United States or Canada ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Eighteen inches of tri-fold steel gleamed wickedly, its hilt fitting neatly into his fist as he held it point up, ready. Hume advanced on the bush in small steps, and Vye circled to his left a few paces behind. The Hunter was an expert with ray tube; that, too, was part of the necessary skill of a safari leader. But Vye could offer other help.
The safari we had dimly heard passing us an hour before. In this country of the direct track we did not attempt to accompany our men. The end of the day's march found us in a little clearing where we could pitch camp. Generally this was atop a ridge, so that the boys had some distance to carry water; but that disadvantage was outweighed by the cleared space.
Steamed chicken with chilis. Monkey nuts fried in paste. Fried brinjals without the seeds. Fried bananas. One quart of American pale ale to drink during the "rice tafel." Our cook Abdullah was not the only interesting type in our safari. Among our dusky colleagues there were thirteen different tribes represented. It was a congress of nations and a babel of tongues.
They nearly all ran in a northwesterly direction. The few traversing paths took a long slant. These paths, so exactly like those crossing a village green, had in all probability never been trodden by human foot. They had been made by the game animals, the swarming multitudinous game of Central Africa. The safari was using one of the game trails.
Through this forest on edge the path led steeply upward. Sometimes it was almost perpendicular; sometimes it took an angle; sometimes but rarely it paused at a little ledge wide enough to rest nearly the whole safari at once. For an hour and a half they climbed, then topped the rim of the escarpment and emerged from the forest at the same time.
Shortly the safari men could be seen sauntering unconcernedly back to their little fires. Suddenly the warriors cried out in a loud voice, and raised their right arms and spears rigidly above their heads. A tall, heavily built man appeared around the bend. He was followed by two young women, who flanked him by a pace or so to the rear.
Kingozi searched for and found records of the various waters along his back track. Each was annotated in ink in a language strange to him probably Hungarian, he reflected. At the dry donga where he had overtaken and rescued the Leopard Woman's water-starved safari he found the legend wasser also. "Explorations for this map made after the rains," he concluded.
Their pleasure was short lived; for they were promptly seized, disarmed, and tied together. The grieved astonishment of their expressions almost immediately faded into fatalistic stolidity. So many things happen in Africa! Mali-ya-bwana and one of the other men proceeded rapidly ahead on the general line of march. The rest paralleled the safari below.
Far to the north the Big Bwana and his black warriors clung tenaciously to the trail of the fleeing safari that was luring them further and further from the girl they sought to save, while back at the bungalow the woman who had loved Meriem as though she had been her own waited impatiently and in sorrow for the return of the rescuing party and the girl she was positive her invincible lord and master would bring back with him.
"Three months, maybe four. There's research to be done and tapes to be made." "It will be six months probably before the Guild sets up a safari for Jumala." Wass smiled. "That need not worry us. When the time comes for a safari, there shall also be clients, impeccable clients, asking for it to be planned." There would be, too, Hume knew.
Word Of The Day