed some quality that drew others to her. He tried to fathom what it was. He cast his mind back to their first encounter on the deck of the convict ship. For him the attraction had been immediate and compelling. He tried to put it into words. Is it that she emanates a feeling of compassion and goodness? He was not sure. It seemed that she hid only from him behind the defensive armour he called her hedgehog prickles; to others she was open and friendly. It was confusing and at times he resented it. He wanted her to ride at his side, not with Zama.



She must have felt his gaze upon her for her head turned towards



him. Even at that distance her eyes were an extraordinary blue. She smiled at him through the thin veil of dust kicked up by the hoofs of the horses.



Bakkat stopped half-way up the scree. "Wait for me here, Somoya," he



said.



"Where are you going, old friend?" Jim asked.



"I go to speak to my fathers, and take them a gift."



"What gift?"



"Something to eat, and something pretty." Bakkat opened the pouch on his belt and brought out a stick of eland chagga half the length of his thumb that he had been hoarding, and the dried wing of a sunbird. The iridescent feathers gleamed like emeralds and rubies. He dismounted and handed Frost's reins to Jim. "I have to ask permission to enter the sacred places," he explained, and disappeared among the pro teas and sugar bushes. Zama and Louisa came up and they unsaddled the horses and settled down to rest. Time passed and they were drowsing in the shade of the pro teas when they heard the sound of a human voice, tiny with distance, but the echoes whispered along the cliff. Louisa scrambled to her feet and looked up the slope. "I told you Bakkat knew the way," she cried.



High above them he stood at the base of the cliff, and waved to them to follow. They saddled up quickly, and climbed up to meet him.



"Look! Oh, look!" Louisa pointed to the vertical gash that split the rock face from the base of the cliff to the crest. "It is like a gateway, the entrance to a castle."



Bakkat took Frost's reins from Jim and led the horse into the dark opening. They dismounted and, leading their own horses, they followed him. The passage was so narrow that they were forced to walk in single file with their stirrup irons almost scraping the rock walls on each side. On both sides of them the glassy smooth stone seemed to reach to the strip of blue high above them. The sky was so remote that it appeared thin as the blade of a rapier. Zama drove the spare horses into the opening behind them but their hoofbeats were muffled by the floor of soft white sand. Their voices echoed weirdly in the confined spaces as the passage twisted and turned through the depths of the rock.



"Oh, look! Look!" Louisa cried, with delight, and pointed to the paintings that covered the walls from the sandy floor to her eye-level. "Who painted these? Surely they are not the work of men, but of fairies."



The paintings depicted men and animals, herds of antelope that galloped wildly across the smooth stone, and dainty little men who pursued them with arrows nocked to their bows, ready to shoot. There were herds of giraffe, blotched with ochre and cream, long sinuous necks



entwined like serpents. There were rhinoceros, dark and menacing, with nose horns longer than the little human hunters who surrounded them and fired arrows into them so that the red blood flowed and dribbled into pools beneath their hoofs. There were elephant, birds and snakes, all the profusion of creation.



"Who painted these, Bakkat?" Louisa asked again. Bakkat understood the sense of the question but not the language she spoke. He turned on Frost's back and answered her in a rush of clicking words that sounded like snapping twigs.



"What does he say?" Louisa turned to Jim.



"They were painted by his tribe, by his fathers and grandfathers. They are the hunting dreams of his people praise-pictures to the courage and beauty of the quarry and the cunning of the hunters."



"It's like a cathedral," Louisa's voice was hushed with awe.



"It is a cathedral." Jim agreed. "It is one of the holy places of the San."



The paintings covered the walls on both sides. Some must have been ancient, for the paint had faded and crumbled and other artists had painted over them, but the ghostly images of the ages blended together and formed a tapestry of infinity. They were silent at last, for the sound of their voices seemed sacrilegious in this place.



At last the rock opened ahead of them and they rode towards the narrow vertical blade of sunlight at the end of the passage. Then they emerged through the rock cleft and the sunlight dazzled them. They found themselves high above the world, with a vulture's view across a vastness that left them silent and astonished. Great plains stretched away, dun and limitless, laced with veins of green where the rivers flowed, and dotted with patches of darker forest. Beyond the plains, almost at the reach of the eye, rose an infinity of hills, rank upon rank, like the serrated fangs of a monstrous shark, fading with distance, purple and blue, until they merged with the blue of the tall African sky.



Louisa had never imagined a sky so high or a land so wide, and gazed upon it with a rapt expression, silent until Jim could bear it no longer. This was his land and he wanted her to share it with him and love it the way he loved it.



"Is it not grand?"



"If I had never believed in God before, I would now," she whispered.



They reached the Gariep river the next morning, at the point where it debouched from the mountains. Over the aeons its waters had cut this deep pass through the rock. The river was running wide and apple green with the thawing of the high snows. After the mountains, the air here was warm and caressing. The banks of the river were lined with dense stands of sweet thorn and wild willows, carpeted with spring flowers. The saffron-plumed weaver birds were shrieking and fluttering as they wove their basket nests on to the drooping wands of the willows. Five kudu bulls were drinking at the water's edge. They threw up their massive spiralled horns and stared with astonishment at the cavalcade of horses coming down the far bank to the ford. Then they fled into the sweet thorn with their horns laid back and water dripping from their muzzles.



Jim was the first across the river, and let out a hoot of triumph as he examined the deep tracks cut by steel-shod wheels into the soft earth of the opposite bank. "The wagons!" he shouted. "They passed through here less than a month ago!"



They rode on faster, Jim barely able to contain his eagerness. From a distance of many miles he picked out the single kopje that stood upon the plain ahead. A forest of camel-thorn trees surrounded the base of the hill, then the conical slopes rose steeply to a buttress of grey rock. This formed a plinth for the weird, wind-carved natural sculpture that surmounted it. It was the shape of a squatting bull baboon, with domed pate and low, beetling brows, his elongated muzzle pointed towards the north, staring out across the lion-coloured plain over which the spring buck herds drifted like puffs of cinnamon-coloured smoke.



Jim kicked his feet out of the stirrups and stood erect on Drumfire's back. Through the lens of the telescope he swept the base of the distant kopje. He laughed with joy as he picked out a flash of white in the sunlight, like the sail of a tall ship seen from afar.



The wagons! They are there, waiting for us." He dropped into the saddle and as his backside slapped against the leather Drumfire jumped forward and bore him away at full gallop.



Tom Courtney was butchering the venison he had killed that morning. Under the wagon tent one of the servants was turning the handle, another feeding the strips of fresh meat into the sausage-making machine. Sarah was working at the nozzle from which the paste oozed, filling the long tubes of pig's gut. Tom straightened up, glanced out across the veld and spotted the distant dust cloud raised by flying hoofs. He swept off his hat and used it to shade his eyes against the cruel white glare. "Rider!" he called to Sarah. "Coming fast."



She looked up but kept the long coils of sausage running between her fingers. "Who is it?" she demanded. Of course, with a mother's instinct, she knew who it was, but she did not want to jinx it by saying the name until she could see his face.



"It's himself!" Tom cried. "Or if it is not, I will shave my beard. The little devil must have succeeded in showing Keyser a clean pair of heels."



For weeks they had waited, worried and tried to cheer each other, insisting that Jim was safe, while hope eroded with the passage of the long days. Now their relief and joy were unbounded.



Tom seized a bridle from the rack on the tailboard of the wagon and ran to one of the horses tethered in the shade. He slipped the bit between its jaws and tightened the cheek-strap. Scorning a saddle he went up on its bare back and galloped out to meet his son.



Jim saw him coming and rose in the stirrups, waving his hat over his head, hooting and bellowing like an escaped maniac. They raced towards each other and then as they came level, dismounted on the run, hurled by the momentum of their mounts into each other's arms. They hugged each other, beat each other on the back and danced in a circle trying to swing each other off their feet. Tom ruffled Jim's long hair and pulled and twisted his ears painfully.



"I should thrash you within an inch of your life, you little skellum," he scolded. "You have given your mother and me the worst days of our lives." He held him at arm's length and glared at him lovingly. "I don't know why we bothered. We should have let Keyser have you, and good riddance." His voice choked, and he hugged Jim again. "Come on, boy! Your mother is waiting for you. I hope she gives you a royal slice of her tongue."



Jim's reunion with Sarah was less boisterous but if anything even more loving than it had been with his father. "We were so worried about you," she said. "I thank God with all my heart for your deliverance."



Then her first instinct was to feed him. Through mouthfuls of jam



rolv'Ply an mk tart ne 8ave n's parents a colourful, if expurgated, account of his exploits since he had last seen them. He did not mention Louisa, and they were all aware of the omission.



At last Sarah could contain herself no longer. She stood over him and placed her fists on her hips. That's all very well and good, James Archibald Courtney, but what about the girl?" Jim choked on the tart, then looked shamefaced and at a loss for words.



"Out with it, boy!" Tom said, in support of his wife. "What about the girl or woman or whatever she may be?"



"You will meet her. She's coming now," Jim said, in a subdued voice, and pointed to the horses and riders coming towards them across the plain in a cloud of their own dust. Tom and Sarah stood together and watched it drawing closer.



Tom spoke first. "An't no girl there that I can see," he said, with finality. "Zama and Bakkat, yes, but no girl."



Jim jumped up from the trestle table and came to join them. "She must be..." His voice trailed off as he realized that his father was right. Louisa was not with them. He ran to meet Zama and Bakkat as they rode into camp. "Where is Welanga? What have you done with her?"



Zama and Bakkat looked at each other, both waiting for the other to answer. At times such as these Bakkat could be conveniently mute. Zama shrugged and took the responsibility of replying. "She will not come," he said.



"Why not?" Jim shouted.



"She is afraid."



"Afraid?" Jim was puzzled. "What has she got to be afraid of?"



Zama did not reply but glanced significantly at Tom and Sarah.



"What a time for her to start jibbing!" Jim strode towards where Drumfire was enjoying a nosebag of oats. "I will go and fetch her."



"No, Jim!" Sarah called softly, but in a tone that stopped him in his tracks. He stared at his mother. "Saddle Sugarbush for me," she told him. "I will go to her."



From the saddle she looked down at Jim. "What's her name?"



"Louisa," he answered. "Louisa Leuven. She speaks good English."



Sarah nodded. "I may be some time," she said to her husband. "Now, don't come looking for me, do you hear?" She had known Tom from girlhood, and loved him past the power of words to describe, but she knew that at times he had the tact of a wounded bull buffalo. She flicked the reins and Sugarbush cantered out of camp.



She saw the girl half a mile ahead, sitting under a camel-thorn tree on one of the fallen dead branches with Trueheart tethered beside her. Louisa scrambled to her feet when she saw Sarah riding towards her. On the vast plain she was a tiny forlorn figure. Sarah rode up to her and reined in Sugarbush. "You are Louisa? Louisa Leuven?"



"Yes, Mistress Courtney." Louisa took off her hat and her hair tumbled down. Sarah blinked at its golden profusion. Louisa bobbed a small curtsy and waited respectfully for her to speak again.



"How do you know who I am?" Sarah asked.



"He looks just like you, mistress," Louisa explained, 'and he told me all about you and his father." Her voice was low but sweet, and trembled on the verge of tears.



Sarah was taken aback. This was not at all what she had expected. But what had she expected of an escaped convict? Hard-boiled defiance? World-weariness? Corruption and depravity? She looked into those blue eyes and could find no vice in them.



"You're very young, Louisa?"



"Yes, mistress." Her voice broke. "I am so sorry. I didn't mean to-get Jim into trouble. I didn't mean to take him away from you." She was weeping slow, silent tears, which sparkled like jewels in the sunlight. "We haven't done anything bad together, I promise you."



Sarah stepped down from Sugarbush's back and went to her. She placed one arm round her shoulders and Louisa clung to her. Sarah knew that what she was doing was dangerous, but her maternal instincts were strong, and the girl was so young. The aura of innocence that surrounded her was almost palpable. Sarah found herself drawn irresistibly to her.



"Come, child." Gently Sarah led her into the shade, and they sat side by side on the dead branch.



They talked while the sun climbed to its zenith, then began its slow slide down the sky. At first Sarah's questions were probing, and she fought her inclination to let down all her defences and allow this stranger into her inner keep, into the place of trust. From bitter experience she knew that the devil often conceals his true nature behind a beautiful exterior.



Louisa's replies were open, unstinted, almost disconcertingly honest. She never avoided Sarah's searching gaze. She seemed pathetically eager to please, and Sarah felt her reservations crumbling.



At last she took the girl's hand. "Why do you tell me all this, Louisa?" she asked.



"Because Jim risked his life to save me, and you are Jim's mother. I owe you that at least." Sarah felt her own tears rising to the surface. She was silent while she brought herself under control.



At last Louisa broke the quiet. "I know what you are thinking, Mistress Courtney. You are wondering why I was on a convict ship. You wish to know what crime I am guilty of." Sarah could not trust her voice to deny it. Of course, she wanted to know the answer. Her only son was in love with this girl, and she had to know.



"I will tell you," Louisa said. "I have told no one except Jim, but now I will tell you."



And she did. When she had finished Sarah was weeping with her. "It is late." She glanced at the height of the sun, and stood up. "Come, Louisa, we will go home now."



Tom Courtney was astonished to see that his wife had been weeping. Her eyes were swollen and red. He could not remember the last time that had happened, for Sarah was not much given to tears. She did not dismount, or make any move to introduce him to the pale girl who rode beside her into the camp.



"We need to be alone for a while, before Louisa is ready to meet you," she told him firmly, and the girl kept her head down and her eyes averted as they rode past and went to the last wagon in the line. The two women disappeared behind the afterclap, the canvas screen at the back of the wagon, and Sarah called for the servants to bring the copper hip bath and buckets of hot water from the cooking fire. The mysterious chest that she had ordered to be loaded on to the wagon, which they had carried with them from High Weald, contained everything that a girl might need.



The two men were sitting beside the fire on the riempie camp chairs, the backs and seats laced with the crisscrossed rawhide strips that gave the chairs the name. They were drinking coffee, and Tom had laced their mugs with a liberal dram of Hollands gin. They were still discussing everything that had overtaken the family since their last meeting, and were making plans on how to proceed. They both skirted tactfully around the subject of Louisa and how she fitted into these plans. The nearest Tom had come to it was to say, "That is women's business. We will have to let your mother decide."



Night had fallen and out on the plain the jackals were wailing. "What is your mother doing?" Tom complained. "It's long past my dinner time, and I'm hungry." As if she had heard, Sarah came up from the last wagon carrying a lantern, and leading Louisa by the hand. As they stepped into the firelight, both men stared bemusedly at the girl. Jim was as amazed as his father.



Sarah had washed Louisa's hair with lavender-scented soap from England, then rubbed it dry, brushed it, trimmed the ragged ends and caught it up with a satin ribbon. It hung down her back in a lustrous wave. Her blouse was buttoned demurely at the throat and the sleeves at the wrists. The full skirt just allowed her ankles to peep out from under the hem. White stockings hid the faint scars of the leg irons.



The firelight emphasized the smooth perfection of her skin, and the size of her eyes. Tom stared at her, and Sarah preempted any humorous remark he might come up with. "This is Jim's friend, Louisa Leuven. She may be staying with us for a while." It was an understatement. "Louisa, this is my husband Mr. Thomas Courtney." Louisa made one of her graceful curtsies.



"You are welcome, Louisa." Tom bowed.



Sarah smiled. She hadn't seen him do that for a while- her husband was not the courtly kind. So much for your prison drab, Tom Courtney, she thought complacently, I give you instead a golden Dutch daffodil.



She glanced at her only son, and saw his expression. No doubt about where Jim stands either. It seems that Louisa has been unanimously elected to the Courtney clan.



Later that night Sarah and Tom settled under the blankets in their nightclothes: even down here on the plains the nights were chilly. For twenty years they had slept like spoons, one body fitted into the curve of the other, changing places when one rolled over without waking or losing contact. That night they lay in poignant silence, neither wanting to be the first to speak.



Tom gave in first.



"She is rather pretty," he ventured.



"You might say so," Sarah agreed. "You might even go so far as to say she's no prison drab."



"I never said that." Tom sat up indignantly, but she pulled him down again, and cuddled comfortably into the warm bulge of his belly. "Well, if I did say it, I take it back now."



She knew how much it cost him to admit that he was wrong, and her heart went out to him. "I have spoken to her," she said. "She's a good girl."



"Well, if you say so, that's all right, then." He closed the subject. They began drifting towards sleep.



"I love you, Tom Courtney," she murmured drowsily.



"I love you, Sarah Courtney," he replied. "Young Jim will be a lucky lad if she ever makes him half as happy as you make me." Usually he scorned what he called mawkishness. This was a rare pronouncement.



"Why, Tom Courtney! Sometimes you can still surprise me," she whispered.



They were all up before dawn. Louisa emerged from her wagon, which was parked close alongside Tom and Sarah's. Sarah had placed her there deliberately, and sequestered Jim in the furthest. If there had been any nocturnal shenanigans she would have heard every last whisper.



Poor child, Sarah thought with an inward smile. She had to listen to my Tom's snores all night long. In the event her precautions had proved unnecessary: Tom and the jackals had provided all the vocal entertainment and there had been not so much as a whisper from Louisa's wagon. When Louisa saw Sarah already at the cooking fire she ran to help her with the breakfast, and soon the two were chatting like friends. While Louisa laid rows of sausages to splutter and hiss on the grill, Sarah poured batter on to the flat iron griddle and watched it brown into pancakes.



Tom and Jim were already inspecting the wagons Tom had brought up from the Cape. These were large, powerful vehicles, built in the colony to a design that was constantly being modified to suit the rough African conditions. They ran on four wheels, the front pair of which were used to steer. The pivoted front axle was connected to the disselboom, the long, sturdy main drag pole. The team of twelve oxen were in spanned in pairs by a simple system of yokes, yoke-pins and rawhide ropes. The main harness, or trek-tow;, was connected to the front end of the disselboom. The rear wheels were much larger in diameter than the front pair.



The body of the vehicle was a capacious eighteen feet in length, with a breadth of four feet. At the bow the wooden sides were two feet high, rising to over three at the stern. Along both sides of the body, iron staples were riveted to hold the arched greenwood boughs over which was spread the tent. The interior was about five feet high, so a tall man had to stoop beneath it. The awning was double-layered. A strong



life.



canvas outer sail rendered it waterproof, or at least deterred the ingress of large quantities of rainwater. A mat of coarse coir fibre, woven from the husk of the coconut, insulated the interior from the worst heat of the sun. The long sail curtains at front and back were called the fore clap and afterclap. The driver's seat was a large chest that stretched the full breadth of the wagon, and there was a similar chest at the rear, the fore chest and the after chest Along the outsides of the body and under the floorboards were rows of iron hooks from which were suspended pots and pans, tools, canvas bags, powder kegs and other heavy paraphernalia.



Within the wagon another row of hooks held the square-cut canvas side pockets into which were stuffed spare clothing, combs, brushes, soap and towels, tobacco and pipes, pistols, knives, and anything that might be needed urgently. There were also adjustable pegs to support the car dell the comfortable and spacious bed upon which the traveller slept. By means of the pegs, this could be raised or lowered to make room for the bags, boxes, chests and kegs stored beneath it. Like the camp chairs, the bed was also strung with rawhide riempies, crisscrossed like the catgut strings of the racquets used in the royal game of tennis.



Tom had brought four of these enormous vehicles and the oxen to pull them. Each vehicle required a skilled driver, and a voorloper, a lad to lead the front oxen by a halter of kudu skin looped about the base of their horns.



All four wagons were heavily laden, and after breakfast Sarah and Louisa were summoned to help take an inventory of the contents. For this purpose the wagons had to be unloaded, and all the goods checked. Tom, as an old ship's captain, had made out an itemized bill-of-lading, and Jim had to know exactly where each item was stowed. It would be wasted and frustrating labour if somewhere out in the wilderness they had to unload and search all four wagons to find a lynch-pin, horseshoes or a hank of sail twine.



Even Jim was amazed at what his father had provided for them. "It's all your inheritance, my boy, and there's no more coming to you. Use it wisely."



The huge yellow-wood chest that Sarah had packed for Louisa was placed in the bows of the wagon that would be Louisa's home over the months, perhaps years to come. It contained combs and brushes, needles and thread, a complete wardrobe of clothing and rolls of cloth to make more, gloves and bonnets to protect delicate skin from the sun, scissors and nail files, scented English soaps and medicines. Then there was a thick book of recipes and prescriptions written in Sarah's own hand, invaluable empirical knowledge gathered at first hand: instructions for cooking everything from an elephant's trunk to wild mushrooms, for



making soap and tanning leather; lists of medicinal wild herbs and edible plants and tubers; cures for sunstroke, stomach upsets and a baby's teething problems. Then there was a small library of other books, including a medical lexicon published in London and an almanac beginning at the year 1731, the Holy Bible, ink, pens and writing paper, a box of watercolours and brushes, reams of fine-quality drawing paper, knitting needles and wool, a roll of soft tanned leather from which to make the uppers for footwear- the soles would be cut from buffalo rawhide. Then there was bed-linen, blankets, pillows stuffed with wild goose down, shawls and knitted stockings, a beautiful kaross of jackal fur, a long coat of sheepskin, and a waterproof cape of tarpaulin with an attached hood. That was but the half of it.



Tom's chest was smaller and contained all his old and well-worn clothing, his razor and strop, his hunting and skinning knives, fishing line and hooks, the under box that held his flint and steel, a magnifying glass, a spare telescope, and other items that he would never have considered. They bespoke his mother's concern for his well-being: a long tarpaulin waterproof coat and a wide-brimmed hat of the same material, scarves and gloves, neckerchiefs and woollen socks, a dozen bottles of extract-of-lettuce cough mixture and another dozen of Dr. Chamberlain's sovereign diarrhoea remedy.



When they came to the list of general stores and provisions, this seemed endless. At the head of it were eight quarter-chests of coffee beans, totalling six hundred pounds in weight, and three hundred pounds of sugar. Jim was overjoyed to see them. Then there were two hundred pounds of salt for preserving venison, ten pounds of pepper, a large box of strong curry powder, sacks of rice, flour and maize meal, bags of spices and bottles of flavouring essences for stews and cakes, bottles of jam and kegs of pickles from the kitchens of High Weald. Cheeses and hams hung from the hooks inside the wagons. There were pumpkins and sun-dried maize on the cob, and packets and boxes of vegetable seeds to be planted wherever they camped long enough to raise a crop.



For cooking and eating there were three-legged pots, baking, stewing and frying pans, saucepans, gridirons and kettles, water buckets, plates and mugs, forks, spoons and soup ladles. Each wagon was equipped with two fifty-gallon Fagies, or water casks. Then there were canteens and water bottles of military design to carry on horseback. There was fifty pounds of yellow soap, and when this was expended Jim could make more with hippopotamus fat and wood ash.



For the maintenance of the wagons there were two drums of tar to be mixed with animal fat to grease the wheel hubs, heavy coils of rawhide



trek ropes, ri ems and straps, yokes and yoke-pins, lynch-pins for the wheel hubs, rolls of canvas and coir matting to repair the tents. One of the after chests contained a selection of tools such as augers, brace and bits, wood planes and spoke shaves, chisels, a heavy vice, blacksmith's tongs and hammers, and a huge selection of other carpenter's and blacksmith's equipment stores, including two hundred horseshoes, bags of nails and drawing knives to trim hoofs.



"Now, these are important, Jim." Tom showed him the iron pestle and mortar for crushing rock samples, and a nest of gold pans, each a broad flat dish with a groove around the circumference. The groove would capture the heavy flakes of gold when the ore or river-sands were washed.



"Old Humbert showed you how to use them." Humbert had been Tom's gold-finder until his liver had succumbed to a steady diet of Hollands gin and cheap Cape brandy. "There is also a tub of slow-match -two hundred yards of fuse for blasting open the reef when you find gold."



As trade goods and gifts to African chieftains and potentates, Tom had selected stores that he knew were highly valued by all the wild tribes they might meet in the far interior: two hundred cheap knives, axe heads, bags of Venetian trade beads in fifty different patterns and colours, hand mirrors, under boxes, coils of thin copper and brass wire to be converted into bracelets, anklets and other ornaments by the indi genes who received them.



There were two fine English hunting-saddles and tack, common saddles for the servants, two pack-saddles for bringing in venison from the veld, a large bell tent for a kitchen and dining room, folding chairs and tables to furnish it.



For hunting and defence against attack by the more warlike tribes Tom had provided twenty naval cutlasses and thirty smooth-bore Brown Bess muskets, which most of the servants could load and fire with some proficiency, two heavy German elephant guns that threw four to the pound and could drive to the heart of an elephant or a rhinoceros, and a pair of iniquitously expensive London-made two-grooved double barrelled rifles so accurate that Jim knew from experience that with the conical bullet he could bring down an oryx or kudu at four hundred paces. There was one other rifle, a lovely little lady's gun made in France. Its provenance was noble for the lock was gold inlaid with the coat of arms of the dukes of d'Ademas. Tom had given it to Sarah when Jim was born. It was light and accurate and there was a pink velvet cheek pad on the walnut stock. Although nowadays she seldom hunted, Jim had once seen his mother drop a running spring buck at two hundred



paces with this weapon. Now she was giving it to Louisa. "It may be



useful."



Sarah dismissed Louisa's thanks, but impulsively Louisa threw both arms round her and whispered, "I shall treasure your gifts, and always remember your kindness to me."



To serve this battery of guns there was an assortment of lead ladles, bullet moulds, loading ramrods, shot-belts and powder flasks. To manufacture ammunition there were five hundredweight of lead in bars, fifty pounds of pewter to harden the balls to be used against heavy game, twenty thousand prepared lead musket balls, twenty kegs of first-class sporting gunpowder for the rifles and a hundred kegs of coarse black powder for the Brown Bess muskets, two thousand gunflints, greased patches to ensure a tight fit of the conical bullets in the rifle bore, fine cotton cloth to be cut into more patches, and a large keg of rendered hippopotamus fat to grease them.



So great was this store of goods that by nightfall on the second day they had not finished reloading the wagons. "That can wait until tomorrow," Tom said expansively, 'but now the ladies are free to make supper for us."



The last meal together was marred by melancholy silences when they were reminded of their imminent parting. These were followed by bursts of forced jollity. In the end Tom brought it to its conclusion with typical directness. "Early start tomorrow." He stood up and took Sarah's hand. As he led her to their quarters in the first wagon he whispered, "Can we leave them alone? Should we not chaperone them?"



Sarah laughed gaily at him. Tom Courtney, what a time for you to turn prissy on me! They have already spent weeks alone in the wilderness together, and it seems they are about to spend several years more. What good could you do now?"



Tom grinned ruefully, picked her up in his arms and boosted her into the wagon. Later as they settled in the car dell bed Sarah murmured, "Don't worry about Louisa. I have told you already that she is a good girl, and we have brought up Jim to behave like a gentleman. Nothing has happened between them yet, and nothing will until the time is ripe. Then herds of wild buffalo could not prevent it. If things have changed when next we all meet we can think of a wedding. As I recall, Tom Courtney, you showed less restraint when we first met, and there was some delay before we celebrated our own nuptials."



"In these matters, at least, you are wiser than me," Tom admitted and pulled her closer. "Mind you, Mistress Courtney, there are no herds of wild buffalo present to prevent anything happening here tonight, between you and me."



"Indeed, Mr. Courtney, how perceptive of you," she said, and giggled like a girl.



p a nrirl



They had taken breakfast and completed the rest of the loading before the sun had fully dispersed the last of the night's chill. With a single stroke of his trek whip Smallboy, the huge head driver, gave the signal to begin in spanning the oxen. This formidable instrument was a bamboo pole twenty-two feet in length, with a whip thong even longer. Without leaving his seat on the wagon or removing his clay pipe from his mouth, Smallboy could kill a fly on the rump of the lead ox in his team with the tapered fore lash of kudu hide and not disturb a hair on the beast's back.



Now as he cracked the long whip with a report like a double-shot ted pistol that could be heard a mile away across the plain, the lead boys ran to yoke the oxen in pairs and bring them in from the veld where they had been grazing. They drove them in with shouted insults and well-aimed pebbles.



"Come, Scotland, you snake with twenty-two fathers and only one mother."



"Hey! Squint Eye, look this way or you will fetch another stone."



"Wake up, Lizard, you lazy skelluml'



"Move along, Blackheart, don't try any of your tricks today."



Pair after pair the beasts were linked into the span. Then the leaders, the strongest and most tractable animals, were led to their places. Smallboy fired his great whip again and, without apparent strain, the oxen walked away and the heavily loaded wagon rolled smoothly after them. At intervals of a few hundred paces the other three wagons fell into caravan behind the leader. They maintained the wide spacing to avoid the dust raised by the hoofs of the leading oxen and the iron rimmed wheels of the vehicles they pulled. Behind the wagons followed a loose herd of horses, spare oxen, milk cows and sheep and goats for slaughter. Although they spread out to graze, they were kept in a loose formation and brought along at a leisurely pace by four herd-boys. None of these lads was older than thirteen or younger than ten. They were some of the orphans Sarah had gathered over the years, and who had pleaded to be allowed to join in the great adventure with Somoya, whom they revered. At their heels ran a motley pack of mongrel hounds, who would earn their keep by hunting and finding wounded game or stray animals.



Soon only one small dog-cart remained in the encampment below



the Baboon's Head kopje, but it was packed and the horses were grazing nearby, ready to take Tom and Sarah back to High Weald. The family the Baboon's Head kopje, but it was packed and the horses were grazing nearby, ready to take Tom and Sarah back to High Weald. The family were reluctant to part. They drew out the last hour together, drinking a final mug of coffee around the smouldering fire, remembering all the things they had forgotten to say over the last few days, and repeating all those that had been said many times already.



Tom had kept one of the most serious matters to the last. Now he fetched a mariner's tarpaulin chart case from the dog-cart and came back to sit beside Jim again. He opened the flat case, and drew out a chart. This is a copy of a chart I've been drawing up over the past fifteen years. I have kept the original, and this is the only copy. It's a valuable document," he told Jim.



"I will keep it safe," his son promised.



Tom spread the sheet of heavy parchment on the ground in front of them, and placed small stones on each corner to hold it down in the light morning breeze. Jim studied the finely drawn and coloured topography of the south continent. "I had no idea, Father, that you were a talented artist."



His father looked mildly uncomfortable and glanced at Sarah. "Well," he drawled, "I had a little help."



"You are too modest, Tom." Sarah smiled. "You did all the supervision."



"Of course," Tom chuckled, 'that was the difficult part." Then he was serious again. "The outline of the coast is accurate, more accurate than any other map I have seen. Your uncle Dorian and I made the observations as we sailed and traded along both the western and eastern coastlines over the last twenty years. You have been on one of these voyages with me, Jim, so you will remember these places." He named them as he pointed them out. "On the west coast the Bay of Whales and New Devon Harbour I named it for the old country. On the east coast this is Frank's Lagoon, where your great-grandfather buried the treasure he captured from the Dutch galleon the Standvastigheid. It's a fine anchorage guarded from the open sea by an entrance protected by rocky headlands. Here much further north is another great bay, which the Portuguese call Nativity Bay, or Natal."



"But you don't have go downs built at these ports, Father," Jim interjected. "I know that they are desolate, deserted places, all of them."



You're right, of course, Jim. But one of our schooners calls in at these places every six months or so, depending on the season and the winds. The natives know that we come regularly, and they wait for us there with hides, gum arable, ivory and other goods to trade."



Jim nodded.



Tom went on, "Because you have already been there, you will recognize any of those places on the coast when you reach it. You know where the mail stones are." These were large brightly painted flat stones set at prominent places on shore under which visiting sailors could leave letters in waterproof tarpaulin packets to be found by other ships and carried on to the person to whom they were addressed. "If you leave a letter there you know that I or your uncle will find it in time. We also will leave them for you, on the off-chance."



"Or I could wait there for the next visit of one of our ships."



"Yes, Jim, you could do that. But make sure it's not a VOC ship that you meet. By now Governor van de Witten will have a large bounty on your head and Louisa's too."



They all looked serious as they considered the predicament in which the young couple now stood. Tom went on quickly to cover the pause: "Before you reach the coast, however, you will have to cross hundreds, even thousands of leagues of virtually unexplored wilderness." Tom spread his big scarred hand across the map. "Just look what lies ahead of your wagons. It's an opportunity I've been hankering for all my life. This place where we are sitting now is as far into the interior as I have ever been able to travel."



"You have nobody to blame for that but yourself, Thomas Courtney," Sarah told him. "I never stopped you, but you were always too busy making money."



"And now it's too late. I'm getting old and fat." Tom put on a lugubrious expression. "But Jim here is going in my place." He stared longingly at the map, then lifted his gaze across the plain to where the wagon train was rolling away in its own yellow dust cloud and murmured, "You lucky devil, you are going to see places never before looked upon by civilized eyes."



Then he returned his attention to the map. "Over the years I have sought out every man, black, white and yellow, who was ever reputed to have travelled beyond the borders of the Cape colony. I questioned them exhaustively. When Dorian and I went ashore on our trading expeditions we interrogated the natives we traded with. I have written everything that I ever learned from these sources on to this map. I have spelled the names as they sounded in my ear. Here, in the margins and on the reverse side, I have made notes of every story and legend I was told, the names of the different tribes, their villages, kings and chiefs. Then I have tried to mark in the rivers, lakes and water-holes, but there was no way of telling the distances between them and their compass bearings from each other. You, Bakkat, Zama and Smallboy between



you speak a dozen or so native dialects. You will be able to hire guides and translators as you travel on and come in contact with new and unknown tribes." Tom folded the map again and placed it back with reverential care in the tarpaulin case. He handed it to Jim. "Guard it well, my boy. It will guide you on your journey."



Then he went back to the dog-cart and brought out a hard leather case. He opened it and showed Jim what it contained. "I would have liked you to have one of those newfangled chronometers that Harrison in London has so recently perfected, so that you could more accurately determine your latitude and longitude as you travel, but I have never even laid eyes on one, and they do say that even if you find one they cost five hundred pounds each. The same goes for one of John Hadley's reflecting quadrants. But here are my trusty old compass and octant. They belonged to your grandfather, but you know well how to use them, and with this copy of the Admiralty tables you will always be pretty sure at least of your latitude any time you can see the sun. You should be able to navigate to any of the places I have marked on the chart."



Jim took the leather case from his father, opened it and lifted out the beautiful, complex instrument. It was of Italian manufacture. On top was the brass ring from which it could be suspended to establish its own level, then the rotating brass rings lovingly engraved with star charts, circles of latitude and a marginal circle of hours. The alidade, or diametral rule, which served as a sun sight, could pick up the sun's shadow, and throw it across the coinciding circles of time and latitude.



Jim fondled it, then looked up at his father. "I shall never be able to repay you for all these wonderful gifts and for all you have done for me. I do not deserve such love and generosity."



"Let your mother and me be the judge of that," Tom said gruffly. "And now we must start for home." He called to the two servants who were returning to the colony with them. They ran to in span the draught horses to the dog-cart, and to saddle Tom's big bay gelding.



Up on Drumfire and Trueheart, Jim and Louisa rode beside the dogcart for almost a league, taking this last chance to repeat their farewells. When at last they knew they should go no further if they wanted to catch up with their own wagons before sunset, they lingered and watched the dog-cart dwindling across the dusty veld.



"He's coming back," Louisa exclaimed, as she spotted Tom returning at a gallop. He reined in beside them again.



"Listen to me, Jim, my lad, don't you forget to keep a journal. I want you to record all your navigational notes. Don't forget the names of the native chiefs and their towns. Keep a lookout for any goods we might be able to trade with them in future."



fe.



"Yes, Father. We have spoken about this already," Jim reminded him.



"And the gold pans," Tom went on.



"I will pan the sands of every riverbed we cross." Jim laughed. "I won't forget."



"You remind him, Louisa. He is a scatterbrain, this son of mine. I don't know where he gets it from. Must be his mother."



"I promise, Mr. Courtney." Louisa nodded seriously.



Tom turned back to Jim. "James Archibald, you look after this young lady. She is obviously a sensible girl, and much too good for you."



At last Tom left them and rode off after the dog-cart, turning in the saddle every few minutes to wave back at them. They saw him rejoin the distant cart, and then suddenly Jim exclaimed, "Name of the devil, I forgot to send my respects and farewells to Mansur and Uncle Dorian. Come on!" They galloped in pursuit of the cart. When they caught up with it they all dismounted and embraced again.



"This time we really are leaving," Jim said at last, but his father rode back with them a mile before he could bring himself to let them go, and he waved them out of sight.



The wagons had long ago disappeared into the distance, but the tracks of their iron-rimmed wheels were scored into the earth, and as easy to follow as a signposted road. As the two of them rode along it the herds of spring buck were driven ahead of them like flocks of sheep, the smaller herds mingling with those ahead, until the land seemed to seethe and the grass was hidden beneath this living sea.



Other larger wild animals became part of this tide of life. Dark troops of gnu pranced and cavorted, shaking their shaggy manes, arching their necks like thoroughbreds and kicking their hind legs to the sky as they chased each other in circles. Squadrons of quagga galloped away in ranks, barking like packs of hounds. These wild horses of the Cape, striped like the zebra except for their plain brown legs, were so numerous that the Cape burghers killed them in thousands for their hides. They sewed them into grain bags and left the carcasses for the vultures and the hyenas.



Louisa looked upon this host with amazement. "I have never seen such a marvelous sight," she cried.



"In this land we are blessed with such multitudes that no man need stint himself or put up his gun until his arms are too exhausted to lift it," Jim agreed. "I know of one great hunter who lives in the colony. He destroyed three hundred head of big game in a single day, and rode four horses to a standstill to achieve it. What a feat that was." Jim shook his head in admiration.



The campfires guided them to the laagered wagons in the last mile of



darkness, where Zama had the black iron kettle boiling and coffee beans freshly ground in the mortar.



Relying on his father's chart and navigational instruments, Jim steered the wagons north by east. The days fell into a natural rhythm, and became weeks, which in their turn became months. Each morning Jim rode out with Bakkat to spy out the land that lay ahead, and to find the next water-hole or river. He took his breakfast with him in the canteen slung with his bedroll on the back of his saddle, and Bakkat led a pack-horse to bring in any game they bagged.



Often Louisa was busy around the wagons, mending and cleaning, directing the servants in running her movable home the way she wanted, but most days she was free to ride out with Jim on Trueheart. From the beginning she was enchanted by the animals and birds that teemed in every direction she cast her eye. Jim taught her the names of all of them and they discussed their habits in detail. Bakkat joined in with an endless fund of facts and magical stories.



When they halted at midday to rest and graze the horses, Louisa brought out of her saddlebag one of the pads Sarah had given her and sketched the interesting things they had seen that day. Jim lounged nearby and advised on how she might improve each portrait, though secretly he was amazed at her artistic skills.



He insisted she always carry the little French rifle in the gun sheath under her right knee. "When you need a gun you need it in a hurry," he told her, 'and you had better be sure you know how to use it." He rehearsed her in loading, priming and firing the weapon. With the report and recoil of her first shot she cried out with alarm and would have dropped the rifle, had not Jim been ready to snatch it out of her hands. After much reassurance and encouragement he convinced her that it had not been as fearful an experience as her reaction had indicated, and Louisa expressed herself ready for a second attempt. To encourage her, Jim placed his own hat on a low thornbush twenty paces away.



"I tell you now, Hedgehog, you'll not come within ten feet of it." It was a calculated challenge. Louisa's eyes narrowed into blue diamond chips of determination. This time her hand was steady. When the gunsmoke cleared after the shot, Jim's hat was spinning high in the air. It was his favourite hat, and he raced after it. When he stuck his forefinger through the hole in the brim his expression was of such



fe disbelief and dismay that Bakkat dissolved into hoots of mirth. He staggered in circles demonstrating with hand signals how the hat had sailed into the air. Then his legs gave way under him, and he collapsed in the dust and beat his belly with both hands, shrieking with laughter.



His mirth was infectious and Louisa broke into peals of laughter. Up to that time Jim had not heard her laugh so naturally and so wholeheartedly. He placed the riddled hat on his head, and joined in the merriment. Later he stuck an eagle feather in the hole and wore it proudly.



They sat in the shade of a sweet thorn tree and ate the lunch of cold venison and pickles that Louisa had packed into his canteen. Every few minutes one of them would start laughing again and set off the other two.



"Let Welanga shoot your hat again," Bakkat pleaded. "It was the greatest joke of my life."



Jim declined, and instead he blazed the trunk of the sweet thorn tree with his hunting knife. The bright white patch formed an idle target. He was learning that when Louisa set her mind on something she was determined and tenacious. She swiftly mastered the art of loading the rifle: measuring the powder charge from the flask, ramming the wad down upon it, selecting a symmetrical ball from the bag on her belt, wrapping it in the greased patch, and rodding it down the bore, tapping it home with the little wooden mallet until it seated on the wad, then priming the pan and closing the friz zen over it to prevent it spilling.



By the second day of instruction she could load and fire the weapon unaided, and soon she was able to hit the sap-oozing blaze on a tree with four balls out of five.



"This is becoming too easy for you now, Hedgehog. Time for your first real hunt."



Early the next morning she loaded the rifle in the way he had trained her, and they rode out together. As they approached the first herds of grazing game Jim showed her how to use Trueheart as a stalking horse. They both dismounted and Jim led Drumfire, while she followed in his tracks leading the mare and staying close to her flank. Screened by the bodies of the horses they angled across the front of a small bachelor herd of spring buck rams. These animals had never seen human beings or horses before and they stood and stared with innocent amazement at the strange creatures passing by. Jim approached them on the diagonal, not heading directly towards the herd, which might have alarmed them and set them to flight.



At the point of closest approach, less than a hundred paces from the nearest animals in the herd, Jim halted Drumfire and whistled softly.



Louisa dropped Trueheart's reins. The mare stopped and stood obediently, trembling in anticipation of the shot she knew was coming. Louisa sank down and, from a seated position, took careful aim at a ram who was standing broadside to her and slightly separated from the rest of the herd. Jim had drummed into her the point of aiming behind the shoulder, showing it to her on a drawing of the animal, and on carcasses that he had shot and brought into camp.



Nevertheless, she found this different from aiming at a blaze on a tree. Her heart was racing, her hands shook almost uncontrollably and her aim danced up and down and across.



Softly Jim called to her, "Remember what I told you."



In the excitement of the hunt she had forgotten his advice. "Take a deep breath. Swing it up smoothly. Let half of your breath out. Don't hang on the trigger. Squeeze it off as your sights bear."



She lowered the rifle, gathered herself and did it just the way he had taught her. The little rifle felt light as thistledown as it floated up, and fired of its own accord, so unexpectedly that she was startled by the crash of the shot and long spurt of gunsmoke.



There was a thud of the ball striking, the ram leaped high in the air, and came down in a graceful pirouette. Then its legs collapsed under it, it rolled like a ball across the sun-baked earth, and at last stretched out and lay still. Jim let out a whoop of triumph and raced out to where it lay. With the smoking rifle in her hand Louisa ran after him.



"Shot cleanly through the heart," Jim cried. "I could not have done it better myself." He turned to meet her as she came running up. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair had escaped in glorious disarray from under her hat and her eyes sparkled. Despite her efforts to avoid the sun, her skin had taken on the colour of a ripe peach. Her excitement matched his own, and he thought he had never seen anything as beautiful as she was at that moment.



He reached out with both arms to take her into his embrace. She came up short, just out of his reach and backed away from him. With a mighty effort, he checked his impulse. They stared at each other, and he saw the horror replace the sparkle in her eyes, her revulsion at a masculine touch. It was only a fleeting moment, but he knew how close he had come to disaster. All these months spent in building her trust, in showing her how he respected her, and cared for her well-being, how he wanted to protect and cherish her, all of that so nearly lost in a boisterously impulsive gesture.



He turned away quickly, giving her time to recover from her fright. "It's a magnificent buck, fat as butter."



As the animal relaxed in death, the long fold of skin that ran down



the centre of its back opened, and it displayed the dorsal plume of snowy white hair. Jim stooped and ran one finger down the fold of skin, then raised the finger to his nose. "It's the only animal that smells like a flower." A pale yellow wax from the animal's sebaceous glands coated his finger. He did not look at her. Try it," he suggested.



She averted her eyes from his as she combed her fingers through the animal's dorsal plume, then held them to her own nose. "Perfumed!" she exclaimed, with surprise. He called Bakkat and between them they gralloched the spring buck and hoisted the carcass on to the packsaddle. The wagons were tiny specks across the plain. They rode towards them, but the joyous mood of the morning was spoilt, and they were silent. Jim was consumed with despair. It seemed that he and Louisa had lost all the ground they had travelled together, and were back at the starting point of their relationship.



Fortunately, when they reached the wagons there was something to distract him. Smallboy had driven the lead wagon over the underground burrow of an ant bear and the earth had collapsed. The heavily laden vehicle had crashed into the excavation as far as its floorboards. A number of spokes in the offside front wheel were shattered, and the vehicle was firmly stuck. They had to unload it before it was light enough for a double span of oxen to heave it out. Darkness had fallen before they had freed the wagon. It was too late to start repairs to the broken front wheel. The shattered spokes would have to be replaced, and the work of shaving the new parts to fit was finicky and might take days.



Tired and sweat-drenched, Jim went to his own wagon. "Bath! Hot water!" he shouted at Zama.



"Welanga has already ordered it," Zama told him disapprovingly.



Well, at least, we know whose side you're on, Jim thought bitterly, but his mood lifted when he found the galvanized-iron bath filled with hot water waiting for him, a bar of soap and a clean towel laid out beside it. After he had bathed he went to the kitchen tent.



Louisa was working at the cooking fire. He was still feeling too affronted by her rejection to thank her or acknowledge her gesture of contrition in preparing his bath. When he entered the tent she glanced up then looked away again quickly.



"I thought you might like a dram of the Hollands that your father gave you." The gin bottle stood on the camp table ready for him. This was the first time he had seen it since he had parted from his family. He did not know how to decline her offer gracefully, and tell her that he did not like to fuddle his senses with alcohol. He had been drunk only once in his life and regretted the experience. However, he did not wish



to spoil this delicate mood, so he poured half a dram and drank it reluctantly.



Louisa had grilled fresh spring buck cutlets for dinner, and she served them with caramelized onions and herbs, a recipe Sarah had given her. This he fell on with great appetite, and his mood improved sufficiently to compliment her. "Not only well shot, but perfectly cooked." Yet after that their conversation was stilted and interspersed with awkward silences. They had come so close to being friends, he lamented silently, as he drank a mug of coffee.



"I am off to bed." He stood up sooner than he usually did. "How about you?"



"I want to write up my journal," she answered. "For me it has been a special day. My first hunt. And, what is more, I promised your father not to miss a day. I will come later." He left her and made his way to his own wagon.



Each night the wagons were drawn up in a square, and the spaces between them filled with branches of thorn trees, to pen the domestic animals and keep out the predators. Louisa's wagon was always parked alongside Jim's, so that there was only the thickness of the two wagon tents between them. This ensured that Jim was always on hand if she needed him, and during the night, without leaving their separate beds, they were able to speak to each other.



That evening Jim lay awake, until he heard her footsteps coming from the kitchen tent, and saw the glow of her lantern pass along the wall of his tent. Later he heard her changing into her nightdress. The rustle of her clothing conjured up disturbing images of her, and he tried unsuccessfully to banish them. Then he heard her brushing her hair, every stroke of the brush a soft whisper like the wind in a field of ripe wheat. He could imagine the way it rippled and glowed in the lamplight. At last he heard the creak of the car dell bed as it took her weight. Then there was a long silence.



"Jim." Her voice was low, almost a whisper. It shocked and thrilled him. "Jim, are you awake?"



"Yes." His voice sounded loud in his own ears.



Thank you," she said. "I cannot remember when last I enjoyed a day so much."



"I have enjoyed it also." He almost added, "Except--' but he bit back the word.



They were silent for so long that he thought she had fallen asleep, but she whispered again: "Thank you also for your gentleness."



He said nothing, for there was nothing to say. He lay long awake, and his hurt slowly gave way to anger. I do not deserve to be treated



like this. I have given up everything for her, my home and my family. I have become an outlaw to save her, yet she treats me like some repulsive and poisonous reptile. Then she goes off to sleep as though nothing has happened. I hate her. I wish I had never laid eyes upon her.



Eiisa lay rigid and wakeful on her bed. She knew he could hear any movement she made and she did not want him to know that she was unable to sleep. She was racked by guilt and remorse. She felt a deep sense of obligation to Jim. She knew only too well what he had sacrificed for her.



Added to this she liked him. It was impossible not to. He was so outgoing and cheerful, so strong, dependable and resourceful. She felt safe when he was near at hand. She liked the way he looked, big and strong, with an open, honest face. He could make her laugh. She smiled as she thought of the way he had reacted when she shot a hole through his hat. He had a quirky sense of humour that she was at last coming to understand. He could retell the day's events in a way that made her laugh with surprise, even though she had witnessed them. She felt that he was her friend when he called her Hedgehog, and teased her in that rude, almost incomprehensible English way.



Even now that he was sulking it was good to know that he was within call. Often in the night when she heard strange wild sounds, the gibbering of hyena or the roaring of a pride of lions, she was mortally afraid. Then he would speak to her quietly through the wall of the tent. His voice reassured her, calmed her fears, and she could sleep again.



Then there were the nightmares. Often she dreamed that she was at Huis Brabant again; she saw the tripod and the silk ropes and, in the candlelight, the dark figure dressed in the costume of the executioner, the black gloves and the leather mask with the eye slits. When the nightmares came upon her she was trapped in those dark fantasies, unable to escape, until his voice woke her, rescued her from the terror.



"Hedgehog! Wake up! It's all right. It's only a dream. I'm here. I won't let anything happen to you." She always woke to a deep sense of gratitude.



She liked him a little more each day, and she trusted him. But she could not let him touch her. At even the most casual contact if he adjusted her stirrup leather and touched her ankle, if he handed her some ordinary object like a spoon or a coffee mug and their fingers brushed she felt afraid and repelled.



Strangely, from a distance she found him attractive. When he rode



beside her and she smelt his warm man smell and listened to his voice and his laughter, it made her happy.



Once she had come upon Jim unexpectedly while he was washing in the river. He had still been wearing his breeches, but he had thrown his shirt and leather jacket on the bank; he was scooping handfuls of water and dashing them over his head. His back had been towards her so he had not seen her. For a long moment, before she turned away, she had stared at the smooth, unblemished skin of his bare back. It was in sharp contrast to his sun-browned arms. The muscles were strongly defined below the pale skin and changed shape as he lifted his arms.



She had felt again that wicked stirring of her senses, that shortness of breath, the melting heaviness of her loins, and the unfocused but lascivious longing that Koen van Ritters had awakened in her, before he plunged her into the horrors of his evil fantasy.



I don't want that ever again, she thought as she lay in darkness. I cannot let another man touch me. Not even Jim. I want him to be my friend, but I don't want that. I should go into the Church, a nunnery. That is the only escape for me.



But there was no nunnery in the wilderness, and at last she slept.



Xhia led Koots and his band of bounty-hunters back to the camp where Jim Courtney had stampeded their horses, the camp from which they had begun the long march back to the colony. Many weeks had passed since that night, and in the meantime there had been high winds and heavy rainfall in the mountains. To any other eye than Xhia's the elements had washed away every last vestige of the sign.



Xhia worked outwards from the old campsite, following the direction of the stampede, then instinctively divining the direction in which Jim would have driven the stolen herd once he had it under control again. A quarter of a league from the old camp he picked out the faintest trace of the spoor, the scrape of a steel horseshoe on shale that could not have been made by the hoof of an eland bull or any other wild game. He aged the sign, it was not too fresh, nor too old. This was the first peg upon which he began to build the picture of the chase.



He worked away from it searching in the sheltered places, between two rocks, in the lee of fallen trees, in the malleable clay of a don ga bottom, in the str atas of shale soft enough to bear an imprint and hard enough to retain it.



Koots and his men followed at a distance, careful not to over-tread and spoil the ancient sign. Often when the spoor was so ethereal as to



be obscured from even Xhia's sorcery, they unsaddled their horses and waited, smoking and bickering, playing dice, gambling for the reward money they would win with the capture of the fugitives. At last Xhia, with infinite patience, would unravel that part of the puzzle. He would call them, and they would mount up and follow him on through the mountains.



Gradually the sign became fresher as he narrowed the gap between them and their quarry, and Xhia moved along it with more confidence. None the less, it was three weeks after picking up that first faint hoof print that Xhia caught up with the wandering herd of mules and horses that Jim and Bakkat had used to lure them on, then abandoned.



At first Koots could not understand how they had been gulled. Here were their horses but no human beings with them. Since the first day he had encountered great difficulty communicating with Xhia, for the Bushman's Dutch was rudimentary and hand signs were not adequate for explaining the complicated nature of the deceit that Bakkat had played upon them. Then it dawned upon Koots that the best horses were missing from this herd of strays: Frost, Crow, Lemon, Stag and, of course, Drumfire and Trueheart.



"They split off, and left this bunch of animals to lead us away." Koots had understood at last and he blanched with fury. "For all this time we have been wandering in circles, while those criminals got clear away in another direction."



His anger needed a focus, and that was Xhia. "Catch that yellow rat!" he shouted at Richter and Le Riche. "I want some skin from this stinking little swartze." They grabbed the Bushman before he realized their intention.



Tie him to that tree." Koots pointed out a large cripple wood They were enjoying this. Their anger with the Bushman was every bit as intense as Koots's: he was directly responsible for their hardship and discomfort over the past months, and retribution would be sweet. They bound him with leather thongs at ankles and wrists. Koots tore off Xhia's leather breech cloth and left him naked.



"Goffel!" Koots shouted at the Hottentot trooper. "Cut me a bundle of thorn branches this thick." He made a circle of thumb and forefinger. "Leave the thorns on them."



Koots shrugged off his leather coat, and windmilled his right arm, loosening the muscles. Goffel came up from the bank of the stream with an armful of thorn branches, and Koots took his time selecting one that had a pleasing whip and rigidity. Xhia watched him with huge eyes as he strained at his bonds. Koots chopped the thorns off the butt end of the stick of his choice so they would not prick his own fingers, but the



rest of the limber wand bristled with the red-tipped spikes. He flourished the scourge as he advanced on Xhia. "Now, you little reptile, you have led me a fine fandango, but it's your turn to dance now."



He swung the first cut across Xhia's shoulder-blades. The cane raised a welt upon it, studded with an irregular rash of thorn punctures, from each of which oozed a drop of blood. Xhia howled with pain and outrage.



"Sing, you bastard mating of baboons," Koots told him, with grim satisfaction. "You must learn that you cannot take Herminius Koots for a fool." He swung again. The green branch began to disintegrate with the force of the blows, and the thorns broke off and embedded themselves in Xhia's flesh.



Xhia twisted and fought against his bonds until his wrists were rubbed bloody and raw by the leather loops. In a voice too loud for his little frame he screamed his fury and his vows of revenge in a language that the white man could not understand.



"You will die for this, you white hyena! You eater of dung! You copulater with corpses! I shall kill you with the slowest of my poisons, you drinker of snake's piss and monkey sperm."



Koots discarded the broken branch and selected another. He wiped the sweat off his face with the sleeve of his shirt and began again. He kept it up until both he and Xhia were exhausted. His shirt was sodden and his breathing hoarse. Xhia hung silently on the leather thongs and the blood ran in dark snakes down his back and buttocks to drip into the dust between his feet. Only then did Koots step back. "Leave him hanging there tonight," he ordered. "He should be in a more willing mood by the morning. Nothing like a good thrashing to get these zwartes working properly."



Slowly Xhia turned his head and looked into Koots's face. He spoke softly. "I will give you the death of twenty days. You will plead with me to kill you at the end."



Koots did not understand the words but when he saw the hatred in Xhia's beady black eyes he understood the sense, and stepped back involuntarily. "Corporal Richter," he said, 'we will have to keep him tied up until he gets over his sore back and his murderous temper." He picked up Xhia's quiver of poisoned arrows and tossed it on to the fire. "Don't let him have any weapon until he's learned his lesson. I don't want it between my shoulder-blades. They are treacherous bastards, these little apes."



In the morning Goffel used the point of his bayonet to dig the thorns ut of the punctures that covered Xhia's back, but some had been driven in too deeply. Over the following days they festered and suppurated,



before they sloughed to the surface. With the fortitude of a wild thing Xhia recovered his strength and agility swiftly. His expression was inscrutable, and only when he looked at Koots did the hatred gleam out of those anthracite dark eyes.



"Drink the wind, Xhia," Koots cuffed him casually as he would a recalcitrant dog, 'and don't look at me like that, or I'll waste another thorn tree on your stinking hide." He pointed back along the trail that had led them to this place. "Now go back and find where Jim Courtney split his spoor."



They retraced their footsteps over the ground they had covered during the last ten days. They followed Xhia. Gradually his torn back clotted with festering scabs as his injuries started to heal. However, it seemed that the beating had indeed been beneficial for he worked hard. He seldom lifted his eyes from the ground, except to study the lie of the terrain ahead. They went swiftly for he had their own tracks to use as a marker. Sometimes he followed a spur for a short way until it proved false or illusory, then returned to the main trail.



At last they reached the stratum of black igneous rock beside the waterfall. On the way out they had passed this spot with only a brief pause. Even though this seemed an ideal location for Bakkat to stage a deception, Xhia's suspicions had been only mildly excited. Almost immediately he had picked up the strong clear spoor on the further side of the stratum, and followed it away.



Now he shook his head as he returned to the spot. "I was a fool. Now I can smell Bakkat's treachery in the air." He sniffed like a dog getting a whiff of the chase. He reached the place where Bakkat had cast the masking spell, and he picked up a fragment of black ash. He examined it carefully and saw it was the ash of the long tree, the wizard's tree.



"Here he burned the long and cast his spell to cheat me. I walked past this place with my eyes blinded." He was angry at having been so easily deluded by a man he considered his inferior in cunning and wizard-craft. He went down on his hands and knees and snuffled the earth. "This is where he would have pissed to cover his scent." But the traces were months old and even his nose could distinguish no residual ammoniac odour of Bakkat's urine.



He stood up again and made a sign of separation to Koots, laying the palms of his hands together, then parting them with a swimming motion. This is the place," he said in execrable Dutch, pointing left and right. "Horses go that way. Man go that way."



"By the blood of the crucifixion, this time you had better be right or I will have your balls. Do you understand?"



"No understand." Xhia shook his head.



Koots reached down and seized a handful of Xhia's genitalia, and with his other hand drew his dagger. He lifted Xhia on tiptoe by his scrotum, then made the gesture of drawing the blade across the stretched sac, almost touching the skin, but shaving past it by a hair's breadth.



"Cut your balls," he repeated. "VerstaanT



Xhia nodded soundlessly and Koots pushed him away. "Get on with it, then."



They camped on the bank above the waterfall, and Xhia worked both banks of the river for three miles upstream and down. First he covered the water's edge, but in the last ten days or so the river had come down in spate, then subsided again. At the high-water mark dry grass and debris were stranded in the branches of the trees that grew along the banks. Not even the heaviest trodden spoor could have survived the inundation.



Next Xhia moved out from the river bank, climbing up the slopes to the highest point that the flood waters had reached. He worked the ground painstakingly, scrutinizing every inch. All his experience and magic yielded nothing. The trail was gone, washed away. He had no way of knowing whether Bakkat had gone upstream or down. He had come up against an impenetrable wall.



Koots's nerves were already raw, and when he realized that Xhia had failed again he flew into a fit of fury more vicious than the last. He had Xhia bound again, but this time they hung him by his heels over a smouldering fire which Koots stoked carefully with green leaves. Xhia's peppercorn hair frizzled in the heat and he coughed, choked and retched in the smoke as he writhed and swung on the rope's end.



The rest of the band broke off their dice game to watch. They were all thoroughly bored and dispirited by this time, and the lure of the reward was waning as the trail grew colder each day. Richter and Le Riche had already started muttering threats of mutiny, of abandoning the pursuit, escaping from these harsh and merciless mountains and heading back to the colony.



"Kill the little monkey," said Le Riche in a tone of disinterest. "Have done with him, and let's go home."



Instead Koots stood up and drew his knife, slashed the rope that held Xhia suspended, and the little man dropped headlong into the coals. He let out another shriek and rolled out of the fire, only slightly more singed than he had been already. Koots grabbed the end of the rope that was still round his ankles and dragged Xhia to the nearest tree. He tied him there, and left him while he went back to eat the midday meal.



Xhia crouched against the trunk of the tree, muttering to himself and



examining his injuries. When Koots had finished eating he flicked the coffee grounds out of his mug, and shouted for Goffel. The Hottentot went with him to the tree and they both looked down at Xhia. "I want you to tell this little bastard in his own language, that I am going to keep him tied up. He will receive no water or food and I will beat him every day until he does his job and finds the spoor again."



Goffel translated this threat. Xhia hissed angrily and covered his face, to show how the sight of Koots offended him.



"Tell him I am in no hurry," Koots instructed. Tell him I can wait until he shrivels up and dries in the sun like the baboon turd that he is."



In the morning Xhia was still tied to the tree, but while Koots and his troopers were eating a breakfast of grilled corn cakes and smoked Dutch sausage Xhia called out to Goffel in the language of the San. The Hottentot went to squat in front of him and they spoke together quietly for a long time. Then Goffel came back to Koots. "Xhia says that he can find Somoya for you."



"Well, he hasn't done a good job of it so far." Koots spat a piece of sausage skin into the fire.



"He says that the only way to find the spoor now is to work a solemn magic."



Le Riche and Richter guffawed scornfully, and Le Riche said, "If we have come to witchcraft then I'm spending no more time here. I am going back to the Cape, and Keyser can stick his reward up his arse hole



"Shut your fat face," Koots told him, and turned back to Goffel. "What kind of solemn magic is this?"



"There is a sacred place in the mountains where the spirits of the San have their abode. There, their power is strongest. Xhia says that if we go to this place and sacrifice to the spirits Somoya's tracks will be revealed."



Le Riche stood up. "I have heard enough of this mumbo-jumbo. I have listened to it for almost three months and we are still no nearer having the gold guilders in hand." He picked up his saddle and began to walk towards where his horse was grazing. "Where are you going?" Koots asked,



"Are you deaf or just stupid?" Le Riche asked belligerently, and placed his right hand on the hilt of his sabre. "I told you once, but I will tell you again. I am going back to the Cape."



"It is called desertion and dereliction of duty, but I can understand why you want to go," Koots said, in such a mild tone that Le Riche looked surprised. Koots went on, "If anyone else wants to go with Le Riche, I will not stop them."



Richter stood up slowly. "I think I will," he said.



"Good!" said Koots. "But leave any VOC property when you go."



"What do you mean, Koots?" Le Riche demanded.



"The saddle and bridle," Koots said, 'the musket and your sabre are all Company issue. The horse and, of course, your boots and uniform, not to mention your water bottle and blanket." Koots smiled. "Just leave all that over there, and you can say goodbye."



Richter had not yet committed himself, so he sat down again hurriedly. Le Riche stood uncertainly, looking from Koots to his grazing horse. Then, with a visible effort, he steeled himself. "Koots," he said, 'the first thing I will do when I get back to the Cape, even if it costs me five guilders, is fuck your wife." Koots had recently married a beautiful young Hottentot girl. Her name was Nella, and she had been one of the most famous filks de joie in the colony. Koots had married her in an attempt to gain exclusive rights to her bountiful charms. That ruse had not been entirely successful, and he had already killed one man who had not understood the niceties of holy wedlock.



Koots glanced at Sergeant Oudeman, his old comrade in arms. Oudeman was bald as an ostrich egg, but he had a fine dark moustache. He understood Koots's unspoken orders, and he let one eyelid droop in acknowledgement. Koots stood up, and stretched like a leopard. He was tall and lean, and his pale eyes were dangerous beneath the colourless lashes. "One other item I forgot to mention," he said ominously. "You can leave your testicles here also. I am coming to get them from you." With a metallic scraping he drew his own sabre, and walked towards Le Riche. Le Riche dropped his saddle and spun to face him, his blade leaping from the scabbard in a flash of sunlight.



"A long time I have waited for a chance at you, Koots."



"Now you have it," Koots said, and lifted his point. He drifted in closer and Le Riche raised his own blade. Steel tapped lightly on steel as they measured each other. They knew one another well: they had trained and practised together over the years. They drew apart and circled.



"You are guilty of desertion," said Koots. "It is my duty to arrest you, or to kill you." He smiled. "I prefer the second option."



Le Riche scowled and ducked his head aggressively. He was not as tall as Koots, but he had long simian arms and powerful shoulders. He attacked with a series of lunges, driving in hard and fast. Koots had been expecting this. Le Riche lacked finesse. Koots faded away before him, and when he reached the limit of his extension, Koots riposted with the strike of a puff adder. Le Riche jumped back only just in time but his sleeve was split and a few drops of blood dripped from the scratch on his forearm.



They engaged again, steel scraping and thrilling on steel, but they were neatly matched. They broke and circled, Koots trying to move him towards where Oudeman lounged against the trunk of a thorn tree. Over the years Koots and Oudeman had developed an understanding. Twice Koots almost had Le Riche in position for Oudeman to deal with him, but each time he moved out of the trap.



Oudeman left the thorn tree and moved out towards the cooking fire, as if to refill his coffee mug, but he kept his right hand behind his back. He usually went for the kidneys. A blade in the small of the back would paralyse the victim, and Koots would finish off Le Riche with a thrust through the throat.



Koots changed the direction and angle of his attack, squeezing Le Riche back towards where Oudeman waited. Le Riche jumped back and whirled suddenly, nimble as a ballerina. In the same instant, he slashed his blade across the knuckles of Oudeman's hand, which held the dagger. The knife flew out of his nerveless fingers, and Le Riche spun back to face Koots. He was still smiling. "Why don't you teach your dog a new trick, Koots? I have seen that one too many times before, and it's becoming boring."



Oudeman was swearing and clutching his injured hand, and Koots was clearly disconcerted by Le Riche's unexpected ploy. He glanced at his accomplice, and as his eyes left Le Riche's face, Le Riche attacked en fleche, the attack of the arrow: he went straight for Koots's throat. Koots stumbled back, and lost his footing. He went down on one knee, and Le Riche pressed home to end it. At the last moment he saw the flare of triumph in Koots's pale eyes and tried to turn aside, but his right foot was leading and Koots went in low, cutting under his guard. The razor steel sliced through the back of Le Riche's boot, and there was an audible pop as it severed his Achilles tendon. Koots was on his feet again in the same instant, and sprang back outside even Le Riche's long reach.



"There is a new trick for you, Corporal, and how do you like it?" he asked. "Now, pray tell me, who has fucked whom?"



Blood was spurting from the gash in the back of Le Riche's boot, and he hopped back on his good leg, dragging his crippled foot behind him. His expression was desperate as Koots came in again fast, cutting and thrusting at his face. On one leg Le Riche could not hope to hold him off and he toppled over backwards. As he sprawled, Koots made the next cut with the precision of a surgeon. He slashed through the back of Le Riche's left boot and his other tendon parted cleanly. Koots ran his sabre back into its scabbard and walked away from him contemptuously. Le Riche sat up and, with shaking hands and pale sweating face,



drew off his boots one at a time. He stared silently at the terrible crippling injuries. Then he tore the hem off his shirt and tried to bind up the wounds, but the blood soaked swiftly through the grubby cloth.



"Break camp, Sergeant," Koots called to Oudeman. "Everyone mounted and ready to leave in five minutes. The Bushman is taking us to this sacred place of his."



The troop rode out of the camp in single file following Xhia. Oudeman was leading Le Riche's horse, and his musket, water bottle and all his other equipment were tied to the empty saddle.



Le Riche crawled after them. "Wait! You can't leave me here." He tried to stand, but he had no control of his feet, and he toppled over again. "Please, Captain Koots, have mercy. In the name of Jesus, at least leave me my musket and water bottle."



Koots turned his horse back and looked down at Le Riche from the saddle. "Why should I waste valuable equipment? Soon you will have no further use for it." Le Riche crawled towards him on his hands and knees, his crippled feet flopping and dragging behind him like stranded fish. Koots backed his horse away, keeping just out of his reach.



"I can't walk, and you have taken my horse," he pleaded.



"It's not your horse, Corporal. It belongs to the VOC," Koots pointed out. "But I have left you your boots and your testicles. That is enough generosity for one day." He turned his horse's head and rode after the rest of his troop.



"Please!" Le Riche screamed after him. "If you leave me here I will die."



"Yes," Koots agreed over his shoulder, 'but probably not until the vultures and the hyenas find you." He rode away. The sound of the horses' hoofs faded, and the silence of the mountains pressed down upon Le Riche with such weight that he felt the last shreds of his courage and resolve crushed beneath it.



It did not take long before the first vulture planed overhead on widespread wings. It twisted its head on the long naked red neck and peered down at Le Riche. Then, satisfied that he was crippled and moribund, and unable to protect himself, it circled in for a landing on the rocky pinnacle above him. It flared its massive wings and stretched out its talons to find purchase on the rock. Then it settled, humpbacked, folded away the long wings, and watched him impassively. It was an enormous bird, black and lappet-faced.



Le Riche crawled to the nearest tree, and leaned against the trunk. He gathered every stone within reach, but they made a pathetically small pile. He hurled one at the crouching vulture, but the range was



long, and from a sitting position his throw lacked power. The great bird blinked its eyes but made no other movement. A dead branch had fallen from the tree and lay just within Le Riche's reach. It was too heavy and too awkwardly shaped to wield effectively, nevertheless he placed it across his lap. It was his weapon of last resort, but when he studied the great bird, he knew just how puny it was.



They watched each other for the rest of that day. Once the vulture ruffled out its feathers, then preened them carefully and settled into immobility again. By nightfall Le Riche was thirsty, and the pain in his feet was almost unbearable. The brooding silhouette of the bird was satanic black against the background of stars. Le Riche thought about creeping up upon it as it slept and strangling it with his bare hands, but when he tried to move the pain in his feet held him as effectively as leg irons.



The midnight cold drained his vital force, and he sank into a delirious sleep. The faint warmth of the sun on his face and the dazzle of it in his eyes roused him. For many seconds he did not know where he was, but when he tried to move, the pain in his feet held him fast and brought back the horrors of his predicament in full force.



He groaned and turned his head, then screamed wildly with shock. The vulture had come down from its perch on the rocky pinnacle. It sat close by, just out of his reach. He had not realized the size of the creature. It seemed to tower over him as he sat. Close up it was even more hideous. Its naked head and neck were raw scaly red, and it reeked of carrion.



He snatched up a stone from the pile at his side and hurled it with all his strength. It glanced off the vulture's gleaming funereal plumage. The creature spread its huge wings, wider than he was tall, and hopped back a little, then folded them again.



"Leave me, you foul beast!" he sobbed with terror. At the sound of his voice, it raised its feathers, and ducked the monstrous head on its shoulders, but that was its only reaction. The day drew on and the heat of the sun rose until Le Riche felt that he was trapped in a bread oven, barely able to breathe, and his thirst became a terrible torment.



The vulture sat like a carved cathedral gargoyle and watched him. His senses reeled and the darkness drew in on him. The bird must have sensed it also, for suddenly it spread its wings like a black canopy. It uttered a guttural squawk and bounded towards him, hopping on spread talons. Its hooked beak gaped wide open. Le Riche howled with terror, snatched up the stick from his lap and struck out wildly. He fetched the vulture a blow along its naked neck, with just enough force to knock it



off-balance. But it used its wings to recover and hopped back out of his reach again. It folded its wings and resumed its inscrutable vigil.



It was the vulture's indefatigable patience that drove him beyond the bounds of sanity. He raved at it through lips swollen with thirst and cracked by the baking sun until the blood dripped from his chin. The vulture never moved, except to blink its glittering eyes. In his madness he threw his precious stick at its head, his weapon of last resort. The vulture lifted its wings and croaked as the stick glanced off its armoured plumage. Then it settled down again to wait.



The sun reached its zenith, and Le Riche raved and shouted, challenging God and the devil, swearing at the patient bird. He scratched up handfuls of dust and sand to throw at it, until his fingernails were broken off to the quick. He sucked his bleeding fingers to find moisture to slake his thirst, but the dirt clogged his swollen tongue.



He thought about the stream they had crossed on their way here, but it was at least half a mile back down the valley. The picture of the cold tumbling waters excited his dementia. He left the illusionary shelter of the thorn tree, and started crawling slowly back along the rocky pathway towards the river. His feet flopped along behind him, and the crusted sabre cuts burst open and started bleeding again. The vulture smelt the blood, squawked hoarsely and hopped along behind him. Le Riche covered less than a hundred paces, and told himself, "I will rest for a while." He lowered his face on to his arm, and lapsed into unconsciousness. The pain woke him. It was as though a dozen spear-heads were being driven into his back.



The vulture was perched between his shoulder-blades, its curved talons locked deeply in his flesh. It was flapping its wings to maintain its balance as it lowered its head and, with a slash of its beak, tore away his shirt. Then it stuck in the hooked, pointed tip and ripped away a long strip of his flesh.



Le Riche screamed hysterically, and rolled over trying to crush the bird under his own body, but with a flap of its wings it rose and settled again close by.



Although his eyesight was blurring and wavering he watched it swallow his flesh, stretching its neck and gulping to force it down. Then it lifted its head and turned its eyes upon him again, holding his gaze unflinchingly.



He knew that it was waiting for him to slip once more into unconsciousness. He sat up and tried to remain alert, singing and shouting at it and clapping his hands, but slowly his voice became an incoherent mumble, his arms fell to his sides and his eyes closed.



This time when he came awake he could not believe the intensity of the pain that overwhelmed him. There was a battering whirlwind of wings around his head and it felt as though a steel hook had been driven through his eye-socket, that his brains were being drawn out of his skull.



He thrashed around weakly on his back, no longer with the strength to cry out, and tried to open his eyes, but he was blind and he could feel sheets of hot blood pouring down his face, filling his good eye, mouth and nostrils so that he was drowning in it.



He reached up with both hands, clutching at the bird's scaly neck, and realized that the bird had driven its beak deep into one of his eye sockets. It was pulling out his eyeball on the long rubbery string that contained the optic nerve.



They always go for the eyes, he thought, with final resignation, past any further resistance. Blinded and now too weak to lift his hands he listened to the bird somewhere close at hand, gulping down his eyeball. He tried to peer at it through his remaining eye, but it was obscured by a streaming river of blood, too copious for him to blink away. Then the buffeting of heavy wing strokes burst around his head again. The last thing he felt was the point of the beak being driven deeply into his other eye.



Oudeman rode close behind Xhia, holding him on a long rope like a hunting dog on a leash. They all knew that if Xhia left them, perhaps slipping away into the night, none of them was likely to find his way out of this wilderness and back to the distant colony. After the treatment he had received from Koots, this eventuality was more than just a possibility, so they took turns to guard Xhia, keeping him on the rope night and day.



They crossed another small clear stream and turned a corner in the valley between two tall pinnacles of stone. An extraordinary vista opened before them. Their senses had become dulled by the wild grandeur of these mountains, but now they reined in their horses and stared in astonishment.



Xhia began to sing, a plaintive, repetitive chant, shuffling and dancing, as he looked up at the sacred cliffs that rose in front of them. Even Koots was awed. The riven walls of rock seemed to reach to the very sky, and the clouds rolled over the summit, like spilled milk.



Suddenly Xhia leaped high in the air and uttered a dreadful shriek, which startled Koots and raised the fine hair on his forearms. Xhia's cry



was picked up in the great basin of stone, and flung back in a glissando of descending echoes.



"Hear the voices of my ancestors answer me!" Xhia cried, and jumped again. "O holy ones, O wise ones, give me leave to enter."



"Enter! Enter!" the echoes answered him and, still dancing and singing, Xhia led them up the scree to the foot of the cliffs. The walls of lichen covered stone seemed to hang over them, and the clouds flying over the tops gave the illusion that the cliff was toppling down on them. The wind thrummed through the turrets and towers of stone like the voices of the long-dead, and the troopers were silent, their horses fidgeting nervously.



Half-way up the scree a massive boulder blocked their way. In ancient time it had fallen out of the cliff face and tumbled down to this resting place. It was the size of a cottage and so almost perfectly rectangular that it might have been shaped by human hand. Koots saw that in the near side of the block there was a small natural shrine. A strange collection of objects was laid in the niche: horns of blue buck and rhebuck so old they were encrusted with the cocoons of the bacon beetle, the skull of a baboon and the wings of a heron, dry and brittle with age, a calabash half filled with pretty agate and quartz pebbles, water-worn and polished, a necklace of beads chipped from ostrich egg, flint arrow-heads and a quiver that was rotted and cracked.



"We must leave gifts here for the Old People," Xhia said, and Goffel translated.



Koots looked uncomfortable. "What gifts?" he asked.



"Something to eat or drink, and something pretty," Xhia told him. "Your little shiny bottle."



"No!" Koots said, but without conviction. He had been saving the last few inches of Hollands gm in his silver flask, rationing himself to an occasional sip.



The Old People will be angry," Xhia warned. "They will conceal the sign from us."



Koots wavered, then reluctantly unfastened the flap of his saddlebag and brought out the silver flask. Xhia reached up for it, but Koots kept his grip. "If you fail me again, I will have no further use for you, except to fatten the jackals." He gave up the flask.



Chanting softly Xhia approached the shrine and poured a few drops of the gin down the face of the rock. Then he picked up a fist-sized stone and battered the metal flask. Koots winced, but kept silent. Xhia placed the flask with the other offerings in the niche, then backed away, still singing softly.



"Now what do we do?" Koots demanded. This place made him nervous. He wanted to be gone. "What about the spoor?"



"If the Old People are pleased with your gift they will reveal it to us. We must go on into the sacred places," Xhia told him. "First you must take this rope from my neck, or the Old People will be angered that you treat one of their own tribe in this manner."



Koots looked doubtful, but Xhia's plea made good sense. He reached a decision. He drew his musket from its sheath and cocked the hammer. Tell him that he must stay close. If he tries to run, I will ride him down and shoot him like a rabid dog. This gun is loaded with goose-shot and he has seen me shoot. He knows I don't miss," he ordered Goffel, and waited while he translated for the little Bushman.



"Turn him loose." He nodded to Oudeman. Xhia made no attempt to escape, and they followed him up to the base of the cliff. Abruptly Xhia vanished, as though by the magic of his forefathers.



With a shout of anger, Koots spurred his horse forward, his musket at the ready. Suddenly he reined in and stared with amazement into the narrow gateway in the rock that opened in front of him.



Xhia had disappeared into the dim depths of the passage. Koots hesitated to follow him in there. He could see that once he was inside it the passage was too narrow for him to turn his horse. The other troopers hung back behind him.



"Goffel!" Koots shouted. "Go in there and pull the little bastard out."



Goffel looked behind him, back down the slope, but Koots turned the cocked musket on him.



"If I can't have Xhia, then by God you will have to do."



At that moment they heard Xhia's voice issue from the mouth of the passage, and he was singing.



"What is he saying?" Koots demanded, and Goffel looked mightily relieved.



"It is his song of victory. He is thanking his gods for their kindness in revealing the spoor to him."



Koots's misgivings evaporated. He swung down from the saddle and strode into the passage. He found Xhia around the first bend, singing, clapping and giggling with triumph. "What have you found?"



"Look under your feet, you white baboon," Xhia told him, making sure he would not understand the insult, but pointing at the trampled white sand. Koots understood the gesture, but still he was uncertain. Any definition of the spoor was long ago obliterated: it was merely a dimpling of the surface.



"How can he be sure that this is our quarry?" Koots demanded of Goffel as he came up. "It could be anything a herd of quagga or eland."



Xhia answered this objection with a rapid fire of denials, and Goffel spoke for him: "Xhia says that this is a sacred place. No wild animal ever passes through here."



"I don't believe that!" Koots scoffed. "How would an animal know?"



"If you cannot feel the magic here, your eyes are blind and your ears are deaf indeed," Xhia told him, but he went to the nearest wall of the passage and peered minutely at it. Then he began to pick things off the rock, the way a baboon picks nits from a companion's scalp. He gathered whatever it was in the palm of his hand, then came back to Koots. Between forefinger and thumb he offered him something. Koots had to look closely to see that it was a hair.



"Behold, with your pale and disgusting eyes, O eater of dung!" he said, so Koots could not understand. "This white hair came from the shoulder of the gelding, Frost. This brown and silky one from Trueheart when she touched the rock, and this yellow one from Lemon. This dark one is from Somoya's horse, Drumfire." He hooted scornfully. "And now do you believe that Xhia is the mightiest hunter of all the San, and that he has worked a great and solemn magic and revealed the spoor to you?"



"Tell the little yellow ape to stop chattering, and take us after them." Koots tried, unsuccessfully, to disguise his elation.



What river is that?" Koots asked. They stood on the peak and looked down from the mountains, over endless plains and vistas of rolling grassland, to another range of hills, pale against the milky blue of the tall African sky at noon day.



"It is called the river Gariep," Goffel translated. "Or, in the language of the San, Gariep Che Tabong, the River Where the Elephant Died."



"Why is it called that?" Koots wanted to know.



"It was on the banks of this river when he was a young man that Xhia slew the great elephant he had followed for many days."



Koots grunted. Since the Bushman had found the spoor again Koots was more kindly disposed towards him. He had treated his burns and other injuries from the field chest of medicines he carried on the packhorse. Xhia healed quickly, the way a wild animal does.



Tell him that if he can find where Somoya crossed this river, I will give him a fine cow as his own animal when we return to the colony. Then, if he can lead me to the capture or the killing of Somoya, I will give him five more fat cows." Koots was now regretting his previous harsh treatment of the Bushman. He knew that if he wanted to catch up with the fugitives, he must make amends and buy back Xhia's loyalty.



it



Xhia received this promise of wealth joyfully. Few men of the San owned a sheep, let alone a single head of kine. Childlike, his memory of abuse faded with the offer of reward. He started down the mountain slopes towards the plains and the river with such alacrity that even on horseback Koots was hard-pressed to keep him in sight. When they reached the river they found wild game concentrated on these waters in numbers that Koots had not imagined possible. The herds within the colony had been hunted extensively since the first Dutch colonists, under Governor van Riebeeck, had set foot ashore almost eighty years before. The burghers were all enthusiastic hunters, indulging in the pastime not only for the thrill of the chase but also for the meat, hides and ivory it yielded. Within the borders of the colony at any time of day one could hear the boom of their long roers, and in the season of the great animal migrations across the plains they had organized themselves into large mounted parties to hunt the wild horses, the quagga, for their hides, the spring buck and eland for their meat. After one of these great jags the vultures darkened the sky with their wings and the stench of death hung in the air for months thereafter. The bleached bones lay like banks of snowy arum lilies, gleaming in the sunlight.



As a consequence of these predations the game had been severely reduced in numbers, and even the quagga had become something of a rarity within the immediate environs of the town and castle. The last elephant herds had been driven far from the frontiers of the colony almost forty years before, and only a few hardy souls occasionally made the journey of months and even years into the remote wilderness to pursue them. In fact, not many white men had ventured even thus far from the safety and security of the colony, which was why this mighty gathering of wild beasts was a revelation to Koots.



Game had been scarce in the mountains, and they were hungry for fresh meat so Koots and Oudeman spurred ahead of the rest of the troop. Riding hard they caught up with a herd of giraffe who had been grazing on the top branches of an isolated clump of acacia trees. These gigantic creatures ran with a ponderous, swaying motion, twisting their bushy tails up on to their haunches. They thrust their long, sinuous necks forward as though to counterbalance their massive bodies. Koots and Oudeman cut a young cow out of the herd of a dozen and, riding hard at her heels, with the stones and pebbles flung up by her hoofs whizzing past their ears they fired into her rump, trying to send a ball through the ridge of her spine, which showed clearly under her dappled brown and yellow skin. At last Koots pressed in so close to her that he almost touched her with the muzzle of his musket, and this time the ball flew true. It severed her spinal column and she collapsed in a cloud of



dust and debris. Koots dismounted to reload and as soon as his weapon was recharged he ran close to her. She was thrashing about weakly, but he avoided the convulsive kicks of her long front legs, which could snap the spine of an attacking lion. Then he fired another ball into the back of her skull.



That night while the hyena squalled and squabbled with a pride of lions for possession of what remained of the colossal carcass, Koots and his men feasted around their campfire on marrow from the giraffe's thigh-bones. They cracked the roasted bones between two rocks, and out slid long cylindrical lumps of the rich yellow marrow, as thick as a man's arm and twice as long.



In the dawn when Koots awoke, he found Goffel, who was on sentry duty, fast asleep. Xhia was gone. Raging, Koots booted Goffel in the stomach and crotch, then laid into him with a bridle, swinging the bit end and the metal cheek buckles across his shoulders and close-cropped scalp. At last he stepped back and snarled, "Now, take the spoor and catch that little yellow ape, or there'll be another helping of ginger for you."



Xhia had made no attempt to cover his tracks so even Goffel could read them easily. Without breakfast they mounted up and rode after Xhia before he could make good his escape. On the open plain Koots hoped to spot him at a distance, and even a Bushman could not hope to outdistance a good horse.



Xhia's tracks led straight towards the dark green ribbon of riverine bush on the horizon that marked the course of the Gariep river. They were only half-way there when Koots saw the spring buck herds ahead pranking, leaping high in the air with all four feet together and noses almost touching their front hoofs, the snowy dorsal plumes flashing in full display.



"Something's alarming them," Goffel said. "Maybe it is the Bushman." Koots spurred forward. Then, through the dust kicked up by the antics of the spring buck herds, he saw a tiny familiar figure trotting towards them.



"By the breath of Satan!" Koots swore. "It's him. It's Xhia and he's coming back!"



As he came towards them Xhia broke into a dance and a litany of triumph and self-congratulation. "I am Xhia, the greatest hunter of all my tribe. I am Xhia, the beloved of the ancestors. My eyes are like the moon for they see all, even in the night. My arrows are swift as swallows in flight, and no animal may run from them. My magic is so powerful that no man may avoid it."



That same day Xhia led them to the Gariep river, and he showed



Koots the wheel ruts of many wagons scored deeply into the soft alluvial earth along its banks.



"Four great wagons and one small one passed this way." Through Goffel he explained the sign to Koots. "With the wagons were many animals, horses and cattle and some sheep. See here! The small wagon has returned towards the colony, but the four great wagons have gone on into the wilderness."



"Whose wagons are these?" Koots asked him.



"In all the colony there are few burghers rich enough to boast five wagons. One of those is Klebe, the father of Somoya."



"I do not understand." Koots shook his head.



Goffel explained: "It seems that while Bakkat and Somoya led us on a chase through the mountains, Klebe came here to the Gariep with these wagons. When Somoya had stolen our horses and knew we could follow him no further, he came back here to meet his father."



"What of the small wagon that went back towards the colony?" Koots wanted to know.



Xhia shrugged. "Perhaps after he had given the great wagons to his son, Klebe returned to the Cape." Xhia touched the wheel marks with his toe. "See how deeply the wheels have bitten into the earth. They are heavily laden with goods."



"How does Xhia know all this?" Koots demanded.



"Because I am Xhia, with eyes like the moon, that sees all."



"That means the little bastard is guessing." Koots lifted his hat and wiped the sweat from his balding pate.



"If we follow the wagons Xhia will give you proof," Goffel suggested. "Or if he does not, you will shoot him and save yourself the cattle you promised him."



Koots replaced his hat. Despite his forbidding expression he felt more confident of eventual success than at any time since they had left the colony.



It is plain to see that they are carrying much cargo, Koots thought. It may be that those wagons are worth almost as much as the bounty money itself. He looked towards the heat-shimmering horizon where the tracks led. Out there, there is no civilized law. Head money or cargoes, one way or the other I smell a sweet profit in this.



He dismounted and inspected the wagon tracks more closely, giving himself time to think. "How long since the wagons passed this way?"



Goffel referred the question to Xhia.



"Some months. It is not possible to say more than that. But wagons travel slowly, while horsemen travel fast."



Koots nodded to Goffel. "Good, very good! Tell him to follow, and find proof of who these wagons belong to."



They found proof a hundred leagues further and twelve days later. They came to a place where one of the wagons had run into an ant bear hole and been badly damaged. A number of the spokes in one of the front wheels had been shattered. The travellers had camped for some days at the site of the accident, making repairs to the wagon. They had whittled and shaved new spokes, and discarded the damaged ones.



Xhia retrieved one of the broken pieces from where it had been thrown into the grass. He cackled with triumph. "Did not Xhia tell you this truth and that truth? Did you believe him? No! You did not believe him, you stupid white maggot." He brandished the broken spar. "Know now, once and for all time, white man, that Xhia sees all and knows all." He brought the fragment of the spoke to Koots and showed him the design that had been burnt into the wood with a branding iron. "Do you know this picture?" he demanded.



Koots grinned wolfishly and nodded with recognition.



It was the stylized picture of a cannon, a long nine-pounder on its carriage. In the ribbon below it were the letters CBTC. Koots had seen the same design on the flag that flew above the go down at High Weald, and on the pediment above the front wall of the main building. He knew that the initials stood for Courtney Brothers Trading Company.



He called his troopers and showed them the fragment of wood. They passed it from hand to hand. They all knew the design. The entire population of the colony was less than three thousand souls, and within its boundaries everyone knew everything about everyone else. After Governor van de Witten himself, the Courtney brothers were the richest, most influential men in the colony. Their coat-of-arms was almost as well known as that of the VOC. The brothers emblazoned it on all their possessions, their buildings, ships, wagons. It was the seal they used on their documents and the brand on their horses and livestock. There was no longer any doubt of the identity of the wagon train they were following.



Koots looked over his band, and picked out Richter. He tossed him the broken spoke. "Corporal, do you know what that is you are holding?"



"Yes, Captain, sir. It's a wheel spoke."



"No, Corporal!" Koots told him. That is thousands of guilders in gold coin in your hand." He looked from the two white faces, Oudeman and Richter's, to the yellow and chocolate ones of Xhia and Goffel and the other Hottentots. "Do any of you still want to go home? Unlike that miserable bastard Le Riche, this time I will let you take your horse when



you leave. The reward money is not all that we will win. There are four wagons also, and a herd of domestic animals. Even Xhia will win more than the six head of cattle I promised him. The rest of you? Do any of you want to go home, yes or no



They grinned at each other, like a pack of wild hunting dogs with the smell of a wounded quarry in their nostrils, and shook their heads.



"Then there is the girl. Would any of you black bastards like to play with a white girl with golden hair?"



They burst into laughter at the suggestion, lewd and loud.



"I must apologize, but one of you will not have that pleasure." He looked them over thoughtfully. There was one Hottentot trooper whom he would be pleased to see the back of. His name was Minna, and he had a squint. This gave him a sly, villainous expression, which Koots had realized reflected accurately his true nature. Minna had sulked and whined ever since leaving the colony, and he was the only one of the troop who was exhibiting no enthusiasm for following the tracks of Jim Courtney's wagons.



"Minna, you and I are brothers of the warrior blood," Koots placed his arm around the man's shoulders, 'so it grieves me sorely that we must part. However, I need a good man and true to carry a message back to Colonel Keyser at the castle. I have to let him know of the success of our expedition. You, my dear and stalwart Minna, are the man for that job. I shall ask the colonel to reward you handsomely. Who knows? You may have some gold braid upon your sleeve, and gold in your pocket from this day's work."



Koots hunched over his grubby notebook for almost an hour as he composed the message. He knew that Minna was illiterate. After extolling his own achievements in the conduct of the expedition the final paragraph of his report to Colonel Keyser read, "The trooper who carries this message, Johannes Minna, lacks any soldierly virtues. It is my respectful recommendation that he be stripped of rank and privilege and discharged from the Company service without benefit of pension."



And that, he thought, with satisfaction, when he folded the message, takes care of any obligation I might have to share the bounty with Minna when I bring Jim Courtney's head back to the colony. "You have only to follow the wagon tracks, and they will lead you back to the Cape of Good Hope," he told Minna. "Xhia says it is less than ten days' ride." He handed the message and the broken wagon spoke to Minna. "Give these both to Colonel Keyser in person."



Minna leered and went with alacrity to saddle his horse. He could hardly believe his good fortune in escaping this dreadful journey, and being offered a reward for doing so.



The days sped by much faster than the slow turning of the wagon wheels. It seemed that the hours were too short for them to enjoy in full measure all the wonders they saw, or to savour the adventures, great and small, that they encountered each day. Were it not for the journal that Louisa kept with such dedication they would soon have lost track of those golden days. She had to nag at Jim to keep his promise to his father. He made the solar observations of their position only when she insisted that he do so, and she recorded the results.



Jim was more reliable with the gold pans and he tested the sands of every river they crossed for the precious metal. On many occasions he found a bright yellow tail of metallic dust around the rim of the pan, but his excitement was short-lived when he tested it with hydrochloric acid from the gold-finder's chest, and the yellow metal bubbled and dissolved. "Iron pyrites! Fool's gold!" he told Louisa bitterly. "How old Humbert would laugh at me as a dupe." But the disappointment and bitterness did not last long, and within hours Jim's enthusiasm would have fully regenerated. His boyish optimism was one of the things Louisa found endearing about him.



Jim looked for signs of other human presence, but there was little evidence of this. Once they found the tracks of wagon wheels preserved in the sterile crust of a salt pan, but Bakkat declared them to be very old indeed. Bakkat's concept of the passage of time was different from that of the European mind, so Jim pressed him further. "How old is very old, Bakkat?"



"These tracks were made before you were born, Somoya," he told Jim. "The man whose wagon made them is probably dead of old age."



There were other, fresher signs of human existence. These were of Bakkat's own people. Wherever they found a rock shelter or cave in the side of a hill or kopje, there were usually whimsical, vividly coloured paintings decorating the rock walls, and fairly recent hearths on which charcoal fragments showed how the little people had cooked their quarry, and discarded the bones on the midden piles nearby. Bakkat was able to recognize which clans of the tribe had passed this way by the symbols and styles of the paintings. Often when they were examining these artistic tributes to strange gods and quaint custom, Louisa sensed the deep longing and nostalgia that Bakkat felt for his people, who were living the free, careless existence that nature had decreed for them.



me land changed as they travelled across it, the plains giving way to



forests and hills with rivers running through wide green valleys and straths. In places, the bush was so dense and thorny that they could not force a way through it. Even attempts to cut a roadway for the wagons failed. The tangled branches were iron hard and defied the sharpest axes. They were obliged to make detours of many days to pass around these jungles. In other places the veld was like English parkland, open and fertile, with great trees as tall as cathedral columns and widespread canopies of green leaf. Birds and monkeys shrieked and chattered in the treetops as they competed for fruit.



It seemed that there were animals and birds wherever they cast their eyes. The numbers and varieties never palled. They ranged in size from tiny sunbirds to ostriches taller than a mounted man with white plumes in their wings and tail tufts, from shrews not much bigger than Jim's thumb to hippopotamus as heavy as their largest oxen. These behemoths seemed to inhabit every pool and river, their huge bodies crowded so close together that they formed massive rafts on which the white egrets perched as though they were rocks.



Jim sent a hardened ball between the eyes of one old bull. Although he plunged below the surface in his death throes and disappeared from their sight, on the second day the gases in his belly brought him to the surface and he floated like a balloon with his stubby legs sticking into the air. With a span of oxen they dragged the carcass to the bank. The pure white fat that filled his body cavity filled a fifty-gallon water keg when rendered down. It was perfect for cooking and sausage-making, for the manufacture of soap, for lubricating the wheel hubs of the wagons, or for greasing the rifle patches.



There were so many kinds of antelope, each with flesh of different taste and texture: Louisa was able to order her favourites from Jim's rifle, like a housewife from her butcher. Herds of dun-coloured reedbuck lived on the grassland under the tall trees. Fantastically striped zebra galloped together in herds. They came across other horse-like antelope, with backs and limbs of ebony black, bellies of frosty white, and huge backswept scimitar-shaped horns. In every thicket and thorn forest they found nervous kudu with spiral horns, and herds of bovine black buffalo, so numerous that they flattened the tangled bush when they stampeded.



Always Jim longed for his first sighting of elephant, and at night spoke of them with almost religious awe. He had never laid eyes on a living beast, but their tusks were piled high in the Company go down at High Weald. In his youth Jim's father had hunted the elephant in the eastern lands of Africa, a thousand miles and more from where Louisa and he now found themselves. Jim had been reared on tales of his father's chases after these legendary animals, and the thought of his first



encounter with them became an obsession to him. "We have travelled almost a thousand leagues since we left the Gariep," he told Louisa. "Surely no other man has travelled further from the colony. We must come up with the elephant herds very soon."



Then his dreams had something to feed upon. They came upon a whole forest whose trunks had been thrown to earth as though by a hurricane of wind, and shattered to splinters. Those trees left standing had been stripped of their bark by the mighty pachyderms.



"See how they have chewed the juice out of the bark." Bakkat showed Jim the huge balls of desiccated bark the animals had spat out. "See how they have torn down this tree, which once stood higher than the mainmast of your father's ship and they ate only the tender top leaves. Haul They are truly wondrous beasts."



"Follow them, Bakkat!" Jim pleaded. "Show these beasts to me."



"These signs were made a full season ago. See how the marks of the pads that they left in the mud of the last rains have dried hard as stone."



"When will we find them?" Jim demanded. "Will we ever find them?"



"We will find them," Bakkat promised. "And when we do, perchance you will wish we had not." With a thrust of his chin he indicated one of the fallen trees: "If they can do that to such a tree, what might they do to a man?"



Each day they rode out to explore the land ahead, to look for fresher elephant sign, and blaze a road for Smallboy and the wagons to follow. Always they had to make certain of sources of potable water and good fodder for the oxen and other domestic animals, and to refill the fagies against the times when their search for fresh water-holes might prove unsuccessful. Bakkat showed Jim how to watch the flight of flocks of sand grouse and other birds, and the direction of travel of the thirsty game herds to the nearest water-holes. The horses were also good guides they could smell it on the wind from many miles off.



Often they reached so far ahead of the wagon train that they were unable to return to its security and comfort before the setting of the sun, and they were forced to pitch a fly-camp wherever darkness and exhaustion overtook them. However, on those nights that they returned to the wagons it was always with a sense of joyous homecoming when they saw the campfires from a distance, or heard the lowing of the oxen. Then the dogs rushed out, barking with excitement, and Smallboy and the other drivers shouted greetings.



Louisa marked the calendar religiously, and she never missed the Sabbath. She insisted that she and Jim stay in camp for that day. They slept late on Sunday mornings, hearing each other wake as the sun shone through the chinks in the afterclap. Then they lay on their own



car dell beds and chatted drowsily through the canvas of the wagon tents, until Louisa argued with Jim that it was time to be up and about. The smell of Zama brewing coffee at the campfire would convince him that she was right.



Louisa always cooked a special Sunday dinner, usually with some new recipe from the cookbook Sarah had given to her. In the meantime Jim saw to the small jobs around the camp that had been neglected during the week, from shoeing a horse to repairing a tear in the wagon tent or greasing the wheel hubs.



After lunch they often slung hammocks in the shade of the trees and read to each other from their small library of books. Then they discussed the events of the past week, and made plans for the week ahead. As a surprise for Jim on the first of his birthdays they spent together, Louisa secretly carved a set of chessmen and a board, using woods of different colours. Although he tried to look enthusiastic, Jim was not entirely enchanted by the gift for he had never played the game before. But she read him the rules from the back pages of the almanac, then set up the board under the spreading branches of a mighty camel-thorn tree.



"You can play white," she told him magnanimously, 'which means you move first."



"Is that good?" he demanded.



"It is of the utmost advantage," she assured him. With a laugh he advanced a rook's pawn three squares. She made him correct this, then proceeded to give him a thorough and merciless drubbing. "Checkmate!" she said and he looked startled.



Humiliated by the ease with which she had accomplished this feat, he examined the board minutely and argued the legitimacy of each move that had led to his defeat. When it became apparent that she had not cheated, he sat back and stared morosely at the board. Then, slowly, the light of battle dawned in his eyes, and he squared his shoulders. "We will play again," he announced ominously. But the result of their second game was no less humiliating. Perhaps for this reason Jim became captivated by it, and it soon became a major, binding force in their shared existence. With Louisa's tactful tuition he made such rapid progress that soon they were almost evenly matched. They fought many memorable, epic battles across the chequered board but, strangely, these encounters brought them closer together.



In one endeavour she could not match him, although she tried with all her determination and often came close to doing so. This was in shooting. On Sunday afternoons after dinner, Jim set up targets at fifty, a hundred and a hundred and fifty paces. Louisa shot with her little French rifle, while he used one of the pair of heavier London guns. The



trophy was the bushy tail of a giraffe, and the winner of this weekly competition was entitled to hang the tail on the front of his or her wagon for the rest of the week. During the rare weeks that Louisa had that honour, Smallboy, the driver of her wagon, strutted, preened and fired his great whip more often, and with more force, than was necessary for the encouragement of the ox team.



Gradually Louisa developed such a sense of pride and fulfilment in the running of the camp and the ordering of their existence, and came to derive so much pleasure from Jim's companionship, that the dark memories of her old life began to recede. The nightmares became less frequent and terrifying. Slowly she regained the sense of fun and the enjoyment of life that more suited her age than defensiveness and suspicion.



Riding out together one afternoon they came upon a tsama vine in full fruit. The green and yellow striped melons were the size of a man's head. Jim filled his saddlebags with them, and when they returned to the wagons he cut one into thick wedges. "One of the delicacies of the wilderness." He handed her a piece, and she tasted it gingerly. It was running with juice, but the flavour was bland and only slightly sugary. To please him, Louisa pretended to enjoy it.



"My father says that one of these saved his life. He had been lost for days in the desert, and would have died of thirst had he not chanced upon a tsama vine like this one. Isn't it tasty?"



She looked at the pale yellow pith that filled the shell, then up at him. Unexpectedly she was filled with a girlish mischief she had not known since before the death of her parents.



"What are you grinning at?" Jim demanded.



"This!" she said, leaned across the camp table and mashed the soft wet fruit into his face. He gaped at her in astonishment as juice and the yellow flesh dripped off his nose and chin. "Isn't it tasty?" she asked, and dissolved into peals of laughter. "You look so silly!"



"We shall see who looks even more silly." Jim recovered, and snatched up the remains of the melon. She squealed with alarm, leaped up from the table and ran. Jim pursued her through the camp brandishing the melon, with pips in his hair and juice down his shirt.



The servants were astounded as Louisa dodged and ducked around the wagons. But she was weak with laughter and at last Jim caught her, pinned her against the side of a wagon with one hand and took aim with the other.



"I am mortally sorry," she gasped. "Please forgive me. I am abject. It will not happen again."



No! It will never happen again," he agreed. Till show you what will



happen if it does." He gave her the same treatment, and by the time he had finished she had yellow melon in her hair and eyelashes, and in her ears.



"You are a beast, James Archibald!" She knew how he hated that name. "I hate you." She tried to glare at him, but burst into laughter again. She raised one hand to strike him, but he caught her wrist and she stumbled against him.



Suddenly neither of them was laughing. Their mouths were so close that their breath mingled and there was something in her eyes that he had not seen before. Then she began to tremble and her lips quivered. The emotion he had seen faded and was replaced with terror. He knew that all the servants were watching them.



With an effort he released her wrist and stepped back, but now his laughter was breathless. "Beware, wench. Next time it will be a cold slimy lump of melon down the back of your neck."



The moment hung precariously, for she was on the edge of tears. Bakkat saved them by breaking into a pantomime of their contest. He picked up the remains of the melon and hurled it at Zama. The drivers and voarlopers joined in, and melon rind flew in all directions. In the uproar Louisa slipped away to her wagon. When she emerged later she was demure in a fresh frock, her hair in long plaits. "Would you like a game of chess?" she asked, not looking into his eyes.



He checkmated her in twenty moves, then doubted the merit of his victory. He wondered if she had purposely allowed him to win, or whether she had merely been distracted.



The next morning Jim and Louisa, with Bakkat, rode out before dawn, taking their breakfast with them tied in the canteens behind their saddles. Only an hour ahead of the wagons, they stopped to water the horses and eat their breakfast beside a small stream that meandered down from the line of lightly forested hills that lay across their path.



They sat opposite each other on fallen logs. They were shy and subdued, unable to meet each other's eyes. The memory of the moment from the previous day was still vivid in their minds, and their conversation was stilted and overly polite. After they had eaten Louisa took the canteens down to the stream to wash them while Jim resaddled the horses. When she came back he hesitated before helping her to step up into Trueheart's saddle. She thanked him more profusely than the small act called for.



They rode up the hill, Bakkat leading the way on Frost. As he reached the crest he wheeled Frost back off the skyline, and raced towards them, his face contorted with some strong emotion, his voice reduced to an unintelligible squeak.



"What is it?" Jim shouted at him. "What have you seen?" He seized Bakkar's arm and almost yanked him out of the saddle.



Bakkat found his voice at last. "Dhlovul' he cried, as though in pain. "Many, many."



Jim threw his reins to Bakkat, jerked the small-bore rifle from its sheath and sprang out of the saddle. He knew better than to show himself on the skyline and stopped below the crest to gather himself. Excitement had clamped down on his chest and he could hardly breathe. His heart seemed on the point of leaping out of his mouth. Yet he still had the good sense to check the direction of the breeze: he picked a few blades of dry grass, shredded them between his fingers, and studied the drift of the tiny fragments. It was favourable.



Suddenly he felt Louisa's presence close beside him. "What is it, Jim?" She had not understood the word Bakkat had used.



"Elephant!" Jim could barely enunciate the magical word.



She stared at him for only a moment, then her eyes flared like sunlight in blue sapphire. "Oh, Jim! Show me!"



Even in the turmoil that had overwhelmed him, he was grateful she was there to share something he knew, deep in his heart, would stay with him all his days. "Come!" he said, and, quite naturally, she took his hand. Despite all that had gone between them, this trusting gesture came as no surprise to him. Hand in hand they went to the crest of the hill and looked over.



Below them lay a vast bowl of land hemmed about with hills. It was carpeted with new growth, freshly sprung after the recent rains on ground that had been burned by grass-fires during the dry season. It was green as an English meadow, and scattered with clumps of tall mahobahoba trees, and copses of thornbush.



Spread out in the bottom of the bowl, alone or in small herds, were hundreds of elephant. For Jim, who had imagined this first encounter so many times and in so many ways, the reality far outweighed all his fantasy. "Oh, sweet Mary!" he whispered. "Oh, God, oh, beloved God!"



She felt his hand shaking in hers and tightened her grip. She recognized this as a seminal moment in his life and suddenly she was proud to be beside him, to share it with him. It seemed that this was her place: as though she had at last found where she belonged.



He could see at once from their relative size that most of the elePhant herds consisted of females and their young. They formed grey



agglomerations like reefs of granite, and the shapes of the herds changed only slowly, coming together, then flowing apart again. In all this mass of animals the great bulls stood apart and aloof, massive dark shapes, even at this remove dominating the herds that surrounded them, unmistakable in their majesty.



Close below where Jim and Louisa stood one particular animal made all the others seem insignificant. Perhaps it was merely the way the sunlight played upon him, but he was darker than any other. His ears were spread like the mainsail of a ship, and he fanned them with a lazy, flapping motion. With each movement the sun caught the curve of a huge tusk, and shot a ray towards them like the reflection of a mirror. Once the bull reached down with his trunk, and gathered up the dust at his feet and threw it back over his head and shoulders in a pale cloud.



"He is so big!" Louisa whispered. "I never expected them to be that size."



Her voice roused Jim from his trance of wonder, and he looked back to see Bakkat hovering close behind him.



"I have only this small-bore gun with me." Jim had left the two big German four-to-the-pounders with the wagons. They were awkward weapons to carry and handle and, having been so often disappointed, he had not expected to run into elephant today, and certainly not in such numbers. He regretted the oversight now, but he knew it would be folly to use the little London rifle he had with him against a creature endowed with such bulk of muscle and sinew, such massive bone structure. Only with great luck could he hope to send such a light ball into its vitals.



"Ride back, Bakkat, as fast as Frost will carry you, and bring the two big guns to me with the powder flask and shot belt No sooner had Jim finished speaking than Bakkat was up on Frost and going back down the hill at a mad gallop. They did not watch him go, but Jim and Louisa crept forward, using a small bush to break up their silhouette as they crossed the skyline. On the far slope they found a clump of thorny acacia that offered concealment, and settled among the fluffy branches and yellow blossom, sitting side by side while Jim focused his telescope on the great bull below them.



He gasped aloud, amazed at the animal's enhanced size when seen through the lens, and he stared in awe at the length and thickness of those shafts of ivory. Although he had not yet had his fill of such a magnificent sight he passed the glass to Louisa. By now she had learned to use it with expertise, and she trained it on the great animal. But after only a few minutes her attention was diverted to the playful antics of a



group of calves further on: they were squealing and chasing each other through the forest.



When Jim saw the direction of the telescope wandering away from the patriarch he was strongly inclined to take it out of Louisa's hands and continue his study of the bull. Then he saw the tender smile on her face as she watched the calves at play, and he restrained himself. This in itself was a mark of his feelings for her: he was almost consumed by the hunter's passion and his heart beat hotly for the chase.



Then, to his delight, the bull left the shade of the mahoba-hoba tree and started ambling up the slope directly towards where they sat. He placed his hand on Louisa's shoulder to warn her. When she lowered the telescope he put a finger to his lips and pointed at the approaching bull.



Louisa's expression changed to awe as it drew closer, and loomed larger. Even in broad daylight there was something ghostly and unnerving about the utter silence of its walk: it placed its feet with a precision and grace disproportionate to its size, and the huge spongy pads absorbed all sound. The trunk hung slackly, almost to the ground and only the tip unrolled and touched the earth, picking up a leaf or a seed pod with an extraordinary dexterity that matched human fingers, toying with it then tossing it aside.



Closer still, they could see clearly that its one visible eye was set in a web of deep grey wrinkles, like the concentric rings of a spider's web. A wet stain of tears ran from one corner down its weathered cheek, but the eye gleamed with a sheen of intelligence and sagacity. With every few slow strides the tip of one of those long tusks touched the ground and left a tiny furrow in the earth.



Closer it came until it seemed to fill the sky above them, and they held their breath, expecting to be trodden on or at least stabbed through by a thrust from one of those gleaming ivory shafts. Louisa stirred, ready to spring up and run, but Jim tightened his grip on her shoulder and restrained her.



The bull was making a deep rumble in his throat and belly, which sounded like distant thunder. Louisa trembled in sympathy, excitement mingling with dread. Slowly, so as not to alarm the animal, Jim raised the little rifle to his shoulder and looked over the sights at the great grey head. Beside him he felt Louisa stiffen in anticipation of the shot. Then he remembered all that his father had told him, where to aim for a shot to the brain.



But only a fool and a braggart tries that shot," Tom had told him. Tis such a tiny mark to hit in the huge bony castle of the skull. The



true hunter makes certain of the kill. He uses a heavy bore that throws a weighty ball, and he shoots for the shoulder, for the heart and the lungs."



Jim lowered the rifle, and beside him Louisa relaxed. The elephant passed their hiding-place with its stately stride, and fifty paces further on it reached a small gwarrie tree, began to strip its purple berries and lift them fastidiously to its mouth. When the withered, baggy rump was turned towards them, Jim rose cautiously and led Louisa back over the ridge. He picked out the feather of dust coming towards them from the direction of the wagons, and the pale shape of Frost at full gallop.



As Bakkat came up, Jim said, "That was quick work, and well done." He snatched one of the great guns from his hand before Bakkat had a chance to dismount. Quickly he examined the weapon. It was unloaded and thick with grease, but the flint was new and well shaped. Quickly he set about loading. He rammed the huge, glistening ball down the barrel. At four ounces, it was almost twice the size of a ripe grape. It had been rendered adamantine by the addition of pewter to the molten lead. When it was seated firmly on the wad and the heavy charge of black powder, he looked to the priming, then exchanged the weapon for the second of the pair Bakkat held out to him. When both were loaded, he said, There is a magnificent bull feeding close by, just over yonder ridge. I will attack him on foot but as soon as you hear my shot, bring up Drumfire and the second gun with all speed."



"What must I do?" Louisa asked, and he hesitated. His instinct was to send her back to the wagons, but he knew that would be unfair. She should not be deprived of the excitement and adventure of this first chase after the mighty beasts. More importantly, she would probably refuse to obey him, and he did not have time now for an argument he would almost certainly lose. On the other hand he could not leave her here. He knew, from vivid accounts that his father had given him, that once the first shot was fired the bush would be swarming with panic stricken beasts running in all directions. If one came upon her when she was unprotected she would be in mortal danger. "Follow us, but not too closely. You must keep me or Bakkat in sight at all times, but you must also keep a watchful eye all around you. Elephant might come from any direction, even from behind. But you can rely on Trueheart to carry you out of danger."



He drew back the hammer of the big gun to half-cock, ran to the crest of the ridge, and peered over. Nothing had changed in the time since he had last seen the bull. He was still feeding quietly on the gwarrie tree, facing away from Jim. The herds below were resting, or pounds



feeding quietly, and the young calves were still frolicking around the legs of their dams.



Jim paused only to check the direction of the breeze once more. He felt its cool, light touch on his sweaty face, but he took a few moments to dribble a handful of dust through his fingers. The breeze was still steady and in his favour. He knew that there was little reason for concealment now. The eyesight of the elephant is poor, and they are unable to distinguish the form of a man at fifty paces, as long as he remains motionless. On the other hand, their sense of smell is phenomenal.



With the breeze in his favour, and stepping lightly, Jim crept up behind the feeding bull. His father's words came back to him: "Close. Always get as close as you can. Every yard you close with the quarry makes the kill more certain. Thirty paces is too far. Twenty is not as good as ten. Five paces is perfect. From that range your ball will drive to the heart."



As he drew in closer Jim's steps slowed. It was as though his legs were filling with molten lead. His breath became laboured, and he felt as though he was suffocating. The gun in his hands was becoming heavier. He had not expected to be afraid. I have never been scared before, he thought, and then, well, perhaps just a little, sometimes.



Closer and still closer. Then he remembered he had forgotten to fully cock the hammer of the big gun. He was so close that the bull would hear the click of the mechanism, and take fright. He hesitated, and the animal moved. With that ponderous, deliberate stride it began to circle the gwarrie tree. Jim's heart jumped against his ribs as its flank was exposed to him, and he could make out the outline of the massive shoulder-blade beneath the riven, creased hide. It was just as his father had drawn it for him. He knew exactly where to aim. He lifted the butt to his shoulder, but the bull kept moving round the tree, until its shoulder was covered by the twisted branches and thick, shiny green foliage. It stopped on the far side of the bush from him, and began to feed again. It was so close that Jim could see the individual bristles in its ear, and the thick, matted eyelashes surrounding the knowing little eye that seemed so incongruous in the ancient, mountainous head.



"Only a fool and a braggart shoots for the brain," his father had warned him, but the shoulder was covered and he was so close. Surely he could not miss from this range. First he had to fully cock the rifle. He placed his hand over the action, trying to muffle it, and he inched back the engraved steel hammer. He felt the moment when the sear was about to engage and bit his tongue as he concentrated on easing it through that last fraction of the arc.



He was watching the bull, trying by the force of his will to lull it to the sound of metal on metal. The elephant was chewing with evident satisfaction, stuffing the ripe berries into its mouth; the inside of its lips was stained purple.



Click! To Jim the sound was deafening in the great silence of the wilderness. The elephant stopped chewing and froze in monumental stillness. It had heard that alien sound, and Jim knew that it was poised on the edge of flight.



Jim stared hard at the dark slit of the ear hole and slowly lifted the butt to his shoulder. The iron sights did not impinge upon his vision: he seemed to look through them. All his being was concentrated on that spot half a finger's length in front of the ear. He knew the pull and feel of the trigger intimately, but so intense was his concentration that the thunder of the shot surprised him.



The butt of the weapon pounded into his shoulder, driving him back two paces before he regained his balance. The long bluish plume of powder smoke gushed out from the muzzle and seemed to stroke the wrinkled grey skin of the bull's temple. Jim was unsighted by the recoil and by the cloud of smoke, so he did not see the strike of the ball, but he heard it crack against the skull like an axe blade against the trunk of an ironwood tree.



The bull threw back its great head and dropped with almost miraculous suddenness, hitting the earth with such force that he raised a cloud of dust. The ground under Jim's feet seemed to jump with the impact. Jim regained his balance and gaped with astonishment at what he had achieved. Then his heart soared and he whooped with triumph. "He's down! With a single shot I have slain him." He started forward to gloat over his kill, but there came the pounding of hoofs from behind.



When he glanced round Bakkat was galloping up on Frost, waving the second gun and leading Drumfire. "Change guns, Somoya!" he shouted. "Behold! There are dWovu all about us. We may kill ten more if we ride hard."



"I must see the bull I have killed," Jim protested. "I must cut off his tail." This was the trophy his father had always taken from a downed beast, even in the heat of the chase.



"If he is dead he will stay dead." Bakkat reined in, snatched the empty gun from his hand and thrust the loaded one towards him. The others will be gone before you have a chance to cut off the tail. Once they are gone you will never see them again." Still Jim hesitated, looking longingly to where the fallen bull lay concealed behind the gwarrie tree. "Come, Somoya! See the dust they raise as they run. Soon it will be too late."



Jim looked down the slope and saw that his shot had startled the herds, and in the basin below them the elephant were scattering and fleeing in every direction. His father had told him of the peculiar instinctive horror that the elephant entertains towards man: even if they have never before encountered his cruel, warlike behaviour they will run a hundred leagues from their first contact with him. Still he hesitated, and Bakkat told him urgently, "Somoya, the moment passes." He pointed at two more great bulls charging past, less than a pistol shot from where they stood. Their ears were folded back against their shoulders and they were at full run. They will be gone before you can draw three more breaths. Follow! Follow with all speed!"



The bulls were already disappearing into the forest, but Jim knew he could catch up within a mile of hard riding. He hesitated no longer. With the loaded rifle in hand he leaped into Drumfire's saddle and booted him in the ribs. "Ha! Ha! Drumfire! After them, my darling." He turned the stallion's head down the slope and they tore off in pursuit. Drumfire caught the contagious excitement of his rider, and his eyes rolled wildly as he drove his head into each stride like a sledgehammer. They swung in behind the running bulls, closing swiftly. Jim slitted his eyes against the dust storm they were throwing up with the huge pads of their feet, and the thorn branches that whipped back into his face. He picked out the larger of the two great bulls. Even from his station dead astern he could see the wide curves of its tusks showing on each side of its heaving flanks.



"I will sup with the devil if he's not bigger than the first one I downed," he exulted, and steered Drumfire out to one side, trying to come level with the bull, seeking to open his flank for a shot at the shoulder. He held the rifle across the pommel of his saddle and eased the hammer back into the half-cock position.



Then, from behind him, he heard the wild trumpeting of an enraged elephant, followed, almost immediately, by Louisa's scream.



The two dreadful sounds were almost drowned by distance and the thunder of Drumfire's hoofs. But there was a timbre to Louisa's cry that raked every nerve in his body and cut him to the heart. It was the wild ringing screech of abject terror. He swivelled in the saddle and looked back and saw her mortal predicament.



Obedient to Jim's instructions, Louisa had hung back, keeping Trueheart behind Frost as they crossed the ridge at a walk. She saw Jim two hundred paces ahead. His back was turned towards her, and he was moving forward deliberately, half crouched over the weapon he carried level with his waist.



For a moment she failed to see the bull. With its grey colour it seemed to blend like smoke into the bush around him. Then she gasped as her eyes picked out its form. It seemed mountainous, and Jim was so close to the beast that she was terrified for his safety. She stopped Trueheart and watched, with dreadful fascination, as Jim crept closer still. She saw the bull change its position, move behind the gwarrie tree, and for a moment she thought it had eluded Jim's stalk. Then she saw Jim rise from his crouch and lift the long barrel of his rifle. When he aimed, the muzzle seemed to touch the bull's head, and then came the thunderous clap of the discharge, like the mainsail of the Meeuw filling with wind as she tacked into the storm.



The blue powder smoke boiled and churned in the breeze, and the bull went down as though struck by an avalanche. Then all was shouting and commotion as Bakkat spurred forward from beside her, and raced to where Jim stood, dragging Drumfire on the lead rein after him. Jim went up on Drumfire and, leaving the downed bull lying where it had fallen, he and Bakkat raced down the slope, chasing two more huge elephant that she had not noticed until that moment.



Louisa let them go. Without conscious volition, she found that Trueheart had responded to a slight pressure of her knees and was walking forward towards the gwarrie tree behind which the bull had fallen. She did not try to stop the mare and as they approached her curiosity increased. She raised herself in the stirrups to see over the tree, trying to catch a glimpse of the mighty creature she had seen fall there.



She was almost up to the tree when she saw a small flirt of movement, too insignificant to have been made by such a large beast. She rode closer, and this time she realized that what she had seen was a flick of the elephant's stubby tail. The clump of bristles at the end was worn and ragged as an old paintbrush.



She was about to dismount and lead Trueheart forward for a better view of the carcass and the curved, magnificent yellow tusks that intrigued her. Then, to her horrified disbelief, the bull stood up. It came to its feet in one swift motion, alert and agile as though waking from a light sleep. It stood for a moment, as though listening. A rivulet of



bright scarlet blood poured from the wound in its temple, and down its grey, wrinkled cheek. Trueheart snorted with fright and shied away. In the act of dismounting, Louisa had only one foot in the stirrup and she was nearly thrown, but with an effort she regained her seat.



The bull had heard Trueheart snort, and turned towards them. Its huge ears flared out: it saw them as his tormentors. The horse and human scent filled its head, an alien odour it had never smelt before, but which reeked of danger.



The bull shook its head, the huge ears snapping and clattering with the strength of the movement, and it squealed its fury and affront. Blood splattered from the bullet wound, and the droplets pelted into Louisa's face, warm as monsoon rain, and she screamed with all her breath and all the strength of her lungs. "Jim! Save me!"



The bull rolled its trunk up against its chest, and half cocked its ears back with the ends curled, the attitude of ultimate aggression. Then it charged straight at them. Trueheart wheeled away, laid her ears flat and burst into full gallop. She seemed to take flight, to skim lightly over the rough surface, but the bull stayed close at her tail, squealing again and again with fury, a pink feather of blood blowing back from its head wound.



With a burst of speed Trueheart opened the gap, pulling ahead, but suddenly there was a hedge of thorn bush in front of her and she was forced to check, and change direction to swerve round the obstacle. The bull did not hesitate, but burst through the thorn thicket as though it did not exist, regaining all the ground it had lost. It was now closer still.



With horror Louisa saw that there was rocky ground ahead and denser thickets of thorn bush blocking their path. The bull was driving them into a trap, in which even Trueheart's speed would be of little avail. Louisa remembered the small French rifle under her right leg. In her terror she had forgotten its existence, but now she knew it was all she had to stop the bull snatching her from the saddle. She glanced back and saw that the long ophidian trunk was already reaching out for her.



She drew the rifle from its leather sheath, swivelled round and cocked the weapon in the same movement. Again she screamed involuntarily as she saw the grasping trunk waving in her face, and threw up the rifle. The enormous head filled all her vision and she did not aim but fired blindly into the bull's face.



The light ball could never have penetrated the thick hide and the bony casket of the skull, but the bull was vulnerable in one place. By the wildest chance the ball found that mark. It entered the eye-socket at a raking angle, and burst the eyeball, blinding the bull instantly on the same side of its head as the wound Jim had inflicted.



fe".



The elephant reeled and staggered, losing ground on Trueheart, but it recovered almost immediately and started forward again. All of Louisa's attention was fastened on the task of reloading the rifle, but she had never done this on horseback at full gallop, and the gunpowder spewed from the flask and blew away in the wind. She glanced back and saw that the bull still had them in the focus of its right eye and was reaching for her again. She knew that this time it would have her.



So complete was her fascination with her fate that she did not see the thicket looming ahead. Trueheart swerved to avoid running full into it, and Louisa was thrown off balance teetering in the saddle. She dropped the rifle as she clutched at the pommel. The weapon clattered on the rocky ground.



Hanging half out of the saddle she was dragged down the length of the thicket. The hooked thorns were tipped with crimson and needle sharp. They bit into her clothing and into her flesh like myriad cats' claws. Their combined grip was irresistible and Louisa was jerked cleanly from Trueheart's back. The mare galloped on with an empty saddle, leaving Louisa dangling and struggling in the tenacious grip of the thorns.



The elephant had lost sight of her on his blind side, but it smelt her: the odour of the fresh blood from the tiny wounds inflicted by the thorns was strong. It let Trueheart run on unmolested and turned back. It began to search for Louisa with outstretched trunk, pushing its way into the thicket, its thick grey hide impervious to the hooked thorns, guided by the sound of Louisa's struggles and her scent. It closed in on her swiftly. She realized her danger and froze into stillness.



She lay quietly in the grip of the thorns and watched with resignation as the questing tip of the trunk groped towards her. It touched her boot, then locked round her ankle. With unimaginable strength she was torn out of the thicket, the clinging thorns breaking off in the folds of her clothing or in her skin.



She hung upside down, dangling by one leg from the trunk of the elephant. Its grip on her ankle tightened and she feared that at any moment the bone would crush to splinters. From all Jim had told her, she knew what would happen next. The bull would lift her high in the air and then, with all its monstrous power, would dash her head first against the rocky ground. It would beat her against the earth again and again, until almost every bone in her body was shattered and then it would kneel on her and crush her to pulp, driving the points of its tusks through and through.



Jim turned at the sound of her first scream and the shrill trumpeting of the huge bull. He broke off the chase after the two other elephants, and reined Drumfire hard down on his haunches. Then he stared back in horror and disbelief. "I killed it!" he gasped. "I left it dead." But at the same time he remembered his father's warning. "The brain is so small, and is not placed where you would expect it to be. If you miss it by even the breadth of your little finger, the animal will drop as though stone-dead, but it is stunned only. When it comes round, it will be unimpaired and many times more dangerous than before. I have seen good men killed that way. Never chance that shot, Jim, my boy, or you will live to regret it."



"Bakkat!" Jim yelled. "Stay close with the second gun!" He gave Drumfire the spurs, and sent him back at full gallop. Louisa and the bull were running directly away from him, and he overhauled them only gradually. He was seized by a feeling of debilitating impotence: he could see that Louisa would be killed before he could reach her, and it was his fault: he had left the enraged animal in a position where it could attack her.



"I'm coming!" he yelled. "Hold hard!" He tried to give her courage but in the thunder of hoofs and the ringing trumpeting of the bull she showed no sign of having heard him. He watched her turn in the saddle and fire the little lady's rifle, but though the bull staggered slightly to the shot it did not leave her.



Then he watched in despair as Louisa ran into the bushes and was plucked from the saddle. The elephant turned back to hunt for her, as she was held powerless in the grip of the thorns. However, this check enabled Jim to push in so close that Drumfire balked and shied at the gamy stench of the elephant, and at its threatening presence. Using his spurs without mercy, Jim drove him in closer still, watching for an opportunity to send in a telling shot. He knew that his ball must break bone or hit the vitals to distract the bull. However, all was confused movement, noise and flying dust. The elephant was wading through the thorn bush, and the waving branches protected his vulnerable parts and frustrated Jim's aim. Drumfire was skittering under him, throwing his head and trying to back away from the terrible menace of the elephant.



He saw Louisa tangled in the thorns. She showed no sign of life. He thought that her neck might have snapped in the fall or that her skull was crushed in. The idea of losing her was too agonizing to be borne, and he forced Drumfire forward with all his strength and will. Suddenly



the bull found Louisa's limp body and hauled her out of the thicket. Jim dared not fire at its head for fear of hitting Louisa. He was forced to wait until the beast backed and turned broadside to him, at last exposing its flank. Jim leaned far out of the saddle, reaching up until the muzzle of the heavy gun almost touched the rough and baggy skin, and he fired.



The ball struck the point of the bull's shoulder, on the heavy joint of humerus and scapula, shattering the bone. The elephant reeled back from the shot, and threw out its trunk to balance itself on three legs. It released its grip on Louisa's leg, and she fell back into the thicket where the branches cushioned her from the hard earth.



The elephant turned towards Jim, ears flaring, shrilling with pain and rage, then reached out with its trunk to pull him from the saddle. But it was pinned by its broken front leg, and Jim turned Drumfire away, swinging out of reach, and rode back to meet Bakkat who was coming up with the second gun. With expertise born of long practice they exchanged guns. "Reload! As quick as you like!" Jim shouted, and with the second weapon in his hand he spurred back to confront the bull, which was dragging itself to meet him, hobbling on three legs, the crippled front leg twisted and useless.



Jim could see now that Louisa's shot had blinded one eye, for blood and eye jelly poured down its cheek. He changed direction, coming in from the bull's blind side, so close that the tip of one tusk grazed his shoulder, and as he went by he fired into its chest without checking Drumfire's gallop. The bull staggered. This time the heavy four-ounce ball had gone in deeply, cutting through the vital organs, the tangled arteries and veins deep in the chest cavity. It was a fatal wound but it would take time for the beast to fall.



He reckoned that Louisa was out of harm's way, as long as she stayed where she was, deeply hidden in the thicket. In the utmost haste Jim rode back to where Bakkat had dropped down from Frost's back, the better and swifter to reload the other gun. It took courage to dismount in the face of a wounded elephant.



Courage is one thing he lacks not! Jim thought, as he watched for him to finish the complicated business of reloading the heavy gun. Drumfire danced in nervous circles, and Jim glanced back to watch the bull. Then he shouted with alarm as he saw Louisa crawling out of the thorn bush on hands and knees, almost under the bull's trampling feet. Exposed as she now was, she was once again in terrible danger. He dropped the empty gun and, not waiting for Bakkat to finish reloading, galloped back. Again he swerved in from the bull's blind side so that he could risk a much closer pass.



Obviously half stunned, Louisa came to her feet, favouring her injured leg where the bull's trunk had seized her. She saw Jim riding towards her, hopped towards him and lifted her arms. She was a dreadful sight, her clothing torn by thorns and stained with blood. She was covered with scratches and dust, her long hair tumbling down over her face.



Drumfire brushed so closely along the bull's blind side that the blood that flowed down from the wound in its shoulder stained Jim's breeches at the knee, but when the elephant swung its trunk to swat him like a fly, Jim flattened himself along Drumfire's neck and ducked under the blow. They galloped up to Louisa and, without pausing, Jim leaned far out of the saddle, gripping only with his knees, flung one arm round Louisa and swung her up behind him. As soon as she was astride she locked both her arms around his waist and pressed her face into his sweaty shirt between his shoulder-blades. She was sobbing with pain and fright, unable to utter a word. He carried her to the crest of the hill, swung himself to the ground, and reached up to lift her down from Drumfire's back.



She was still unable to speak, but words were unnecessary and inadequate. Her eyes, close to his, expressed all her gratitude and gave him a glimpse of her other emotions, still too complex and confused for her to express.



Jim set her carefully on the ground. "Where are you hurt?" he asked. His voice was choked with concern for her. The toll that their brush with death had exacted was clear to see on his face, and this rallied her. She clung to him still as he knelt over her.



"My ankle, but 'tis almost nothing," she whispered.



"Let me see it," he said, and she let her arms slip away from his neck. "Which one?" he asked, and she showed him. He eased the boot from her foot and tested her leg gently. "It's not broken," he said.



"No." She sat up. "And 'tis only a little sore." She brushed the golden hair off her dusty face and he saw that a thorn was stuck into her cheek. He plucked it out, and she winced but held his gaze. "Jim!" she whispered.



"Yes, my little hedgehog?"



"No, 'tis nothing, except--' She broke off, unable to finish, then went on lamely, "I like it well enough when you call me that."



"I'm glad to have you back," Jim said. "For a moment I thought you had taken leave of us."



"I must be a sight to give children nightmares." She could look no longer into his eyes, and tried to wipe the dust from her face.



Only a woman could consider her appearance at such a time, Jim



thought, but he did not say it. "You are such a sight as I have dreamed on," he said instead, and she blushed under the dirt.



Then Bakkat rode up on Frost with both the great guns loaded and primed. The bull will escape us yet, if you let him, Somoya."



Jim roused himself to what was happening around them. He saw the old bull walking away slowly downhill, dragging one front leg and shaking its huge head as the agony of the burst eyeball raged through its skull.



"Oh, Jim," Louisa whispered. "The poor beast is in terrible extremes. You must not let him suffer so."



"It will not take long," he promised her. He stepped up into Drumfire's saddle and took the gun Bakkat handed up to him. Then he rode down the slope, circled out ahead of the maimed animal and stopped Drumfire squarely in its path. He cocked the hammer and waited.



The bull seemed not to notice them and came on slowly, painfully. At ten paces Jim fired into the front of its chest. As the ball socked heavily into the wrinkled hide, he spun Drumfire away like a dancer. The bull made no move to follow them. It stood still as a monument, and the heart blood pumped from the fresh bullet hole, bright as a fountain in the sunlight.



Jim changed guns with Bakkat, then brought Drumfire back towards where the bull still stood. He came in on its blind side at a steady walk. The bull began to rock gently on its feet, once again making a soft rumbling sound deep in its chest. Jim felt all his warlike passions abating, to be replaced by a feeling of sadness and aching remorse. With this most noble of all quarry, he felt more intensely than ever the eternal tragedy of the kill. It was an effort to raise the gun and fire again. The bull shuddered when it received the ball, and began to back away, but its movements were slow and unsteady. Then, at last, it sighed, a laboured, gusty sound.



It fell the way a great tree goes down before the axe and cross-saw, slowly at first, then faster until it hit the earth with a crash that echoed from the hills across the valley.



Bakkat slipped off Frost's back, and went forward. The elephant's good eye was wide open, and Bakkat ran his finger lightly along the fringe of its lashes. It did not blink. "It is over, Somoya. He belongs to you for ever."



Despite her protests that her injuries were of no consequence, Jim would not let Louisa ride back to the wagons. He and Bakkat cut two long, supple poles and with a framework of lighter sticks fastened between them, the whole covered by the canvas ground sheets from their blanket rolls, they contrived a travois for Trueheart to drag behind her. Jim laid Louisa tenderly on it and picked the smoothest path to lead Trueheart back to the wagons.



Although Louisa laughed from this comfortable bed, and declared it the easiest journey she had ever made, by the time they reached the wagons her injuries had stiffened. When she rose from the travois she hobbled to her wagon like a very old lady.



Jim hovered around her anxiously, aware that any uninvited help he might offer would be rejected. He was surprised and delighted when she placed a hand on his shoulder as she climbed the wagon steps. He left her to take off her torn, soiled clothing while he supervised the heating of the water cauldron and the preparation of the copper hip-bath. Zama and the other servants removed the after chest from her wagon and set up the bath in its place. Then they filled it with steaming water. When all was ready, Jim retired and listened through the canvas tent to her splashes, and winced in sympathy to her small cries and exclamations of pain as the water stung her abrasions and thorn pricks. When at last he judged that she had finished he asked permission to enter her wagon tent. "Yes, you may come in, for I am as chastely attired as a nun."



She was wearing the dressing-robe Sarah Courtney had given her. It reached from her chin to her ankles, and down to her wrists.



"Is there aught I can do to ease your discomfort?" he asked.



"I have rubbed your aunt Yasmini's sovereign balm and ointment upon my ankle and on most of my other afflictions." She lifted the hem of the robe a few inches to show her ankle tightly wrapped in bandages. Dorian Courtney's wife was an adept of Arabian and Oriental medicine. Her famous ointment was the family cure-all. Sarah had packed a dozen large jars of it into the medical chest she had given them. There was an open jar beside Louisa's car dell bed, and the strong but pleasant herbal smell permeated the interior of the tent.



Jim was not sure where these remarks were leading, but he nodded wisely. Then she blushed again, and, without looking at him, murmured, However, I have thorns in places that I cannot reach. And bruises sufficient for two persons to share."



It did not occur to him that she was asking for his help, and she had



to make it more apparent. She reached over one shoulder and touched her back as far down as she could reach. "It feels as though I have an entire forest of thorns embedded down there." Still he stared at her, and she had to eschew all attempts at subtlety and modesty.



"In the chest you will find a pair of tweezers and a selection of needles you can use," she said, turned her back to him and slipped the robe off her shoulder. "There is one particular thorn here, just below my shoulder blade." She touched the spot. "It feels like a crucifixion nail."



He gulped as he grasped her meaning, and reached for the tweezers. "I shall try not to hurt you, but cry out if I do," he said, but he was well practised in caring for sick and wounded animals, and his touch was firm but gentle.



She stretched out face down upon the sheepskin mattress, and gave herself over to his ministrations. Although her back was scratched and punctured in many places, and pale lymph and watery blood wept from the injuries, her skin was marble smooth and lustrously pale where it was undamaged. Although when he had first met her she had been a skinny waif, since then an abundance of good food and months of riding and walking had firmed and shaped her muscles. Even in her present straits, her body was the loveliest thing he had ever laid eyes on. He worked in silence, not trusting his voice, and except for the occasional gasp or small whimper Louisa said nothing.



When he folded back the hem of her robe to reach another hidden thorn, she moved slightly to make it easier for him. When he peeled back the silk a little further it revealed the beginning of the delicate cleft that separated her buttocks and down so fine and pale that it was invisible until the light fell upon it from a certain angle. Jim stood back and averted his eyes, although the effort required to do so was almost beyond him. "I cannot go further," he blurted.



Tray, why not?" she asked, without lifting her face from the pillow. "I can feel there are thorns that still demand your attention."



"Modesty forbids it."



"So you will not care if my injuries mortify, and I die of blood poisoning to save your precious modesty?"



"Do not jest so," he exclaimed. The thought of her death struck deep into his soul. She had come so close to it this very morning.



"I jest not, James Archibald." She raised her head from the pillow and regarded him frostily. "I have no one else to whom I may turn. Think of yourself as a surgeon, and me as your patient."



The lines of her naked bottom were pure and symmetrical beyond any geometrical or navigational diagram he had studied. Under his



fingers her skin was warm and silken. When he had removed the thorns and anointed her various wounds with the balm, he measured a dose of laudanum to ease her discomfort. Then, at last, he was free to leave her wagon tent. But his legs seemed almost too weak to carry him.



Jim ate dinner alone at the campfire. Zama had roasted a large slice of the elephant's trunk, considered by his father and other connoisseurs to be one of the great delicacies of the African bush. But Jim's jaw ached from the effort of chewing it and it had all the flavour of boiled wood chips When the flames of the campfire died down, exhaustion overtook him. He had just sufficient energy to peep through the chink in the afterclap of Louisa's wagon tent. She was stretched out, face down under the kaross, and sleeping so soundly that he had to listen intently for the faint sound of her breathing. Then he left her and tottered to his own bed. He stripped off his clothing and dropped it on the floor, then collapsed on the sheepskin.



He woke in confusion not sure if what he was hearing was a dream or reality. It was Louisa's voice, shrill with terror: "Jim, Jim! Help me!"



He sprang from his bed to go to her, then remembered he was naked. While he groped for his breeches she cried out again. He did not have time to don his breeches, but holding them before him, he went to her rescue. He skinned his knee on the tailboard of the wagon as he jumped down, then ran to hers and dived through the curtains of the afterclap. "Louisa! Are you safe? What troubles you?"



"Ride! Oh, ride with all haste! Don't let it catch me!" she screamed. He realized that she was locked in a nightmare. This time it was difficult to wake her. He had to seize both of her shoulders and shake her.



"Jim, is it you?" At last she came back from the land of shadows. "Oh, I had such a terrible dream. It was the elephant again."



She clung to him, and he waited for her to calm. She was hot and flushed, but after a while he laid her back and pulled the fur kaross over her. "Sleep now, little hedgehog," he whispered. "I will not be far away."



"Don't leave me, Jim. Stay with me for a while."



"Until you sleep," he agreed.



But he fell asleep before she did. She felt him topple over slowly and lie full length beside her. Then his breathing became slow and even. He was not touching her, but his presence was reassuring and she let herself slip back into sleep. This time there were no dark fantasies to haunt her rest.



When she awoke in the dawn to the sounds of the camp stirring around her she reached out to touch him, but he was gone. She felt a sharp sense of loss.



She dressed and climbed painfully down from the wagon. Jim and Bakkat were busy at the horse lines washing the scratches and small injuries that Drumfire and Trueheart had received in yesterday's battle with the elephant, and feeding them a little of the precious oats and bran moistened with black molasses as a reward for their courage. When he looked up and saw Louisa struggling down from her wagon, Jim exclaimed with alarm and ran to her. "You should keep to your bed. What are you doing here?"



"I am going to see to breakfast."



"What madness is this? Zama can do without your instruction for a day. You must rest."



"Do not treat me like a child," she told him, but the reprimand lacked fire and she smiled at him as she limped to the cooking fire. He did not argue. It was a gorgeous morning, bright and cool, and this put them both in a sunny mood. They ate under the trees to the sound of birdsong from the branches above them, and the meal became a small celebration of the previous day's events. With animation they discussed every detail of the hunt and relived all the excitement and terror, but neither mentioned the events of the night, although they were uppermost in their minds.



"Now I must go back to the carcass to remove the tusks. It is not a task I can leave to others. A careless slip of the axe will damage the ivory irrevocably," he told her, as he mopped his plate with a piece of unleavened pot bread. "I will rest Drumfire today, he worked hard yesterday, and I will take Crow. Trueheart will stay in camp, for she is as lame as you are."



Then I shall ride Stag," she said. "It will not take me long to don my boots." Stag was a strong but gentle gelding they had taken from Colonel Keyser.



"You should stay in camp to recuperate fully."



"I must go with you to retrieve my rifle, which I dropped in the thorn thickets."



"That is a feeble pretext. I can do that for you."



"You do not truly believe that I shall not attend the removal of the tusks for which we risked our very lives?"



He opened his mouth to protest, but saw from her expression that it would be wasted effort. "I shall tell Bakkat to saddle Stag."



There were two traditional methods of withdrawing the tusks. The carcass could be left to decompose, and when the cartilage that held the tusks in their sockets had softened and disintegrated they could be pulled forcibly from the skull. This was a lengthy and malodorous business, and Jim was impatient to see his trophies revealed in all their magnificence. So was Louisa.



When they rode back they found a canopy of circling carrion birds darkening the sky above the body of the dead bull. In this vast assembly there was every species of vulture and eagle, as well as the undertaker storks with their monstrous beaks and bald pink heads, which seemed to have been parboiled. The branches of the trees around the dead bull groaned under the weight of this feathered horde. As Jim and Louisa rode up to the carcass, packs of hyena slunk away, and little red jackals peered at them from the cover of the thorn bushes with pricked ears and bright eyes. These scavengers had picked out the eyes of the bull and burrowed in through his anus, but they had not been able to tear open the tough grey hide to reach the flesh. Where the vultures had perched upon the carcass their excrement had left white stains down its sides. Jim felt a sense of outrage at this desecration of such a noble beast. Angrily he drew his rifle from its sheath and fired at one of the black vultures on the top branches of the nearest tree. Struck squarely by the leaden ball, the hideous bird came tumbling down in a welter of feathers and flapping wings. The rest of the roosting flock rose and climbed to join their peers in the sky above.



When Louisa retrieved her rifle, she found that the woodwork was only lightly scratched. She came back and selected a vantage-point in the shade. Seated on a saddle blanket she sketched the proceedings, and made notes in the margins of the page.



Jim's first task was to sever the bull's immense head from the neck. This had to be done to make it easier to handle it would have taken fifty men or more to roll the massive carcass from one side to the other. As it was, the decapitation took half the morning. Stripped to the waist the men were sweating in the noonday sun before it was accomplished.



Then came the painstaking work of removing the skin and chipping away the bone from around the roots of the tusks, with meticulous axe strokes. Jim, Bakkat and Zama took turns, not trusting the clumsy touch or the wagon drivers and servants on the precious ivory. First one and then the other tusk was lifted out of its bony canal and laid upon a mattress of cut grass. With quick strokes of her brush Louisa recorded



the moment when Jim stooped over the tusks and, with the point of his knife, freed the long cone-shaped nerve from the hollow butt end of each one. They slithered out, white and glutinous as jelly.



They wrapped the tusks in cushions of cut grass, loaded them on to the backs of the pack-horses and bore them back to the wagons in triumph. Jim unpacked the scale his father had given him for this purpose and suspended it from the branch of a tree. Then, surrounded by everyone, he weighed the tusks one at a time. The right-hand shaft of ivory, the bull's working tusk, was more worn and weighed 143 pounds. The larger tusk weighed 150 pounds precisely. Both were stained brown by vegetable juices where they had been exposed, but the butts were a lovely cream colour, glossy as precious porcelain where they had been protected in the sheath of bone and cartilage. "In all the hundreds of traded tusks I have seen pass through the go down at High Weald I have never seen one larger," he told Louisa proudly.



They sat late beside the campfire that night for there seemed so much still to say. Bakkat, Zama and the other servants had all rolled themselves in their blankets and were sleeping beside their fires when Jim walked Louisa back to her wagon.

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