It was the close of the day. Over the baked veldt of Equatorial Africa a safari marched. The men, in single file, were reduced to the unimportance of moving black dots by the tremendous sweep of the dry country stretching away to a horizon infinitely remote, beyond which lay single mountains, like ships becalmed hull-down at sea. The immensities filled the world--the simple immensities of sky and land. Only by an effort, a wrench of the mind, would a bystander on the advantage, say, of one of the little rocky, outcropping hills have been able to narrow his vision to details.

And yet details were interesting. The vast shallow cup to the horizon became a plain sparsely grown with flat-topped thorn trees. It was not a forest, yet neither was it open country. The eye penetrated the thin screen of tree trunks to the distance of half a mile or more, but was brought to a stop at last. Underfoot was hard-baked earth, covered by irregular patches of shale that tinkled when stepped on. Well-defined paths, innumerable, trodden deep and hard, cut into the iron soil. They nearly all ran in a northwesterly direction. The few traversing paths took a long slant. These paths, so exactly like those crossing a village green, had in all probability never been trodden by human foot. They had been made by the game animals, the swarming multitudinous game of Central Africa.

The safari was using one of the game trails. It was a compact little safari, comprising not over thirty men all told. The single white man walked fifty yards or so ahead of the main body. He was evidently tired, for his shoulders drooped, and his shuffling, slow-swinging gait would anywhere have been recognized by children of the wilderness as that which gets the greatest result from the least effort. Dressed in the brown cork helmet, the brown flannel shirt with spine-pad, the khaki trousers, and the light boots of the African traveller little was to be made of either his face or figure. The former was fully bearded, the latter powerful across the shoulders. His belt was heavy with little leather pockets; a pair of prismatic field-glasses, suspended from a strap around his neck, swung across his chest; in the crook of his left arm he carried a light rifle.

Immediately at his heels followed a native. This man's face was in conformation that of the typical negro; but there the resemblance ceased. Behind the features glowed a proud, fierce spirit that transformed them. His head was high but his eyes roved from right to left restlessly, never still save when they paused for a flickering instant to examine some gazelle, some distant herd of zebra or wildebeeste standing in the vista of the flat-topped trees. His nostrils slowly expanded and contracted with his breathing, as do those of a spirited horse. In contrast to the gait of the white man he stepped vigorously and proudly as though the long day had not touched his strength. He wore a battered old felt hat, a tattered flannel shirt, a ragged pair of shorts, and the blue puttees issued by the British to their native troops. The straps of two canteens crossed on his breast; a full cartridge belt encircled his waist; he carried lightly and easily one of those twelve-pound double cordite rifles that constitute the only African life insurance.

Fifty yards in the rear marched the carriers. They were a straight, strong lot, dressed according to their fancy or opportunity in the cast-off garments of the coast; comical in the ensemble, perhaps, but worthy of respect in that all day each had carried a seventy-pound load under a tropical sun, and that they were coming in strong.

And finally, bringing up the rear, marched a small, lively, wizened little fellow, dressed as nearly as possible like the white man, and carrying as the badge of his office a bulging cotton umbrella and the kiboko--the slender, limber, stinging rhinoceros-hide whip.

It was the end of a long march. This could be guessed by the hour, by the wearied slouch of the white man, above all by the conduct of the safari. The men were walking one on the heels of the other. Their burdens, carried on their heads, held them erect. They stepped out freely. But against the wooden chop boxes, the bags of cornmeal potio, the bundles of canvas that made up some of the loads, the long safari sticks went tap, tap, tap, in rhythm. This tapping was a steady undertone to the volume of noise that arose from thirty throats. Every man was singing or shouting at the full strength of his lungs. A little file of Wakamba sung in unison one of the weird wavering minor chants peculiar to savage peoples everywhere; some Kavirondos simply howled in staccato barks like beasts. Between the extremes were many variations; but every man contributed to the uproar, and tapped his load rhythmically with his long stick. By this the experienced traveller would have known that the men were very tired, tired to the point of exhaustion; for the more wearied the Central African native, or the steeper the hill he, laden, must surmount, the louder he sings or yells.

"Maji hapana m'bale, bwana," observed the gun bearer to the white man. "Water is not far, master."

The white man merely nodded. These two had been together many years, and explanations were not necessary between them. He, as well as Simba, had noticed the gradual convergence of the game trails, the presence of small grass birds that flushed under their feet, the sing-sing buck behind the aloes, the increasing numbers of game animals that stared or fled at the sight and sound of the safari.

Nothing more was said. The way led to the top of one of those low transverse swells that conceal the middle distance without actually breaking the surface of the veldt. In the corresponding depression beyond now could be discerned a wandering slender line of green.

"Maji huko!" murmured Simba. "There is the water."

Suddenly he stooped low, uttering a peculiar hissing sound. The white man, too, dropped to the ground, throwing his rifle forward.

"Nyama, bwana!" he whispered fiercely, "karibu sana!"

He pointed cautiously over the white man's shoulder. The safari, at the sight of the two dropping to a crouch, had stopped as though petrified, and stood waiting in silence.

"We have no meat," Simba reminded his master in Swahili.

The white man eased himself back to a sitting posture, resting his elbows on his knees, as all sensible good rifle shots do when they have the chance. Simba, his eyes glowing fiercely, staring with almost hypnotic intensity over his master's shoulder, quivered like an eager dog.

"Hah!" he grunted as the loud spat of the bullet followed the rifle's crack. "Na kamata--he has it!" he added as the wildebeeste plunged into full view.

The hunter manipulated the bolt to throw in a new cartridge, but did not shift his position. In less remote countries the sportsman, unlimited in ammunition but restricted in chances, would probably have pumped in four or five shots until the quarry was down. The traveller and Simba watched closely, with expert eyes, to determine whether a precious second cartridge should be expended.

"Where?" asked the white man briefly.

"Low in the shoulder," replied Simba.

The wildebeeste plunged wildly here and there, kicking, bucking, menacing the unseen danger with his horns. For several seconds longer the two watched, then rose leisurely to their feet. Simba motioned to the waiting safari, who, correctly interpreting the situation, broke into a trot. Both Simba and his master knew that had the animal not received a mortal wound it would before this have whirled to look back. The fact that it still ran proved its extremity. Sure enough, within the hundred yards it suddenly plunged forward on its nose, rolled over, and lay still.

The fierce countenance of the gun bearer lit up in triumph. He shifted the heavy rifle and reached out to touch the lighter weapon resting again in the crook of his master's arm.

"Nyama Yangu! Nyama Yangu!" he murmured. That was Simba's name for the light rifle that did most of the shooting. The words meant simply "my meat." Simba had a name for everything from the sheath knife of his office to the white man himself. Indeed Culbertson in the Central countries was Culbertson to none. Should you inquire for news of him by that name news you could not obtain; but of Bwana Kingozi you might learn from many tribes and peoples.

But now the safari, topping the hill, swept down with a rapid fire of safari sticks against the loads and a chorus whose single word was "n'yama!"

Simba was already at the carcass, Kisu M'kubwa, his thin-bladed knife, in his hand. The men eased their loads to the ground, and stood about with eagerly gleaming eyes, as would well-trained dogs in like circumstances. Simba briefly indicated the three nearest to act as his assistants. The wildebeeste was rapidly skinned and as rapidly dismembered, the meat laid aside. Only once did the white man speak or manifest the slightest interest.

"Sarrara indani yangu--the tenderloin is mine."

The wizened little headman with the umbrella and the kiboko, who answered to the name of Cazi Moto, stepped forward and took charge of the indicated delicacy. Soon all was ready for a resumption of the march. Nothing was left of the wildebeeste save the head and the veriest offal. The stomach and intestines, even, had been emptied of their contents and packed away in the hide.

Already the carrion birds had gathered in incredible numbers. The sky was full of them circling; an encompassing ring of them sat a scant fifty yards distant, their wings held half out from their bodies, as though they felt overheated. And in the low bushes could be discerned the lurking, furtive, shadowy jackals.

The men were laughing, their weariness forgotten. Maulo, the camp humourist, declaimed loudly at the top of his lungs, mocking the marabouts, the buzzards, the vultures great and small, the kites and the eagles.

"Go to the lion," he cried, "he kills much, and leaves. Little meat will you get here. We keep what we get!"

And the men broke into meaningless but hearty laughter, as though at brilliant wit.

But Bwana Kingozi's low voice cut across the merriment.

"Bandika!" he commanded.

And immediately Cazi Moto and Simba took up the cry.

"Bandika! bandika! bandika!" they vociferated over and over. Cazi Moto moved here and there, lively as a cricket, his eyes alert for any indication of slackness, his kiboko held threateningly.

But there was no need for the latter. The men willingly enough swung aloft their loads, now augmented by the meat, and the little caravan moved on.

Scarcely had Cazi Moto, bringing up the rear, quitted the scene when the carrion birds swooped. They fell from the open sky like plummets, their wings half folded. When within ten feet of the ground they checked their fall with pinion and tail, and the sound of them was like the roar of a cataract. Those seated on the ground moved forward in a series of ungainly hops, trying for more haste by futile urgings of their wings. Where the wildebeeste had fallen was a writhing, flopping, struggling brown mass. In an incredibly brief number of seconds it was all over. The birds withdrew. Some sat disgruntled and humpbacked in the low trees; some merely hopped away a few yards to indulge in gloomy thoughts. A few of the more ambitious rose heavily and laboriously with strenuous beating of pinions, finally to soar grandly away into the infinities of the African sky. Of the wildebeeste remained only a trampled bloody space and bones picked clean. The jackals crept forward at last. So brief a time did all this occupy that Maulo, looking back, saw them.

"Ho, little dogs!" he cried with one of his great empty laughs; "your stomachs will go hollow but you can fill your noses!"

They tramped on steadily toward the low narrow line of green trees, and the sun sank toward the hills.

[CHAPTER II]

THE CAMP

The game trails converged at a point where the steep, eroded bank had been broken down into an approach to a pool. The dust was deep here, and arose in a cloud as a little band of zebra scrambled away. The borders of this pool were a fascinating palimpsest: the tracks of many sorts of beast had been impressed there in the mud. Both Kingozi and Simba examined them with an approach to interest, though to an observer the examination would have seemed but the most casual of glances. They saw the indications of zebra, wildebeeste, hartebeeste, gazelles of various sorts, the deep, round, well-like prints of the rhinoceros, and all the other usual inhabitants of the veldt. But over these their eyes passed lightly. Only three things could here interest these seasoned African travellers. Simba espied one of them, and pointed it out, just at the edge of the narrow border of softer mud.

"There is the lion," said he. "A big one. He was here this morning. But no buffalo, bwana; and no elephant."

The water in the pool was muddy and foul. Thousands of animals drank from it daily; and after drinking had stood or wallowed in it. The flavour would be rich of the barnyard, which even a strong infusion of tea could not disguise. Kingozi had often been forced to worse; but here he hoped for better.

The safari had dumped down the loads at the top of the bank, and were resting in utter relaxation. The march was over, and they waited.

Bwana Kingozi threw off the carefully calculated listless slouch that had conserved his strength for an unknown goal. His work was not yet done.

"Simba," he directed, "go that way, down the river[[1]] and look for another pool--of good water. Take the big rifle."

[[1]: Every watercourse with any water at all, even in occasional pools, is m'to--a river--in Africa.]

"And I to go in the other direction?" asked Cazi Moto.

Bwana Kingozi considered, glancing at the setting sun, and again up the dry stream-bed where, as far as the eye could reach, were no more indications of water.

"No," he decided. "It is late. Soon the lions will be hunting. I will go."

The men sprawled in abandon. After an interval a shrill whistle sounded from the direction in which Bwana Kingozi had disappeared. The men stretched and began to rise to their feet slowly. The short rest had stiffened them and brought home the weariness to their bones. They grumbled and muttered, and only the omnipresence of Cazi Moto and the threat of his restless whip roused them to activity. Down the stream they limped sullenly.

Kingozi stood waiting near the edge of the bank. The thicket here was very dense.

"Water there," he briefly indicated. "The big tent here; the opening in that direction. Cook fire over there. Loads here."

The men who had been standing, the burdens still on their heads, moved forward. The tent porter--who, by the way, was the strongest and most reliable of the men, so that always, even on a straggling march, the tent would arrive first--threw it down at the place selected and at once began to undo the cords. The bearers of the kitchen, who were also reliable travellers, set about the cook camp.

A big Monumwezi unstrapped a canvas chair, unfolded it, and placed it near his master. The other loads were arranged here, in a certain long-ordained order; the meat piled there. Several men then went to the assistance of Mali-ya-bwana, the tent bearer; and the others methodically took up various tasks. Some began with their pangas to hew a way to the water through the dense thicket that had kept it sweet; others sought firewood; still others began to pitch the tiny drill tents--each to accommodate six men--in a wide circle of which the pile of loads was the centre. As the men fell into the ordered and habitual routine their sullenness and weariness vanished.

Kingozi dropped into the canvas chair, fumbled for a pipe, filled and lighted it. With a sigh of relief he laid aside his cork helmet. The day had not only been a hard one, but an anxious one, for this country was new to every member of the little expedition, native guides had been impossible to procure, and the chances of water had been those of an arid region.

The removal of the helmet for the first tune revealed the man's features. A fine brow, upstanding thick and wavy hair, and the clearest of gray eyes suddenly took twenty years from the age at first made probable by the heavy beard. With the helmet pulled low this was late middle age; now bareheaded it was only bearded youth. Nevertheless at the corners of the eyes were certain wrinkles, and in the eyes themselves a direct competent steadiness that was something apart from the usual acquisition of youth, something the result of experience not given to most.

He smoked quietly, his eye wandering from one point to another of the new-born camp's activities. One after another the men came to report the completion of their tasks.

"Pita ya maji tayiari," said Sanguiki coming from the new-made water trail.

"I zuru," approved Kingozi.

"Hema tayiari," reported Simba, reaching his hand for the light rifle.

Kingozi glanced toward the tent and nodded. A licking little fire flickered in the cook camp. The tiny porter's tents had completed their circle, and in front of each new smoke was beginning to rise. Cazi Moto glided up and handed him the kiboko, the rhinoceros-hide whip, the symbol of authority. Everything was in order.

The white man rose a little stiffly and walked over to the pile of meat. For a moment he examined it contemplatively, aroused himself with an apparent effort, and began to separate it into four piles. He did not handle the meat himself, but silently indicated each portion with his kiboko, and Simba or Cazi Moto swiftly laid it aside.

"This for the gun-bearer camp," commanded Kingozi, touching with his foot the heavy "backstraps" and the liver--the next choicest bits after tenderloin. He raised his voice.

"Kavirondo!" he called.

Several tall, well-formed black savages of this tribe arose from one of the little fires and approached. The white man indicated one of the piles of meat.

"Wakamba!" he summoned; then "Monumwezi"; and finally "Baganda!"

Thus the four tribes represented in his caravan were supplied. The men returned to their fires, and began the preparation of their evening meal.

Kingozi turned to his own tent with a sigh of relief. Within it a cot had been erected, blankets spread. An officer's tin box stood open at one end. On the floor was a portable canvas bath. While the white man was divesting himself of his accoutrements, Cazi Moto entered bearing a galvanized pail full of hot water which he poured into the tub. He disappeared only to return with a pail of cold water to temper the first.

"Bath is ready, bwana," said he, and retired, carefully tying the tent flaps behind him.

Fifteen minutes later Kingozi emerged. He wore now a suit of pajamas tucked into canvas "mosquito boots," with very thin soles. He looked scrubbed and clean, the sheen of water still glistening on his thick wavy hair.

The canvas camp chair had been placed before two chop boxes piled one atop the other to form a crude table on which were laid eating utensils. As soon as Cazi Moto saw that his master was ready, he brought the meal. It consisted simply of a platter of curry composed of rice and the fresh meat that had been so recently killed that it had not time to get tough. This was supplemented by bread and tea in a tall enamelware vessel known as a balauri. From the simplicity of this meal one experienced would have deduced--even had he not done so from a dozen other equally significant nothings--that this was no sporting excursion, but an expedition grimly in earnest about something.

The sun had set, and almost immediately the darkness descended, as though the light had been turned off at a switch. The earth shrunk to a pool of blackness, and the heavens expanded to a glory of tropical stars. All visible nature contracted to the light thrown by the flickering fires before the tiny white tents. The tatterdemalion crew had, after the curious habit of Africans, cast aside its garments, and sat forth in a bronze and savage nakedness. All day long under the blistering sun your safari man will wear all that he hath, even unto the heavy overcoat discarded by the latest arrival from England's winter; but when the chill of evening descends, then he strips happily. The men were fed now, and were content. A busy chatter, the crooning of songs, laughter, an occasional shout testified to this. A general relaxation took the camp.

The white man finished his meal and lighted his pipe. Even yet his day's work was not quite done, and he was unwilling to yield himself to rest until all tasks were cleared away.

"Cazi Moto!" he called.

Instantly, it seemed, the headman stood at his elbow.

"To-morrow," said Kingozi deliberately, and paused in decision so long that Cazi Moto ventured a "Yes, bwana."

"To-morrow we rest here. It will be your cazi (duty) to find news of the next water, or to find the water. See if there are people in this country. Take one man with you. Let the men rest and eat."

"Yes, bwana."

"Are there sick?"

"Two men."

"Let them come."

Cazi Moto raised his voice.

"N'gonjwa!" he summoned them.

Kingozi looked at them in silence for a moment.

"What is the matter with you?" he asked of the first, a hulking, stupid-looking Kavirondo with the muscles of a Hercules.

The man replied, addressing Cazi Moto, as is etiquette; and although Kingozi understood perfectly, he awaited his headman's repetition of the speech as though the Kavirondo had spoken a strange language.

"Fever, eh?" commented Kingozi aloud to himself, for the first time speaking his own tongue. "We'll soon see. Cazi Moto," he instructed in Swahili, "the medicine."

He thrust a clinical thermometer beneath the Kavirondo's tongue, glancing at a wrist watch as he did so.

"Cazi Moto," he said calmly after three minutes, "this man is a liar. He is not sick; he merely wants to get out of carrying a load."

The Kavirondo, his eyes rolling, shot forth a torrent of language.

"He says," Cazi Moto summarized all this, "that he was very sick, but that this medicine"--indicating the thermometer--"cured him."

"He lies again," said Kingozi. "This is not medicine, but magic that tells me when a man has uttered lies. This man must beware or he will get kiboko."

The Kavirondo scuttled away, and Kingozi gave his attention to the second patient. This man had an infected leg that required some minor surgery. When the job was over and Kingozi had washed his hands, he relighted his pipe and sat back in his chair with a sigh of content. The immediate foreground sank below his consciousness. He stared across the flickering fires at the velvet blackness; listened across the intimate, idle noise of the camp to the voice of the veldt.

For with the fall of darkness and the larger silence of darkness, the veldt awoke. Animals that had dozed through the hot hours and grazed through the cooler hours in somnolent content now quivered alert. There were runnings here and there, the stamp of hoofs, sharp snortings as taut nerves stretched. Zebras uttered the absurd small-dog barks peculiar to them; ostriches boomed; jackals yapped; unknown birds uttered hasty wild calls. Numerous hyenas, near and far away, moaned like lost souls. Kingozi listened as to the voice of an old acquaintance telling familiar things; the men chattered on, their whole attention within the globe of light from their fires.

But suddenly the noise stopped as though it had been cut by a knife. Total silence fell on the little encampment. The men, their various actions suspended, listened intently. From far away, apparently, a low, vibrating rumble stole out of the night's immensity. It rose and seemed to draw near, growing hollow and great, until the very ground seemed to tremble as though a heavy train were passing, or the lower notes of a great organ had been played in a little church. And then it died down, and receded to the great distance again, and was ended by three low, grunting coughs.

The veldt was silent. The zebra barkings were still; the night birds had hushed; the hyenas and jackals and all the other night creatures down--it almost seemed--to the very insects had ceased their calls and cries and chirpings. One might imagine every living creature rigid, alert, listening, as were these men about the little fires.

The tension relaxed. The men dropped more fuel on the fires, coaxing the flame brighter. A whispering comment rose from group to group.

"Simba! simba! simba!" they hissed one to the other.

A lion had roared!

[CHAPTER III]

THE RHINOCEROS

In the first gray dusk Simba and Cazi Moto slipped away on the errands appointed for them--to find people and to find water, if possible. The cook camp, too, was afoot, dark figures passing and repassing before a fire. But the rest of the men slept heavily, seizing the unwonted chance.

When the first rays of the sun struck the fly of the small green master's-tent Kingozi appeared, demanding water wherewith to wash. At the sound of his voice men stirred sleepily, sat up, poked the remains of their tiny fires. As though through an open tap the freshness of night-time drained away. The hot, searching, stifling African day took possession of the world.

After breakfast Kingozi looked about him for shelter. A gorgeous, red-flowering vine had smothered one of the flat-topped thorn trees in its luxuriance. The growths of successive years had overlaid each other. Kingozi called two men with pangas who speedily cut out the centre, leaving a little round green room in the heart of the shadow. Thither Kingozi caused to be conveyed his chop-box table, his canvas chair, and his tin box; and there he spent the entire morning writing in a blank book and carefully drawing from field notes in a pocketbook a sketch map of the country he had traversed. At noon he ate a light meal of bread, plain rice with sugar, and a balauri of tea. Then for a time he slept beneath the mosquito bar in his tent.

At this hour of fiercest sun the whole world slept with him. From the baked earth rose heat waves almost as tangible as gauze veils. Objects at a greater distance than a hundred yards took on strange distortions. The thorn trees shot up to great heights; animals stood on stilts; the tops of the hills were flattened, and from their summits often reached out into space long streamers. Sometimes these latter joined across wide intervals, creating an illusion of natural bridges or lofty flat-topped cliffs with holes clear through them to the open sky beyond. All these things shimmered and flickered and wavered in the mirage of noon. Only the sun itself stared clear and unchanging.

At about two o'clock Kingozi awoke and raised his voice. Mali-ya-bwana, next in command after Cazi Moto and Simba, answered.

"Get the big gun," he was told, "and the water bottles."

Mali-ya-bwana was not a professed gun bearer, but he could load, and Kingozi believed him staunch. Therefore, often, in absence of Simba, the big Baganda had been pressed into this service.

The blasting heat was fiercest at this hour. The air was saturated by it just as water may hold a chemical in solution. Every little while a wave would beat against the cheek as though a furnace door had been opened. Nevertheless Kingozi knew that this was also the hour when the sun's power begins to decline; when the vertical rays begin to give place. For it is not heat that kills, but the actinic power of rays unfiltered by a long slant through the earth's atmosphere.

The two men tramped methodically along, paying little attention to their surroundings. Game dozed everywhere beneath the scanty shade, sometimes singly, sometimes in twos or threes, sometimes in herds. Motionless they stood; and often, were it not for the switch of a tail, they would have remained unobserved. Even the sentinel hartebeestes, posted atop high ant hills on the outskirts of the herds, seemed half asleep. Nevertheless they were awake enough for the job, as was evidenced when the two human figures came too near. Then a snort brought every creature to its feet, staring.

The objective of the men seemed to be a rise of land which the lessening mirage now permitted to appear as a small kopje, a solitary hill with rocky outcrops. Toward this they plodded methodically: Kingozi slouching ahead, Mali-ya-bwana close at his heels, very proud of his temporary promotion from the ranks. Suddenly he snapped his fingers. At the signal Kingozi stopped and looked back inquiringly over his shoulder.

Mali-ya-bwana was pointing cautiously to a low red clay ant hill immediately in their path and about thirty yards ahead. To the casual glance it looked no different from any of the hundreds of others of like size and colour everywhere to be seen. Kingozi's attention, however, now narrowed to a smaller circle than the casual. It did not need Mali-ya-bwana's whispered "faru" (rhinoceros) to identify the mound.

Cautiously the two men began to back away. When they had receded some twenty yards, however, the huge beast leaped to its feet. The rapidity of its movements was extraordinary. There intervened none of the slow and clumsy upheaval one would naturally expect from an animal of so massive a body and such short, thick legs. One moment it slumbered, the next it was afoot, warned by some slight sound or jar of the earth or--as some maintain--by a telepathic sense of danger. Certainly, as far as they knew, neither Kingozi nor Mali-ya-bwana had disturbed a pebble or broken a twig.

The rhinoceros faced them, snorting loudly. The sound was exactly that of steam roaring from a locomotive's safety valve. Strangely enough, in spite of the massive structure and the loose, thick skin of the beast, it conveyed an impression of taut, nervous muscles. Though it faced directly toward them, the men knew that they were as yet unseen. The rhinoceros' eyesight is very short, or very circumscribed, or both; and only objects in motion and comparatively close enter its range of vision. Kingozi and his man held themselves rigidly immovable, waiting for what would happen. The rhinoceros, too, held himself rigidly immovable, his nostrils dilating between snorts, his ears turning; for his senses of smell and hearing made up in their keenness for the defects of his eyes.

Suddenly, without the slightest warning, he stuck his tail perpendicular and plunged forward at a clumsy-looking but exceedingly swift gallop.

An inexperienced man would have considered himself the object of a deliberate "charge"; but an old African traveller, such as Kingozi, knew this for a blind rush in the direction toward which the animal happened to be headed. The rhinoceros, alarmed by the first intimation of danger, unable to get further news from its keener senses, had been seized by a panic. Were nothing to deflect him from the straight line, he would continue ahead on it until the panic had run out.

But the two men were exactly in that line!

Kingozi hitched his light rifle forward imperceptibly. Although this was at present only a blind rush, should the rhinoceros catch sight of them he would fight; and within twenty-five yards or so his eyesight would be quite good enough. As the beast did not slow up in the first ten yards, but rather settled into its stride, Kingozi took rapid aim and fired.

His intention was neither to kill nor to cripple his antagonist. If that had been the case, he would have used the heavy double rifle that Mali-ya-bwana held ready near his elbow. The bullet inflicted a slight flesh wound in the outer surface of the beast's left shoulder. Kingozi instantly passed the light rifle back with his right hand, at the same motion seizing the double rifle with his left.

But at the spat of the bullet the rhino veered toward the direction from which it seemed to his stupid brain the hurt had come. Tail erect, he thundered away down the slope.

For a hundred yards he careered full speed, then slowed to a trot, finally stopped, whirled, and faced to a new direction. The sound of his blowing came clearly across the intervening distance.

A low bush grew near. The rhino attacked this savagely, horning it, trampling it down. The dust arose in clouds. Then the huge brute trotted slowly away, still snorting angrily, pausing to butt violently the larger trees, or to tear into shreds some bush or ant hill that loomed dangerously in the primeval fogs of his brain.

"Sorry, old chap," commented Kingozi in his own language, "but you're none the worse. Only I'm afraid your naturally sweet temper is spoiled for to-day, at least."

He turned to exchange guns with Mali-ya-bwana.

"N'dio, bwana," assented the latter to a speech of which he understood not one word. Mali-ya-bwana was secretly a little proud of himself for having stuck like a gun bearer, instead of shinning up a thorn tree like a porter.

Kingozi slipped a cartridge into the rifle, and the two resumed their walk toward the kopje.

[CHAPTER IV]

THE STRANGER

By the time the two men had gained the top of the hill the worst heat of the day had passed. Kingozi seated himself on a flat rock and at once began to take sights through a prismatic compass, entering the observations in a pocketbook. Mali-ya-bwana, bolt upright, stared out over the thinly wooded plain below. He reported the result of his scouting in a low voice, to which the white man paid no attention whatever.

"Twiga[[2]] bwana," he said, and then, as his eye caught the flash of many sing-sing horns, "kuru, mingi." Thus he named over the different animals--the topi, the red hartebeeste, the eland, zebra, some warthogs, and many others. The beasts were anticipating the cool of the afternoon, and were grazing slowly out from beneath the trees, scattering abroad over the landscape.

[[2]: Giraffe.]

From even this slight elevation the outlook extended. Isolated mountain ranges showed loftier; the tops of unguessed hills peeped above the curve of the earth; the clear line of the horizon had receded to the outer confines of terrestrial space, but even then not far enough to touch the cup of the sky. Elsewhere the heavens meet the horizon: in Africa they lie beyond it, so that when the round, fleecy clouds of the Little Rains sail down the wind there is always a fleet of them beyond the earth disappearing into the immensities of the infinite. There is space in African skies beyond the experience of those who have dwelt only in other lands. They dwarf the earth; and the plains and mountains, lying in weeks' journeys spread before the eye, dwarf all living things, so that at the last the man of imagination here becomes a humble creature.

For an hour the two remained on top the kopje. The details of the unknown country ahead, toward which Kingozi gave his attention, were simple. From the green line of the watercourse, near which the camp showed white and tiny, the veldt swept away for miles almost unbroken. Here and there were tiny parklike openings of clear grass; here and there more kopjes standing isolated and alone, like fortresses. Far down over the edge of the world showed dim and blue the tops of a short range of mountains. Vainly did Kingozi sweep his glasses over the landscape in hope of another line of green. No watercourse was visible. On the other hand, the scattered growth of thorn trees showed no signs of thickening to the dense spiky jungle that is one of the terrors of African travel. There might be a watercourse hidden in the folds of the earth; there might be a rainwater "tank," or a spring, on any of the kopjes. Simba and Cazi Moto were both experienced, and capable of a long round trip. The problem of days' journeys was not pressing at this moment. Kingozi noted the compass bearings of all the kopjes; took back sights in the direction from which he had come; closed his compass; and began idly to sweep the country with his glasses. In an unwonted mood of expansion he turned to Mali-ya-bwana.

"We go there," he told the porter, indicating the blue mountain-tops.

"It is far," Mali-ya-bwana replied.

Kingozi continued to look through his glasses. Suddenly he stopped them on an open plain three or four miles back in the direction from which he had come the day before. Mali-ya-bwana followed his gaze.

"A safari, bwana," he observed, unmoved. "A very large safari," he amended, after a moment.

Through his prismatic glasses Kingozi could see every detail plainly. After his fashion of talking aloud, he reported what he saw, partly to the black man at his side, but mostly to himself.

"Askaris,"[[3]] he said, "six of them. The man rides in a machele[[4]]--he is either a German or a Portuguese; only those people use macheles--unless he is sick! Many porters--four are no more white men. More askaris!" He smiled a little contemptuously under his beard. "This is a great safari, Mali-ya-bwana. Four tin boxes and twelve askaris to guard them; and eighty or more porters; and sixteen men just to carry the machele! This must be a Bwana M' Kubwa."

[[3]: Native troops, armed with Snider muskets.]

[[4]: A hammock slung on a long pole, and carried by four men at each end.]

"That is what Kavirondos might think," replied Mali-ya-bwana calmly.

Kingozi looked up at him with a new curiosity.

"But not yourself?"

"A man who is a Bwana M'kubwa does not have to be carried. He does not need askaris to guard him in this country. And where can he get potio for so many?"

"Hullo!" cried Kingozi, surprised. "This is not porter's talk; this is headman's talk!"

"In my own country I am headman of many people," replied Mali-ya-bwana with a flash of pride.

"Yet you carry my tent load."

But Mali-ya-bwana made no reply, fixing his fierce eyes on the distant crawling safari.

"It must be a sportsman's safari," said Kingozi, this time to himself, "though what a sportsman wants in this back-of-beyond is a fair conundrum. Probably one of these chappies with more money than sense: wants to go somewhere nobody else has been, and can't go there without his caviare and his changes of clothes, and about eight guns--not to speak of a Complete Sportsman's Outfit as advertised exclusively by some Cockney Tom Fool on Haymarket." He contemplated a problem frowningly. "Whoever it is will be a nuisance--a damn nuisance!" he concluded.

"N'dio, bwana," came Mali-ya-bwana's cheerful response to this speech in a language strange to him.

"You have asked a true question," Kingozi shifted to Swahili. "Where is potio to be had for so large a safari? Trouble--much trouble!" He arose from the flat stone. "We will go and talk with this safari."

At an angle calculated to intercept the caravan, Kingozi set off down the hill.

After twenty minutes' brisk walk it became evident that they were approaching the route of march. Animals fled past them in increasing numbers, some headlong, others at a dignified and leisurely gait, as though performing a duty. The confused noise of many people became audible and the tapping of safari sticks against the loads.

At the edge of a tiny opening Kingozi, concealed behind a bush, reviewed the new arrivals at close range, estimating each element on which a judgment could be based. As usual, he thought aloud, muttering his speculations sometimes in his own language, sometimes in the equally familiar Swahili.

"Askaris not pukha[[5]] askaris of the government. Those are not Sniders they carry--don't know that kind of musket. Those boxes are not the usual type--wonder where they were bought!"

[[5:] Genuine--regular.]

The hammock came into view, swinging on the long pole. It was borne by four men at each end--experienced machele carriers who would keep step with a gentle gliding. Eight more walked alongside as relay. They would change places so skilfully that the occupant of the hammock could not have told when the shift took place. Alongside walked a tall, bareheaded, very black man. Kingozi's experienced eye was caught by differences.

"Of what tribe is that man?" he asked.

But Mali-ya-bwana was also puzzled.

"I do not know, bwana. He is a shenzi[[6]]."

[[6]: Wild Man.]

The unknown was very tall, very straight, most well formed. But his face was extraordinarily ugly. His flat, wide nose, thick lips, and small yellow eyes were set off by an upstanding mop of hair. His expression was of extraordinary fierceness. He walked with a free and independent stride, and carried a rifle.

"He is not of this country. He is from the west coast, or perhaps Nubia or the Sudan," was Kingozi's conclusion.

"Many of these people are shenzis," Mali-ya-bwana pursued his own thought.

"That is true," Kingozi acknowledged. "If this is a sportsman, from what part did he hail to have got together this lot! We will see."

As the swinging hammock came opposite his concealment, Kingozi stepped forward.

Every one in sight looked in his direction, but none showed any astonishment at this apparition out of the wilderness. The sophisticated African has ceased to be surprised at anything a white man may do. If he can make fire by rubbing a tiny stick once, why should he not do anything under heaven he wants to? A locomotive, an automobile, a flying machine are miracles, but no less--and no greater--than ordinary matches. Once admit the ability to transcend natural laws, once admit the possibility of miracles, why be surprised at anything? If a white man chose to appear thus in an unknown country, why not? If he chose again to vanish into thin air, again why not? Only the fierce-looking savage carrying the rifle rolled his eyes uneasily.

But at this precise moment a diversion on the opposite side of the line attracted attention enough. A galvanic shiver ran down the string of porters, succeeded at once by a crashing of loads cast hastily to the ground. With unanimity the bearers swarmed across the little open space toward and to either side of Kingozi and his attendant. Reaching the fringe of flat-topped trees they sprang into the low branches, heedless of the long thorns, and scrambled aloft until at least partially concealed. A few of the bolder members lurked behind the trunks, but held themselves ready for an instant ascent. From a hundred throats arose a confused cry of "Faru! Faru!"

Not joining this first flight remained only the askaris, the eight men bearing the hammock, and the tall Nubian. Of these the askaris were far ahead and to the rear; the hammock bearers were decidedly panicky; only the Nubian seemed cool and self-possessed. The occupant of the hammock thrust out a foot to descend.

But before this could be accomplished a rhinoceros burst fully into view across the open space. His tail was up, he was snorting loudly, and he headed straight for the hammock. That was large, moving, and directly in his line of vision. The sight was too much for the bearers. With a howl they dropped the pole and streaked it to join their brothers in the thorn trees. The pole and the canopy of the hammock tangled inextricably its occupant.

A ragged volley from the muskets of the askaris merely seemed to add to the confusion. With great coolness the Nubian discharged first one barrel then the other of the heavy rifle he carried. The recoil, catching him in a bad posture, knocked him backward. The bullets kicked up a tremendous dust part way between himself and the charging beast. He was now without defence. Nevertheless he stepped in front of the entangled struggling figure on the ground.

Before the appearance of the rhinoceros into the open Kingozi had exchanged rifles, and stood at the ready. He was a good hundred yards from the hammock. Even in the rush of events he, characteristically, found time for comments, although they did not in the least interfere with his rapid movements.

"Hope they don't wing one another," he remarked of the askaris' volley. "Rotten shooting! rotten!" as the Nubian stood his ground. At the same time he pushed forward the safety catch and threw the heavy rifle to his shoulder.

A charging rhinoceros--or one rushing near enough a man's direction to be dangerous--is not a difficult problem. Given nerve enough, and barring accidents--which might happen in a London flat--a man is in no danger. If he opens fire too soon, indeed, he is likely to empty his weapon without inflicting a stopping wound, but if he will wait until the beast is within twenty yards or so, the affair is certain. For this reason: just before a rhinoceros closes, he drops his head low in order to bring his long horn into action. If the hunter fires then, over the horn, he will strike the beast's backbone. The shot can hardly be missed, for the range is very close and the outstanding flanges of the vertebrae make a large mark. The formidable animal goes down like a stone. In country open enough to preclude the deadly close-at-hand surprise rush, where one has no chance to use his weapon at all, the rhinoceros is not dangerous to one who knows his business.

But in this case Kingozi was nearer a hundred and twenty than twenty yards from the animal. The mark to be hit was now very small; and it was moving. In addition the heavy double rifle, while accurate enough at that range, was not, owing to its weight and terrific recoil, as certain as a lighter rifle. These things Kingozi knew perfectly. The muscles under his beard tightened; his gray eyes widened into a glare like that of Simba in sight of game.

Just before the rhinoceros dropped his head for the toss, the Nubian stepped directly into the line of fire.

"Lala!--lie down!" Kingozi shouted.

Somehow the whip-snap of authority in his voice reached the Nubian's consciousness. He dropped flat, and almost instantly the white man fired. At the roar of the great gun the rhinoceros collapsed in mid career, going down, as an animal always does under a successful spine shot, completely, without a struggle or even a quiver.

"That was well shot, master," said Mali-ya-bwana.

Kingozi reloaded the rifle and started forward. At the same time the occupant of the hammock finally emerged from the tangle and came erect.

[CHAPTER V]

THE ENCOUNTER

Kingozi saw a tall figure without a coat, dressed in brown shirt, riding breeches, and puttees. The Nubian had retrieved a spilled sun helmet even before the stranger had scrambled erect, so the head and face were invisible. Kingozi's countenance did not change, but a faint contempt appeared in his eyes. The first impression conveyed by the numbers of the tin boxes and their bearers and escort had been deepened. Why? Because the riding breeches were of that exaggerated cut sometimes actually to be seen outside tailor's advertisements. They were gathered trimly around an effeminately slender waist, and then ballooned out to an absurd width, only to contract again skin tight around the knees.

"M'buzi!" grunted Kingozi, applying to the stranger the superlative of Swahili contempt. He did not know he spoke aloud; for it is not well for one white man to criticise another to a native. But Mali-ya-bwana replied.

"Bibi," he corrected.

Kingozi stared. "By Jove, you're right!" he exclaimed in English. "It is a woman!" He burst into an unexpected laugh. "It isn't balloon breeches; it's hips!" he cried. This correction seemed to him singularly humorous. He approached her, laughing.

It was evidently an angry woman, to judge by her gestures and the deprecating attitude of the Nubian. Kingozi surmised that she probably did not fancy being dumped down incontinently before an angry rhinoceros. After a moment, however, her attitude lost its rigidity, she gestured toward the dead monster, evidently commending the savage. He shook his head and motioned in Kingozi's direction. The woman turned, showing an astonished face.

Kingozi was now close up. He saw before him a personality. Physically she was beautiful or not, according as one accepted conventional standards. The dress she wore revealed fully the fact that she had a tall, well-knit figure of long, full curves; a thoroughly feminine figure in conformation, and yet one that looked competent to transcend the usual feminine incompetencies. So far she measured to a high but customary standard. But her face was as exotic as an orchid. It was long, narrow, and pale with three accents to redeem it from what that ordinarily implies--lips of a brilliant carmine, eyes of a deep sea-green, and eyebrows high, arched, clean cut, narrow as though drawn by a camel's-hair brush. Indeed, in civilization no one would have believed them to have been otherwise produced. In spite of the awkward sun helmet she carried her head imperiously.

"If you will ride in a hammock, you ought to teach your men to shoot," was Kingozi's greeting. "It's absurd to go barging through a rhino country like this. You look strong and healthy. Why don't you walk?"

Her crest reared and her nostrils expanded haughtily. For a half-minute she stared at him, her sea-green eyes darkening to greater depths. This did not disturb Kingozi in the least: indeed he did not see it. His eyes were taking in the surroundings.

The dead rhinoceros lay a scant fifteen paces distant; loads were scattered everywhere; the askaris, their ancient muskets reloaded, had drawn near in curiosity. From the thorn trees across the tiny grass opening porters were descending, very gingerly, and with lamentations. It is comparatively easy to ascend a thorn tree with the fear of death snapping at your heels: to descend in cold blood is another matter.

"Why don't you do your work!" he addressed the soldiers. "Do you want to catch kiboko?"

The startled askaris scuttled away about their business, which was, at this moment, to herd and hustle the reluctant porters back to their job. Kingozi, his head and jaw thrust forward, stared after them, his eyes--indeed, his whole personality--projecting aggressive force. The men hurried to their positions, their loud laughter stilled, glancing fearfully and furtively over their shoulders, whipped by the baleful glare with which Kingozi silently battered them.

Only when the last man had picked up his load did Kingozi turn again to the woman. Although her bosom still heaved with emotion, it was a suppressed emotion. He met a face slightly and inscrutably smiling.

"You take it upon yourself to manage my safari?" she said. "You think I cannot manage my men? It is kind of you."

Her English was faultless, but some slight unusual spacing of the words, some ultra-clarity of pronunciation, rather than a recognizable accent, made evident that the language was not her own.

"Your askaris are slack," said Kingozi briefly.

"And how of these?" she demanded imperiously, sweeping with an almost theatrical gesture the miserable-looking group of hammock bearers.

"They are at fault," replied Kingozi indifferently, "but after all they are common porters. You can't expect gun-bearer service or askari service from common porters, now can you?"

He looked at her directly, his clear, steady eyes conveying nothing but a mild interest in the obvious. In contrast to his detached almost indifferent calm, the woman was an embodiment of emotions. Head erect, red lips compressed, breast heaving, she surveyed him through narrowed lids.

"So?" she contented herself with saying.

"It's the nature of the beast to run crazy," pursued Kingozi tranquilly. "You really can't blame them."

"Then am I to be thrown down, like a sack, when it pleases them to run?" she demanded tensely. "Really, you are incredible."

"I should expect it. The real point is that you have no business to ride in a hammock through a rhino country."

The woman's control slipped a very little.

"Who are you to teach me my business?"

For the first time Kingozi's careless, candid stare narrowed to a focus.

"You have not told me what your business is," he replied with an edge of intention in his tones. Their glances crossed like rapiers for the flash of an instant.

She turned to the hammock bearers.

"Lie down!" she commanded. Then to the impassive Nubian, "The kiboko! I suppose," she observed politely to Kingozi, "that you will admit these men should be punished, and that you will permit me to do so?"

"Surely they should be punished; that goes without saying."

"Give them thirty apiece," she ordered the Nubian.

"That is too many," interposed Kingozi. "Six is a great plenty for such people. It is their nature to run away."

"Thirty," she repeated to the Nubian, without a glance in the white man's direction.

The huge negro produced the rhinoceros-hide whip, and went to his task. To lay thirty lashes on sixteen backs and to do justice to the occasion is a great task. The Nubian's face streamed sweat when he had finished. The bearers, who had taken the punishment in silence, arose, saluted, and begun to skylark among themselves, which was their way of working off emotion.

"Askaris!" summoned the woman.

They came trotting.

"Lay down your guns! Lie down!"

A mild wonder appeared in Kingozi's gray eyes.

"Do you kiboko your askaris?" he asked.

She jerked her head in his direction.

"Do you presume to question my actions?"

"By no means; I am interested in methods."

She paid him no more attention. Kingozi waited patiently until this second bout of punishment was over. The askaris lay quietly face down until their mistress gave the word, then leaped to their feet, saluted smartly, seized their guns, and marched jauntily to their appointed positions. The woman watched them for a moment, and turned back to Kingozi.

Her mood had completely changed. The orgy of punishment had cleared away the nervous effects of the fright she had undergone.

"So; that is done," she said. "I have travelled much in Africa. I what you call know my way about. See how my men fall into line. It will be so at camp. Presto! Quick! The tents will be up, the fires made."

Her lips smiled at him, but her sea-green eyes remained steady and inscrutable.

"They seem smart enough," acknowledged Kingozi without interest. "Have you ever tried them out?"

"Tried them out?" she repeated. "I do not understand."

"You never know what hold you really have until you get in a tight place."

"And if I get in a 'tight place,'" she rejoined haughtily, "I shall get out again--without help from negroes--or anybody."

"Quite so," conceded Kingozi equably. His attitude and the tone of his voice were indifferent, but the merest flicker of the tail of his eye touched the dead rhino. His expression remained quite bland. She saw this. The pallor of her cheek did not warm, but her strangely expressive eyes changed.

"Bandika!" she cried sharply. The men began to take up their loads.

"I will wish you a good afternoon," observed Kingozi as though taking his leave from an afternoon tea. "By the way, do you happen to care for information about the next water, or do you know all that?" "Thank you, I know all that," she replied curtly.

The askaris began to shout the order for the advance, "Nenda! nenda!" the men to swing forward. Kingozi stared after them, watching with a professional eye the way they walked, the make-up of their loads, the nature of their equipment; marking the lame ones, or the weak ones, or the ones recently sick. His eye fell on the figure of the strange woman. She was striding along easily, the hammock deserted, with a free swing of the hips, an easy, slouch of the relaxed knees that indicated the accustomed walker. Kingozi smiled.

"'I know all that,'" he repeated. "Now I wonder if you do, or if some idea of silly pride makes you say so." He was talking aloud, in English. Mali-ya-bwana stood attentive, waiting for something he could understand. Kingozi's eye fell on the dead rhinoceros.

"There is good meat; tell the men they can come out to get what they wish of it. There will be lions here to-night."

"Yes, bwana."

"If she 'knew all that,'" observed Kingozi, "she knew more than I did. Small chance. Still, if she has information or guides, she may know the next water. But how? Why?"

He shifted his rifle to the crook of his arm.

"That bibi is a great memsahib," he told Mali-ya-bwana. "And this evening we will go to see her. Be you ready to go also."

[CHAPTER VI]

THE LEOPARD WOMAN

In the early darkness of equatorial Africa Kingozi, accompanied by Mali-ya-bwana with a lantern, crossed over to the other camp. Simba and Cazi Moto had come in almost at dusk; but they were very tired, and Kingozi considered it advisable to let them rest. They had covered probably thirty-five miles. Cazi Moto had found no water, and no traces of water. Furthermore, the game had thinned and disappeared. Only old tracks, old trails, old signs indicated that after the Big Rains the country might be habitable for the beasts. But Simba had discovered a concealed "tank" in a kopje. He had worked his way to it by "lining" the straight swift flight of green pigeons, as a bee hunter on the plains used to line the flight of bees. The tank proved to be a deep, hidden recess far back under overhanging rocks, at once concealed and protected from the sun and animals. Its water was sweet and abundant.

"No one has used that water. It is an unknown water," concluded Simba.

"How far?"

"Four hours."

"Vema." Kingozi bestowed on him the word of highest praise.

The stranger woman's camp was not far away; in fact, but just across the little dry stream-bed. Her safari was using the same pool with Kingozi's.

At the edge of the camp he paused to take in its disposition. From one detail to another his eye wandered, and in it dawned a growing approval. Your native, left to his own devices, pitches his little tents haphazard here, there, and everywhere, according as his fancy turns to this or that bush, thicket, or clump of grass. Such a camp straggles abominably. But here was no such confusion. Back from the water-hole a hundred yards, atop a slight rise, and under the thickest of the trees, stood a large green tent with a projecting fly. A huge pile of firewood had been dumped down in front of it, and at that very moment one of the askaris, kneeling, was kindling a fire. Behind the big tent, and at some remove, gleamed the circle of porters' tents each with its little blaze. Loads were piled neatly, covered with a tarpaulin, and the pile guarded by an askari.

Kingozi strode across the intervening space.

Before the big tent a table had been placed, and beside the table a reclining canvas chair of the folding variety. On a spread of figured blue cloth stood a bottle of lime juice, a sparklets, and an enamelware bowl containing flowers. The strange woman was stretched luxuriously in the chair smoking a cigarette.

She wore a short-sleeved lilac tea gown of thin silk, lilac silk stockings, and high-heeled slippers. Her hair fell in two long braids over her shoulders and between her breasts, which the thin silk defined. Her figure in the long chair fell into sinuous, graceful, relaxed lines. As he approached she looked at him over the glowing cigarette; and her eyes seemed to nicker with a strange restlessness. This contrast--of the restless eyes and the relaxed, graceful body--reminded Kingozi of something. His mind groped for a moment; then he had it.

"Bibi ya chui!" he said, half to himself, half to his companion, "The Leopard Woman!"

And, parenthetically, from that moment Bibi-ya-chui--the Leopard Woman--was the name by which she was known among the children of the sun.

She did not greet him in any way, but turned her head to address commands.

"Bring a chair for the bwana; bring cigarettes; bring balauri--lime juice----"

Kingozi found himself established comfortably.

She moved her whole body slightly sidewise, the better to face him. The soft silk fell in new lines about her, defining new curves. Her red lips smiled softly, and her eyes were dark and inscrutable.

"I was what you call horrid to-day," she said. "It was not me: it was the frightenedness from the rhinoceros. I was very much frightened, so I had the porters beaten. That was horrid, was it not? Do you understand it? I suppose not. Men have no nerves, like women. They are brave always. I have not said what I feel. I have heard of you--the most wonderful shot in Central Africa. I believe it--now."

Kingozi's eyes were lingering on her silk-clad form, the peep of ankles below her robe. She observed him with slanted eyes, and a little breath of satisfaction raised her bosom. Abruptly he spoke.

"Aren't you afraid of fever mosquitoes in that rig?" said he.

Her body stirred convulsively, and her finely pencilled eyebrows, with their perpetual air of surprise, moved with impatience; but her voice answered him equably:

"My friend, at the close of the hard day I must have my comfort. There can be no fever here, for there are no people here. When in the fever country I have my 'rig'"--subtly she shaded the word--"just the same. But I have a net--a big net--like a tent beneath which I sit. Does that satisfy you?"

She spoke with the obvious painstaking patience that one uses to instruct a child, but with a veiled irony meant for an older intelligence.

Kingozi laughed.

"I do appear to catechize you, don't I? But I am interested. It is difficult to realize that a woman alone can understand this kind of travel."

He had thrown off his guarded abstraction, and smiled across at her as frankly as a boy. The gravity of his face broke into wrinkles of laughter; his steady eyes twinkled; his smile showed strong white teeth. In spite of his bushy beard he looked a boy. The woman stared at him, her cigarette suspended.

"You have instructed me about my camp; you have instructed me about my men; you have instructed me about my marching; you have even instructed me about my clothes." She tallied the counts on her slender fingers. "Now I must instruct you."

"Guilty, I am afraid," he smiled; "but ready to take punishment."

"Very well." With a sinuous movement she turned on her elbow to face him. "Listen! It is this: you should not wear that beard."

She fell back, and raised the cigarette to her lips.

For a moment Kingozi stared at her speechless with surprise; but immediately recovered.

"I shall give to your advice the same respectful consideration you accord mine," he assured her gravely.

She laughed in genuine amusement.

"Only I have more excuse," continued Kingozi. "A woman--alone--so far away----"

"You said that before," she interrupted. "In other words, what in--what-you-call? Oh, yes! what in hell am I doing up here? Is that it?"

She turned on him a wide-eyed stare. Kingozi chuckled.

"That's it. What in--in hell are you doing up here?"

"Listen, my friend. In this world I do what I please--always. And when I find that which people tell me cannot be done, that I do--at once. My life is full of those things which could not be done, but which I have done."

"I believe you," said Kingozi, but he said it to himself.

"I have done them at home--where I live. I have done them in the cities and courts. Whatever the people tell me is impossible--'Oh, it cannot be done!'--with the uplifted hand and eye--you understand--that I do. Four years ago I came to Africa, and in Africa I have done what they tell me women have never done. I have travelled in the Kameroons, in Nyassaland, in Somaliland, in Abyssinia. Then they tell me--'yes, that is very well, but you follow a track. It is a dim track; but it is there. You go alone--yes; but you have us at your back.' And I ask them: 'What then? where is this place where there is no track?' And they wave their hands, and say 'Over yonder'; so I come!"

She recited all this dramatically, using her hands much in gesticulation, her eyes flashing. In proportion as she became animated Kingozi withdrew into his customary stolid calm.

"Quite so," he commented, "spirit of adventure, and all that sort of thing. Where did you get this lot?"

"What?"

He waved his hand.

"Your men."

She considered him a barely appreciable instant.

"Why--the usual way--from the coast."

"They are strange to me--I do not recognize their tribes," Kingozi replied blandly. "So you are pushing out into the Unknown. How far do you consider going?"

"Until it pleases me to stop."

Kingozi produced his pipe.

"If you do not mind?" he requested. He deliberately filled and lighted it. After a few strong puffs he resumed:

"The country, you say, is unknown to you."

"Of course."

"I imagined you told me this afternoon that you knew of this water. I must have been mistaken."

He blew a cloud, gazing straight ahead of him in obviously assumed innocence. She examined him with a narrow, sidelong glance.

"No," she said at last, "you were not mistaken. I did tell you so."

"Well?" Kingozi turned to her.

"I was very angry, so I lied," she replied naively. "Women always lie when they get very angry."

"Or tell the truth--uncomfortably," grinned Kingozi.

"Brava!" she applauded. "He does know something about women!" With one of her sudden smooth movements she again raised herself on her elbow. "How much?" she challenged.

"Enough," he replied enigmatically.

They both laughed.

Across the accustomed night noises came a long rumbling snarl ending sharply with a snoring gasp. It was succeeded by another on a different key. The two took up a kind of antiphony, one against the other, now rising in volume, now dying down to a low grumble, again suddenly bursting like an explosion.

"The lions have found that rhino," remarked Kingozi indifferently.

For a moment or so they listened to the distant thunders.

"I have not sufficiently thanked you even yet for this afternoon," she said. "You saved my life--you know that."

"Happened to be there; and let off a rifle."

"I know shooting. It was a wonderful shot at that distance and in those circumstances."

"Chancy shot. Had good luck," replied Kingozi shortly.

Undeterred by his tone, she persisted.

"But you are said by many to be the best shot in Africa."

He glanced at her.

"Indeed! I think that a mistake. For whom do you take me?"

"You are Culbertson," she told him. She pronounced the name slowly, syllable by syllable, as though English proper names were difficult to her.

He laughed.

"Whoever he may be. I am known as Kingozi hereabouts."

"You are not Cul-bert-son?"

"I am anything it pleases you to have me. And who are you?"

She had become the spoiled darling, pouting at him in half-pretended vexation.

"You are playing with me. For that I shall not tell you who I am."

"It does not matter; I know."

"You know! But how?"

"I know many things."

"What is it then? Tell me!"

He hesitated, smiling at her inscrutably. The flames from the fire were leaping high now, throwing the lantern-light into eclipse. An askari, wearing on his head an individual fancy in marabout feathers, leaned on his musket, his strong bronze face cast into the wistful lines of the savage countenance in repose. The lions had evidently compounded their quarrel. Only an occasional rasping cough testified to their presence. But in the direction of the dead rhinoceros the air was hideous with the plaints of the waiting hyenas. Their peculiarly weird moans came in chorus; and every once in a while arose the shrill, prolonged titter that has earned them the name of "laughing hyena."

"Bibi-ya-chui," he told her at length.

She considered this, her red lower lip caught between her teeth.

"The Leopard Woman," she repeated, "and it is thus that I am known! You, Kingozi--the Bearded One; I, Bibi-ya-chui--the Leopard Woman!" She laughed. "I think I like it," she decided.

"Now we know all about each other," he mocked.

"But no: you have asked many questions, which is your habit, but I have asked few. What do you do in this strange land? Is it--what-you-call--'spirit of adventure' also?"

"Not I! I am an ivory hunter."

"You expect to find the elephant here?"

"Who knows--or ivory to trade."

"And then you get your ivory and make the magic pass, and presto! it is in Mombasa," she said, with a faint sarcasm.

"You mean I have not men enough to carry out ivory. Well, that is true. But you see my habit is to get my ivory first and then to get shenzis from the people roundabout to act as porters," he explained to her gravely.

Apparently she hesitated, in two minds as to what next to say. Kingozi perceived a dancing temptation sternly repressed, and smiled beneath his beard.

"I see," she said finally in a meek voice.

But Kingozi knew of what she was thinking. "She is a keen one," he reflected admiringly. "Caught the weak point in that yarn straight off!"

He arose to his feet, knocking the ashes from his pipe.

"You travel to-morrow?" he asked politely.

"That I have not decided."

"This is a dry country," Kingozi suggested blandly. "Of course you will not risk a blind push with so many men. You will probably send out scouts to find the next water."

"That is possible," she replied gravely; but Kingozi thought to catch a twinkle in her eye.

He raised his voice:

"Boy!"

Mali-ya-bwana glided from one of the small porters' tents.

"Qua heri." Kingozi abruptly wished her farewell in Swahili.

"Qua heri," she replied without moving.

He turned into the darkness. The tropical stars blazed above him like candles. Kingozi lapsed into half-forgotten slang.

"Downy bird!" he reflected, which was probably not exactly the impression the Leopard Woman either intended or thought she had made.

[CHAPTER VII]

THE WATER-HOLE

A seasoned African traveller in ordinary circumstances sleeps very soundly, his ear attuned only to certain things. So Kingozi hardly stirred on his cork mattress, although the lions roared full-voiced satisfaction when they left the rhinoceros, and the yells of the hyenas rose to a pandemonium when at last they were permitted to join the feast. Likewise the nearer familiar noises of men rising to their daily tasks at four o'clock--the yawning, stretching, cracking of firewood, crackling of fire, low-voiced chatter--did not disturb him. Yet, so strangely is the human mind organized, had during the night a soft whisper of padded feet, even the deep breathing of a beast, sounded within the precincts of the camp, he would instantly have been broad awake, the rifle that stood loaded nearby clasped in his hand. Thus he lay quietly through the noises of men working, but came awake at the sound of men marching. He arose on his elbow and drew aside the flap of his tent.

At the same instant Cazi Moto stopped outside. The usual formula ensued.

"Hodie!" called Cazi Moto.

"Karibu," replied Kingozi.

Thus Cazi Moto at once awakened and greeted his master, and Kingozi acknowledged.

Cazi Moto entered the tent and lighted the tiny lantern, for it was still an hour and a half until daylight.

"I hear men marching," said Kingozi. Cazi Moto stopped.

"It is the safari of Bibi-ya-chui." Already Kingozi's nickname for her had been adopted.

Cazi Moto disappeared, and a moment later was heard outside pouring water into the canvas basin.

Instead of arising immediately, as was his ordinary custom, Kingozi lay still. The Leopard Woman was already travelling! What could that mean? She was certainly taking some chances hiking around thus in the dark. Perhaps some aged or weak lion had not been permitted a share of that rhinoceros. And again she was taking chances pushing out blindly with over a hundred men into the aridity of the desert. Kingozi contemplated this thought for some time. Then, making up his mind, he arose and began to dress.

As he was drying his face Simba came for the guns, and a half-dozen of the porters prepared to strike and furl the tent. Already the canvas washstand had disappeared.

"Simba," observed Kingozi in English, of which language Simba knew but three words, "she is no fool. She knows where there is water out yonder; but it is water at least forty miles away. She's got to push and push hard to make it, and that's why she's making so early a start. I had a notion this 'country of the great Unknown' wasn't quite so 'unknown' as it might be."

He finished this speech coincidentally with the drying of his hands. The impatient Cazi Moto snatched the towel deftly but respectfully and packed it away. Simba, who had listened with deference until his bwana should finish this jargon, grinned.

"Yes, suh!" he used two of his English words at a bang.

Kingozi ate his breakfast by firelight. With the exception of his camp chair and the eating service, the camp was by now all packed, and the men were squatting before their fires waiting. But there was a hitch. Kingozi called up Simba and began to question him.

"You say the water is four hours' march?"

"Yes, bwana."

"Four hours for you, or four hours for laden men?"

"The safari can go in four hours, bwana."

"Is there game there?"

"No, bwana. It is a guarded water, and there is no game."

Kingozi considered.

"Very well. I want six men. Before the march we must get meat."

Some time since the flames of the African sunrise had spread to the zenith, glowing and terrible as a furnace. Although the sky was thus brilliantly illuminated, the earth, strangely enough, was still gray with twilight. Objects fifty yards distant were indeterminate. Objects farther away were lost. The light was daylight, but it was inadequate, as though charged with mist.

And then suddenly the daylight was clear.

It was like the turning on by a switch. The dim shapes defined clearly, becoming trees, rocks, distant hills. And almost immediately the rim of the sun showed above the horizon.

Kingozi had already decided on the best direction in which to hunt. Neither the direction taken by the Leopard Woman's safari nor the immediate surroundings of the night's orgy over the rhino carcass was desirable. The fact that the big water-hole below camp had not only remained unvisited, but apparently even desired, led him to deduce the existence of another, alternative, drinking place. He had yesterday explored some distance downstream; therefore he now turned up.

Simba with the big rifle followed close at his heels. The six porters stole along fifty yards in the rear. They were quite as anxious for meat--promptly--as anybody, and were as unobtrusive as shadows.

For upward of a mile the hunters encountered nothing but a few dik-dik and steinbuck--tiny grass antelope, too small for the purpose. Then a shift of wind brought to them a medley of sound--a great persistent barking of zebras supplying the main volume. At the same time they saw, over a distant slight rise, a cloud of dust.

Simba's eyes were gleaming.

"Game! Much game there, bwana!" he cried.

"I see," replied Kingozi quietly.

The porters accompanied them to within a few rods of the top of the rise. There they squatted, and the other two crawled up alone.

Below them, probably three hundred yards away, was a larger replica of the other water-hole. At its edge and in its shallows stood a few beasts. But the sun was now well above the horizon, the drinking time was practically over.

Three long strings of game animals were walking leisurely away in three different directions. They were proceeding soberly, in single file, nose to tail. The ranks ran with scarcely a break, to disappear over the low swells of the plain. Alongside the plodders skipped and ran, rushed back and forth the younger, frivolous characters, kicking up their heels, biting at one another, or lowering their horns in short mimic charges--gay, animated flankers to the main army. There were several sorts, each in its little companies or bands, many times repeated, of from two or three to several score; although occasionally strange assortments and companionships were to be seen, as a black, shaggy-looking wildebeeste with a troop of kongoni. Kingozi saw, besides these two, also the bigger and smaller gazelles, many zebra, topi, the lordly eland; and, apart, a dozen giraffes, two rhinoceros, and some warthogs. There were probably two thousand wild animals in sight.

The hunters lay flat, watching. This multiplicity afforded them a wonderful spectacle, but that was about all. If they should crawl three yards farther they would indubitably be espied by some one. It was impossible to single out a beast as the object of a stalk: all the others must be considered, too. There was no cover.

Kingozi was too old at the business to hurry. He considered the elements of his problem soberly before coming back to his first and most obvious conclusion. Then he raised himself slowly to his favourite sitting position and threw off the safety.

The distance was a fair three hundred yards, which is a long shot--when it is three hundred yards. The fireside and sporting magazine hunters of big game are constantly hitting 'em through the heart at even greater distances--estimated. It is actually a fact, proven many times, that those estimates should be divided by two in order to get near the measured truth! The "four hundred yards if it's an inch!" becomes two hundred--and even two hundred yards at living game in natural surroundings is a long and creditable shot.

In taking his aim Kingozi modified his usual custom because of the distance. When one can get his beast broadside on, the most immediately fatal shot is one high in the shoulder, about three-quarters of the way up. That drops an animal dead in his tracks. The next best is a bullet low in the shoulder. Third is a really accurate heart shot. This latter is always fatal, of course; but ordinarily the quarry will run at racing speed for some little distance before falling dead. In certain types of country this means considerable tracking, may even mean the loss of the animal. Next comes anywhere in the barrel forward of the short ribs--a chancy proceeding, and one leading to long chases. After that the likelihood of a cripple is too great.

Now it is evident that one must aim at what he can be sure of hitting. The high shoulder shot is all right if the distance is so short that one can be absolutely certain of placing his bullet within a six-inch circle. Otherwise the chance of over-shooting--always great--becomes prohibitive. The low shoulder shot increases the circle to from eight to twelve inches, with the chance outside that of merely breaking a foreleg, grazing brisket, or missing entirely under the neck. The heart shot--or rather an attempt at it--is safer for a longer range, not because the mark is larger, but because even if one misses the heart, he is apt to land either the shoulder or the ribs well forward. The only miss is beneath, and that is clear, as the heart is low in the body. And at extreme ranges, the forward one-third of the barrel is the point of aim. It should only rarely be attempted. Unless a man is certain he can hit that mark, every time, he is not justified in taking the shot.

This principle applies to every one: as well to the beginner as to the expert. The only difference between the two is the range at which this certainty exists. The tyro's limit of absolute certainty for the heart shot may be--and probably is--a hundred yards; for the high shoulder it may be as near as thirty. This takes into consideration his inexperience in the presence of game as well as his inaccuracy with the rifle, and it keeps in mind that he must hit that mark not merely nine times out of ten, but every time. If he cannot get within the hundred yards by stalking, then he should refuse the chance. As expertness rises in the scale the distances increase. Provided there were no such things as nerves, luck, faulty judgment, and the estimate of distances one man should be as mercifully deadly as another. Naturally the man who had to stalk to within a hundred yards would not get as many shots as the one who could take his chance at two hundred. This conduct of venery is an ideal that is only approximated. Hence misses.

But even if a man lives rigorously up to his principles and knowledge, there are other elements that bring in uncertainty. For one thing, he must be able to estimate distance with some degree of accuracy. It avails little to know that you can hit a given mark at two hundred and fifty yards, if you do not know what two hundred and fifty yards is. And here enter a thousand deceits: direction of light, slope of ground, nature of cover, temperature, mirage, time of day, and the like. An apparent hundred yards over water or across a cañon would--were, by some dissolving-view-change, bush-dotted plain to be substituted--become nearer three hundred in the latter circumstances. There is a limit to the best man's experience; a margin of error in the best man's judgment. Hence more misses.

There is only one method for any man to acquire even this proximate skill; and that requires long and patient practice. It is this: he should sight over his rifle at a wild animal, noting carefully the apparent relative size of the front sight-bead and the animal's body. He should then pace the distance between himself and that animal. After he has done this a hundred times, he will be able to make a pretty close guess by marking how large the beast shows up through the sights. That is, for that one species of game! In Central Africa, where in a well-stocked district there are from twenty to thirty species, the practice becomes more onerous. This same practice--of pacing the distances--however, has also trained a man's eye for country. He is able to supplement the front-sight method by the usual estimate by eye. Most men do not take this trouble. They practise at target range until they can hit the bull's-eye with fair regularity, miss with nearly equal regularity in the hunting field, and thenceforth talk vaguely of "missed him at five hundred yards." It must have been five hundred. The beast looked very small, there was an awful lot of country between him and it, and "I wasn't a bit rattled--cool as a cucumber--and I know I never miss an object of that size at any reasonable range." He was right: he shot as deliberately as he ever did at the butts. He missed, not because of the distance, but because he did not know the distance. It was exactly the range at which he had done the most of his practice--two hundred yards!

All these considerations have taken several pages to tell. Kingozi weighed each one of them. Yet so long had been his experience, so habitual had become his reactions, that his decision was made almost instantly. A glance at the intervening ground, another through his sights. The top of the bead covered half a zebra's shoulder. The distance was not far under or over three hundred. Kingozi knew that, barring sheer accident, he could hit his mark at that distance.

The animals meantime were moving forward slowly along the three diverging trails. The last of them had left the water-hole. Kingozi nodded to Simba. Simba, understanding from long association just what was required of him, rose slowly and evenly to his feet.

The apparition of this strange figure on the skyline brought a score of animals to a stand. They turned their heads, staring intently, making up their minds, their nostrils wide. Kingozi, who had already picked his beast and partially assured his aim, almost immediately squeezed the trigger.

Over a second after the flat crack of the rifle a hollow plunk indicated that the bullet had told. It was a strange sound, unmistakable to one who has once heard it, much as though one brought a drinking glass smartly, hollow down, into the surface of water.

"Hah!" ejaculated Simba.

"Where?" asked Kingozi, who knew by long experience that Simba's sharp eyes had noted the smallest particular of the beast's behaviour when the bullet landed, and thence had already deduced its location.

Without removing his eyes, Simba indicated with his forefinger a shot about midway of the ribs.

At the sound the rear guard of the animals raced madly away for about seventy yards, whirled in a phalanx, and gazed back. Neither man moved. Simba continued to stare, and Kingozi had lifted his prism glasses. A tyro would have attempted to draw near for a finishing shot, and so would probably have been let in for a long chase. A freshly wounded animal, if kept moving, is capable of astonishing endurance. But these two knew better than that. In a very few minutes the zebra, without fright, without suffering--for a modern bullet benumbs--toppled over dead. Again Simba raised his voice exultantly to the waiting porters.

"Nyama! nyama!" he shouted.

And they, racing eagerly forward, their faces illuminated with one of the strongest joys the native knows, shouted back:

"Nyama! nyama!"

For another two days the provisioning was assured.

[CHAPTER VIII]

THE THIRST

The little safari made the distance to Simba's guarded water in a trifle over the four hours. Camp was made high up on the kopje whence the eye could carry to immense distances. The wall of mountains was now nearer. Through his glasses Kingozi could distinguish rounded foothills. He tried to make out whether certain dark patches were groves or patches of bush--they might have been either--but was unable to determine. Relative sizes did not exist. The mountains might be five thousand feet tall or only a fifth of that. And by exactly that proportion they might be a day's or a five days' journey distant!

Carefully Kingozi examined the length of the range. At length his attention was arrested. A thread of smoke, barely distinguishable against the gray of distance, rose within the shadow of the hills.

"Simba!" Kingozi summoned. Then, on the gun bearer's approach: "Look through the glasses and tell me whether that smoke is a house or a fire in the grass."

Simba accepted the glasses, but first took a good look with the naked eye. He caught the location of the smoke almost at once. Then for a full two minutes he stared through the lenses.

"It is a house, bwana," he decided.

As though the words had been a magic spell the mountains seemed in Kingozi's imagination to diminish in size and to move forward. They had assured a definite proportion, a definite position. Their distance could be estimated.

"And how far?" he asked.

"Very far, bwana," replied Simba gravely, "eleven hours; twelve hours."

Kingozi reflected. The safari of the Leopard Woman had passed the kopje not over a mile away; indeed Kingozi had left her trail only a short distance back. On the supposition that she was well informed, it seemed unlikely that she could expect to make the whole distance from the last camp to the mountains in one march. Therefore there must be another water between. In that case, if Kingozi followed her tracks, he would arrive at that water. On the other supposition--that she was striking recklessly into the unknown--well, all the more reason for following her tracks!

They commenced their journey before daylight the following morning. Each man was instructed to fill his water bottle; and the instructions were rigidly enforced. In the darkness they stumbled down the gentle slopes of the kopjes, each steering by the man ahead, and Kingozi steering by the stars. The veldt was still, as though all the silences, driven from those portions inhabited by the beasts, had here made their refuge. The earth lay like a black pool becalmed. Overhead the stars blazed clearly, slowly faded, and gave way to the dawn. The men spoke rarely, and then in low voices.

Kingozi led the way steadily, without hurrying, but without loitering. Daylight came: the sun blazed. The country remained the same in character. Behind them the kopje dwindled in importance until it took its place with insignificant landmarks. The mountains ahead seemed no nearer.

At the end of three hours, by the watch Kingozi carried on his wrist, he called the first halt. The men laid down their loads, and sprawled about in abandon. Kingozi produced a pipe.

The rest lasted a full half hour. Then two hours more of marching, and another rest. By now a normal day's march would be about over. But this was different. Kingozi rigidly adhered to the plan for all forced marches of this kind: three hours, a half-hour's rest; then two hours, a half-hour's rest; and after that march and rest as the men can stand it, according to their strength and condition.

This latter is the cruel period. At first the ranks hold together. Then, in spite of the efforts of the headman to bring up the rear, the weaker begin to fall back. They must rest oftener, they go on with ever-increasing difficulty. The strong men ahead become impatient and push on. The safari is no longer a coherent organization, but an aggregate of units, each with his own problem of weariness, of thirst, finally of suffering. More and more stretches the distance between the bwana and his headman.

No native of the porter intelligence has the slightest forethought for the morrow, and very little for the day. If it is hot and he has started early, his water bottle is empty by noon.

This wise program Kingozi entered upon carefully. The three hours' march went well; the two hours followed with every one strong and cheerful; then two hours more without trouble. Kingozi's men were picked, and hard as nails. By now it was one o'clock; coming the hottest part of the day. The power of the vertical sun attained its maximum. Kingozi felt as though a heavy hand had been laid upon his head and was pressing him down. The mirage danced and changed, its illusions succeeding one another momently as the successive veils of heat waves shimmered upward. Reflected heat scorched his face. His spirit retired far into its fastness, taking with it all his energies. From that withdrawn inner remoteness he doled out the necessary vitality parsimoniously, drop by drop. Deliberately he withdrew his attention from the unessentials. Not a glance did he vouchsafe to the prospect far or near; not a thought did he permit himself of speculation or of wandering interest. His sole job now was to plod on at an even gait, to keep track of time, to follow the spoor of the Leopard Woman's safari, to save himself for later. If he had spared any thought at all, it would have been self-congratulation that Simba and Cazi Moto were old and tried. For Simba relieved him of the necessity of watching for dangerous beasts, and Cazi Moto of the responsibility of keeping account of the men.

At the rest periods Kingozi sat down on the ground. Then in the relaxation his intelligence emerged. He took stock of the situation.

Mali-ya-bwana and nine others were always directly at his heels. They dropped their loads and grinned cheerfully at their bwana, their bronze faces gleaming as though polished. If only they were all like this! Then perhaps five minutes later a smaller group came in, strongly enough. The first squad shouted ridiculing little jokes at them; and they shrieked back spirited repartee, whacking their loads vigorously with their safari sticks. These, too, would cause no anxiety. But then Kingozi sat up and began to take notice. The men drifted in by twos and threes. Kingozi scrutinized them closely, trying to determine the state of their strength and the state of their spirit. And after twenty minutes, or even the full half hour allotted to the rest period, Cazi Moto came in driving before him seven men. The wizened little headman was as cheerful and lively and vigorous as ever. He, too, grinned, but his eyes held a faint anxiety, and he had shifted his closed umbrella to his left hand and held the kiboko in his right. At the fifth rest period five of the seven men stumbled wearily in; but Cazi Moto and the other two did not appear before Kingozi ordered a resumption of the march.

But the mountains had moved near. When this had happened Kingozi could not have told. It was between two rest periods. From an immense discouraging distance, they towered imminent. It seemed that a half-hour's easy walk should take them to the foothills. Yet not a man there but knew that this nearness was exactly as deceitful as the distance had been before.

The afternoon wore on. Kingozi's canteen was all but empty, though he had drunk sparingly, a swallow at a time. His tongue was slightly swollen. The sun had him to a certain extent; so that, although he could rouse himself at will, nevertheless, he moved mechanically in a sort of daze.

He heard Simba's voice; and brought himself into focus.

The gun bearer was staring at something on the ground. Kingozi followed the direction of his gaze. Before him lay a dead man.

It was one of the common porters--a tall, too slender savage, with armlets of polished iron, long, ropy hair--a typical shenzi. His load was missing: evidently one of the askaris had taken it up.

Kingozi's safari filed by, each man gazing in turn without expression at the huddled heap. Only Maulo, the camp jester, hurled a facetious comment at the corpse. Thereupon all the rest laughed after the strange, heartless custom of the African native. Or is it heartless? We do not know.

The day's march had passed through the phase of coordinated action. It was now the duty of each man to get in if he could. It was Kingozi's duty to arrive first, and to arrange succour for Cazi Moto and those whom he drove.

Twenty minutes beyond the dead man they came upon three porters sitting by the wayside. They were men in the last extremity of thirst and exhaustion, their eyes wide and vacant, their tongues so swollen that their teeth were held apart. Nothing was to be done here, so Kingozi marched by.

Then he came upon a half-dozen bags of potio. They were thrown down pellmell, anyhow; so that Kingozi concluded they had been surreptitiously thrown away, and not temporarily abandoned with intent to return for them.

After that the trail resembled the traces of a rout. Every few yards now were the evidences of desperation: loads of potio, garments, water bottles emptied and cast aside in a gust of passion at their emptiness. At intervals also they passed more men, gaunt, incredibly cadaverous, considering that only the day before they had been strong and well. They sat or lay inert, watching the safari pass, their eyes apathetic. Kingozi paid no attention to them, nor to the loads of potio, nor to the garments and accoutrements; but he caused Simba to gather the water bottles. After a time Simba was hung about on all sides, and resembled at a short distance some queer conical monster.

Then they topped the bank of a wide shallow dry streambed and saw the remnants of other safari below them.

The Leopard Woman sat on a tent load. Even at this distance her erect figure expressed determination and defiance. The Nubian squatted beside her. Men lay scattered all about in attitudes of abandon and exhaustion; yet every face was turned in her direction.

Kingozi descended the bank and approached, his experienced eye registering every significant detail.

She turned to him a face lowering like a thundercloud, her eyes flashing the lightnings, her lips scarlet and bitten. Kingozi noted the bloodied kiboko.

"They won't go on!" she cried at him harshly. "I can't make them! It is death for them here, but all they will do is to sit down! It is maddening! If they must die----"

She leaped to her feet and drew an automatic pistol.

"Bandika!" she cried. "Take your loads! Quickly!"

She threatened the man nearest her. He merely stared, his expression dull with the infinite remoteness of savage people. Without further parley she fired. Although the distance was short, she missed, the bullet throwing up a spurt of sand beneath the man's armpit. He did not stir, nor did his face change.

Kingozi's bent form had straightened. An authority, heretofore latent, flashed from his whole personality.

"Stop!" he commanded.

She turned toward him a look of convulsed rage. Then suddenly her resistance to circumstances broke. She hurled the automatic pistol at the porter, and flopped down on the tent load, hiding her face in her hands.

Kingozi paid her no further attention.

"Simba!" he called.

"Yes, suh!"

"Take one man. Collect all water bottles. Take a lantern. Go as rapidly as you can to find water. Fill all the bottles and bring them back. There are people in the hills. There will be people near the water. Get them to help you carry back the water bottles."

Simba selected Mali-ya-bwana to accompany him, but this did not meet Kingozi's ideas.

"I want that man," said he.

Simba and one of the other leading porters started away. Kingozi gave his attention to the members of the other safari.

They sat and sprawled in all attitudes. But one thing was common to all: a dead sullenness.

"Why do you not obey the memsahib?" Kingozi asked in a reasonable tone.

No one answered for some time. Finally the man who had been shot at replied.

"There is no water. We are very tired. We cannot go on without water."

"How can you get water if you do not go on?"

"Hapana shauri yangu," replied the man indifferently, uttering the fatalistic phrase that rises to the lips of the savage African almost automatically, unless his personal loyalty has been won--"that is not my affair." He brooded on the ground for a space then looked up. "It is the business of porters to carry loads; it is the business of the white man to take care of the porters." And in that he voiced the philosophy of this human relation. The porters had done their job: not one inch beyond it would they go. The white woman had brought them here: it was now her shauri to get them out.

"You see!" cried the Leopard Woman bitterly. "What can you do with such idiots!"

Kingozi directed toward her his slow smile.

"Yes, I see. Do you remember I asked you once when you were boasting your efficiency, whether you had ever tried your men? Your work was done smartly and well--better than my work was done. But my men will help me in a fix, and yours will not."

"You are quite a preacher," she rejoined. "And you are exasperating. Why don't you do something?"

"I am going to," replied Kingozi calmly.

He called Mali-ya-bwana to him.

"Talk to these shenzis," said he.

Mali-ya-bwana talked. His speech was not eloquent, nor did it flatter the Leopard Woman, but it was to the point.

"My bwana is a great lord," said he. "He is master of all things. He fights the lion, he fights the elephant. Nothing causes him to be afraid. He is not foolish, like a woman. He knows the water, the sun, the wind. When he speaks it is wisdom. Those who do what he says follow wisdom. Bassi!"

Immediately this admonition was finished Kingozi issued his first command:

"Bring all loads to this place."

Nobody stirred at first.

"My loads, the loads of Bibi-ya-chui--all to this place."

Mali-ya-bwana and the other fourteen of Kingozi's safari who were now present brought their loads up and began to pile them under Kingozi's direction.

"Quickly!" called Kingozi in brisk, cheerful tones. "The water is not far, but the day is nearly gone. We must march quickly, even without loads."

The import of the command began to reach the other porters. This white man did not intend to camp here then--where there was no water! He did not mean to make them march with loads! He knew! He was a great lord, and wise, as Mali-ya-bwana had said! One or two arose wearily and stiffly, and dragged their loads to the pile. Others followed. Kingozi's men helped the weakest. Kingozi himself worked hard, arranging the loads, covering them with tarpaulins, weighting the edges.

His intention reached also the Leopard Woman. She watched proceedings without comment for some time. Then she saw something that raised her objection.

"I shall want that box," she announced. "Leave that one out. And that is my tent being brought up now."

Apparently Kingozi did not hear her. He bestowed the box in a space left for it, and piled the two tent loads atop. The Leopard Woman arose and glided to his side.

"That box----" she began.

"I heard you," replied Kingozi politely, "but it will really be impossible to carry anything at all."

"That box is indispensable to me," she insisted haughtily.

"You have no men strong enough to carry a load: and mine will need all the strength they have left before they get in."

He went on arranging the loads under the tarpaulins.

"Those loads are my tent," she said, as Kingozi turned away.

"We cannot take them."

Her eyes flashed. She whirled with the evident intention of issuing her commands direct. Kingozi's weary, slow indifference fell from him. In one bound he faced her, his chin thrust forward. His blue eyes had focussed into a cold, level stare.

"Don't dare interfere!" he ordered. "If you attempt it, I shall order you restrained--physically. Understand? I do not know how far you intend to travel--or where; but if you value your future authority and prestige with your own men, do not make yourself a spectacle before them."

"You would not dare!" she panted.

The tenseness relaxed. Kingozi became again the slow-moving, slouching, indifferent figure of his everyday habit.

"Oh, I can dare almost anything--when I have to. You do not seem to understand. You have come a cropper--a bad one. Left to yourselves you are all going to die here. If I am to help you to your feet, I must do it without interference. I think we shall get through: but I am not at all certain. Go and sit down and save your strength."

"I hate you!" she flashed. "I'd rather die here than accept your help! I command you to leave me!"

"Bless you!" said Kingozi, as though this were a new thought. "I wasn't thinking especially of you; I am sorry for your boys."

Mali-ya-bwana, under his directions, had undone the loads containing the lanterns. Everything seemed now ready for the start. All of Kingozi's safari had arrived except Cazi Moto and five men.

"Have you any water left?" Kingozi asked the Leopard Woman.

She stared straight ahead of her, refusing to answer. Unperturbed, Kingozi turned to the Nubian.

"Which is memsahib's canteen?"

The Nubian silently indicated two of the three hung on his person. Kingozi shook them, and found them empty. His own contained still about a pint, and this he poured into one of hers. She appeared not to notice the act.

The march was resumed. Mali-ya-bwana was instructed to lead the way following the scraped places on the earth, the twigs bent over, and the broken branches by which Simba had marked his route for them. Kingozi himself brought up the rear. Reluctantly, apathetically, the Leopard Woman's men got to their feet. Kingozi was everywhere, urging, encouraging, shaming, joking, threatening, occasionally using the kiboko he had taken from one of the askaris. At last all were under way. The Leopard Woman sat still on the load, the Nubian crouched at her back. The long, straggling, staggering file of men crawled up the dry bank and disappeared one by one over the top. Each figure for a moment was silhouetted against the sky, for the sun was low. Kingozi toiled up the steep, his head bent forward. In his turn he, too, stood black and massive on the brink, the outline of his powerful stooped shoulders gold-rimmed in light. She watched him feverishly, awaiting from him some sign that he realized her existence, that he cared whether or not she was left behind. He did not look back. In a moment he had disappeared. The prospect was empty of human life.

She arose. For an instant her face was convulsed with a fairly demoniac fury. Then a mask of blankness obliterated all expression. She followed.

[CHAPTER IX]

ON THE PLATEAU

Two hours into the night Kingozi, following in the rear, saw a cluster of lights, and shortly came to a compact group of those who had gone before him. They were drinking eagerly from water bottles. Simba, lantern in hand, stood nearby. A number of savages carrying crude torches hovered around the outskirts. Kingozi could not make out the details of their appearance: only their eyeballs shining. He drew Simba to one side.

"There are many shenzis?"

"Many, like the leaves of the grass, bwana."

"The huts are far?"

"One hour, bwana, in the hills."

"These shenzis are good?"--meaning friendly.

"Bwana, the sultani of these people is a great lord. He has many people, and much riches. He has told, his people to come with me. He prepares the guest house for you."

"Tired, Simba?"

"It has been a long path since sunup, bwana. But I had water, and the people gave me potio and meat. I am strong."

"Cazi Moto is back there--in the Thirst," suggested Kingozi, "and many others. And there is no water."

"I will go, bwana, and take the shenzis with me."

He set about gathering the water bottles and gourds that had not been emptied. Mali-ya-bwana and, unexpectedly, a big Kavirondo of Kingozi's safari, volunteered. The rest prepared to continue the journey.

But another delay occurred. The Leopard Woman, who had walked indomitably, now collapsed. Her eyes were sunken in her head, her lips had paled; only the long white oval of her face recalled her former splendid and exotic beauty. When the signal to proceed was given, she stepped forward as firmly as ever for perhaps a dozen paces, then her knees crumpled under her.

"I'm afraid I'm done," she muttered to Kingozi.

In the latter's eyes, for the first time, shone a real and ungrudging admiration. He knelt at her side and felt her pulse. Without hesitation, and in the most matter-of-fact way, he unbuttoned her blouse to the waist and tore apart the thin chemise beneath.

"Water," he commanded.

With the wetted end of his neck scarf he beat her vigorously below the left breast. After a little she opened her eyes.

"That's better," said Kingozi, and began clumsily to rebutton her blouse.

A slow colour rose to her face as she realized in what manner she had been exposed, and she snatched her garments together. Kingozi, watching her closely, seemed to see in this only a satisfactory symptom.

"That's right; now you're about again. Blood going once more."

They proceeded. A man on either side supported the Leopard Woman's steps.

Shortly the hills closed around them. The dark velvet masses compassed them about, and the starry sky seemed suddenly to have been thrust upward a million miles. The open plain narrowed to a track along which they groped single file. They caught the sound of running water to their left; but far below. There seemed no end to it.

But then, unexpectedly, they found themselves on a plateau, with the mass of the mountains on one side and the sea of night on the other, as though it might be the spacious deck of a ship. A multitude of people swarmed about them, shining naked people, who stared; and there seemed to be huts with conical roofs, and a number of little winking fires that shifted position. The people led the way to a circular hut of good size, with a conical thatched roof and wattle walls. Kingozi stooped his head, thrusting the lantern inside. The interior had been swept. A huge earthen tub full of water stood by the door. The place contained no other furnishings.

"Bring the memsahib here," he commanded.

She was half dragged forward. Kingozi took her in his arms to prevent her falling.

"Bring grass," he ordered.

The request was repeated outside in Swahili, and turned into a strange tongue. Kingozi heard many feet hurrying away.

He stood supporting the half-fainting form of the Leopard Woman. Her head rested against his shoulder. Her eyes were closed, her muscles had all gone slack, so that her body felt soft and warm. Kingozi, waiting, remembered her as she had looked the evening of his call--silk-clad, lithe, proud, with blood-red lips, and haughty, fathomless eyes, and the single jewel that hung in the middle of her forehead. Somehow at this moment she seemed smaller, in her safari costume, and helpless, and pathetic. He felt the curve of her breast against him, and the picture of her as he had seen her out there in the Thirst arose before his eyes. At that time it had not registered: he was too busy about serious things. But now, while he waited, the incident claimed, belated, his senses. His antagonism, or distrust, or coldness, or suspicion, or indifference, or whatever had hardened him, disappeared. He stared straight before him at the lantern, allowing these thoughts and sensations to drift through him. Subconsciously he noted that the lamp flame showed a halo, or rather two halos, one red and one green. By experience he knew that this portended one of his stabbing headaches through the eyes. But the thought did not hold him. He contemplated unwaveringly the spectacle of this soft, warm, helpless but indomitable piece of femininity fronting the African wilderness unafraid. Unconsciously his arms tightened around her, drawing her to him. She gave no sign. Her form was limp. Apparently she was either half asleep or in a stupor. But had Kingozi looked down when he tightened his arms, instead of staring at the halo-encircled lantern, he would have seen her glance sidewise upward into his face, he would have discerned a fleeting smile upon her lips.

Almost immediately the people were back with armfuls of the long grass that grows on the edge of mountainous country. Under Kingozi's directions they heaped it at one side. He assisted the Leopard Woman to this improvised couch and laid her upon it. She seemed to drop instantly asleep.

They brought more grass and piled it in another place. Mali-ya-bwana superintended these activities zealously. He had drunk his fill, had bolted a chunk of goat's flesh one of the savages had handed him, now he was ready to fulfil his bwana's commands.

"You will eat?" he asked.

But Kingozi was not hungry. His strong desire was for a tall balauri of hot tea, but this could not be. He knew it Was unsafe to drink the water unboiled--it is unsafe to drink any African water unboiled--but this time it could not be helped. He was not even very tired, though his eyes burned. There was nothing more to do. Kingozi knew that Simba and Cazi Moto would not attempt to come in.

They now had both food and water, and would camp somewhere out on the plain.

"I will sleep," he decided.

Mali-ya-bwana at once thrust the savages outside, without ceremony, peremptorily. When the bwana of an African belonging to the safari class wants anything, the latter gets it for him. The headman of the author of these lines went single handed and stopped in its very inception a royal n'goma, or dance, to which men had come a day's journey, merely because his bwana wanted to sleep! Kingozi was here alone, in a strange country, for the moment helpless; but Mali-ya-bwana hustled the tribesmen out as brusquely as though a regiment were at his back. Which undoubtedly had its effect.

Kingozi sat down on the straw and blew out his lantern. The wattle walls were not chinked; so the sweet night wind blew through freely; and elusively he saw stars against the night. The Leopard Woman breathed heavily in little sighs. He was not sleepy. Then everything went black----

When Kingozi awakened it was full daylight. A varied murmur came happily from outside, what the Africans call a kalele--a compound of chatter, the noise of occupation, of movement, the inarticulate voice of human existence. He glanced across the hut. The Leopard Woman was gone.

"Boy!" he shouted.

At the sound of his voice the kalele ceased. Almost immediately Cazi Moto stooped to enter the doorway. Cazi Moto was dressed in clean khaki, and bore in his hand a balauri of steaming tea. Kingozi seized this and drained it to the bottom.

"That is good," he commented gratefully. "I did not expect to see you, Cazi Moto. Did all the men get in?"

"Yes, bwana."

"Vema! And the men of the Leopard Woman?"

"Many died, bwana; but many are here."

Kingozi arose to his feet.

"I must have food. These shenzis eat what?"

"Food is ready, bwana."

"I will eat. Then we must make shauri with these people to get our loads. My men must rest to-day."

"Come, bwana," said Cazi Moto.

Kingozi stooped to pass through the door. When he straightened outside, he paused in amazement. Before him stood his camp, intact. The green tent with the fly faced him, the flaps thrown back to show within his cot and tin box. White porters' tents had been pitched in the usual circle, and before each squatted men cooking over little fires. The loads, covered by the tarpaulin, had been arranged in the centre of the circle. At a short distance to the rear the cook camp steamed.

Cazi Moto stood at his elbow grinning.

"Hot water ready, bwana," said he; and for the first time Kingozi noticed that he carried a towel over his arm.

"This is good, very good, Cazi Moto!" said he. "Backsheeshi m'kubwa for this; both for you and for Simba."

"Thank you, bwana," said Gaza Moto. "Simba brought the water, and it saved us; and I thought that my bwana should not sleep on grass a second time before these shenzis."

"Who carried in the loads? Not our porters?"

"No, bwana, the shenzis."

Kingozi glanced at his wrist watch. It was only ten o'clock. "When?"

"Last night."

"They went back last night?"

"Yes, bwana. Mali-ya-bwana considered that it was bad to leave the loads. There might be hyenas--or the shenzis----"

Kingozi slapped his thigh with satisfaction. This was a man after his own heart.

"Call Mali-ya-bwana," he ordered.

The tall Baganda approached.

"Mali-ya-bwana," said Kingozi. "You have done well. For this you shall have backsheeshi. But more. You need not again carry a load. You will be--" he hesitated, trying to invent an office, but reluctant to infringe upon the prerogatives of either Simba or Cazi Moto. "You will be headman of the porters; and you, Cazi Moto, will be headman of all the safari, and my own man besides."

The Baganda drew himself erect, his face shining. Placing his bare heels together, he raised his hand in a military salute. Kingozi was about to dismiss him, but this arrested his intention.

"Where did you learn to do that?" he asked sharply.

"I was once in the King's African Rifles."[[7]]

[[7]: Only, of course, Mali-ya-bwana gave the native name for these troops.]

"You can shoot, then?"

"Yes, bwana."

"Good!" commented Kingozi thoughtfully. Then after a moment: "Bassi."

Mali-ya-bwana saluted once more and departed. Kingozi turned toward his tent.

It had been pitched under a huge tree, with low, massive limbs and a shade that covered a diameter of fully sixty yards. Before it the usual table had been made of piled-up chop boxes, and to this Cazi Moto was bearing steaming dishes. The threatened headache had not materialized, and Kingozi was feeling quite fit. He was ravenously hungry, for now his system was rested enough to assimilate food. His last meal had been breakfast before sunup of the day before. Without paying even casual attention to his surroundings he seated himself on a third chop box and began to eat.

Kingozi's methods of eating had in them little of the epicure. He simply ate all he wanted of the first things set before him. After this he drank all he wanted from the tall balauri. Second courses did not exist for Kingozi. Then with a sigh of satisfaction, he fumbled for his pipe and tobacco, and looked about him.

The guest house had been built, as was the custom, a little apart from the main village. The latter was evidently around the bend of the hill, for only three or four huts were to be seen, perched among the huge outcropping boulders that were, apparently, characteristic of these hills. The mountains rose rather abruptly, just beyond the plateau; which, in turn, fell away almost as abruptly to the sweep of the plains. The bench was of considerable width--probably a mile at this point. It was not entirely level; but on the other hand not particularly broken. A number of fine, symmetrical trees of unknown species grew at wide intervals, overtopping a tangle of hedges, rank bushes, vines, and shrubs that appeared to constitute a rough sort of boundary between irregular fields. A tiny swift stream of water hurried by between the straight banks of an obviously artificial ditch.

But though the village was hidden from view, its inhabitants were not. They had invaded the camp. Kingozi examined them keenly, with curiosity. Naked little boys and girls wandered gravely about; women clung together in groups; men squatted on their heels before anything that struck their attention, and stared.

These people, Kingozi noted, were above middle size, of a red bronze, of the Semitic rather than the Hamitic type, well developed but not obviously muscular, of a bright and lively expression. The women shaved their heads quite bare; the men left a sort of skull cap of hair atop the head. Earlobes were pierced and stretched to hold ivory ornaments running up to the size of a jampot. There were some, but not many, armlets, leglets, and necklets of iron wire polished to the appearance of silver. The women wore brief skirts of softened skins: the men carried a short shoulder cape, or simply nothing at all. Each man bore a long-bladed heavy spear. Before squatting down in front of whatever engaged his attention for the moment, the savage thrust this upright in the ground. Kingozi, behind his pipe, considered them well: and received a favourable impression. An immovable, unblinking semicircle crouched at a respectful distance taking in every detail of the white man's appearance and belongings, watching his every move. Nobody spoke; apparently nobody even winked.

Now appeared across the prospect two men walking. One was an elderly savage, with a wrinkled, shrewd countenance. He was almost completely enveloped in a robe of softened skins. Followed him a younger man, dangling at the end of a thong a small three-legged stool cut entire from a single block of wood. The old man swept forward with considerable dignity; the younger, one hand held high in the most affected fashion, teetered gracefully along as mincingly as any dandy.

The visitor came superbly up to where Kingozi sat, and uttered a greeting in Swahili. He proved to possess a grand, deep, thunderous voice.

"Jambo!" he rolled.

Kingozi stared up at him coolly for a moment; then, without removing his pipe from his teeth, he remarked:

"Jambo!"

The old man, smiling, extended his hand.[[8]]

[[8]: Many African tribes shake hands in one way or another.]

Kingozi, nursing the bowl of his pipe, continued to stare up at him.

"Are you the sultani?" he demanded abruptly.

The old man waved his hand in courtly fashion.

"I am not the sultani," he answered in very bad Swahili; "I am the headman of the sultani."

Kingozi continued to stare at him in the most uncompromising manner. In the meantime the younger man had loosed the thong from his wrist and had placed the stool on a level spot. The prime minister to the sultani arranged his robe preparatory to sitting down.

Kingozi removed his pipe from his lips, and sat erect.

"Stand up!" he commanded sharply. "If you are not the sultani how dare you sit down before me!"

The youth whisked the stool away: the old man covered his discomfiture in a flow of talk. Kingozi listened to him in silence. The visitor concluded his remarks which--as far as they could be understood--were entirely general: and, with a final courtly wave of the hand, turned away. Then Kingozi spoke, abruptly, curtly.

"Have your people bring me eggs," he said, "milk, m'wembe."[[9]]

[[9]: A sort of flour ground from rape seeds.]

The old man, somewhat abashed, made the most dignified retreat possible through the keenly attentive audience of his own people.

Kingozi gazed after him, his blue eyes wide with their peculiar aggressive blank stare. A low hum of conversation swept through the squatting warriors. Those who understood Swahili murmured eagerly to those who did not. These uttered politely the long drawn "A-a-a-a!" of savage interest.

"Cazi Moto, where is my chair?" Kingozi demanded, abruptly conscious that the chop box was not very comfortable.

"Bibi-ya-chui has it."

"Where is she?"

"Right behind you," came that young woman's voice in amused tones. "You have been so busy that you have not seen me."

Kingozi turned. The chair had been placed in a bare spot close to the trunk of the great tree. He grinned cheerfully.

"I was pretty hungry," he confessed, "and I don't believe I saw a single thing but that curry!"

"Naturally. It is not to be wondered at. Are you all rested?"

"I'm quite fit, thanks. And you?"

She was still in her marching costume; but her hair had been smoothed, her face washed. The colour had come back to her lips, the light to her expression. Only a faint dark encircling of the eyes, and a certain graceful languor of attitude recalled the collapse of yesterday.

"Oh, I am all right; but perishing for a cigarette. Have you one?"

"Sorry, but I don't use them. Are not all your loads up yet?"

"None of them."

"Well, they should be in shortly. Cazi Moto has given you breakfast, of course."

"Yes. But nobody has yet gone for my loads."

"What!" exclaimed Kingozi sharply. "Why did you not start men for them when you first awakened?"

She smiled at him ruefully.

"I tried. But they said they were very tired from yesterday. They would not go."

"Simba!" called Kingozi.

"Suh!"

"Bring the headman of Bibi-ya-chui. Is he that mop-headed blighter?" he asked her.

"Who? Oh, the Nubian, Chaké. No; he is just a faithful creature near myself. I have no headman."

"Who takes your orders, then?"

"The askaris."

"Which one?"

"Any of them." She made a mouth. "Don't look at me in that fashion. Is that so very dreadful?"

"It's impossible. You can never run a safari in that way. Simba, bring all the askaris."

Simba departed on his errand. Kingozi turned to her gravely.

"Dear lady," said he gravely, "I am going to offend you again. But this won't do. You are a wonderful woman; but you do not know this game well enough. I acknowledge you will handle this show ordinarily in tiptop style; but in a new country, in contact with new peoples--it's a specialist's job, that's all."

"I'm beginning to think so," she replied with unexpected humility.

"Already you've lost control of your organization: you nearly died from lack of water--By the way, why didn't you push ahead with your Nubian, and find the water?"

"I had to get my men on."

He looked on her with more approval.

"Well, you're safe out of it. And now, I beg of you, don't do it any more."

"Is my little scolding all done?" she asked after a pause.

"Forgive me. I did not mean it as a scolding."

She sat upright and rested her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands. Her long sea-green eyes softened.

"Listen: I deserve that what you say. I thought I knew, because always I have travelled in a good country. But never the hell of a dry country. I want you to know that you are quite right, and I want to tell you that I know you saved me and my men: and I would not know what to do now if you were not here to help me. There!" she made a pretty outward-flinging gesture. "Is that enough?"

Kingozi, like most men whose natural efficiency has been hardened by wide experience, while impervious to either open or wily antagonism, melted at the first hint of surrender. A wave of kindly feeling overwhelmed the last suspicions--absurd suspicions--his analysis had made. He was prevented from replying by the approach of Simba at the head of eight of the askaris. They slouched along at his heels, sullen and careless, but when they felt the impact of Kingozi's cold glare, they straightened to attention. Kingozi ran his eye over them.

"Where are the other four?" he demanded.

"Three are in the shenzis' village. One says he is very tired."

"Take Mali-ya-bwana and Cazi Moto. Take the leg chains. Bring that one man before me with the chains on him. Have him bring also his gun; and his cartridges."

Ignoring the waiting eight, Kingozi resumed his conversation with the Leopard Woman.

"They are out of hand," said he. "We must impress them."

"Kiboko?" she inquired.

"Perhaps--but you have rather overdone that. We shall see."

"I heard you talk with that old man a few moments ago," she said. "And I heard also much talk of our men about it. He is a very powerful chief--next to the sultani. Are not you afraid that your treatment of him will make trouble? You were not polite."

"What else have you heard?"

"This sultani has apparently several hundred villages. They keep goats, fat-tailed sheep, and some few cattle. They raise m'wembe, beans, peanuts, and bananas. They have a war caste of young men."

Kingozi listened to her attentively.

"Good girl!" said he. "You use your intelligence. These are all good points to know."

"But this old man----"

"No; I have not insulted him. I know the native mind. I have merely convinced him that I am every bit as important a person as his sultani."

"What do you do next? Call on the sultani."

"By no means. Wait until he comes. If he does not come by, say to-morrow, send for him."

Simba appeared leading a downcast askari in irons. Kingozi waved his hand toward those waiting in the sun; and the new captive made the ninth.

"Now, Simba, go to the village of these shenzis. Tell the other three askaris to come; and at once. Do not return without them."

Simba, whose fierce soul all this delighted beyond expression, started off joyfully, trailed by a posse of his own choosing.

"What are you going to do?" asked the Leopard Woman curiously.

"Get them in line a bit," replied Kingozi carelessly. "I feel rather lazy and done up to-day; don't you?"

"That is so natural. And I am keeping your chair----"

"I've been many trips without one. This tree is good to lean against----"

They chatted about trivial matters. A certain ease had crept into their relations: a guard had been lowered. To a small extent they ventured to question each other, to indulge in those tentative explorations of personality so fascinating in the early stages of acquaintanceship. To her inquiries Kingozi repeated that he was an ivory hunter and trader; he came into this country because new country alone offered profits in ivory these days; he had been in Africa for fifteen years. At this last she looked him over closely.

"You came out very young," she surmised.

"When my father took me out of the medical school to put me into the ministry. I had a knack for doctoring. I ran away."

"Why did you come to Africa?"

"Didn't particularly. Started for Iceland on a whaling ship. Sailed the seven seas after the brutes. Landed on the Gold Coast--and got left behind."

She looked at him hard, and he laughed.

"'Left' with my kit and about sixty pounds I had hung on to since I left home--my own money, mind you! And a harpoon gun! Lord!" he laughed again, "think of it--a harpoon gun! You loaded it with about a peck of black powder. Normally, of course, it shot a harpoon, but you could very near cram a nigger baby down it! And kick! If you were the least bit off balance it knocked you flat. It was the most extraordinary cannon ever seen in Africa, and it inspired more respect, acquired me more kudos than even my beard."

"So that's why you wear it!" she murmured.

"What?"

"Nothing; go on."

"Just the sight of that awe-inspiring piece of ordnance took me the length of the Congo without the least difficulty."

"Tell me about the Congo."

Apparently, at this direct and comprehensive question, there was nothing to tell about the Congo. But adroitly she drew him on. He told of the great river and its people, and the white men who administered it. The subject of cannibals seemed especially to fascinate her. He had seen living human beings issued as a sort of ration on the hoof to native cannibal troops.

Simba returned with the other three askaris.

Kingozi arose from the ground and stretched himself.

"I'm sorry," said he, "I'm afraid I shall have to ask you for the chair now."

She arose, wondering a little. He placed the chair before the waiting line of askaris, and planted himself squarely in it as in a judgment seat. He ran his eye over the men deliberately.

"You!" said he suddenly, pointing his forefinger at the man in irons. "You have disobeyed my orders. You are no longer an askari. You are a common porter, and from now on will carry a load. It is not my custom to use kiboko on askaris; but a common porter can eat kiboko, and Mali-ya-bwana, my headman of safari, will give you twenty-five lashes. Bassi!"

Mali-ya-bwana, well pleased thus early to exercise the authority of his new office, led the man away.

Kingozi dropped his chin in his hand, a movement that pushed out his beard in a terrifying manner. One after another of the eleven men felt the weight of his stare. At last he spoke.

"I have heard tales of you," said he, "but I who speak know nothing about you. You are askaris, soldiers with guns, and next to gun bearers are the greatest men in the safari. Some have told me that you are not askaris, that you are common porters--and not good ones--who carry guns. I do not know. That we shall see. This is what must be done now, and done quickly: the loads of your memsahib must be brought here, and camp made properly, according to the custom. Perhaps your men are no longer tired: perhaps you will get the shenzis. That is not my affair. You understand?"

The answer came in an eager chorus. He ran his eye over them again.

"You," he indicated, "stand forward. Of what tribe are you?"

"Monumwezi, bwana."

"Your name?"

The man uttered a mouthful of gutturals.

"Again."

He repeated.

"That is not a good name for me. From now on you are--Jack."

"Yes, bwana."

"Do you know the customs of askaris?"

"Yes, bwana."

"H'm," Kingozi commented in English, "nobody would guess it. Then understand this: You are headman of askaris. You take the orders: you report to me--or the memsahib," he added, almost as an afterthought. "To-morrow morning fall in, and I will look at your guns. Bassi!"

They filed away. Kingozi arose and returned the chair.

"Is that all you will do to them?" she demanded. "I tell you they have insulted me; they have refused to move; they should be punished."

"That's all. They understand now what will happen. You will see: they will not refuse again."

She appeared to struggle against a flare of her old rebellious spirit.

"I will leave it to you," she managed at last.

The squatting savages had not moved a muscle, but their shining black eyes had not missed a single detail.

[CHAPTER X]

THE SULTANI

Six hours later the Leopard Woman's camp had arrived, had been pitched, and everything was running again as usual. The new askari headman, Jack, had reported pridefully to Kingozi. The latter had nodded a careless acknowledgment; and had referred the man to his mistress. She had disappeared for a time, but now emerged again, bathed, freshened, dainty in her silken tea gown, the braids of hair down her back, the band of woven gold encircling her brow, the single strange jewel hanging in the middle of her forehead. For a time she sat alone under her own tree; but, as Kingozi showed no symptoms of coming to her, and as she was bored and growing impatient, she trailed over to him, the Nubian following with her chair. Kingozi was absorbed in establishing points on his map. He looked up at her and nodded pleasantly, then moved his protractor a few inches.

"Just a moment," he murmured absorbedly.

She lit a cigarette and yawned. The immediate prospect was dull. Savages continued to drift in, to squat and stare, then to move on to the porters' camps. There a lively bartering was going on. From some unsuspected store each porter had drawn forth a few beads, some snuff, a length of wire, or similar treasure; and with them was making the best bargain he could for the delicacies of the country. The process was noisy. Four askaris, with their guns, stood on guard. The shadows were lengthening in the hills, and the heat waves had ceased to shimmer like veils.

"That's done," said Kingozi at last.

"Thank the Lord!" she ejaculated. "This bores me. Why do we not do something? I should like some milk, some eggs--many things. Let us summon this king."

But Kingozi shook his head.

"That's all very well where the white man's influence reaches. But not here. I doubt if there are three men in this people who have ever even seen a white man. Of course they have all heard of us, and know a good deal about us. We must stand on our dignity here. Let the sultani come to us, all in his own time. Without his goodwill we cannot move a step farther, we cannot get a pound of potio."

"How long will it take? I want to get on. This does not interest me. I have seen many natives."

Kingozi smiled.

"Two days of visit. Then perhaps a week to get potio and guides."

"Impossible! I could not endure it!"

"I am afraid you will have to. I know the untamed savage. He is inclined to be friendly, always. If you hurry the process, you must fight. That's the trouble with a big mob like yours. It is difficult to feed so many peacefully. Even in a rich country they bring in potio slowly--a cupful at a time. With the best intentions in the world you may have to use coercion to keep from starving. And coercion means trouble. Look at Stanley--he left hostilities everywhere, that have lasted up to now. The people were well enough disposed when he came among them with his six or eight hundred men. But he had to have food and he had to have it quickly. He could not wait for slow, diplomatic methods. He had to take it. Even when you pay for a thing, that doesn't work. The news travelled ahead of him, and the result was he had to fight. And everybody else has had to fight ever since."

"That is interesting. I did not know that."

"A small party can negotiate. That's why I say you have too many men."

"But the time wasted!" she cried aghast.

"Time is nothing in Africa." He went on to tell her of the two travellers in Rhodesia who came upon a river so wide that they could but just see from one bank to the other; and so swift that rafts were of little avail. So one man went back for a folding boat while the other camped by the stream. Four months later the first man returned with the boat. The "river" had dried up completely!

"They didn't mind," said Kingozi, "they thought it a huge joke."

An hour before sundown signs of activity manifested themselves from the direction of the invisible village. A thin, high, wailing chant in female voices came fitfully to their ears. A compact little group of men rounded the bend and approached. Their gait was slow and stately.

"Well," remarked Kingozi, feeling for his pipe, "we are going to be honoured by that visit from his majesty."

The Leopard Woman leaned forward and surveyed the approaching men with some interest. They were four in number. Three were naked, their bodies oiled until they glistened with a high polish. One of them carried a battered old canvas steamer chair; one a fan of ostrich plumes; and one a long gourd heavily decorated with cowrie shells. The fourth was an impressive individual in middle life, hawkfaced, tall and spare, carrying himself with great dignity. He wore a number of anklets and armlets of polished wire, a broad beaded collar, heavy earrings, and a sumptuous robe of softened goatskins embroidered with beads and cowrie shells. As he strode his anklets clashed softly. His girt was free, and he walked with authority. Altogether an impressive figure.

"The sultani is a fine-looking man," observed Bibi-ya-chui. "I suppose the others are slaves."

Kingozi threw a careless glance in the direction of the approaching group.

"Not the sultani--some understrapper. Chief Hereditary Guardian of the Royal Chair, or something of that sort, I dare say."

The tall man approached, smiling graciously. Kingozi vouchsafed him no attention. Visibly impressed, the newcomer rather fussily superintended the unfolding and placing of the chair. The slaves with the plumed fan and the gourd stationed themselves at either side. The other two men fell back.

Now the shrill chanting became more clearly audible. Shortly appeared a procession. Women bearing burdens walked two by two. Armed men with spears and shields flanked them. As they approached, it could be seen that they were very gorgeous indeed; the women hung with strings of cowries, bound with glittering brass and iron, bedecked with strings of beads. To one familiar with savage peoples there could be no doubt that these were close to the purple. Each bead, each shell, each bangle of wire had been passed through many, many hands before it reached this remote fastness of barbarity; and in each hand, you may be sure, profits had remained. But the men were more impressive still. Stark naked of every stitch of cloth or of tanned skins, oiled with an unguent carrying a dull red stain, their heads shaved bare save for a small crown patch from which single feathers floated, they symbolized well the warrior stripped for the fray. A beaded broad belt supported a short sword and the runga, or war club; an oval shield of buffalo hide, brilliantly painted, hung on the left arm; a polished long-bladed spear was carried in the right hand. And surrounding the face, as a frame, was a queer headdress of black ostrich plumes. Every man of them wore about his ankles hollow bangles of considerable size; and these he clashed loudly one against the other as he walked.

It made a great uproar this--the clang of the iron, the wild wailing of the women's voices.

Kingozi moved his chair four or five paces to the front.

"I'm sorry," he told her, "but I must ask you to stay where you are. This is an important occasion."

He surveyed the oncoming procession with interest.

"Swagger old beggar," he observed. "His guard are well turned out. You know those markings on the shields are a true heraldry--the patterns mean families, and all that sort of thing."

The chanting grew louder as the procession neared. The warriors stared fiercely straight ahead. Before Kingozi they parted to right and left, forming an aisle leading to his chair. Down this the women came, one by one, still singing, and deposited their burdens at the white man's feet. There were baskets of m'wembe, earthen bowls of eggs, fowls, gourds of milk, bundles of faggots and firewood, woven bags of n'jugu nuts, vegetables, and two small sheep. Kingozi stared indifferently into the distance; but as each gift was added to the others he reached forward to touch it as a sign of acceptance. Their burdens deposited, they took their places in front of the ranks of the warriors.

"Am I supposed to speak?" asked the Leopard Woman.

"Surely."

"Shouldn't we order out our askaris with their guns to make the parade?"

"No. We could not hope to equal this show, possibly. Our lay is to do the supercilious indifferent." He turned to his attentive satellite. "Cazi Moto," he ordered, "tell our people, quietly, to go back to their camps. They must not stand and stare at these shenzis. And tell M'pishi to make large balauris of coffee, and put in plenty of sugar."

Cazi Moto grinned understandingly, and glided away. Shortly the safari men could be seen sauntering unconcernedly back to their little fires.

Suddenly the warriors cried out in a loud voice, and raised their right arms and spears rigidly above their heads. A tall, heavily built man appeared around the bend. He was followed by two young women, who flanked him by a pace or so to the rear. They were so laden with savage riches as to be almost concealed beneath the strings of cowrie shells and bands of beads. In contrast the man wore only a long black cotton blanket draped to leave one shoulder and arm bare. Not an earring, not a bangle, not even a finger ring or a bead strap relieved the sombre simplicity of the black robe and the dark skin.

"But this man is an artist!" murmured Bibi-ya-chui. "He understands effect! This is stage managed!"

The sultani approached without haste. He stopped squarely before Kingozi's chair. The latter did not rise. The two men stared into each other's eyes for a full minute, without embarrassment, without contest, without defiance. Then the black man spoke.

"Jambo, bwana," he rumbled in a deep voice.

"Jambo, sultani" replied Kingozi calmly.

They shook hands.

With regal deliberation the visitor arranged his robes and sat down in the battered old canvas chair. A silence that lasted nearly five minutes ensued.

"I thank you, sultani, for the help your men have given. I thank you for the houses. I thank you for these gifts."

The sultani waved his hand magnificently.

"It is not the custom of white men to give gifts until their departure," continued Kingozi, "but this knife is yours to make friendship."

He handed over a knife, of Swedish manufacture, the blade of which disappeared into the handle in a most curious fashion. The sultani's eyes lit up with an almost childish delight, but his countenance showed no emotion. He passed the knife on to the dignitary who stood behind his chair.

"This," said Kingozi, taking one of the steaming balauris from Cazi Moto, "is the white man's tembo."

The sultani tasted doubtfully. He was pleased. He gave back the balauri at last with a final smack of the lips.

"Good!" said he.

Another full five minutes of silence ensued. Then the sultani arose. He cast a glance about him, his eye, avid with curiosity, held rigidly in restraint. It rested on the Leopard Woman.

"I see you have one of your women with you," he remarked.

He turned, without further ceremony, and stalked off, followed at a few paces by the two richly ornamented girls. The warriors again raised their spears aloft, holding them thus until their lord had rounded the cliff. Then, the women in precedence, they marched away. Kingozi puffed his pipe indifferently.

The Leopard Woman was visibly impatient, visibly roused.

"Are you letting him go?" she demanded. "Do not you inquire the country? Do not you ask for potio, for guides?"

"Not to-day," replied Kingozi. He turned deliberately to face her, his eyes serious. "Please realize once for all that we live here only by force of prestige. My only chance of getting on, our only chance of safety rests on my ability to impress this man with the idea that I am a bigger lord than he. And, remember, I have lived in savage Africa for fifteen years, and I know what I am doing. This is very serious. You must not interfere; and you must not suggest."

The Leopard Woman's eyes glittered dangerously, but she controlled herself.

"You talk like a sultan yourself," she protested at length. "You should not use that tone to me."

Kingozi brushed the point aside with a large gesture.

"I will play the game of courtesy with you, yes," said he, "but only when it does not interfere with serious things. In this matter there must be no indefiniteness, no chance for misunderstanding. Politeness, between the sexes, means both. I will repeat: in this you must leave me free hand no interference, no suggestion."

"And if I disobey your commands?" she challenged, with an emphasis on the last word.

He surveyed her sombrely.

"I should take measures," he replied finally.

"You are not my master: you are not the master of my men!"

Kingozi permitted himself a slight smile.

"If you believe that last statement, just try to give an order to your men counter to an order of mine. You would see. And of course in case of a real crisis I should have to make myself master of you, if you seemed likely to be troublesome."

"I would kill you! I warn you; I go always armed!"

From the folds of her silken robe she produced a small automatic pistol which she displayed. Kingozi glanced at it indifferently.

"In that case you would have to kill yourself, too; and then it would not matter to either of us."

"I find you insufferable!" she cried, getting to her feet.

She moved away in the direction of her camp. The faithful Nubian folded her chair and followed. At the doorway of her tent she looked back. Kingozi, his black pipe in his mouth, was bending absorbedly over his map.

[CHAPTER XI]

THE IVORY STOCKADE

The Leopard Woman, emerging from her tent shortly after sunup the next morning, saw across the opening her own askaris being drilled by Kingozi, Simba, and Cazi Moto. Evidently the instruction was in rifle fire. Two were getting individual treatment: Simba and Cazi Moto were putting them through a careful course in aiming and pulling the trigger on empty guns. Kingozi sat on a chop box in the shade, gripping his eternal pipe, and issuing curt orders and criticisms to the baker's dozen, before him. When he saw the Leopard Woman he arose and strolled in her direction.

"That's the worst lot of so-called askaris I ever saw," he remarked. "Where did you pick them up?"

His manner was entirely unconscious of any discussions or dissentions. He looked into her eyes and smiled genially.

"I took them from the recruiting man, as they came," she replied. As always the deeps of her eyes were enigmatical; but the surfaces, at least, of her mood answered his.

"They know how to load a gun, and that is about all. I don't believe one of them ever fired a weapon before this trip. They haven't the most rudimentary ideas of aiming. Don't even know what sights are for. My boys will soon whip them into some sort of shape. I came over to see how much ammunition you have for their muskets. They really ought to fire a few rounds--after a week of aiming and snapping. Then they'll be of some use. Not much, though."

"I really don't know," she answered his question. "Chaké will look and see."

"Send him over to report when he finds out," requested Kingozi, preparing to return.

"What move does your wisdom contemplate to-day?" she called after him.

"Oh, return his majesty's visit this afternoon. Like to go?"

"Certainly."

"Well, I'll let you know when. And if you go, you must be content to stand two or three yards behind me, and to say nothing."

She flushed, but answered steadily enough:

"I'll remember."

It was nearing sundown when Kingozi emerged from his tent and gave the signal to move. He had for the first time strapped on a heavy revolver; his glasses hung from his neck; his sleeve was turned back to show his wrist watch; and, again for the first time, he had assumed a military-looking tunic. He carried his double rifle.

"Got on everything I own," he grinned.

Simba and Cazi Moto waited near. From the mysterious sources every native African seems to possess they had produced new hats and various trinkets. Their khakis had been fresh washed; so they looked neat and trim.

The Leopard Woman wore still one of her silken negligées, and the jewel on her forehead; but her hair had been piled high on her head. Kingozi surveyed her with some particularity. She noted the fact. Her satisfaction would have diminished could she have read his mind. He was thinking that her appearance was sufficiently barbaric to impress a barbaric king.

They rounded the point of cliffs, and the village lay before them. It rambled up the side of the mountain, hundreds of beehive houses perched and clinging, with paths from one to the other. The approach was through a narrow straight lane of thorn and aloes, so thick and so spiky that no living thing bigger than a mouse could have forced its way through the walls. The end of this vista was a heavy palisade of timbers through which a door led into a circular enclosure ten feet in diameter, on the other side of which another door opened into the village. Above each of these doors massive timbers were suspended ready to fall at the cut of a sword. Within the little enclosure, or double gate, squatted a man before a great drum.

"They're pretty well fixed here," observed Kingozi critically. "Nobody can get at them except down that lane. The mountains are impassable because of the thorn. They must use arrows."

"Why?" asked the Leopard Woman.

"The form of their defence. They shoot between the logs of the palisade down the narrow lane. If they fought only with spears, the lane would be shorter, and it would be defended on the flank."

"Why don't they defend it on the flank also, even with arrows?" asked the Leopard Woman shrewdly.

"'It is not the custom,'" wearily quoted Kingozi in the vernacular. "Don't ask me why a savage does things. I only know he does."

Their conversation was drowned by the sound of the drum.

The guardian did not beat it, but rubbed the head rapidly with the stick, modifying the pressure scientifically until the vibrations had well started. It roared hollowly, like some great bull.

The visitors passed through the defensive anteroom and entered the village enclosure.

On the flat below the hills, heretofore invisible, stood a half-dozen large houses. At the end, where the cañon began to narrow, a fence gleamed dazzlingly white. From this distance the four-foot posts, planted in proximity like a stockade, looked to have been whitewashed.

People were appearing everywhere. The crags and points of the hills were filling with bold black figures silhouetted against the sky. Men, women, children, dogs sprang up, from the soil apparently. As though by magic the flat open space became animated. Plumed heads appeared above the white fence in the distance, where, undoubtedly, their owners had been loafing in the shade. Another drum began to roar somewhere, and with it the echoes began to arouse themselves in the hills.

Paying no attention to any of this interesting confusion Kingozi sauntered straight ahead. At his command the Leopard Woman had dropped a pace to the rear.

"The royal palace is behind the white fence," he volunteered over his shoulder.

They approached the sacred precincts. But while yet fifty yards distant, Kingozi stopped with an exclamation. He turned to the Leopard Woman, and for the first time she saw on his face and in his eyes a genuine and unconcealed excitement.

"My Lord!" he cried to her, "saw ever any man the likes of that!"

The white posts of which the fence was made were elephants' tusks!

"Kingdom coming, what a sight!" murmured Kingozi. "Why, there are hundreds and hundreds of them--and the smallest worth not less than fifty pounds!"

Her eyes answered him whole-heartedly, for her imagination was afire.

"What magnificence!" she replied. "The thought is great--a palace of ivory! This is kingly!"

But the light had died in Kingozi's eyes. "Won't do!" he muttered to her. "Compose your face. Come."

Without another glance at the magnificent tusks he marched on through the open gate.

Other drums, many drums, were roaring all about. The cliff of the cañon was filled with sound that buffeted back and forth until it seemed that it must rise above the hills and overflow the world. A chattering and hurrying of people could be heard as an undertone.

The small enclosure was occupied by a dozen of the plumed warriors who had now snatched up emblazoned shield and polished spear; and stood rigidly at attention. Women of all ages crouched and squatted against the fence and the sides of a large wattle and thatch building.

Kingozi walked deliberately about, looking with detached interest at the various people and objects the corral contained. He had very much the air of a man sauntering idly about a museum, with all the time in the world on his hands, and nowhere much to go. Simba and Cazi Moto remained near the gate. The Leopard Woman, not knowing what else to do, trailed after him.

This continued for some time. At last her impatience overcame her.

"I suppose I may talk," said she resentfully. "How much longer must this go on? Why do not you make your call and have it over?"

Kingozi laughed.

"You do not know this game. Inside old Stick-in-the mud is waiting in all his grandeur. He expects me to go in to him. I am going to wait until he comes out to me. Prestige again."

Apparently without a care in the world, he continued his stroll. Small naked children ventured from hiding-places and stared. To some of these Kingozi spoke pleasantly with the immediate effect of causing them to scuttle back to cover. He examined minutely the tusks comprising the stockade. They had been arranged somewhat according to size, with the curve outward. Kingozi spent some time estimating them.

"Fortune here for some one," he observed.

At the end of an hour the sultani gave up the contest and appeared, smiling, unconcerned. The men greeted each other, exchanged a few words. Women emerged from the house carrying tembo in gourd bottles, and smaller half-gourds from which to drink it. Their eyes were large with curiosity as to this man and woman of a new species. Kingozi touched his lips to the tembo. They exchanged a few words, and shook hands again. Then Kingozi turned away, and, followed by the Leopard Woman and his two men, walked out through the ivory gateway, down through the open flat, under the fortified portal, and so down the lane of spiky walls. The drums roared louder and louder. Warriors in spear, shield, and plumed headdress stood rigid as they passed. People by the hundreds gazed at them openly, peered at them from behind doors, or looked down on them from the crags above. They rounded the corner of the cliff. Before them lay their own quiet peaceful camp. Only the voice of the drums bellowed as though behind them in the cleft of the hills some great and savage beast lay hid.

"That seemed to be all right," suggested the Leopard Woman, ranging alongside again.

"They didn't spear us, if that's what you mean. We can tell more about it to-morrow."

"What will happen to-morrow?"

"Yesterday and to-day finished the 'side' and ceremony. If to-morrow old Stick-in-the-mud drifts around quite on his own, like any other shenzi, and if the women come into camp freely, why then we're all right."

"And otherwise?"

"Well, if the sultani stays away, and if you don't see any women at all, and if the men are painted and carry their shields--they will always carry their spears--that won't be so favourable." "In which case we fight?"

"No: I'll alter my diplomacy. There's a vast difference between mere unfriendliness and hostility. I think I can handle the former all right. I wish I knew a little more of their language. Swahili hardly fills the bill. I'll see what I can do with it in the next few days."

"You cannot learn a language in a few days!" she objected incredulously.

"Of course not. But I seem to know the general root idea of this patter. It isn't unlike the N'gruimi--same root likely--a bastard combination of Bantu-Masai stock."

She looked at him.

"You know," she told him slowly, "I am beginning to believe you savant. You make not much of it, but your knowledge of natives is extraordinary. You better than any other man know these people--their minds--how to influence them."

"I have a little knowledge of how to go at them, that's true. That's about the only claim I have to being savant, as you call it. My book knowledge and fact knowledge is equalled by many and exceeded by a great many more. But mere knowledge of facts doesn't get far in practice," he laughed. "Lord, these scientists! Helpless as children!" He sobered again. "There's one man has the science and the psychology both. He's a wonderful person. He knows the native objectively as I never will; and subjectively as well if not better. It is a rare combination. He's 'way over west of us somewhere now--in the Congo headwaters--a Bavarian, name Winkleman."

Had Kingozi been looking at her he would have seen the Leopard Woman's frame stiffen at the mention of this name. For a moment she said nothing.

"I know the name--he is great scientist," she managed to say.

"He is more than a scientist; he is a great humanist. No man has more insight, more sympathetic insight into the native mind. A man of vast influence."

They had reached Kingozi's camp under the great tree. He began to unbuckle his equipment.

"I'll just lay all this gorgeousness aside," said he apologetically.

But the Leopard Woman did not proceed to her own camp.

"I am interested," said she. "This Winkleman--he has vast influence? More than yourself?"

"That is hard to say," laughed Kingozi. "I should suppose so."

She caught at a hint of reluctant pride in his voice.

"Let us suppose," said she. "Let us suppose that you wanted one thing of natives, and Winkleman wanted another thing. Which would succeed?"

"Neither. We'd both be speared," replied Kingozi promptly. "Positive and negative poles, and all that sort of thing."

She puzzled over this a moment, trying to cast her question in a new form.

"But suppose this: suppose Winkleman had obtained his wish. Could you overcome his influence and what-you-call substitute your own?"

"No more than he could substitute his were the cases reversed. I've confidence enough in myself and knowledge enough of Winkleman to guarantee that."

"So it would depend on who got there first?" she persisted; "that is your opinion?"

"Why, yes. But what does it matter?"

"It amuses me to get knowledge. I admire your handle of these people. You must be patient and explain. It is all new to me, although I thought I had much experience."

She arose.

"I am tired now. I go to the siesta."

Kingozi stared after her retreating figure. The direct form of her questions had stirred again suspicions that had become vague.

"What's she driving at?" he asked the uncomprehending Simba in English. He considered the question for some moments. "Don't even know her name or nationality," he confessed to himself after a while. "She's a queer one. I suppose I'll have to give her a man or so to help her back across the Thirst." He pondered again, "I might take her askaris. Country will feed them now. I'll have a business talk with her."

As the tone of voice sounded final to Simba he ventured his usual reply.

"Yes, suh!" said Simba.

[CHAPTER XII]

THE PILOCARPIN

The sultani duly appeared the next morning; women brought in firewood and products of the country to trade; all was well. The entire day, and the succeeding days for over a week, Kingozi sat under his big tree, smoking his black pipe. The sultani sat beside him. For long periods at a time nothing at all was said. Then for equally long periods a lively conversation went on, through an interpreter mostly, though occasionally the sultani launched into his bastard Swahili or Kingozi ventured a few words in the new tongue. Once in a while some intimate would saunter into view, and would be summoned by his king. Then Kingozi patiently did the following things:

(a) He performed disappearing tricks with a rupee or other small object; causing it to vanish, and then plucking it from unexpected places.

(b) With a pair of scissors--which were magic aplenty in themselves--he cut a folded paper in such a manner that when unfolded a row of paper dolls was disclosed. This was a very successful trick. The pleased warriors dandled them up and down delightedly in an n'goma.

(d) He allowed them to look through his prism glasses.

(e) On rare occasions he lit a match.

This vaudeville entertainment was always a huge success. The newcomers squatted around the two chairs, and the conversation continued.

Bibi-ya-chui occasionally stood near and listened. The subjects were trivial in themselves, and repeated endlessly.

Ten minutes of this bored her to the point of extinction. She could not understand how Kingozi managed to survive ten hours day after day. Only once was he absent from his post, and then for only a few hours. He went out accompanied by Simba and a dozen shenzis, and shot a wildebeeste. The tail of this--an object much prized as a fly whisk--he presented to his majesty. All the rest of the time he talked and listened.

"It is such childish nonsense!" the Leopard Woman expostulated. "How can you do it?"

"Goes with the job. It's a thing you must learn to do if you would get on in this business."

And once more she seemed to catch a glimpse of the infinity of savage Africa, which has been the same for uncounted ages, impersonal, without history, without the values of time!

But had she known it, Kingozi was getting what he required. Information came to him a word now, a word then; promises came to him in single phrases lost in empty gossip. He collected what he wanted grain by grain from bushels of chaff. The whole sum of his new knowledge could have been expressed in a paragraph, took him a week to get, but was just what he wanted. If he had asked categorical questions, he would have received lies. If he had attempted to hurry matters, he would have got nothing at all.

About sundown the sultani would depart, followed shortly by the last straggler of his people. The succeeding hours were clear of shenzis, for either the custom of the country or the presence of strangers seemed to demand an n'goma every evening. In the night stillness sounds carried readily. The drums, no longer rubbed but beaten in rhythm; the shrill wailing chants of women; the stamp and shuffle of feet; the cadenced clapping of hands rose and fell according to the fervour of the dance. The throb of these sounds was as a background to the evening--fierce, passionate, barbaric.

After the departure of the sultani Kingozi took a bath and changed his clothes. The necessity for this was more mental than physical. Then he relaxed luxuriously. It was then that he resumed his relations with the Leopard Woman, and that they discussed matters of more or less importance to both.

The first evening they talked of the wonder of the ivory stockade. Kingozi had not yet had an opportunity to find out whence the tusks had come, whether the elephants had been killed in this vicinity, or whether the ivory had been traded from the Congo.

"It is very valuable," he said. "I must find out whether old Stick-in-the-mud knows what they are worth, or whether he can be traded out of them on any reasonable basis."

"You will not be going farther," she suggested one evening, apropos of nothing.

"Farther? Why not?" he asked rather blankly.

"You told me you were an ivory hunter," she pointed out.

"Ah--yes. But I have hardly the goods to trade--come back later," he stumbled, for once caught off his guard. "I'm really looking for new hunting grounds."

She did not pursue the subject; but the enigmatic smile lurked for a moment in the depths of her eyes.

Every night after supper Kingozi caused his medicine chest to be brought out and opened, and for a half-hour he doctored the sick. On this subject he manifested an approach to enthusiasm.

"I know I can't doctor them all," he answered her objection, "and that it's foolish to pick out one here and there; but it interests me. I told you I was a medical student by training." He fingered over the square bottles, each in its socket. "This is not the usual safari drug list," he said. "I like to take these queer cases and see what I can do with them. I may learn something; at any rate, it interests me. McCloud at Nairobi fitted me out; and told me what it would be valuable to observe."

She appeared interested, and shortly he became enough convinced of this to show and explain each drug separately. The quinine he carried in the hydrochlorate instead of the sulphate, and he waxed eloquent telling her why. Crystals of iodine as opposed to permanganate of potash for antiseptic he discussed. From that he branched into antisepsis as opposed to asepsis as a practical method in the field.

"Theory has nothing to do with it," said he. "It's a matter of which will work!"

It was all technical; but it interested her for the simple reason that Kingozi was really enthusiastic. True enthusiasm, without pose or self-consciousness, invariably arouses interest.

"Now here's something you'll never see in another safari kit," said he, holding up one of the square bottles filled with small white crystals, "and that wouldn't be found in this one except for an accident. It's pilocarpin."

"What is pilocarpin?" she asked, making a difficulty of the word.

"It is really a sort of eye dope," he explained. "You know atropin--the stuff an oculist uses in your eyes when he wants to examine them--leaves your vision blurred for a day or so."

"Yes, I know that."

"The effect of atropin is to expand the pupil. Pilocarpin is just the opposite--it contracts the pupil."

"What need could you possibly have of that?"

"There's the joke: I haven't. But when I was outfitting I could not get near enough phenacetin. I suppose you know that we use phenacetin to induce sweating as first treatment of fever."

"I am not entirely ignorant. I can treat fevers, of course."

"Well, I took all they could spare. Then McCloud suggested pilocarpin. Though it is really an eye drug, to be used externally, it also has an effect internally to induce sweating. So that's why I have it."

She was examining the bottles.

"But you have atropin also. Why is that?"

"There's a good deal of ophthalmia or trachoma floating around some native districts. I thought I might experiment."

"And this"--she picked up a third bottle--"ah, yes, morphia. But how much alike they all are."

"In appearance, yes; in effect most radically and fatally different--like people," smiled Kingozi.

But though Kingozi's scientific interest was keen in certain directions--as ethnology, drugs, and zoology--it had totally blind spots. Thus the Leopard Woman kept invariably on her table the bowl of fresh flowers; and she manifested an unfailing liking to investigate such strange shrubs, trees, flowers, or nondescript growths as flourished thereabouts.

"Do you know how one names these?" she asked him concerning certain strange blooms.

"I know nothing whatever about vegetables," he replied with indifferent scorn.

Several times after that, forgetting, she proffered the same question and received exactly the same reply. Finally it became a joke to her. Slyly, at sufficient intervals so that he should not become conscious of the repetition, she took delight in eliciting this response, always the same, always delivered with the same detached scorn:

"I know nothing whatever about vegetables."

In the meantime Simba, with great enthusiasm, continued his drill of the askaris. Kingozi gave them an hour early in the day. They developed rapidly from wild trigger yanking. An allowance of two cartridges apiece proved them no great marksmen, but at least steady on discharge.

The "business conversation" Kingozi projected with the Leopard Woman did not take place until late in the week. By that time he had pieced together considerable information, as follows:

The mountain ranges at their backs possessed three practicable routes. Beyond the ranges were grass plains with much game. Water could be had in certain known places. No people dwell on these plains. This was because of the tsetse fly that made it impossible to keep domestic cattle. Far--very far--perhaps a month, who knows, is the country of the sultani M'tela. This is a very great sultani--very great indeed--a sultani whose spears are like the leaves of grass. His people are fierce, like the Masai, like the people of Lobengula, and make war their trade. His people are known as the Kabilagani. The way through the mountains is known; guides can be had. The way across the plains is known; but for guides one must find representatives of a little scattered plains tribe. That can be done. Potio for two weeks can be had--and so on.

Kingozi was particularly interested in these Kabilaganis: and pressed for as much information as he could. Strangely enough he did not mention the ivory stockade, nor did he attempt either to trade or to determine whether or not the sultani knew its value.

At the end of eight days he knew what he wished to know.

"I shall leave in two days," he told the Leopard Woman. "I should suggest that you go to-morrow. I will send Simba with you to show you the water-hole in the kopje. After that you know the country for yourself."

"But I am not going back!" she cried. "I am going on."

"That is impossible." He went on to explain to her what he had learned of the country ahead: omitting, however, all reference to M'tela and his warrior nation. "More plains: more game. That's all. You have more of that than you can use back where we came from. And with every step you are farther away. I am going on--very far. I may not come back at all."

She listened to all his arguments, but shook her head obstinately at their end.

"Your plan does not please me," said she. "I will go and see these plains for myself."

This was final, and Kingozi at last came to see it so.

"I was going to suggest that I relieve you of your askaris," said he, "but if you persist in this foolish and aimless plan, you will need them for yourself." "Cannot we go together, at least for a distance?"

But to this he was much opposed.

"I shall be travelling faster than your cumbersome safari," he objected. "I could not delay."

And in this decision he seemed as firm as had she in her intention to proceed. After a light reconnaissance, so to speak, of argument, appeal, and charm, she gave over trying to persuade him, and fell back on her usual lazily indifferent attitude. Kingozi went ahead with his preparations, laying in potio, examining kits, preparing in every way his compact little caravan for the long journey before it. Then something happened. He changed his mind and decided to combine safaris with the Leopard Woman.

[CHAPTER XIII]

THE TROPIC MOON

For several nights the plain below the plateau had been a sea of moonlight, white, ethereal, fragile as spun glass. Each evening the shadow of the mountains had shortened, drawing close under the skirts of the hills. In stately orderly progression the quality of the night world was changing. The heavy brooding darkness was being transformed to a fairy delicacy of light.

And the life of the world seemed to feel this change, to be stirring, at first feebly, then with growing strength. The ebb was passed; the tides were rising to the brim. Each night the throb of the drums seemed to beat more passionately, the rhythm to become quicker, wilder: the wailing chants of the women rose in sudden gusts of frenzy. Dark figures stole about in shadows; so that Kingozi, becoming anxious, gave especial instructions, and delegated trusty men to see that they were obeyed.

"If our men get to fooling with their women, they'll spear the lot of us!" he explained.

And at last, like a queen whose coming has been prepared, a queen in whose anticipation life had quickened, the moon herself rose serenely above the ranges.

Immediately the familiar objects changed; the familiar shadows vanished. The world became a different world, full of enchantment, of soft-singing birds, of chirping insects, of romance and recollections of past years, of longings and the spells of barbaric Africa.

Kingozi sat with the Leopard Woman "talking business" when this miracle took place. When the great rim of the moon materialized at the mountain's rim, he abruptly fell silent. The spell had him, as indeed it had all living things. From the village the drums pulsed more wildly, shoutings of men commenced to mingle with the voices of the women; a confused clashing sound began to be heard. In camp the fires appeared suddenly to pale. A vague uneasiness swept the squatting men. Their voices fell: they exchanged whispered monosyllables, dropping their voices, they knew not why.

The Leopard Woman arose and glided to the edge of the tree's shadow, where she stood gazing upward at the moon. Kingozi watched her. He, old and seasoned traveller as he was, had indeed fallen under the spell. He did not consider it extraordinary, nor did it either embarrass or stir his senses, that standing as she did before the moon and the little fires her body showed in clear silhouette through her silken robe. Apparently this was her only garment. It made a pale nimbus about her. She seemed to the vague remnant of Kingozi's thinking perceptions like a priestess--her slim, beautiful form erect, her small head bound with the golden fillet from which, he knew, hung the jewel on her forehead. As though meeting this thought she raised both arms toward the moon, standing thus for a moment in the conventional attitude of invocation. Then she dropped her arms, and came back to Kingozi's side.

Again it was like magic, the sudden blotting out of the slim human figure, the substitution of the draped form as she moved from the light into the shadow. But on Kingozi's retina remained the vision of her as she was. He shifted, caught his breath.

As she came near him his hand closed over hers, bringing her to a halt. She did not resist, but stood looking down at him waiting. He struggled for an appearance of calm.

"Who are you?" he asked unsteadily. "You have never told me."

"You have named me--Bibi-ya-chui--the Woman of the Leopards."

She was smiling faintly, looking down at him through half-closed eyes.

"But who are you? You are not English."

"My name: you have given it. Let that suffice. Me--I am Hungarian." She stooped ever so slightly and touched the upstanding mop of his wavy hair. "What does it matter else?" she asked softly.

She was leaning: the moonlight came through the branches where she leaned; the little fires--again the silken robes became a nimbus--and the drums of the n'goma, the drums seemed to be throbbing in his veins----

He leaped to his feet and seized her savagely by the shoulders. The soft silk slipped under his fingers. She threw back her head, looking at him steadily. Her eyes glowed deep, and the jewel on her forehead. Kingozi was panting.

"You are wonderful--maddening!" he muttered. This sudden unexpected emotion swept him away, as a pond, quiet behind the dam, becomes a flood.

"I knew we could be such friends!" she said.

And then one of those tiny incidents happened that so often change the course of greater events. In the darkness that still lingered the other side of the camp an askari challenged sharply some lurking wanderer. According to his recent teaching he used the official word.

"Samama!" said he.

The metallic rattle of his musket and the brief official challenge awakened Kingozi as would a dash of cold water. His instinct to crush to his breast this alluring, fascinating, willing goddess of the moon was as strong as ever. But across that instinct lay the shadow of a former day. A clear picture flashed before his mind. He saw a man in the uniform of a high office, and heard that man's words of instruction to himself. The words had concluded with a few informal phrases of trust and confidence. While these were being spoken, outside a sentry had challenged: "Samama!" and as he moved, the metal of his accoutrements had clicked.

With a wrench Kingozi turned, dropping her shoulders. He deliberately ran away. At the edge of his own camp he looked back. She was still standing as he had left her. The moonlight, striking through the opening in the branches, fell across her. At this distance she was merely a white figure; but Kingozi saw her again as she had stood in invocation to the moon. As though she had only awaited his turning, she raised her hand in grave salutation and disappeared.

Kingozi was too restless, too stirred, to sit still. After a vain attempt to smoke a quiet and ruminative pipe he arose and began to wander about. The men looked up at him furtively from their little fires where perpetually meat roasted. He strode on through the camp. His feet bore him to the narrow lane leading to the village. Down the vista he saw flames leaping, and figures leaping wildly, too, and the drums beat against his temples. He turned back seeking quiet, and so on through camp again, and past the Leopard Woman's tent. His mind was in a turmoil. No perception reached him of outside things--once the disturbance of human creatures was past. His feet led him unconsciously.

It was the old struggle. He desired this woman mightily. That he had been totally indifferent to her before argued nothing. He had been suddenly awakened: and he was in the prime of life. But the very strength of his desire warned him. If he had really been on a hunt for ivory--well--he wrenched his mind savagely from even a contemplation of possibilities. Still, it would be a very sweet relation in a lonely life--a women of this quality, this desirability, this understanding, able to travel the wilderness of Africa, eager for the life, young, beautiful, tingling with vitality. In spite of himself Kingozi played with the thought. The fever was in his brain, the magic of the tropic moon was flooding his soul.

Some warning instinct brought him back to the world about him. His steps had taken him down the cañon trail. He stood at the edge of the open plain.

Facing him and not twenty yards distant stood a lion.

The sight cleared Kingozi's brain of all its vapours. For the first time he realized clearly what he had done. He, a man whose continued existence in this dangerous country had depended on his unfailing readiness, his ever-present alertness and presence of mind, had committed two of the cardinal sins. In savage Africa no man must at any time stir a foot into the veldt or jungle unarmed; in savage Africa no man must go at night fifty feet from a fire without a torch or lantern.

By day a lion is usually harmless unless annoyed. Game herds manifest no alarm at his presence, merely opening through their ranks a lane for his indifferent passing. But at night he asserts his dominion.

Kingozi realized his deadly peril. The beast bulked huge and black--a wild lion is a third larger than his menagerie relative--looking as big as a zebra against the moonlight. His eyes glowed steadily as he contemplated this interloper in his domain. After a moment he sank prone, extending his head. The next move, Kingozi knew, would be the flail-like thrash of the long tail, followed immediately by the rush.

Nothing was to be done. The immediate surroundings were bare of trees, and in any case the lightning charge of the beast would have caught his victim unless the branches had happened to be fairly overhead.

The glowing eyes lowered. A rasping gurgling began deep in the animal's throat, rising and falling in tone with the inhaling and exhaling of the breath. This increased in volume. It became terrifying. The long tail stiffened, whacked first to one side, then to the other. The moment was at hand.

Kingozi stood erect, his hands clenched, every muscle taut. All his senses were sharpened. He heard the voices of the veldt, near and far, and all the little sounds that were underneath them. His vision seemed to pierce the darkness of the shadows, so that he made out the details of the lion's mane, and even the muscles stiffening beneath the skin.

And then at the last moment a kongoni, panic stricken, running blind, its nose up, broke through the thin bush to the left and dashed across the trail directly between the man and the lion.

African animals are subject to these strange, blind panics, especially at night. The individual so affected appears to lose all sense of its surroundings. It has been known actually to bump into and knock down men in plain and open sight. What had so terrified the kongoni it would be impossible to say. Perhaps a stray breeze had wafted the scent of this very lion; perhaps some other unseen danger actually threatened, or perhaps the poor beast merely awakened from the horror of a too vivid dream.

The diversion occurred at the moment of the lion's greatest tension. His body was poised for the attack, as a bow is bent to drive forth the arrow. Probably without conscious thought on his part, instinctively, he changed his objective. The huge body sprang; but instead of the man the kongoni was struck down!

Kingozi stooped low and ran hard to the left. When at a safe distance he straightened his back, and set his footsteps rapidly campward.

The incident had thoroughly awakened him. His brain was working clearly now, and under forced draught. The magic of moonlight had lost its power. Habits of years reasserted themselves. His usual iron common sense regained its ascendency; though, strangely enough, there persisted in his mind a mystic feeling for the symbolism of this missed danger.

"Settles it!" he said, in his usual fashion of talking aloud. "I'm on a job, and I must do it. Came near being a messy ass!"

He saw plainly enough that a mission such as his had no place in it for women--even such women as Bibi-ya-chui. She must go back--or stay here--didn't matter much which. The call of duty sounded very clear. By the time he had reached the level of the upper plateau his mind was fully made up. As far as he was concerned the Leopard Woman had definitely lost all chance of going alone.

The frosted moonlight still lay across the world. It meant nothing but illumination to Kingozi. By its light he discerned a paper lying against a bush; and since paper of any sort is scarce, he picked it up.

At camp he lighted his lantern and spread out his find on the table. It proved to be a map.

A glance proved to Kingozi that it was not his property. He remembered a sudden wind squall early in the afternoon. Evidently it had swept the Leopard Woman's table.

The map was in manuscript, very well drawn, and the text was German. From long habit Kingozi glanced first at the scale of miles, then raised his eyes to determine what country was represented. After a moment he arose, took his lantern into his tent, and there spread his find on his cot.

For it was a map of this very locality!

Kingozi examined it with great attention, finally getting out for comparison his own sketch maps. The German map was a more finished product; otherwise they were practically the same. Kingozi searched for and found records of the various waters along his back track. Each was annotated in ink in a language strange to him--probably Hungarian, he reflected. At the dry donga where he had overtaken and rescued the Leopard Woman's water-starved safari he found the legend wasser also.

THE LEOPARD WOMAN

BY

STEWART EDWARD WHITE

Illustrated by W. H. D. Koerner

1916

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE LEOPARD WOMAN

THE MARCH

THE CAMP

THE RHINOCEROS

THE STRANGER

THE ENCOUNTER

THE LEOPARD WOMAN

THE WATER-HOLE

THE THIRST

ON THE PLATEAU

THE SULTANI

THE IVORY STOCKADE

THE PILOCARPIN

THE TROPIC MOON