"What are you thinking about, Steve?" asked Ellen, laughing. Then
before I could say anything, "Wasn't that chief, or whatever he was,
a fine specimen of a savage? He invited us to come to his kraal; is
that what you call it? It's away off in the veldt somewhere, and we're
going."
"No!" I exclaimed violently, springing up.
"Why, Steve," she gasped, recoiling, "how rude! He's a perfect
gentleman, isn't he, Cousin Ludtvik?"
"_Ja_," nodded Ludtvik, placidly, "we go to his kraal sometime soon,
maybe. A strong chief, that savage. His chief has perhaps good trade."
"No!" I repeated, furiously, "_I'll_ go if somebody has to! Ellen's not
going near that beast!"
"Well, that's nice!" remarked Ellen, somewhat indignantly. "I guess
you're my boss, mister man?"
With all her sweetness, she had a mind of her own. In spite of all I
could do, they arranged to go to the fetish-man's village the next day.
That night the girl came out to me, where I sat on the veranda in the
moonlight, and she sat down on the arm of my chair.
"You're not angry at me, are you, Steve?" she said wistfully, putting
her arm around my shoulders. "Not mad, are you?"
Mad? Yes, maddened by the touch of her soft body--such mad devotion as
a slave feels. I wanted to grovel in the dust at her feet and kiss her
dainty shoes. Will women never learn the effect they have on men?
I took her hand and hesitantly pressed it to my lips. I think she must
have sensed some of my devotion.
"Dear Steve," she murmured, and the words were like a caress, "come,
let's walk in the moonlight."
We walked outside the stockade. I should have known better, for I
had no weapon but the big Turkish dagger I carried and used for a
hunting-knife, but she wished to.
"Tell me about this Senecoza," she asked, and I welcomed the
opportunity. And then I thought: what could I tell her? That hyenas
had eaten a small chief of the Masai? That the natives feared the
fetish-man? That he had looked at her?
And then the girl screamed as out of the tall grass leaped a vague
shape, half-seen in the moonlight.
I felt a heavy, hairy form crash against my shoulders; keen fangs
ripped my upflung arm. I went to the earth, fighting with frenzied
horror. My jacket was slit to ribbons and the fangs were at my throat
before I found and drew my knife and stabbed, blindly and savagely. I
felt my blade rip into my foe, and then, like a shadow, it was gone. I
staggered to my feet, somewhat shaken. The girl caught and steadied me.
[Illustration: "He felt a heavy hairy form crash against his shoulder."]
"What was it?" she gasped, leading me toward the stockade.
"A hyena," I answered. "I could tell by the scent. But I never heard of
one attacking like that."
She shuddered. Later on, after my torn arm had been bandaged, she
came close to me and said in a wondrously subdued voice, "Steve, I've
decided not to go to the village, if you don't want me to."
* * * * *
After the wounds on my arm had became scars Ellen and I resumed our
rides, as might be expected. One day we had wandered rather far out on
the veldt, and she challenged me to a race. Her horse easily distanced
mine, and she stopped and waited for me, laughing.
She had stopped on a sort of kopje, and she pointed to a clump of trees
some distance away.
"Trees!" she said gleefully. "Let's ride down there. There are so few
trees on the veldt."
And she dashed away. I followed some instinctive caution, loosening my
pistol in its holster, and, drawing my knife, I thrust it down in my
boot so that it was entirely concealed.
We were perhaps half-way to the trees when from the tall grass about us
leaped Senecoza and some twenty warriors.
One seized the girl's bridle and the others rushed me. The one who
caught at Ellen went down with a bullet between his eyes, and another
crumpled at my second shot. Then a thrown war-club hurled me from the
saddle, half senseless, and as the blacks closed in on me I saw Ellen's
horse, driven frantic by the prick of a carelessly handled spear,
scream and rear, scattering the blacks who held her, and dash away at
headlong speed, the bit in her teeth.
I saw Senecoza leap on my horse and give chase, flinging a savage
command over his shoulder; and both vanished over the kopje.
The warriors bound me hand and foot and carried me into the trees.
A hut stood among them--a native hut of thatch and bark. Somehow
the sight of it set me shuddering. It seemed to lurk, repellent and
indescribably malevolent amongst the trees; to hint of horrid and
obscene rites; of voodoo.
I know not why it is, but the sight of a native hut, alone and hidden,
far from a village or tribe, always has to me a suggestion of nameless
horror. Perhaps that is because only a black who is crazed or one who
is so criminal that he has been exiled by his tribe will dwell that
way.
In front of the hut they threw me down.
"When Senecoza returns with the girl," said they, "you will enter." And
they laughed like fiends. Then, leaving one black to see that I did not
escape, they left.
The black who remained kicked me viciously; he was a bestial-looking
negro, armed with a trade-musket.
"They go to kill white men, fool!" he mocked me. "They go to the
ranches and trading-posts, first to that fool of an Englishman."
Meaning Smith, the owner of a neighboring ranch.
And he went on giving details. Senecoza had made the plot, he boasted.
They would chase all the white men to the coast.
"Senecoza is more than a man," he boasted. "You shall see, white man,"
lowering his voice and glancing about him, from beneath his low,
beetling brows; "you shall see the magic of Senecoza." And he grinned,
disclosing teeth filed to points.
"Cannibal!" I ejaculated, involuntarily. "A Masai?"
"No," he answered. "A man of Senecoza."
"Who will kill no white men," I jeered.