Once committed to the ascent the caravan had to continue, as there was no room in which to turn the donkeys round and descend again to the valley. All Roger could do was to insist on great deliberation in the climb and frequent halts, though this policy was not endorsed by the impatient asses behind. When the white people in front paused to negotiate some more than usually dangerous section of the path, the rest of the caravan had to pause too, the porters with their loads poised on their heads and their sinewy legs trembling with the strain, while the donkeys pranced with impatience to pass them, and nearly pushed some of them and their loads over into the gulf below.
"It's no good," Roger would say to his companion, "you can't get round this, walking upright; you must go on hands and knees and crawl over it. Never mind your dress or your knees. If your skirt is torn I'll make you one out of buck-skin; if your knees are cut it's better than breaking your neck."
He had never lived through such a nightmare as this climb, and ran down in sweat for sheer apprehension of an irretrievable disaster. However it came to an end at last, and towards that end its difficulties were tempered by the path's entry into gorges where there were merciful bays of level ground, places to rest in and stretch oneself, to put down the loads and regain one's breath and ease one's palsied legs. From the jagged rocks grew out horizontally fleshy-leaved aloes with zebra markings of green and white, and long stalks of blood-red or orange-yellow, tubular flowers, haunted by large yellow-velvet bees with probing tongues. Huge blue-black ravens with arched bills and white collars perched on pinnacles of rock above the path, or set out to sail in circles over the gorge below, hoping no doubt some beast or human would fall and die and provide sightless eyeballs and protruding entrails for the ravens' feast.
Lucy thought of this in these silent halts—all were too exhausted to speak—and shuddered. Yet for a white woman of that period, unsuitably costumed as she was, she gave no more trouble to her male companion than she could help, uttered no futile complaints or queries. They had exchanged but little conversation during the two days which had elapsed since they received Ann Jamblin's message. John Baines's ghost, like a Banquo, came between them. Lucy was—and looked as though she was—in perfect health. Deep down within her heart she was quietly content, convinced now that somehow, some day, she would marry Roger. Equally certain was she that none of the ordinary dangers of African travel would prevent her from reaching the coast under his escort; so that he had in her a more cheerful and far less sulky or doleful companion than had accompanied the unfortunate John on his wedding tour.
After the ascent of the escarpment they camped two nights in succession in a strange region suggestive of the Moon's surface as revealed by a powerful telescope. There were the crumbling sides of craters, the cones of extinct volcanoes—extinct, perhaps; but sometimes a strange and ominous-looking white smoke or gassy vapour issued from cracks in the ground and through veins in the obsidian rocks. Vegetation was very scanty—a few yellow stalks of bamboo in the hollows; and water was scarce enough to cause anxiety and limit washing to a minimum. Yet if they could cross this dry belt of naked rock and barren mountain and the possibly waterless plain that lay in front of them, to the east there was a promise of better things. Far away, a blue pyramid seen against the morning sun, was Mount Meru, one of the great, unmistakable landmarks of East Africa. It towered fifteen thousand feet into the sky and when the sun turned to the zenith and the west they could see the peak of the pyramid was white with snow. And behind Meru in the early morning or in the early evening there came into view something at first unbelievable, a floating island in the sky, a Laputa: the great snowy dome of Kibô....
A few days of rough, silent travel—seeing no natives and very few birds and beasts—and they were in the Kisongo plains. Here it was less arid, and beneath the burnt stems of the old grass the fresh green grass was springing. The occasional scrubby trees and bushes were putting forth fresh leaves, sometimes quite red in colour, or even purplish black. Big game swarmed round them unafraid of man, inclined even to be insolent. Rhinoceroses charged the caravan and both Lucy and Roger had narrow escapes of being tossed on their horns, while Lucy was twice flung from her donkey when it bolted with terror at a tangent from the unexpected rush of the squealing monster. A Nyamwezi porter was gored and trampled, his load smashed and the caravan disorganized. Roger laid low one rhinoceros; and then, water being near, they spent all the rest of that day and the next cutting up its flesh, smoking it, drying it in the sun, and making of it a food provision greatly wanted by the porters.
This much-needed rest however brought another danger on them. The sound of rifle firing, the assemblage of vultures, the noise of the porters' excited voices attracted the attention of a large war party of Masai, trailing southward to see what was up in this rumoured war between the Arabs—or, as they called them, the "coast" people—and the White men ... troubled waters in which they might fish to advantage. Lucy was sitting in camp in as much placid enjoyment as she could feel, with the remembrance of John's death in the background. She forgot, at any rate for the moment, her remorse and her anxieties "as to what people would say." It was very pleasant to rest here and to know that she would not have to rise at five the next morning and ride nearly all day, and perhaps have another close shave from a charging rhinoceros....
Gradually there stole on her ear a sound like distant thunder. The sky was clear ... surely it couldn't be a whole herd of rhinos, or a distant earthquake—earthquakes not being unknown in this region? Presently the Wanyamwezi looked up anxiously from their camp employments or their parcelling out of the rhinoceros meat. Roger was away, shooting more game.... There went up the fear-inspiring word: "Masai!"
Then appeared on the north a cloud of red dust and out of this emerged a small army of red-coloured men trailing their shields by lanyards, with a rumbling noise, waving long-bladed white-flashing spears, and uttering a growling chant, a war-song of bloodthirsty purport, though its words were not understood by the people in the undefended camp.
The Swahili Kiongozi fortunately was on the spot, and then and at other times never lost his head. He stood quietly beside Lucy, who was seated in her deckchair with her white umbrella to shade her from the sun. "Starehe, Bibi," he said; "usiogope; Muungu anatulinda. Hawa ndio Masai, kweli; walakini tutawashinda na akili."[#]