The Leopard Woman Part 17

"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 gla.s.ses hung from his neck; his sleeve was turned back to show his wrist watch; and, again for the first time, he had a.s.sumed 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 negligees, 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 ma.s.sive 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. "n.o.body can get at them except down that lane. The mountains are impa.s.sable 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 pa.s.sed 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 canon 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 s.p.a.ce 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 canon 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed up emblazoned s.h.i.+eld 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, s.h.i.+eld, and plumed headdress stood rigid as they pa.s.sed. 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Their eyes were large with curiosity as to this man and woman of a new species.... Kingozi touched his lips to the _tembo_"]

"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 s.h.i.+elds--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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d combination of Bantu-Masai stock."

She looked at him.