The Leopard Woman Part 4

"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 s.h.i.+rt, 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 advertis.e.m.e.nts. 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 att.i.tude of the Nubian. Kingozi surmised that she probably did not fancy being dumped down incontinently before an angry rhinoceros. After a moment, however, her att.i.tude 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 gra.s.s 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'If you _will_ ride in a hammock, you ought to teach your men to shoot,' was Kingozi's greeting"]

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 s.p.a.cing of the words, some ultra-clarity of p.r.o.nunciation, 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 impa.s.sive 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.