The Leopard Woman Part 5

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 att.i.tude 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 s.h.i.+fted 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 gra.s.s. 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 s.p.a.ce.

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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s, 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."