"Yes, I'm warm, thank you." She closed her eyes, for the only escape from this acute awareness of him was in sleep. And then her eyes opened again as a thought stabbed her. "You must be tired yourself, senhor."
"You little worrier, go to sleep at once and don't give that prowling cat another thought." He gave a gruff laugh. "I promise not to doze off in the night."
She knew he would not doze off and that was what worried her, the thought that he must stay vigilant and not get any rest. "If you wake me up in a couple of hours, I could keep the fire going while you have a nap," she said.
A taut little silence followed her offer, then her heart nearly stopped as warm lips touched a kiss to her temple. "Go to sleep, little one," he said. "It will not cause me any hardship to stay awake, whereas you are little more than a child and unused to the enervations of the jungle. Sleep deep, Morvenna. Soon it will be dawn."
Her name on his lips had an exotic sound, and she fell asleep with a tiny smile of wonderment on her lips.
The mist began to clear as morning light crept through the forest, and Morvenna awoke in alarm to a sound like the raging of surf. "Oh," she blinked, and felt pins and needles tingling in her legs, "whatever's that ?"
The senhor, rough-haired and blue-jawed, flashed a smile down at her. "Howler monkeys, greeting the dawn."
She stared up at him, still cradled in his left arm, her hair tousled and damp from the dew that was glittering on the jungle foliage all around, and like diamonds on the huge spider webs that the darkness had concealed. The air was moist and loamy with jungle vegetation, and for Morvenna this was the strangest awakening of her life.
"Up with you, my jungle waif." He swung her to her feet and steadied her while she stamped the cramp out of her legs. Then he exercised his arms and his legs. "I want to start our homeward trek before the sun gets high," he said. "But first we must have something to eat."
"I'd like a wash." She gazed in consternation at her
grubby hands and knew her face must be in a similar state.
"Follow me to the bathroom." He strode over to a bush of red flowers, brushing aside a big web whose occupant bobbed on the broken strands and then fell into the long wet grass. Morvenna gave her clammy grass sandals a shake before putting them on to join the senhor, who was plucking the red flowers and squeezing them between the palms of his hands. They exuded an oil, to which he added the moisture from the trumpets of wild convolvulus. The oil mixed with the water made a passable, pungent-scented lather. "Don't be afraid to use it on your face," he said, and Morvenna heard the rasp of his strong dark beard as he rubbed the soap vigorously over his own face. She followed suit, and found that a flower and dew-wash was about the most refreshing she had ever had. There were pools of dew in the cups of the flowers, and she washed face, neck and arms with it.
"I feel as primitive as Eve," she laughed.
"And I am as hungry as Adam." The blue eyes flashed in the lean piratical face as he took a look at the surrounding trees. "A coconut palm would provide us with milk, but it looks as though we will have to make do with mangoes. I shall be but a few minutes fetching them — you will stay right here ?"
"Of course." She glanced up at him, and felt stunned by the look of him with that blue jaw, those vivid eyes, and his throat brown and bared at the opening of his shirt.
He swung his machete, studied her for a moment, and then as silently as an Indian he disappeared among the trees.
Morvenna did what she could to tidy her tousled hair, and felt hungry for one of those peachy mangoes they had enjoyed yesterday. The howler monkeys had quietened down, and birds were waking up with the sun, which was beginning to fire the tops of the trees. Iridescent birds flitted to the flower cups and as they drank the moisture they cocked a look at the stranger in their grove.
She sat down on the log by the fire which still smouldered, and thought of the strange night which she had shared with Roque de Braz Ferro. She had slept securely in his arms, unafraid of the jungle all around them, and the many dangers which it held.
Now, as she looked around her at the wall of trees and curtains of floral liana, she felt a stirring of nervousness. The senhor was within call, she knew that, but the dense foliage seemed to cut him off from her, and she was suddenly aware that an uncanny silence prevailed. She listened and heard only the beating of her heart. The birds had flown off again to their treetop perches and were curiously silent.
Morvenna stood up, dry-lipped and tense. Then a twig cracked, as though under a stealthy tread. "Is that you, senhor?" An alarmed note jarred in her voice as she called out.
There was no answer, and she gave a sudden shiver of apprehension. She knew with all her nerves that someone — something lurked among the foliage where that twig had cracked. Then she clamped a hand to her mouth as the foliage stirred and, silent and sinewy, four Indians appeared one by one from the bush. They carried bows and quivers of arrows. They wore breech clouts, and their black hair was cut in fringes above
dark, impenetrable eyes.
Morvenna strove not to betray her intense alarm, but sweat broke through her pores and her heart hammered as those four pairs of black-brown brooding eyes took her in from head to toe. A beam of sunlight broke through the trees and struck her hair to a halo. The Indians muttered among themselves, and Morvenna was getting ready to yell blue murder when the senhor's tall figure emerged out of the bush.
She knew at once from the way he walked, and the way his eyes were a flamy blue, that he was as tensed as a panther. He came with his swift stride to her side and clamped a hand on her shoulder. "Kurumi," he said and added some other Indian words she did not understand. Kurumi was a word she knew. It meant woman.
At once the leader of the group stopped glowering at Morvenna as though he had never seen a woman before. He replied to the senhor in a soft guttural tongue, and instantly Morvenna felt a reassuring pressure of the hand on her shoulder. Then the warm hand withdrew, and he approached the Indian, who immediately greeted him with a hand on his shoulder. They spoke together for several minutes, while Morvenna watched and wondered. Were they friendly Indians ? Somehow the strokes of red paint across their brown cheeks gave her the feeling that they were less emancipated than the Indians who lived near the fazenda.
They looked like warriors, she thought, her nerves tingling as the three silent members of the group stared at the machete in the senhor's hand. If he had been carrying mangoes, he had discarded them, and this
told Morvenna that upon seeing the Indians he had prepared himself for possible trouble.
Suddenly he turned to Morvenna. "These men are Incalas," he said. "Nuno is at their camp and very sick with fever. They want me to go with them to the camp. Their brujo has tried to help Nuno, but he needs white man's medicine."
"Are they speaking the truth ?" she asked anxiously.
"We shall have to trust that they are. They inform me that they were on their way to the fazenda to fetch me." He beckoned her to his side, and she went to him, an obedient movement that evidently impressed the Incalas, for they suddenly grinned, showing teeth stained by the strong tobacco the senhor's own Indians were fond of chewing.
"I am carrying quinine ampoules and a syringe," he told her. "Nuno sounds as though he might have malaria, and the sooner I get to him the better his chance of recovery. Now listen, Morvenna ! I am going to show you the track which you followed yesterday, and I want you to follow it all the way home to the fazenda—"
"But I'm coming with you," she broke in. "I wouldn't dream of doing anything else."
"You will do as you are told," he said crisply. "You will only hinder me by coming to the Incala camp. We have to cross the gorge, and then travel by dugout upriver—"
"Please, I must come with you !" She caught at his arm, and felt the muscles tauten under her grip.
"Why must you come ?" He stared down at her, scanning her face with its look of wild appeal. "Does Nuno mean so much to you ?"
"Yes," she spok
e recklessly, anything to make him take her with him. "He's sick because he wanted to do something to help me, and I want to help nurse him. I have the right, and you can't send me back to the fazenda like — like a child. I'm not a child !"
"No," his eyes were a fierce blue as they raked her upraised face, "it would seem that you are desperate to get to Nuno, and it may be to his advantage, in the circumstances, to let you have your way. Very well ! But let me warn you that the trip will take several hours, and it will be a hard one."
He turned to the Indians, and again that word kurumi was used as he spoke to them. They frowned, then gestured at the sun, which was climbing higher all the time and spilling its raw gold down through the branches of the towering trees. The senhor spread his hands in a very Latin gesture, and after some more talk was exchanged one of the Indians unslung a calabash container from his shoulder and handed it to the man whom he addressed as Tushaua Braz. A leaf-flap was also handed over, and Morvenna was relieved to see that it did not contain fish-roe, or a mess of rice and meat.
The senhor handed her a couple of the mandioca cakes, along with his own water flask. "I have insisted that we need food, so you had better eat every bit," he said in that crisp tone of voice that meant they were back on the old footing, and that his guardianship was no longer the gentle, rather shattering thing it had been last night.
"Thank you." She bit into one of the cakes, too hungry to care that an Indian had supplied it, and washed it down with a gulp of water. The senhor drank
from the calabash, which probably contained river water, and made short work of his own cakes.
The Indians watched, and this sharing of their food seemed to make them more amiable. One of them, young and handsomely broad-featured, was busily plaiting some leaves together with a length of vine. He handed the result to Morvenna — a hat, no less, the leaves tied together in a pagoda shape.
"How kind of you," Morvenna gave him a dazzling smile. "I needed a hat."
The senhor translated her thanks, and the young Indian gave her a bashful smile in return.
"Be careful," the senhor gave her hand a rather painful tap as he slipped a salt tablet into her palm. "The Incala braves fancy their luck with the ladies."
"Must I take this ?" It was an Incala he had fought for possession of Raya, and now he was returning to their encampment for Nuno's sake. She knew she looked distressed and hoped he would associate it with the salt tablet.
"Yes, you must." He looked firm, and stern. "Loss of body moisture and salt enervates the system, and we have a trying journey ahead of us. Put the tablet at the back of your tongue and chase it down with some water."
She obeyed, grimacing. Then she screwed up the courage to say to him, "Don't be angry because I want to come with you to the encampment."
"I am angry with myself for letting you come." His face was teak-hard, his eyes a vivid, snapping blue. "I suppose it is useless to ask you to change your mind ?"
She nodded, and her chin had a determined tilt to it.
"You would have to tie me to a tree to stop me," she replied.
"You foolish child," he bit out the words, "you are thinking with your heart, as usual."
"Yes," she gave a shaken laugh and twisted her pagoda hat about in her fingers. "I have a crazy heart, senhor. "
"Kehami," said the leader of the Indians, and Morvenna was told to make ready for the trek that would take them across the gorge and down to the river bank, where the canoe was tied up. She larded her face, neck, arms and ankles with insect repellent, and the senhor took a look at her sandals to make sure the soles were not worn through.
"You don't have to keep considering me," she strove to speak lightly. "I shall keep up all right."
"Now the other sandal," he said firmly, and she had to let him have it, while she stood on one leg like a crane. He dug his finger into a small hole that had worn into the sole of her left sandal, and repaired it by cutting a piece of oilskin from the pouch that held his first-aid kit and shaping it with his knife to fit the sandal.
"You needn't have done that," she pushed her foot into the sandal. "You've spoilt your pouch."
"You have small feet, so I have not had to use too much of the oilskin. Does the sandal feel comfortable ?"
"Yes, thank you." She gave him a grateful smile, but he didn't see it, for he had turned away to speak to the Indians. She bit her lip as she donned her pagoda hat, but was glad in a way that he was brusque in his attentions this morning. That dangerous intimacy of last night had been a little too shattering. She still
seemed to feel the warmth of his lips against her temple . . . his good night kiss for someone he thought of as little more than a child.
He swung his water-flask over his shoulder, patted the pocket of his bush-shirt to make sure his first-aid kit was in place, and clasped his other hand firmly about the handle of his machete. "Come, senhorinha," he said. "It is time to go."
CHAPTER TWELVE
A PROFUSION of creepers and vines lay across the path they followed Indian file. Great mossy ropes hung from trees hundreds of feet high, falling in loops and knots. Wicked-looking orchids clung to the trees, and small birds flashed like gems among the branches of orange blossoms.
They were making their way round the gorge, to where a rope bridge was slung across to the bank of the river. The senhor threw this information over his shoulder, for he was walking ahead of Morvenna, treading down the knotty vine and thorny bamboo growth to make her path easier. The Indian who padded behind her was as silent and dark as a big cat.
A dew of sweat shone on her face, for it grew hotter all the time, and tendrils of hair clung to her temples and the nape of her neck. She threw self-defensive slaps at herself to keep off the gnats and noticed that the Indians seemed impervious to the tormenting insects. Their bare, leathery feet trod the path as though it were overgrown with moss instead of trip-wire vines
and thorn that cracked underfoot, and she wondered whether their women were as tough and enigmatic.
The vegetation seemed impenetrable at either side of the track. Lianas curled around the tree-trunks like giant snakes, and there was a murmurous hum from the wild bees plundering the deep-hearted flowers.
Suddenly there was another sound, a sharp creak, almost a groan, and one of the giant trees was toppling out of the bush towards them. The Indians leapt out of the way with the agility of cats, and an arm of iron swept Morvenna off the path into the bush. The air was rent with noise and the panicky screech of animals and birds as the tree came crashing down.
Tree lizards leapt and the bush seethed with flight and activity as Morvenna lay crushed against the Benhor. Her face was against his throat; she was held roughly close to him as the echoes died away. His half-painful grip on her finally relaxed, and he released his breath with savage audibility. Morvenna felt her frantic heartbeats and suddenly pulled away from him. His eyes blazed into hers, then he was on his feet and thrusting through the bushes to the path, now blocked by that enormous tree.
The Indians jabbered together, and one of them touched the corded fang that hung around his neck and cast a rather belligerent look at Morvenna.
"What are they saying ?" she asked, as she scrambled over the great trunk of the tree. A hand gripped hers and she jumped down on to the other side of the path.
"The tree has been strangled by matador creeper," he said, "but Indians are superstitious devils and inclined to blame sudden mishaps and alarms on — women."
"On me ?" Her eyes widened with indignation. "What a cheek ! As if I can help a tree falling down. They leapt out of the way quick enough — I'd be underneath it if you hadn't grabbed hold of me."
"Put your hat straight." His smile was mocking. "You look like a tipsy gnome."
The trek continued, and all at once the path broadened and they had arrived at the rope bridge that spanned the gorge. It looked a frightening catwalk of a bridge, and the great foaming arc of the cascade would splash them with its foam as they traverse
d the gorge.
Morvenna cast a nervous glance at the senhor. "Don't look down as you cross over," he said. "I shall be right behind you."
"One needs to be a tightrope walker," she said, and her hands clenched the rope handles as she stepped on to the flimsy, swaying catwalk. She took a step, and panic gripped her as remembrance of yesterday's ordeal swept into her mind. The bridge spanned the wide-torn gorge at its narrowest end, which was not so narrow when viewed from this bridge that seemed alive under her feet.
Three of the Indians were almost across, and she envied their equilibrium. The rather nice one, who had made her the pagoda hat, was in front of her, guiding her, and it also helped a lot to know that the senhor was right behind her.
At last, with a deep gasp of relief, she stepped off the bridge. Her legs felt boneless for a moment, and the senhor told her to take a rest before they clambered down the bank to where the long Indian dugout was secured. They stood looking at the cascade, a scene of roaring splendour, and were splashed with cool drops
of moisture. And then he said they had better be moving, for the Indians were getting into the canoe.
The sun on the river was dazzling. The air hummed with insects and it was a relief when the canoe, long and dug out from a great tree of the forest, was pushed off from the bank and with hefty thrusts of the paddles was propelled into the middle of the river, where the gnats were less troublesome.
The air was cooler on the water, for as the dugout skimmed along it made a breeze that fanned Morvenna's face and neck. This was her first trip on a jungle river, and she had eyes for everything. The clumsy flight of yellow-billed toucans across the water, and at one bend in the river a black and tawny jaguar sunning himself on a sandbank, stretched out like a cat on a hearth and blinking his green eyes as though he wouldn't hurt a fly.
The forest smoked with heat, and the mass of green vegetation was aflame here and there with flamboyant flowers. The river dwindled in places to shallow creeks, and petals wafted down from the mats of blossom as the dugout was paddled through the green tunnels.
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