Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon

Omne solum forti patria.

(Every region is a strong man's home.)

–SIR RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON'S MOTTO

The clangour of the parade bell sounded and voices hollered: “Aufwachen! Aufwachen!”

In Barrack 5, Compound B, of Stalag IV at Ugogi, Sir Richard Francis Burton and his fellow prisoners of war dragged themselves wearily from their bunks, quickly put on their grey uniforms, and tumbled out onto the dusty parade ground, which was baking in the afternoon heat.

Obeying shouted orders, they arranged themselves into three rows, facing forward, blinking and screwing up their faces as the glare of the white sky burned the sleep out of their eyes.

“What now?” the man to Burton's right grumbled. “Surely they can't be sending us back to the pass already?”

“They'll work us to death as long as they get the blasted road built,” another man growled.

They were referring to the passage the prisoners had been carving through the Usagara Mountains. Burton and his fellows had originally been incarcerated at Stalag III, near Zungomero, on the other side of the range. From there, they'd been escorted out daily, in a chain gang, to work on the road. When the halfway point had been reached, three months ago, they'd been marched to this new POW camp at Ugogi to commence the second half of the route.

From his place midway along the second row, Burton looked up at the guard towers. The man-things in them, standing with their mounted seedpods trained on the prisoners, appeared rather more alert than usual.

Over to the left, the gates in the high barbed-wire fence surrounding the compound were swinging shut, and inside, a large plant had just drawn to a halt, squatting down on its roots. A group of German officers stepped out of the vehicle.

“Bloody hell!” a man gasped. “That's Lettow-Vorbeck!”

“Which one?” Burton asked.

“The small bloke with the wide-brimmed hat. What the hell is he doing here?”

Burton watched as the officer, with a swagger stick under his right arm and a leather briefcase in his left hand, met with Oberstleutnant Maximilian Metzger, the camp commandant. They conversed for a few minutes then marched over to the lined-up prisoners and started walking from one end of the first row to the other. They gave each man a cursory glance, reached the end of the line, then proceeded down the second row.

When they reached Burton, they stopped and Metzger said: “Hier, Generalmajor! Hier ist der gesuchte Mann!”

Lettow-Vorbeck examined Burton's face. He pulled a photograph from his pocket, looked at it, and nodded.

“Sehr Gut gemacht! Bringen Sie ihn her!”

Metzger signalled to two rhino guards. They stamped over, took Burton by the elbows, and dragged him out of the line. He was taken across the parade ground, into the commandant's office, and pushed into a chair opposite a heavy desk. The guards stood to attention to either side of him.

Lettow-Vorbeck entered and barked: “Lassen Sie uns allein!”

The guards clicked their heels and thudded out.

There was a clockwork fan revolving on the ceiling. Burton leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and allowed the air to wash over his face. He was weary to the bone.

“Do you know who I am?” Lettow-Vorbeck said, in strongly accented English.

Without opening his eyes, Burton replied: “Generalmajor Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck. You command the German forces in East Africa.”

“That is correct. Sehr gut. So.”

Burton heard a chair scrape on the floor and creak as the other man sat down. There was a soft thump—the briefcase being swung up onto the desk—and a click as it was opened.

“I have here a file in which you feature with some considerable prominence.”

Burton didn't respond. He was hungry and thirsty, but most of all he needed to sleep.

“Private Frank Baker, captured on the western slopes of the Dut'humi Hills two years ago. You were alone—a refugee from the failed British assault on the Tanganyika Railway.”

There was a long moment of silence. Burton had still not opened his eyes. He thought about Bertie Wells and the night they'd slept in the open, beside Thomas Honesty's grave. The temperature had plummeted after sunset, and during the hours of darkness both of them developed a fever. Burton's dreams had been filled with violence; with scenes of Prussians and Arabians slaughtering each other—and he'd woken up soaked with dew, filled with memories, and cursing himself. How could he have forgotten there was a village nearby? Just along the trail!

Wells was in the grip of hallucinations, which—to judge from his babbling monologues—involved insects crawling out of the moon, invisible madmen, and three-legged harvestmen. With what little strength remained to him, Burton had hauled the war correspondent to his feet and dragged him along an overgrown trail that eventually opened into another clearing where a decrepit village stood. Its menfolk were long gone—conscripted—and the remaining villagers were elderly and half-starved. Burton left Wells with them while he went to hunt game.

But he'd become the prey. Three lurchers had blundered out of the undergrowth and pursued him across boggy ground and into thick jungle. It was peculiar; he felt certain they could have caught him, but instead they appeared to be herding him along.

One of them sprouted poppies as it floundered after him.

By the time he'd eluded them, he was lost and in the grip of malaria.

The Germans found him unconscious at the side of a trail. Since then, he'd spent nearly two years in the Stalag III POW camp before his recent transfer to Ugogi.

Large parts of his memory had returned. He knew he was the king's agent. He was aware that Algernon Swinburne, William Trounce, Thomas Honesty, Maneesh Krishnamurthy, Herbert Spencer, Sister Raghavendra, Isabella Mayson, and Isabel Arundell had travelled to Africa with him. But he didn't know why, what had become of them, or how he'd been transported into the future.

He'd been here for four years. Four years!

Why? For what purpose?

“Why?” Lettow-Vorbeck said.

Burton opened his eyes and met those of the generalmajor. Behind the officer's head, pencil-thin shafts of light shone through the slats of the window shutter. Motes of dust entered them, blazed, then vanished into the shade. Against this illumination, Lettow-Vorbeck's features were very dark—almost silhouetted—but by some quirk, his eyes shone with an almost feral intensity.

“Why what?”

“Why are you British so destructive? Do you not believe in evolution?”

“Evolution? What do you mean?”

The officer drummed the fingers of his right hand on the desktop.

“The Greater German Empire seeks to advance the human species. We wish to liberate every man and every woman from slavery so that each can fulfil his or her greatest potential. So each can become an Übermensch. Perhaps this translates as ‘Over Man,’ ja?”

Burton gave a snort of disdain. “I don't think your Askaris feel particularly liberated.”

“Nein. Nein. And it is the fault of your people. We are forced to employ the Africans to oppose British assaults on the infrastructure we are building here. Were it not for your people, Africa would have atmospheric railways and well-developed cities by now. And Europe would be a paradise, where trivial jobs and the necessities of survival are taken care of by plant life, leaving the human species free to explore its best potentials. Instead, we must assign our resources on both continents to resisting your vandalism.”

Burton's breath whistled from between his teeth. “It's always the same,” he said. “A madman creates a plan for the future of humanity, and, in unleashing it, causes untold suffering. Generalmajor, do I really need to point out that your vegetation is proliferating without check, or that while many individuals may be capable of advancing themselves, most are content to be well fed and sheltered and wish for little more?”

Lettow-Vorbeck nodded thoughtfully. “Es trifft zu, what you say of our plants. But that situation will be corrected once hostilities cease. As for your suggestion that the populace is not willing or able to evolve—I cannot agree. It is typical British thinking, for you built your Empire on the premise that an educated and privileged minority should benefit from the labours of a downtrodden majority.”

Lettow-Vorbeck suddenly slapped his hand down on the thick dossier that lay before him. “So! Lassen Sie uns auf den Punkt kommen! No more—what is the expression?—beating around the bush?” He put his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers in front of his face. “Ich kenne die Wahrheit. Your name is not Frank Baker. You are Sir Richard Francis Burton. You were born in the year 1821. You died in the year 1890. And you were sent to the year 1914 from the year 1863. Es ist ein auβerordentlicher Umstand! Unglaublich!”

Burton sat bolt upright. His exhaustion fell away.

Lettow-Vorbeck gave a slight smile, his teeth white in the shadow of his face. “Sehr gut. Sehr gut, Herr Burton. I have your full attention now. You will listen to me, ja? I have a story to tell you. But first a question: do you possess die telepathischen Fähigkeiten?”

“Mediumistic abilities? No.”

“Nor I. Hah! It is a misfortune! I should like them! You are aware, ja, that many people do? In increasing numbers, it appears. Your Colonel Crowley has his people—and they are strong—while we Germans have our weathermen, and, of course, the Kaiser himself, who is the greatest Gedankenleser—medium—of them all.”

Burton's right eyebrow rose slightly. “Nietzsche styles himself emperor now, does he?”

“Es ist angebracht, dass!”

A large fly buzzed lazily around Lettow-Vorbeck's head and landed on the desk. The German picked up the dossier and whacked it down onto the insect. He flicked the flattened corpse onto the floor and resumed his former position.

“And in Russland, there was Grigori Rasputin, also a great Gedankenleser, who, as you may know, died of—how do you say Hirnblutung?”

“Brain haemorrhage,” Burton answered.

“So. Ja. Thank you. He died of that two years ago. It is him my story concerns.”

Burton remained silent.

Lettow-Vorbeck pointed a finger down at the report lying in front of him.

“This dossier was entrusted to me by Kaiser Nietzsche himself. It contains information that no other man is aware of—just he and I—and now I will tell you.”

Still Burton said nothing.

“Thirteen years ago, after we were forced to destroy your nation's capital city, our troops discovered a number of black diamonds beneath the rubble of the Tower of London. They were the seven fragments of the Cambodian Eye of Nāga, and the seven of the African Eye. We know this because documents concerning them were also found, and, in these documents, another Eye—from South America, and also in seven pieces—was described. Of it, though, there was no sign. You know of what I speak, ja?”

“I'm aware of the Eyes of Nāga, Generalmajor,” Burton said, “but I can't help you. I don't know where the South American stones are.”

“That is not why you are here. We have already located them: our people have sensed their presence in Tabora—your last stronghold. We will recover them when we drive you from that place.”

“So far, I believe, you've not been very successful in that endeavour.”

“Ich kann es nicht verleugnen! The South American stones are being used to protect the city, Herr Burton, but the Heereswaffenamt—our Army Ordnance people—have a solution to that. A final solution! It will be put into operation soon and Tabora will be destroyed. But let us not stray from the subject—we must talk of the other Eyes, ja? For many decades, even before the Great War commenced, your people committed mediumistic acts of sabotage against German industry. When it was discovered that the diamonds were the tools your Gedankenleser had used to perpetrate their crimes, Bismarck passed them to Nietzsche, that he might employ them to—what is the word?—accentuate the talents of our own people. Nietzsche kept the Cambodian stones but sent the African ones to Rasputin, and the two men used the power of the Eyes to secure an alliance between Germany and Russland. Then, in 1914, Nietzsche overthrew Bismarck and Rasputin deposed the Tsar.”

“Two traitors betraying their leaders,” Burton said scornfully.

“Two visionaries,” Lettow-Vorbeck countered, “committed to creating a better world.”

Shouts penetrated the office from outside. The prisoners were being rounded up and marched out of the camp, on their way into the Usagara Mountains to continue work on the road.

Burton asked, “What has any of this to do with me?”

“We shall come to that. Nietzsche took control of the Greater German Empire, but before Rasputin could do similar in Russland, he died of the Hirnblutung. German agents retrieved the African stones and returned them to Nietzsche. Now we come to the interesting part of the story, for our emperor had spent considerable time probing the Cambodian fragments and he'd detected in them a remnant intelligence.”

“Yes. The Nāga,” Burton muttered.

“The mythical reptiles? Nein, das ist falsch.”

Burton looked surprised. “Then what?”

“A man. A philosopher named Herbert Spencer. It was little more than an echo, but some information could be gleaned from it; specifically that Spencer died in 1862 yet his intelligence somehow survived for a further year, before finally being extinguished in a temple filled with jewels.”

“A temple? Where?”

“Somewhere here in Africa. Fascinating, ja? So now Nietzsche probed the African stones, also, and in them, too, he found the remains of a man—the residual memories—and in these, the temple was also present, but in greater detail, and Nietzsche saw that this mysterious place, encrusted with gems of unsurpassed value, was a vast device designed to channel enormous energy.”

“To what purpose?”

“To transcend the boundaries of time, Herr Burton. And it was also recorded in the remnant memories that you, mein Freund, were sent through the device. It is how you came to 1914 from 1863.”

“I was? Why?”

“You ask me that! Es ist meine Frage!”

Burton examined his blistered hands and frowned with frustration. “I don't remember. These past four years, I've been slowly piecing together what happened to me prior to my arrival in 1914, but there are still gaps.”

“Ah. I am pleased. You admit who you are. And do you remember this temple?”

“No.”

“That is unfortunate. The Kaiser knows only that it is located somewhere in the Ruwenzori Range, deep inside the Blutdschungel.”

“The Blood Jungle? This Ruwenzori Range, was it—?”

“Once known as the Mountains of the Moon? Ja. That is the case. An area of Africa most important to you, I think!”

The German fell silent for a moment and considered Burton, who warily watched the other man's glittering eyes. Generalmajor Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, the explorer decided, was as dangerous as a venomous snake.

“Well,” the generalmajor said, “we have attempted to burn away the Blutdschungel but it grows back so fast! It is impenetrable, it covers the mountains, and it is spreading. All these years we have made no progress into the region, but that, perhaps, is because we do not know where in it we should be going. So, we have a plan.”

“And your plan involves me?”

“Ja. That is correct. As I have said, the Kaiser saw in the diamonds that the temple sent you to 1914. He therefore ordered me to find you. It has taken a long time. Africa is big! But, finally, here you are. A man from the past.”

“So?”

“So you will locate the temple for us. You somehow found your way out of it and through the Blutdschungel, so obviously there is a route.”

“But, I told you, I don't remember.”

“I think this—” the German raised a hand and tapped his forefinger against the side of his head, “—will return to you.”

Burton sighed. “So what now?”

“Now we shall escort you all the way to your Mountains of the Moon and you shall show us the way to this fabulous temple. With it, the Kaiser can send agents back in time to prevent the interference that has so delayed the expansion of the Greater German Empire! British interference, Herr Burton!”

Lettow-Vorbeck stood and slipped the dossier back into his briefcase.

He barked, “Wache!” and the two rhino guards returned. “Ab mit ihm zum Transporter!”

They hoisted Burton to his feet.

“Wait! Wait!” he urged.

Lettow-Vorbeck looked at him and asked, “Haben Sie eine Frage?”

“Yes,” Burton replied. “Yes, I have a question. The memories imprinted in the African stones—whose are they?”

“Ah,” Lettow-Vorbeck said. “Ja. Ja. This you should know! They belonged to a man named William Trounce.”

“I'm dead!” Trounce announced. He waved a large earthenware jar in the air. “Not a drop left!”

“All is not lost!” Swinburne declared. He held up a second container, and the pombe in it sloshed invitingly. “I must say, though, Pouncer: while there may be life left in my jar, the invincible languor and oppression of this climate have sucked the very last drop of it from yours truly.”

“But not the poetry,” Trounce growled. “Invincible languor, my foot! Why can't you just say, the weather in Africa is as hot as hell, like any normal person would? Pass the beer.”

After taking an immoderate swig from it, Swinburne handed the container to Trounce, who poured an extravagant amount of its contents into his mouth, swallowed, hiccupped, then said, “We've been on the blasted continent for so long that I'm even beginning to enjoy this foul brew.”

He received a belched response.

The two men, dressed in light khaki suits, were relaxing beneath a calabash tree in the centre of Ugogi, a village that lay slightly more than halfway along their route to Kazeh. It had taken two weeks to reach here from Dut'humi, passing first through cultivated lands, then following the marshy bank of the Mgazi River, before chopping their way through thick dripping jungle of the most obstinately difficult kind, and crossing a quagmire, two miles wide, where a mule had sunk completely out of sight in the stinking, sulphurous mud.

Arriving at Zungomero, in the head of the Khutu Valley, they'd at last begun the climb onto higher terrain, escaping the dreadful and diseased swamps that had made the first stage of their safari so miserable. The foothills of the Usagara Mountains, which now rose all around, were densely forested and resplendent with jungle flowers and fruits; the air was laden with the scent of jasmine, sage, and mimosa blossoms; and fresh springs jumped and tinkled across the sloping land.

It had been the only pleasant stage of the trek. All too soon, the ascents and descents became so steep that the mules had to be relieved of their loads before attempting them, and the watercourses in the valleys grew deeper and stronger and more perilous to cross.

The climate changed, too. As they gained altitude, the temperature swung from one extreme to the other. The nights were raw, the days bright and hot. But it was the damp mornings that had the most impact, for thick mist bubbled out of the mountains and drowned the valleys around them in a milky sea, out of which peaks rose like islands. Visually, it was stunning, but it chilled them to the bone.

While passing through this region, Trounce developed severe ulcerations on his legs; so painful that he couldn't walk or sit on a mule without suffering. So they carried him on a litter and Sister Raghavendra collected wild herbs and experimented with them until she found a combination that, when applied as a poultice, eased the pain and hastened the healing process.

There were other troubles.

The people of the region, the Wasagara, were recalcitrant and, on one occasion, hostile. Fortunately, despite shouting loudly and shooting arrows, they lacked courage and were bad marksmen. Rifle fire, aimed over their heads, was enough to discourage them.

As always, the terrain did far more harm than its inhabitants. Four mules and five horses died, one porter broke his leg, and another fell to his death.

Equipment was damaged by mildew and rust. Food and clothes rotted.

And, of course, there were insects: biting, stinging, scratching, wriggling, tickling, burrowing, and bloodsucking insects. The travellers felt they were being eaten alive.

They struggled through it, crossed the mountains, and arrived at Ugogi on the other side.

The village, being the first port of call after the Usagara Range and the last before the dry lands, was a favourite stopping point for caravans, and had thus developed into a prosperous trading centre, which the slavers left untouched. Because it was 2,750 feet above sea level, it enjoyed a comfortable heat and refreshing breezes, and its surrounding hills were rich in cattle, and its plains in grain.

Ugogi's people welcomed the expedition. Partridge and guinea fowl were pushed into cooking pots and a feast was prepared. There was drumming and dancing and laughter. There was pombe.

Burton announced that they would rest in the village for three days before embarking on the four-day march across the western wilderness.

That first evening, with distended bellies and befuddled senses, everyone stumbled to their beds apart from Swinburne and Trounce, who decided to lie beneath the calabash, share a couple more jars of pombe, and gaze at the Milky Way—and Herbert Spencer, whose belly couldn't distend, much to his evident disappointment, and whose senses were powered by clockwork.

The brass man returned to his tent to work on the final chapters of his First Principles of Philosophy. His parting words were: “I'm feeling a little bilious, anyway, gents.”

An oil lamp hung from a branch above Swinburne and Trounce. Mosquitoes danced around the light and big ugly moths regularly threw themselves violently into the glass.

“I bloody hate Africa!” Trounce proclaimed, with the trace of a slur. “Except for Ugogi. I bloody love Ugogi. What's your opinion, Algernon?”

“My opinion, my dear Detective Inspector William Ernest Pouncer Trounce, is that you are drinking far more than your fair share. Pass that jar back at once or I shall report to the witch doctor that you covet his wife!”

“Has he got a wife?”

“I don't know.”

“Is there even a witch doctor?”

“Confound your deductive abilities! Give me the beer!”

Trounce handed over the jar.

Swinburne drank deeply, gave a satisfied sigh, and looked up at the branches.

“How did so many stars get tangled up in the tree, I wonder?”

“They're not stars, you ass. They're glowworms.”

“I absolutely refuse to believe your perfectly logical explanation. Mine is far more poetical and therefore speaks of a greater truth.”

Trounce grunted. “The greater truth being that you're three sheets to the wind, lad.”

Swinburne blew a raspberry.

They lapsed into silence for a few minutes. A mongoose chirruped somewhere in the near distance. Farther away, something hooted mournfully. Swinburne hooted back at it.

“Seventeen,” Trounce said.

“Seventeen what?”

“Mosquito bites on my right forearm.”

“Ah, but look at this,” Swinburne replied. He stuck his left leg into the air and pulled back the trouser leg. His ankle was swollen and the skin was dark and puckered around two small puncture marks. “Snake,” he said. “Poisonous, too. That had Sadhvi going, I can tell you! She flapped about like a goose down a chimney before settling on the appropriate miracle cure!”

“Humph!” Trounce responded. He sat up, shifted until his back was to the poet, then yanked up his shirt. There was what appeared to be a bullet hole just above the small of his back.

“How about that, then? Hornet sting. Got infected. Worse than being stabbed with a stiletto.”

Swinburne unbuttoned his own shirt and displayed his left armpit. Just below it, a cluster of nasty-looking swellings decorated his ribs.

“Boils,” he revealed. “I shan't elaborate.”

Trounce winced, then said, “You'll not beat this.” He reached up, pressed his right nostril closed, and blew a hard breath out through the left. One of his ears emitted a startlingly loud whistle.

The unidentified animal hooted a reply from the darkness.

“My hat!” Swinburne exclaimed. “What's caused that?”

“I haven't a notion. It first did it when I blew my nose a few days ago, and it's been doing it ever since!”

The poet lifted the jar and gulped more beer. “Very well,” he said, and wobbled to his feet. He stood swaying for a moment, then undid his belt, dropped his trousers, and showed the Scotland Yard man his pale white buttocks, which shone in the lamplight like the full moon. They appeared to be zebra-striped.

“Ye gods!” Trounce gasped.

“Three days ago,” Swinburne slurred. “My mule was getting obstinate in one of the swamps. Saíd took a mighty swipe at it with that bakur of his, but, just as he lashed out, the blessed animal's hind legs suddenly sank about three feet down. I was sent sliding backward and received the cat myself!”

“Ouch! Did it hurt?”

“Deliciously!”

“You,” said Trounce, reaching for the pombe, “are a very curious young man, Algernon.”

“Thank you.”

A few more minutes of quiet were suddenly broken by a loud gurgling rumble, which echoed across the village.

“Elephant,” Trounce murmured.

“Thank goodness,” Swinburne replied. “I thought it was you.”

Trounce responded with a snore, which, as it happened, was a fair challenge to the nearby pachyderm.

Swinburne lay back down and considered the heavens. He reached into his jacket and pulled out Apollo's gold-tipped arrow of Eros, which he'd carried with him ever since the death of Thomas Bendyshe. He pointed it at the stars.

“I'm coming for you, Count Zeppelin,” he whispered.

About half an hour later, he clambered to his feet and stretched. He looked down at his sleeping companion and decided to leave him there beneath the tree. Pouncer would be fine. Even a predator brave enough to enter the village would shy away from such volcanic rumblings and snorts. Besides, the Yard man would receive a rude awakening soon enough, when the nightly rain arrived.

The stars to the east were already being obscured by cloud. The downpours were coming later and later, and were far shorter in duration. Soon the rainy season would end.

“Herbert,” Swinburne whispered. “I'll go and have a little chinwag with old tin-head.”

He staggered away, stopped when his trousers slipped to his ankles, hauled them up, fastened his belt, and continued on until he came to the philosopher's tent.

He pushed through the flap.

“I say, Herbert, I'm not in the slightest bit sleepy. Shall we—”

He stumbled to a halt. The clockwork philosopher was sitting at a makeshift table and was completely motionless. Wrapped in robes, he looked somewhat akin to a bundle of laundry.

“Herbert?”

There was no response.

Swinburne stepped over to his friend, put a hand on his shoulder, and gave him a shove.

Herbert didn't budge.

He'd wound down.

The poet sighed and turned to leave, but as he did so, a book on the table caught his eye. It was a large notepad, on the cover of which was written the legend: First Principles of Philosophy.

Curious to see how far along Herbert had got with his project, Swinburne reached for the book, slid it toward himself, and opened the first page. He read:

Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.

Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.

Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.

Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.

The poet frowned and flipped the pages to the middle of the book.

Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.

Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.

He kept turning until he came to the last page upon which anything was written.

Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.

Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.

Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.

“My Aunt Agatha's blue feather hat!” he exclaimed.

The next day, William Trounce complained of a thumping headache, Maneesh Krishnamurthy collapsed with malarial fever, and a messenger arrived in Ugogi. The latter had run all the way from Mzizima with a dispatch for Isabel from those Daughters of Al-Manat who'd remained behind at the fast-expanding Prussian settlement. His first words to her, in Kiswahili, and translated by Burton, were: “You will pay me very well, I should think, for I have run far and far and far!”

Burton assured him that he'd be generously rewarded.

The man closed his eyes and recounted the message in a singsong voice. He spoke in Arabic, though he obviously didn't understand the language and was merely recounting what he'd been told, parrot fashion. He said: “O Al-Manat, peace and mercy and blessings of Allah upon thee, and upon those who follow thy lead, and upon those who travel with thee. May he grant safety, speed, and good fortune to this messenger, who, regrettably, must deliver to thee bad tidings, for a great many Prussians continue to arrive in Mzizima and they are now too strong for us to fight without thy wise counsel. A force of perhaps a thousand has departed the camp and is travelling westward. We follow and are striking them at intervals, in the manner thou taught us, though we are far fewer in number. May Allah protect us and you and give us all strength to endure.”

Burton instructed Saíd to issue the man with a doti of richly patterned cloth, a box of sami-sami beads, and three coils of brass wire. The messenger, much pleased, joined the villagers to rest, drink beer, swap news, and boast of his newfound wealth.

“It sounds like an invasion force,” Isabel said to Burton. “What is Bismarck up to, sending so many troops to Africa?”

“Palmerston thinks he's trying to establish a German empire, and that he intends to use Africa's vast natural—and human—resources to fuel it.”

“So the Prussians are here to stake a claim?”

“It would appear so.”

“Then we must stop them.”

“I don't see how we can. Besides which, that's not what we're here for.”

“But surely this is a challenge to the British Empire, Richard? Is it not our duty to do something about it?”

“What do you suggest?”

“We fight!”

Burton held his hands out wide in a gesture of disbelief. “Look at us, Isabel! We're nothing but a ragtag expedition! Our clothes are half-rotted off us! We look positively skeletal! We're exhausted and ill!”

“Will Palmerston send troops?”

“I consider that highly probable.”

“Then once your mission is done, Richard, I shall lead my women against the Prussians until the British Army arrives.”

The king's agent blew out a breath and shook his head. “I can't stop you, of course. You're the most obstinate woman I've ever met. You infuriate me—and it's why I fell in love with you. Just don't take unnecessary risks, please.”

“We shall do what we do best: hit them and run. Then wait, and, when they least expect it, we'll hit them again, and then we'll run again.”

The expedition spent the remainder of the day resting, writing journal entries, checking equipment, and socialising with their generous hosts.

Before sun-up the following morning, much recovered, the travellers set forth across the Marenga M'khali, a stretch of desert that would take four days to traverse. The ground was hard and cracked, the scrub thorny, and the horizon lumpy with low, quivering, and blurring hills.

Close up, the terrain was a rusty-brown shade, strewn over with rocks and rubble and tufts of brittle white grass. As it receded into the distance, it grew paler, bleaching to a soft yellow that eventually blended hazily into the washed-out-blue sky, which deepened in colour overhead.

The sun was like fire upon their necks in the mornings, and blinded them in the afternoons.

Burton, Swinburne, and Trounce were mounted on mules. Sister Raghavendra and Miss Mayson were riding with the Daughters of Al-Manat. Krishnamurthy was being borne along on a litter.

Saíd bin Sálim and his eight Askaris kept the liberated slaves moving despite their inclination to laze until sundown. Burton by now considered his ras kafilah a marvel of efficiency and industriousness. Between Saíd and Sister Raghavendra, the expedition had progressed with a minimum of annoyances and illnesses.

Herbert Spencer limped along at the back of the column of men.

Algernon Swinburne had said nothing to anyone about what he'd seen in the clockwork man's book. He didn't know why he kept it quiet—he simply felt no need to raise the subject. At one point, on the third day, when they were climbing onto higher ground and passing huge blocks of weathered granite, he had a sudden urge to speak to Herbert about the First Principles of Philosophy, but when he'd approached him, he heard Pox—on the philosopher's head—mutter, “Sweet cheeks,” and changed his mind. Herbert was the only individual the parakeet ever complimented, and for some reason, hearing the messenger bird was enough to make the poet change his mind. Swinburne dropped the subject. He knew it was wrong to do so; he knew it made no sense; but he dropped it anyway.

The expedition did not cross the desert alone. Antelope and buffalo, giraffe and rhinoceros, elephants and zebra, in herds and alone, they all plodded along wearily, making their way toward the nearest watering holes. Burton watched and envied them their uncomplicated instincts. He wished his own possessed such clarity, and wondered whether he'd made the right choice in accepting the king's commission.

Marry the bitch, Burton. Settle down. Become consul in Fernando Po, Brazil, Damascus, and wherever the fuck else they send you. Write your damned books!

Those had been the words of Spring Heeled Jack, the man from the future. The “bitch” referred to was Isabel Arundell, and the speech had been a clue to the life he would have led had history not changed—perhaps the life he was meant to lead. In rejecting it, it now appeared that he'd inadvertently placed himself at the centre of a maelstrom that would shape the future of the world.

Why must it rest on my shoulders?

He watched the animals moving through the heat.

A horrible sense of inevitability settled over him.

The long slog continued.

Eventually, the desert became a featureless grassy plain, which disappeared into a tough, tightly packed jungle, and beyond it they reached the village of Ziwa, where they were received with war cries and a shower of poison-tipped arrows.

Five porters were killed and three mules went down before Saíd managed, through much shouting, to communicate the fact that the long line of men was not an invading army but a peaceful safari.

The headman argued that all muzungo mbáyá came to kill and steal. “Go!” he hollered. “Turn around and go all the way back to your own lands and remain in them! This place is our home and if you try to cross it we shall kill you with our arrows and then we shall take our spears and use them to kill you a second time!”

One of the lead porters laid down the bundle of cloth he'd been carrying on his head and stepped forward. “Goha!” he cried. “Do you not recognise me? It is Kidogo, who was stolen from this village by slavers some days and days and days ago!”

The p'hazi moved his head left and right as he examined the man. “H'nn! Yes, you are the son of Maguru-Mafupi, who was the son of Kibuya, who had pain in his joints and was the son of a man whose name I cannot remember but he had big ears. So now you, who were taken from us, are the slave of these white devils?”

“No! It was the one named Tippu Tip who put me in chains, but these men came and set me free. They set all these others free, too. And now I have come home, and I see my mother!”

Before the p'hazi could react, a caterwauling arose from behind the gathered warriors and a woman shoved her way through them and ran to the porter, throwing herself upon him.

“It is Kidogo, my son!” she wailed, and gave forth a loud ululation, which was quickly taken up by all the women of the village.

Goha threw down his bow and jumped up and down on it in a fit of temper. He yelled at Kidogo: “See what noise you have caused by coming home after being stolen from us? Now the women will expect a feast and drumming and dancing and we will have to dress in our finest cottons! Is there no end to the troubles and inconveniences caused by the muzungo mbáyá?”

Burton stepped forward and spoke in the man's language: “Perhaps, O p'hazi, if we provided the food?”

“And alcohol?”

“Yes. We have beer and gin and—”

Swinburne, who understood nothing except the words “beer” and “gin,” whispered urgently: “Don't give him the brandy!”

“—and gifts.”

“You will pay hongo?”

“We will pay.”

Goha scratched his stomach and looked at Burton with interest. He shouted: “Kidogo! Tell your mother to be quiet! I can't think with all her clucking and twittering!”

The liberated slave nodded and guided his parent into the village. The ululations quietened. The headman huddled into a group with his warriors and they murmured and argued and complained, with many a glance at the white men. After a few minutes, Goha turned back to Burton. He bent and picked up his bow.

“See,” he said. “You have been here but a little time and already you have broken my bow, which I have treasured my entire life, and which I made just yesterday. You people have skin like ghosts and cause destruction and misery and problems wherever you put your feet.”

“We shall replace your weapon.”

“Whatever you give me will not be as good. Is it true that you eat your dead and use their bones to make the roofs on your huts?”

“No, that is not true.”

“Is it true that Uzungu—the White Land—is far across the water and in it bright beads grow underground and the men have more wives even than I?”

“How many wives do you have?”

“Eight.”

“No, that, also, is not true, though my land is far across the water.”

“I meant five.”

“It is still not true.”

“And the beads?”

“They do not grow underground.”

“Is it true that the flowers and plants obey your will?”

“They will not obey my people but there are white men from a different land who possess some such control. They are my enemy. Have you seen them?”

“Yes. They came at night and took our cattle for meat and killed two of our women for no reason except that they like killing. They were angry because their porters kept running away and they tried to take the men of this village to replace them but we prevented that from happening, for we are fierce warriors.”

“How did you prevent it?”

“By running fast and hiding in the jungle. Sit and eat and sing and dance with us and I will tell you more of them after you have given me some beer and a better bow than this excellent one, which you broke.”

In this long-winded manner, Burton was invited to set up camp at the village, and while his friends and the porters enjoyed what turned out to be fine hospitality, Burton sat in conference with Goha and the other elders and learned that the whole region was aware that two expeditions were travelling toward the interior, and that one of them did not respect the customs of the people, while the other one did.

Of Speke's expedition, he was informed that it was perhaps three times the size of his own and comprised mainly of Prussians, with just a few African guides and maybe seventy porters. There were eight of the plant vehicles with it, and these, just as Burton's harvestman had done on the first day of the safari, caused great fear wherever they were seen.

Despite this, Speke's people were in complete disarray.

Confident that he could forge ahead by brute force alone, Burton's former travelling companion had opted not to carry specie and was refusing to pay hongo. As a result, his path through East Africa, which had thus far followed a route parallel to and some fifty miles north of Burton's own, had been made extremely hazardous by villagers, who'd run ahead to warn of his approach. Traps and obstructions had been set: the thorns of bushes to either side of the trail were smeared with poison; sharp spines were pushed point-upward into the mud of countless nullahs; and arrows and spears were launched from the undergrowth.

As it struggled through this, Speke's column of men had become ever more ragged. His porters were not paid, like Burton's, but were slaves, and they took every opportunity to slip away, often carrying equipment with them. As for the Prussian soldiers, not being accompanied by a Sister of Noble Benevolence, they had succumbed again and again to fevers and infections.

Just as Burton had suspected, Speke's long head start had been eaten away, and, frustrated, the traitor had recently attempted to solve his problems by leaving the northern trail to join the southern one, which the king's agent was following. The question was: how far in front was he?

As usual, establishing a realistic sense of time was a hopeless endeavour. When asked how long ago Speke had passed, Burton received the reply: “Days and days and days and days and days and days.”

“How many?”

“This—” And Goha stretched out his arms to indicate a distance.

It was impossible to understand what he meant, and despite Burton's experience, and no matter how many different ways he asked the question, he didn't receive a comprehensible answer.

Later, he said to Swinburne, “Time is not the same in Africa as it is in Europe. The people here have an entirely different conception of it.”

“Perhaps they are rather more poetical,” Swinburne replied.

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe they measure time not by the beat of a second or minute or hour, but by the intensity of their reactions to a thing. If they feel very disgruntled by Speke's expedition, that means it was here not long ago. If they feel mildly irritated, but they remember that they were more annoyed before, then a greater amount of time must have passed. And if they feel fine, but recall once being upset, then obviously the reason for it occurred long ago.”

“I never considered it that way,” Burton confessed. “I think you might be on to something.”

“Not that it helps much,” his assistant noted. “We still can't establish when Speke was here. How much easier it would be if old Goha could tell us, ‘Five o'clock last Sunday afternoon!’” He looked puzzled, and continued, “I say, Richard! What's the confounded day, anyway? I haven't a giddy clue!”

Burton shrugged. “Nor have I. I've haven't noted the date in my journal since—” He paused, then stretched out his arms. “This long ago.”

They left Ziwa, trudged across broad, rolling savannahs, and climbed onto the tableland of the Ugogo region. From here, they could see in the distance to their rear, crowned with mist and cut through by streaks of purple, the pale azure mountains of Usagara. In front, in the west, the terrain sank into a wide tract of brown bushland, dotted with grotesquely twisted calabash trees through which herds of elephants roamed, then rose to a range of rough hills. South and northward, verdure-crowned rocks thrust up from an uneven plain.

The villages they encountered, as they traversed this country, were inhabited by the Wagogo people, who, not having suffered as much the decimating attentions of slavers, demonstrated less timidity and a greater degree of curiosity. They turned out of their settlements in droves to watch the wakongo—the travellers—passing by, and cried out: “Wow! Wow! These must be the good men who are chasing the bad ones! Catch them, Murungwana Sana of Many Tongues, for they killed our cattle and chased us from our homes!”

However, while the people in general appeared to regard Burton's safari as a force bent on vengeance for the crimes committed by Speke's, the village elders with whom the explorer spoke proved rather more suspicious. “What will happen to us,” they asked, “when your people take the land?”

To this question, Burton had no reply, but it caused him more and more to think of Palmerston.

They will be accorded the rights given to all of our citizens.

The explorer felt increasingly uneasy.

They stopped for a day at a settlement called Kifukuru, the first where the Kinyamwezi language was spoken, rather than Kiswahili.

Swinburne entertained its inhabitants with a poetry reading. They didn't understand a word of it, of course, but they laughed uproariously at his odd twitches and hops, his jerky gestures and exaggerated facial expressions, and, for some obscure reason, they attached themselves to a stanza from “A Marching Song,” and demanded that he repeat it over and over:

Whither we know, and whence,

And dare not care wherethrough.

Desires that urge the sense,

Fears changing old with new,

Perils and pains beset the ways we press into.

Something about the first line of this caused the audience great merriment—perhaps its rhythm, or the sound of the words—and throughout the rest of the day, the diminutive poet was followed everywhere by hordes of children, who chanted, “Widdawenow! Anwense! Andah! Notkah! Wedru!”

“My hat, Richard!” he exclaimed. “I feel like the blessed Pied Piper of Hamelin! Aren't these little scamps marvellous, though?”

“They're the future, Algy!” Burton replied, and was instantly stricken by an incomprehensible sadness.

The next morning, the expedition took up its baggage and moved on, and Burton carried with him a growing depression and irritability. It was obvious to the others that he was lost in thought. He sat on his mule with his dark eyes smouldering, and his jaw, hidden behind a long bushy beard, set hard.

The rainy season had ended now and the plain, clothed in long ossifying grass, was already a mosaic of deep cracks. It took them two days to cross it, during which time Burton spoke little, then they chopped their way through a jungle and emerged into a ten-mile-wide clearing. Here, a powerful Wagogo chief named Magomba, who'd caused problems for Burton in '57, did so again by demanding that hongo be paid not just for the explorer's expedition but also for Speke's, which had forced its way with violence through the area. Reparation was also demanded for seven men killed by the Prussian forces.

Magomba was jet black in colour and his skin was crisscrossed with thousands of fine wrinkles. From the back and sides of his half-bald head, a few straggly corkscrews of grey hair depended; the whites of his eyes were actually yellow; and his filed teeth were brown. Brass rings dragged his earlobes down to his shoulders.

He squatted, all bones and joints, on a stool in his village's bandani, chewed constantly at a quid of tobacco, and expectorated without mercy.

Burton and Saíd bin Salím sat cross-legged before him.

“There was ucháwi—black magic,” Magomba said. “And I will not have ucháwi in my land.”

“What happened, O Magomba?” Burton asked. “Explain to me.”

“One of thy people—”

“Not mine!” Burton interrupted. “They are the enemy of my people!”

“One of thy people took a man by the neck and shook him until he dropped to the ground. The next morning, the man had turned into a tree. We had to cut off his head and burn him. Now, listen carefully whilst I tell thee of the tax thou must pay in order to pass through my domain.”

Magomba's demands were extortionate. Burton and Saíd spent the entire afternoon haggling, and eventually paid ten patterned cloths, six coils of brass wire, seven blue cottons, a pocket watch, twenty-five brass buttons, four boxes of beads, a quarter of tobacco, and a bottle of port.

“Good,” Magomba said. “Now I shall order a calf killed so that thy people may eat. It is good to see thee again, Murungwana Sana. Ever hast thou been my favourite of all the foul devils that plague this unhappy land.”

The next morning, as the expedition prepared for departure, the old chief confronted Burton and said, “I have had the blue cottons counted. There are only seven rolls.”

“It is what we agreed.”

“No. Thou promised nine.”

“You art mistaken. We said seven, and seven it is.”

“I will accept eight, providing thou swears an oath.”

“What oath?”

“Thou must give thy word not to strike my land with drought, nor with disease, nor with misfortune.”

“Eight it is, then. And I swear.”

Burton's porters hacked a route through the bordering jungle. The explorer led his people out of the clearing and, eventually, up into the hills and onto the glaring white plains of the Kanyenye region. Though the going was easier here, the heat was hellish and pertinacious gadflies assailed them all. The Daughters of Al-Manat had trouble controlling their horses, which constantly shied under the onslaught, and the pack mules bucked and kicked and shed their loads. As the ground gradually rose and became rockier, the expedition also suffered from a want of water, having used up their supply more rapidly than usual.

They started across rolling, very uneven ground, congested with gorse-like bushes and deeply pocked with holes and crevices.

Burton's calf muscles kept cramping, causing him such agony that he could barely keep from screaming.

Swinburne was thrown from his steed and landed among long, viciously sharp thorns. He emerged with his clothes in tatters and his body scratched and bleeding from head to toe. He announced, with much satisfaction, that it would sting for the rest of the day.

William Trounce slipped on stony ground and twisted his ankle.

Maneesh Krishnamurthy, who'd recovered from his malarial attack, was stung in his right ear. It became infected, and his sense of balance was so badly disturbed that he suffered severe dizziness and spent a whole day vomiting until he lapsed into unconsciousness. Once again, he had to be carried on a stretcher.

Isabella Mayson was prostrated by a gastric complaint that caused embarrassingly unladylike symptoms.

Isabel Arundell's horse collapsed and died beneath her, sending her crashing to the ground where she lay stunned until they revived her with smelling salts and a dash of brandy.

Herbert Spencer declared that he was experiencing shooting pains along his limbs, which was impossible, of course, but they'd all concluded that his hypochondriacal tendencies really did cause him discomfort.

Sister Raghavendra developed ophthalmia and could see nothing but blurred shapes and moving colours.

Two of Saíd bin Sálim's Askaris collapsed with fever, and the ras kafilah himself was stricken with an indefinable ague.

Nearly half of the Daughters of Al-Manat were beset by illness and infections.

Two more horses and three mules died.

Pox the parakeet flew away and didn't return.

As the sun was setting, they arrived in the district of K'hok'ho and wearily set up camp on open ground. No sooner had they lit a fire than angry warriors from the two nearby villages surrounded them and demanded that they move on. No amount of arguing would convince them that the expedition was anything other than an invading force, like the one before it. Tempers flared. A warrior stepped forward and thrust a spear into William Trounce's upper arm. Burton fought to control the Askaris, who stepped forward with scimitars drawn. “Stand down! We are going!” he shouted. “Kwecha! Kwecha! Pakia! Hopa! Hopa! Collect! Pack! Set out!”

Hurriedly, they struck camp and picked their way across the moonlit ground with the warriors escorting them on either side, mocking and jeering and threatening.

Sister Raghavendra, by touch alone, bandaged Trounce's arm.

“I'll need to stitch the wound, William, but we'll have to wait until we're safely away from these ruffians. Are you in pain?”

“By Jove, Sadhvi! Between this and the ankle, I'm having a fine day of it! I feel absolutely splendid! In fact, I thought I might top things off by repeatedly banging my head against a rock! What do you think?”

“I think you'd better chew on this.” She handed him a knob of a tobacco-like substance. “These herbs have strong pain-relieving properties.”

“What do they taste like?”

“Chocolate.”

Trounce threw the herbs into his mouth and started chewing. He gave a snort of appreciation. His ear whistled.

The warriors yelled a few final insults and withdrew.

Burton, at the front of the column, crested the brow of a hill, looked down onto a small plain, and saw the stars reflected in a number of ponds and small lakes.

“We'll rest there,” he said. “And let's hope that water is fresh.”

The division between the days became ever more nebulous and confusing.

Consciousness and unconsciousness merged into a single blur, for when they slept, they dreamt of passing terrain, and when they were awake, they were so often somnambulistic that they might well have been dreaming.

From K'hok'ho into the land of Uyanzi, from village to village, through an ugly and desiccated jungle and over baked earth; then into the sandy desert of Mgunda Mk'hali, where lines of elephants marched in stately fashion, trunk to tail, past petrified trees filled with waiting vultures.

Mdaburu to Jiwe la Mkoa; Jiwe la Mkoa to Kirurumo; Kirurumo to Mgongo Thembo; Mgongo Thembo to Tura.

Days and days and days.

This long.

As they approached Tura, Burton said to Swinburne, “I keep seeing animal carcasses.”

“Funny,” the poet murmured. “I keep seeing a pint of frothy English ale. Do you recall The Tremors in Battersea? I liked that tavern. We should go back there someday.”

The two men were walking. So many of the freed slaves had left them now—gratefully returning to their home villages—that all the animals were required to help carry the supplies, and there were no more spare horses.

Burton looked down at his assistant. The roots of Swinburne's hair were bright scarlet. The rest of it was bleached an orangey straw colour all the way to its white tips. It fell in a thick mass to below his narrow, sloping shoulders. His skin had long ago gone from lobster red to a deep dark brown, which made his pale-green eyes more vivid than ever. He had a thin and straggly beard. His clothes were hanging off him in ribbons and he was painfully thin and marked all over by bites and scratches.

“I'm sorry, Algy. I should never have put you through all this.”

“Are you joking? I'm having the time of my life! By golly, in a poetical sense, this is where my roots are! Africa is real. It's authentic! It's primal! Africa is the very essence of poetry! I could happily live here forever! Besides—” he looked up at Burton, “—there is a matter of vengeance to be addressed.”

After a pause, Burton replied, “In that, you may not have to wait much longer. The dead animals I've been seeing—I think they were killed by a bloodthirsty hunter of our acquaintance.”

“Speke!”

“Yes.”

They came to Tura, the easternmost settlement of Unyamwezi, the Land of the Moon. Burton remembered the village as being nestled amid low rolling hills and cultivated lands; that it was attractive to the eye and a balm to wearied spirits after so many days of monotonous aridity. But when his expedition emerged from the mouth of a valley and looked upon it, they saw a scene of appalling destruction. Most of Tura's dwellings had been burned to the ground, and corpses and body parts were strewn everywhere. There were only fifty-four survivors—women and children—many wounded, all of them dehydrated and starving. Sister Raghavendra and Isabella Mayson—both recovering from their afflictions—treated them as best they could; but two died within an hour of the expedition's arrival, and during the course of the following night they lost eight more.

The camp was set up, and Burton gathered those women whose injuries were slightest. For a while they refused to speak and flinched away from him, but his generosity with food and drink, plus the presence of so many women in his party, especially Isabel Arundell, whom they took to almost straight away, eventually quelled their fears, and they explained that the village had been ravaged by “many white devils accompanied by demons who sat inside plants.” This terror had descended upon them without warning or mercy, had killed the men, and had made away with grain and cattle and other supplies.

The sun, Burton was informed, had risen two times since the attack.

He gathered his friends in the village's half-collapsed bandani.

“Speke and the Prussians have not respected the customs of Africa at all,” he observed, “but this degree of savagery is new.”

“What prompted it?” Isabel Arundell asked. “John is a schemer but not a barbarian.”

“Count Zeppelin is behind this carnage, I'm sure,” Swinburne opined.

“Aye, lad,” Trounce muttered. “I agree. They went through this place like a plague of locusts. Looks to me as if they badly needed supplies and hadn't the patience or wherewithal to trade.”

“We're about a week away from Kazeh,” Burton said. “It's an Arabic town, a trading centre, and it marks the end of our eastward march. It's where we'll restock with food, hire new porters, and buy new animals, before heading north to the Ukerewe Lake and the Mountains of the Moon. Speke will be following the same route and no doubt intended to obtain fresh provisions there too, but perhaps he couldn't make it. I'd lay money on him having squandered all his supplies between Mzizima and here.”

“So Tura bore the brunt of his ineptitude,” Krishnamurthy growled.

Some of the Daughters of Al-Manat were patrolling the outskirts of the village. One of them now reported that a body of men were approaching from the west. They were carrying guns, in addition to the usual spears and bows.

Burton hurried over to where the women of Tura were sitting together and addressed them in their own language: “Men are coming, perhaps Wanyamwezi. If they've heard what has happened here, they will assume my people are responsible and they will attack us.”

One of the women stood and said, “I will go to meet them. I will tell them of the white devils who killed our men and I will say that you are not the same sort of devil and that even though you are white you have been good to us.”

“Thank you,” Burton replied, somewhat ruefully.

As he'd predicted, the new arrivals were Wanyamwezi. They stamped into Tura—two hundred or so in number—and levelled their weapons at the strangers. They were mostly very young men and boys, though there were a few oldsters, too. All were armed with matchlock rifles; all bore patterned scars on their faces and chests; all frowned at Burton and his associates; and all bared their teeth, showing that their bottom front two incisors had been removed.

From among them, a man stepped forward. He was tall, gaunt, and angular, but powerfully built, with long wiry pigtails hanging from his head. There were rings in his nose and ears and a profusion of copper bangles on his wrists and ankles.

“I am Mtyela Kasanda,” he said. “They call me Mirambo.”

It meant corpses.

“I am Burton,” the king's agent responded. “They call me Murungwana Sana of Many Tongues.”

“Dost thou see mine eyes?” Mirambo asked.

“I do.”

“They have looked upon thee and they have judged.”

“And what did they find?”

Mirambo sneered. He checked that there was priming powder in the pan of his matchlock. He tested the sharpness of his spear with a fingertip. He examined his arrow points. He cast an eye over his warriors. “Mine eyes see that thou art muzungo mbáyá, and therefore bad.”

“My people are the enemy of those who destroyed this village. We found the women injured, and we helped them.”

“Did doing so darken thy skin?”

“No, it did not.”

“Then thou art still muzungo mbáyá.”

“That is true, but, nevertheless, we remain the enemy of those who did this deed.” Burton held his hands open, palms upward. “We have come to help thee.”

“I will not be friends with any muzungo mbáyá”

Burton sighed. “I have learned a proverb from thy people. It is this: By the time the fool has learned the game, the players have dispersed.”

Mirambo turned his head a little, chewed his lip, and regarded Burton from the corners of his eyes. He coughed and spat, then said, “I understand thy meaning. If I do not choose, I will have no say in the outcome.”

“That is probably correct.”

There was a sudden commotion among the gathered warriors and a small man pushed his way to the front of them. He was wearing a long white robe and a white skullcap, with a matchlock rifle slung over his shoulder and a machete affixed to his belt. At the sight of him, Burton felt a thrill of recognition.

“Wow! I know this scar-faced man, O Mirambo,” the newcomer announced. “I have travelled far and far with him. He is ugly and white, it is true, but he is not as those who passed before. He is fierce and loyal and good, though filled with crazy thoughts. I speak only the truth.”

The Wanyamwezi chief pondered this for a few moments, then said to the man: “Give me pombe, Sidi Bombay.”

The small man took a goatskin flask from one of his companions and handed it to the chief. Mirambo drank from it then passed it to Burton, who did the same.

“Now,” Mirambo said. “Tell me of our foe.”

The season of implacable heat arrived, and each morning they struck camp at 4 a.m., walked for seven hours, then stopped and did their best to shelter from it. It meant slow progress, but Burton knew Speke wouldn't be able to move any faster.

Their first three days from Tura saw them trekking over cultivated plains. The sky was so bright it hurt their eyes, despite that they wore keffiyehs wrapped around their faces.

The Daughters of Al-Manat, now supplemented by the vengeance-bent women of Tura and their children, rode and walked to the right of the porters.

Mirambo and his men marched on the other side of the column, keeping their distance, holding their matchlocks at the ready and their heads at an aloof angle. Sidi Bombay, though, walked along next to Burton's mule, for he knew the explorer of old, and they were firm friends.

A one-time slave who'd been taken to India then emancipated upon his owner's death, Bombay spoke English, Hindustani, and a great many African languages and dialects. He'd been Burton's guide during the explorer's first expedition to the Lake Regions in '57, and had then accompanied Speke on his subsequent trek in '60. Burton now learned that he'd also accompanied Henry Morton Stanley, last year.

As they pushed on across a seemingly unchanging landscape, Bombay cast light on some of the mysteries surrounding the latter two expeditions.

Burton already knew that, after discovering the location of the African Eye of Nāga in '57 but failing to recover the jewel, Speke had returned to Africa with a young Technologist named James Grant. They'd flown toward Kazeh in kites dragged behind giant swans, but, en route, had lost the birds to lions. He now learned that when they'd arrived at the town on foot, they'd hired Bombay to guide them north to the Ukerewe Lake, then west to the Mountains of the Moon.

“Mr. Speke, he led us into a narrow place of rocks. Wow! We were attacked by Chwezi warriors.”

“Impossible, Bombay!” Burton exclaimed. “The Chwezi people are spoken of all over East Africa and all agree that they are long extinct. Their legendary empire died out in the sixteenth century.”

“But perhaps no one has told them, for some have forgotten to die, and live in hidden places. They guard the Temple of the Eye.”

“A temple? Did you see it?”

“No, Mr. Burton. It is under the ground, and I chose not to go there, for I met my fourth wife in an ill-lit hut and I have never since forgotten that bad things happen in darkness. So I remained with the porters and we held back the Chwezi with our guns while Mr. Speke and Mr. Grant went on alone. Only Mr. Speke came back, and when he did—wow!—he was like a man taken by a witch, for he was very crazy, even for a white man, and we fled with him out of the mountains and all the way back to Zanzibar. On the way, he became a little like he was before, but he was not the same. I think what he saw under the ground must have been very bad.”

Stanley's expedition had also ended in disaster. The American newspaper reporter's team—five men from the Royal Geographical Society—had employed porters to carry rotorchairs from Zanzibar to Kazeh, then flew them north to locate the source of the Nile. They'd returned a few days later, on foot. Their flying machines had stopped working.

Bombay, who at that time was still living in Kazeh, was commissioned as a guide. He led Stanley to the Ukerewe, and the expedition started to circumnavigate it in a clockwise direction. But at the westernmost shore, Stanley became distracted by the sight of the far-off mountains and decided to explore them.

“I told him no, it is a bad place,” Bombay said, “but—wow!—he was like a lion that has the musk of a gazelle in its nostrils and can think of nothing else. I was frightened to go there again, so I ran away, and he and his people went without me. They have not been seen again. This proves that I am a very good guide.”

“How so?”

“Because I was right.”

The safari trudged on.

The cultivated lands had fallen behind them. Now there was nothing but shallow, dry, rippling hills that went on and on and on.

“The same!” Swinburne wailed, throwing his arms out to embrace the wide vista. “The same! The same! Won't it ever change? Are we not moving at all?”

During the nights, swarms of pismire ants crawled out of the ground and set upon the camp. They chewed through tent ropes, infested the food supplies, shredded clothes, and inflicted bites that felt like branding irons.

On the fourth day, the safari left the region behind with heartfelt expressions of relief and entered the Kigwa Forest, a wide strip of gum trees and mimosas spread over uneven, sloping land. The boles were widely spaced but the sparse canopy nevertheless provided a little shade and for the first time in many weeks they weren't bothered by mosquitoes or flies.

They camped among the trees, dappled by shafts of pollen-thick light, with butterflies flitting around them and birds whistling and gabbling overhead. The scent of herbs filled their nostrils.

“We've travelled almost six hundred miles,” Burton said. He was sitting on a stool in front of the main Rowtie, massaging his left calf, which felt bruised after his bout of cramps. Trounce was on a chair at a folding table.

The Scotland Yard man's beard reached halfway to his chest, and he'd had enough of it. He was attempting to crop it close to his chin with a pair of blunt scissors. “But how long has it taken us?” he asked.

“That's the question. It took me a hundred and thirty-four days to reach this spot during my previous expedition. I feel we've been considerably faster but I couldn't tell you by how much. It's very peculiar. All of us appear to have lost track of time. Do you want a hand with that, William? You appear to be struggling.”

“If you wouldn't mind,” the other man answered. “It's my bloody arm. The spear wound still hurts like blazes when I move it. So are you suggesting that something is having an adverse influence on us?”

Trounce stuck out his chin. Burton stood, took the scissors, and attacked his friend's facial hair.

“Perhaps. But the Mountains of the Moon are still at least two hundred miles away, so if the Eye of Nāga is responsible, then its emanations are reaching a damned long way.”

“If it didn't affect your timekeeping back in fifty-seven,” Trounce said, “then why would it be doing so now?”

“The only explanation I can think of is that there's an intelligence directing it.”

“Which knows we're here? I don't like the sound of that.”

“Nor I.”

A few minutes later, Burton finished his hacking and held up a small round mirror so Trounce could examine the results.

“By Jove!” the detective exclaimed. “It's made no difference at all! I still look like a confounded Robinson Crusoe!”

Burton smiled, turned away, and watched as the Daughters of Al-Manat rolled out their prayer mats and began to praise Allah. He looked at Mirambo's warriors, sitting in a group on small portable stools, sharpening their weapons and cleaning their matchlocks. He observed Saíd redistributing the baggage among the remaining porters. He examined the horses and mules and saw that many were covered in tsetse bites. They wouldn't survive much longer.

A commotion over to his left attracted his attention. It was Swinburne, leaping around like a possessed forest sprite.

“Look! Look!” the poet cried, jabbing his finger in Herbert Spencer's direction.

Burton turned his eyes toward the robe-wrapped clockwork philosopher and saw that he was approaching with Isabella Mayson at his side. He had a colourful parakeet on each shoulder.

“Pox is back!” Swinburne cheered.

“Slippery sewer-sniffer!” Pox cawed.

“And he's been courting!”

“She's been courting,” Isabella corrected.

Swinburne gave a screech. “What? What? You mean Pox is—is—?”

“Is a girl, yes. She always has been. I believe I pointed that out when I first introduced you to her.”

Swinburne looked flummoxed. “I—I—I suppose the bad language caused me to assume the reverse.”

“Danglies-clutcher!” Pox added.

The other bird let loose a piercing squawk.

“Parakeets usually mate for life,” Isabella told Burton, “so perhaps you'd like to give a name to the new member of your family.”

The king's agent groaned. “You don't mean to say I'll have to accommodate two of the beastly things when we return to London?”

Spencer piped, “At least only one of 'em will insult you, Boss.”

“Sheep-squeezing degenerate!” Pox crowed.

“Monkey cuddler!” her mate added.

“Oh no!” Burton moaned.

“My mistake,” Spencer admitted.

“Hah!” Swinburne cried out. “Malady is learning!”

They all looked at him.

“It's the perfect name,” he said. “Don't you think Pox and Malady sound like they belong together?”

There was a pause, then William Trounce threw his head back and let loose a roar of laughter. “On the button, Algernon!” he guffawed. “On the blessed button! Oh my word! What more fitting remembrance of this endeavour could you have, Richard, than to leave Africa with a Pox and a Malady? Ha ha ha!”

Burton shook his head despairingly.

“Cheer up!” Swinburne grinned. “If I remember rightly, when you were a young soldier returning from India and its whorehouses, you brought back similar!”

Trounce doubled over and bellowed his mirth.

“Algy, there are ladies present,” Burton said, glowering at his assistant.

Isabella made a dismissive gesture. “I rather think Africa has stripped me of all the social niceties, Richard. Try as any of you might, you'll not induce a fit of moral outrage in me!”

“I say! Could we make an attempt anyway?” Swinburne enthused.

“Certainly not.”

Krishnamurthy came running over. “Shhh!” he urged. “Stop making such a confounded racket! Listen!”

They did so, and heard gunfire snapping and popping faintly in the far distance.

“Speke,” Swinburne whispered.

“How far?” Trounce asked.

“It's difficult to say,” Burton responded, “but we'd better stay on our toes.”

The next morning, they proceeded with caution and with four Wanyamwezi scouting a little way ahead. Gunfire continued to crackle faintly from the west. It sounded like a battle was being fought. Burton unpacked all the spare rifles and distributed them among Mirambo's warriors, replacing the ancient matchlocks. He and the rest of his expedition kept their own guns cleaned, oiled, and loaded.

The forest was fairly easy going, its canopy high and the undergrowth light. Nevertheless, it required two more marches to traverse. When they finally emerged from it, they found themselves in a long valley through which sweet water bubbled in a wide stream. The hills to either side were swathed in bright-yellow grain, blazing so brightly that the travellers were forced to walk through it with eyes slitted, and the heat was so ferocious that Herbert Spencer compared this part of their trek to “walkin' on the surface of the bloomin' sun itself!”

The terrain gradually opened onto a flat plain, empty but for stunted trees. On the horizon ahead, low forested hills could be seen, though they folded and jumped in the distorting atmosphere. From the other side of them, the noise of battle raged on. The sound was carrying a long way.

They walked and walked and yet felt as if they made no progress.

“I can't judge the distance,” Trounce muttered. “Those hills are like the mirages we saw back in Arabia. One minute they spring up right in front of us, the next they're not there at all.”

“They're fairly close,” Burton advised.

“And so is one heck of a scrap by the sound of it!”

“Wow! It is from Kazeh!” Sidi Bombay noted.

Burton walked back along the line of porters and mules to where Swinburne was striding along. The poet had a rifle slung across his shoulder and was holding an umbrella over his head.

“I'm going to gallop ahead to take a peek over those hills, Algy. Will you join me? Can you bear it during the hottest part of the day?”

“Rather! Anything to break the monotony of this flatland.”

They stopped and waited for Isabel Arundell, who was riding near the middle of the column, to catch them up.

“I need two of your fittest horses,” Burton said as she drew abreast of them. “Algy and I are going to reconnoitre.”

“Very well, but I'm coming with you. If we're joining a battle, I want to see for myself how best to deploy my women.”

“Very well.”

Mounts were selected, supplies were packed into saddlebags, and the threesome rode back to the head of the safari.

Burton took the field glasses from Trounce and informed him of their intentions. “You're in charge while we're gone. Keep going until the heat gets too much. You'll not make Kazeh in a single march, or even the base of the hills, so stop when you must but don't erect the tents. Get what rest you can.”

They kicked their heels into the sides of their mounts and raced away, leaving a cloud of dust rolling in their wake.

It took them an hour to catch up with one of Mirambo's scouts. They stopped to greet him and offer water but he ignored them, as if by doing so he could make the muzungo mbáyá cease to exist.

The entire afternoon was spent pushing the horses to their limits until, with the sun swelling and melting in front of their eyes, they arrived at the edge of the plain and threw themselves down beside a narrow stream. They drank deeply and washed the dust from their faces, splashed their steeds to cool them, then left them reined to trees but with enough slack to be able to reach the water.

Gunfire stammered and echoed around them.

“They've been fighting for three days, at least,” Isabel noted.

“We'll take a look at the combatants presently,” Burton said. “First, eat, rest, and attend to your weapons.”

This was duly done, and slightly under an hour later they climbed the hill, passing through the trees, descended the other side, scrambled up the next slope, and crawled onto its summit. They looked out over the twilit plain on the other side. The sun had just set and the western horizon was blood-red, the sky above it deep purple and flecked with bright stars.

The land beneath was considerably more verdant than the ground they'd just crossed; large tracts had obviously been irrigated; there were grain fields and many trees, the latter casting very long shadows.

A little to the north, a monolithic verdure-topped outcrop of rock dominated the otherwise flat landscape, and just to the south of it, right in front of them, there was a small town, little more than a wide scattering of wooden houses and shacks, with a few larger residences at its centre.

Lights flashed all along its eastern and northern borders and the noise of gunfire punctured the African night.

Burton whispered, “The Prussians have Kazeh under siege!”