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Updated: June 17, 2025
Outside the hot, leaping red light they drew back aloof and still. They had seen many dances, many ebbs and flows of men's passions; for they were very old. The Leopard Woman's vision blurred after a time. She was getting drowsy. Her thoughts strayed. But always they circled back to the same point. She found herself wondering whether Winkleman would appear to-night.
I shall be humble, the slave, your foot upon my neck. Of course! Do you suppose I do not know?" "That is well," said Kingozi, much relieved, "I shall tell him that you are a man of much wisdom and great magic; and that I have saved your life to serve me." "So!" cried Winkleman delightedly; and departed to his tent and the waiting bath.
By the end of that time it had been borne in on the Leopard Woman that Winkleman had not yet arrived. Kingozi and M'tela circled each other warily, like two strange dogs, though all the time with an appearance of easy and intimate cordiality. As yet Kingozi had neither confided to the savage the fact of his blindness nor visited the royal palace.
Coming to the bed-side, he leaned over and gazed down upon her. At first, he was in doubt whether she really breathed or not; and he felt a heavy weight removed when he saw that her chest rose and fell in feeble respiration. "Mary!" He spoke in a low, tender voice. Instantly the fringed eyelids parted, and Mrs. Winkleman gazed up into her husband's face in partial bewilderment.
Winkleman produced the saurian bone. And for the first time Kingozi noticed Simba hovering anxiously near. Request and blandishments had proved of no avail in getting the magic bone from Bwana Nyele. "It is all right," Kingozi reassured him. "We but use the magic for a little while. See; it has given me back my eyes." "A-a-a-a!" ejaculated Simba, deeply astonished.
To eat he was forced at last to beg of the wild herdsmen. M'tela's dread name elicited from these last definite information. The search party found Winkleman, very dirty, quite hungry, profoundly chagrined, but still good humoured, seated in a smoky hut eating soured smoky milk. He wore sandals improvised from goatskin, a hat and spine-pad made from banana leaves ingeniously woven.
"Oho!" he cried in his great voice when he had drawn near. "This is not so bad! It is Culbertson!" "I am sorry about this," said Kingozi briefly "a man of your eminence very disagreeable." Winkleman dropped heavily to the ground. "That is nothing," he waved aside the half-apology, "though it would not be bad to have the bath and change these clothes.
And no fear about the interest and cupidity! The "magic" bone Kingozi had confided to Simba was a fragment of a Pleistocene fossil. Kingozi himself valued it highly, but he hoped and expected to get it back. It made excellent bait, which no scientist could resist. Of course there might be a second white man with Winkleman, but from the reported size of the latter's safari he thought not.
She had herself done little to detain Kingozi; yet he had been detained; and here was Winkleman, belated but in time, to carry out triumphantly the wishes of the Imperial Government. But her heart was like lead. After the first droop Kingozi had straightened beneath the blow, and now sat bolt upright, staring straight before him, as a king might have sat alone on his throne.
She had no doubt that now they were virtually prisoners, that they were being conducted in this impressive manner to a chieftain already won over by Winkleman. The latter had had more than the time necessary to carry out his purpose. Kingozi's persistence was maddeningly futile; but it was part of the man, and she could not but acquiesce.
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