OVER THE RANGES
When the day came for departure the Leopard Woman was indisposed, and
could not travel. At the end of that period eight bags of _potio_
disappeared. They had to be replaced. Kingozi occupied the time on the
details of his preparations. Then three men deserted, and all loads had
to be redistributed. At last they were off.
A horde of savages accompanied them at first. These dropped off one by
one until there remained only the guides appointed. The trail led
steeply upward. It soon shook free of the thorn tangle and debouched on
grassy rolling shoulders from which a wide, maplike view could be seen
of the country through which they had passed. Shortly they skirted a
deep deft cañon in which sang a brook; and at its head came to a
forest. The trees were tall, their cover dense; long, ropelike vines
hung in festoons. It was very still. A colobus barked somewhere in the
tops; the small green monkeys swung from limb to limb, or scampered
along the rope vines, chattering. Silent, gaudy birds swooped across
dusky spaces. The dripping of water reached the ear; the smell of
dampness the nostrils.
This was as far as they went the first day. The climb had been severe;
and at the end of three and a half hours the woman announced that she
was done up. Nothing remained but to make camp. This was done,
therefore; and all the afternoon Kingozi lay flat on the cot he had
caused to be brought into the open air, and blew smoke upward, and
stared at the maze of limbs in the forest roof. The Leopard Woman kept
her tent; but he did not offer to disturb her. He was thinking.
Next day they marched for hours through the forest, and at last came
out on more rolling grass shoulders. Evidently this side of the
mountains was not abrupt, but slanted off in a gentle slope to unknown
distances. There the game began to reappear; and Kingozi dropped two
hartebeeste for the safari. Here Cazi Moto came up in great
perturbation to announce that two of the _memsahib's_ porters were
missing. The little headman did not understand how it happened, as he
had zealously brought up the rear. Unless, of course, it was a case of
desertion.
Kingozi looked thoughtful, then ordered camp to be pitched. Accompanied
by Simba, Mali-ya-bwana, and three _askaris_ he took the back track. At
the end of an hour and a half of brisk walking he met the two missing
porters. Their explanation was voluble. They had fallen out for a few
moments, and when they had resumed their loads, the safari was ahead.
Then they had hastened, but the road had divided. They had taken the
wrong fork.
"Show me where the road divided," ordered Kingozi.
The loads were deposited by the side of the trail, and the delinquents,
with every appearance of confidence, led the way back another hour's
march to a veritable fork. Kingozi examined the earth for tracks.
"Could you not see that the safari had gone this way and not that way?"
he asked.
"Yes, _bwana_," they said together; "we saw it after a little. That is
why we came back."
Kingozi grunted, but said nothing. The nine men retraced their steps.
Both porters were on a broad grin, laughing and talking in subdued
tones to the _askaris_. The _bwana_ strode on rapidly ahead. They
followed at a little dogtrot, carrying their loads easily.
At camp Kingozi ordered them to place the loads in place beneath the
tarpaulin.
"Simba," said he in a casual voice, "these men get _kiboko_."
"Yes, _bwana_. How many?"
"Fifty."
The bystanders gasped, and the shining countenances of the culprits
turned a sickly gray. Fifty lashes is a maximum punishment, inflicted
only for the gravest crimes. More cannot be administered without fear
of grave consequences. The offence of straggling is generally
considered not serious. Even Simba was not certain he had heard aright.
"How many, _bwana_?" he asked again.
"Fifty," repeated Kingozi tonelessly, and turned his blank, baleful
glare in their direction.
The punishment was administered. When it was finished the porters,
shaking like leaves, blankets drawn over their bleeding flanks, were
brought to face the white man seated in his chair.
"_Bassi_," he pronounced. The word went out into a dead silence, so
that it was heard to the farthest confines of the hushed camp. "Let no
man hereafter miss the trail."
He arose and entered his tent. Cazi Moto was there, unfolding the
canvas bath tub, laying out the clean clothes. He looked up from his
occupation, his wizened face contorted in a shrewd smile.
"No more will we make camp when the sun is only a few hours high," he
surmised.
Kingozi looked at him.
"You and I have handled many safaris, Cazi Moto," he replied.
Delays from these causes ceased, but other delays supervened. Never
were the reasons for them attributable to accident; but they were more
numerous than ordinarily. Kingozi said nothing.
All the day's march he walked fifty yards ahead of the long procession.
The Leopard Woman walked part of the time; part of the time she rode a
donkey procured from the _sultani_. The two necessarily held little
converse during the day. At camp Kingozi had many tasks--camp to
arrange, meat to procure, sick to doctor, guides to interrogate. Only
at the evening meal, which now they shared, did he and his travelling
companion resume their intimacies.
The relation had developed into a curious one. For one thing, it was
more expansive. They discussed many subjects of what might be called
general interest, talking interestedly on books, world politics,
colonial policies, even the larger problems of life. In these
discussions they explored each other's intelligence, came to a mental
approachment, a cold, clear respect for each other's capacity and
experience. Never did they approach the personal. At no time in their
acquaintance had they talked so unrestrainedly, so freely, with so much
genuine pleasure; at no time did they touch so little the mysteries of
personality.
If the Leopard Woman felt this, or wondered at the cloaked withdrawal,
she gave no sign. Apparently she was all candour. She seemed to throw
herself frankly and with pleasure into this relationship of the head,
to have forgotten the possibilities so richly though so momentarily
disclosed by the magic of the moon. She lounged in her canvas chair,
twisting her lithe body within her silks; she smoked her cigarettes;
the jewel of changing lights glowed on her forehead; she talked in her
modulated voice and quaint, precise English. The man's pulses remained
calm. His eyes did not miss the beauty of her form, as frankly defined
beneath the silk as the forms of the naked _bibis_ of the village; nor
the alluring paleness of her face in contrast to the red lips; nor the
drowning passion of her wide eyes. But they did not reach his senses.
Were the insulation of his plain duty--which to Kingozi meant quite
sincerely his whole excuse for existence in this puzzling life--were
this to be withdrawn--he never even contemplated the thought. Reminders
from that night of the moon prevented him from doing so.
After this fashion they came to the grass plains of the uplands. Here
ensued more delays. These did not spring from delinquencies in the
safari: the exemplary punishment assured that. But things broke, and
things were forgotten, and things had to be done differently. The
guides, procured with difficulty from the little hunting peoples of the
plain, disappeared at the end of the second day. They professed
themselves afraid of Chaké, the Nubian. The latter vehemently denied
having spoken a word to them. Day's marches were shortened because the
woman could not stand long ones. Kingozi found it a great bother to
travel with a woman.
Nevertheless, he made no attempts to separate the safaris. He had been
watching closely. These difficulties, the delays, breakages, and
abbreviations of day's journeys had, nine times out of ten, their
origin in the camp of the Leopard Woman. In ordinary circumstances he
would have put this down to inferior organization. But there was the
mysterious, unmentioned map, whose accuracy, by the way, he found
exact. Gradually he came to the conclusion that the delays were not
entirely accidental. The conclusion became a conviction that the
Leopard Woman was making as much of a drag and as big a nuisance of
herself as possible.
Why?
She wanted to become such a burden that Kingozi would go on without
her. Again, why? At the village she had vehemently refused to go back,
and had pleaded to join forces with Kingozi. This puzzled him for some
time. Then he saw. Of course she did not want to turn back. If, as he
surmised, she had some errand with M'tela, like his own, she would not
want to turn back, but she would like a plausible excuse to separate
from him once the ranges of mountains were crossed. Why did she not
drop off then on the excuse, say, of the wonderful new hunting grounds?
That would be simple. Kingozi concluded that she wished the initiative
to come from him. And the more convinced he was that she wanted to get
rid of him, the more firmly he resolved that she must remain.
But it did make for slow travel.
What of it? There was no haste. There was plenty of game, the days
passed pleasantly, the evenings were delightful. A moonbeam flashed in
his brain showing him vistas----He firmly shut the window!
Certainly if Bibi-ya-chui harboured any active desire to drive Kingozi
into leaving her to her own devices, she concealed it well.
Occasionally in the evening, when he stared into the distance, she
twisted herself to look at him. Then her eyes widened, no one could
have told with what emotion. In her fixed stare could have been many
things--or nothing. Did she desire this man, as she had seemed to the
night of the full moon, and did she but bide her time, knowing this was
not the moment? Did she desire this man, and hate him because he had
touched her only to turn away? Did the very simplicity and directness
of his nature baffle her? Did she hate him for his mastering of
circumstances but not herself? Any or all of these emotions might have
lain beneath the smoulder in her eyes. One thing Kingozi would not have
seen, had he turned his head suddenly enough, and that was
indifference. But he continued to stare out into the veldt, and she
continued to stare at him; while around them the chatter of men, the
wail of hyenas, the thunder of lions, the shrill, thin cries of night
birds, and the mighty brooding silence that took no account of them all
attended the African night.