by Wilbur Smith
Hal closed the gap until he was only a dozen strides behind the mountainous beast. It sensed his pursuit and turned at bay. Hal expected a furious charge, a lowering of the great tufted head and a levelling of those spiral horns. He came up short, facing the antelope, and whipped his cutlass from the scabbard, prepared to defend himself.
The bull looked at him with huge puzzled eyes, dark and swimming with the agony of its approaching death. Blood dripped from its nostrils and the soft blue tongue lolled from the side of its mouth. It made no move to attack him, or to defend itself, and Hal saw no malice or anger in its gaze.
"Forgive me," he whispered, as he circled the beast, waiting for an opening, and felt the slow, sad waves of remorse break over his heart to watch the agony he had inflicted upon this magnificent animal.
Suddenly he rushed forward and thrust with the steel. The stroke of the expert swordsman buried the blade full length in the bull's flesh, and it bucked and whirled away, snatching the hilt out of Hal's hand. But the steel had found the heart and, its legs folded gently under it, the bull sagged wearily onto its knees. With one low groan it toppled over onto its side and died.
Hal took hold of the cutlass hilt and withdrew the long, smeared blade, then chose a rock near the carcass and went to sit there. He felt sad yet strangely elated. He was puzzled and confused by these contrary emotions, and he dwelt on the beauty and majesty of the beast that he had reduced to this sad heap of dead flesh in the grass.
A hand was laid on his shoulder, and Aboli rumbled softly, "Only the true hunter knows this anguish of the kill, Gundwane. That is why my tribe, who are hunters, sing and dance to give thanks to propitiate the spirits of the game they have slain."
"Teach me to sing me this song and to dance this dance, Aboli," Hal said, and Aboli began to chant in his deep and beautiful voice. When he had picked up the rhythm Hal joined in the repetitive chorus, praising the beauty and the grace of the prey and thanking it for dying so that the hunter and his tribe might live.
Aboli began to dance, shuffling, stamping and singing in a circle about the great carcass, and Hal danced with him. His chest was choked and his eyes were blurred when, at last, the song ended and they sat together in the slanting yellow sunlight to watch the tiny column of fugitives, led by Sukeena, coming towards them from far across the plain.
Before darkness fell Hal set them to building the stockade, and he checked carefully to make certain that the gaps in the breastwork were closed with branches of sweet-thorn.
They carried the quarters and shoulders of eland meat and stacked them in the stockade where scavengers could not plunder them. They left only the scraps and the offal, the severed hoofs and heads, the mounds of guts and intestines stuffed with the pulp of half-digested leaves and grass. As they moved away the vultures hopped in or sailed down on great pinions, and the hyena and jackal rushed forward to gobble and howl and squabble over this charnel array.
After they had all eaten their fill of succulent eland steaks, Hal allocated to Sukeena and himself the middle watch that started at midnight. Though it was the most onerous, for it was the time when man's vitality was at its lowest ebb, they loved to have the night to themselves.
While the rest of their band slept, they huddled at the entrance to the stockade under a single fur kaross, with a musket laid close to Hal's right hand. After they had made soft and silent love so as not to disturb the others, they watched the sky and spoke in whispers as the stars made their remote and ancient circuits high above.
"Tell me true, my love, what have you read in those stars? What lies ahead for you and me? How many sons will you bear me?" Her hand, cupped in his, lay still, and he felt her whole body stiffen. She did not reply and he had to ask her again. "Why will you never tell me what you see in the future? I know you have drawn our horoscopes, for often when you thought I was sleeping I have seen you studying and writing in your little blue book."
She laid her fingers on his lips. "Be quiet, my lord. There are many things in this existence that are best hidden from us. For this night and tomorrow let us love each other with all our hearts and all our strength. Let us draw the most from every day that God grants us."
"You trouble me, my sweet. Will there be no sons, then?" She was silent again as they watched a shooting star leave its brief fiery trail though the heavens and at last perish before their eyes. Then she sighed, and whispered, "Yes, I will give you a son but-" She bit off the other words that rose to her tongue.
"There is great sadness in your voice." His tone was disquieted. "And, yet, the thought that you will bear my son gives me joy."
"The stars can be malevolent, she whispered. "Sometimes they fulfill their promises in a manner that we do not expect, or relish. Of one thing alone I am certain, that the fates have selected for you a labour of great consequence. It has been ordained thus from the day of your birth."
"My father spoke to me of this same task." Hal brooded on the old prophecy. "I am willing to face my destiny, but I need you to help and sustain me as you have done so often already."
She did not answer his plea, but said, "The task they have set for you involves a vow and a talisman of mystery and power."
"Will you be with me, you and our son?" he insisted.
"If I can guide you in the direction you must go, I will do so with all my heart and all my strength."
"But will you come with me?" he pleaded.
"I will come with you as far as the stars will permit it," she promised. "More than that I do not know and cannot say.
"But-" he started, but she reached up with her mouth and covered his lips with her own to stop him speaking.
"No more! You must ask no more," she warned him. "Now join your body with mine once again and leave the business of the stars to the stars alone."
Towards the end of their watch, when the Seven Sisters had sunk below the hills and the Bull stood high and proud, they lay in each other's arms, still talking softly to fight off the drowsiness that crept upon them. They had become accustomed to the night sounds of the wilderness, from the liquid warble of night birds and the yapping, yodelling chorus of the little red jackals to the hideous shrieking and cackling of the hyena packs at the remains of the carcasses, but suddenly there came a sound that chilled them to the depths of their souls.
It was the sound of all the devils of hell, a monstrous roaring and grunting that stilled all lesser creation, rolled against the hills and came back to them in a hundred echoes. Involuntarily Sukeena clung to him and cried aloud, "Oh, Gundwane, what terrible creature is that?"
She was not alone in her terror for all the camp was suddenly awake. Zwaantie screamed, and the baby echoed her terror. Even the men sprang to their feet and cried out to God.
Aboli appeared beside them like a dark * moon shadow and calmed Sukeena with a hand on her trembling shoulder. "It is no phantom, but a creature of this world," he told them. "They say that even the bravest hunter is frightened three times by the lion. Once when he sees its tracks, twice when he hears its voice, and the third time when he confronts the beast face to face."
Hal sprang up, and called to the others, "Throw fresh logs on the fire. Light the slow-match on all the muskets. Place the women and the child in the centre of the stockade."
They crouched in a tight circle behind its flimsy walls, and for a while all was quiet, quieter than it had been all that night for now even the scavengers has been silenced by the mighty voice that had spoken from out of the darkness.
They waited, their weapons held ready, and stared out into the night where the yellow light of the flames could not reach. It seemed to Hal that the flickering firelight played tricks with his eyes, for all at once he thought he saw a ghostly shape glide silently through the shadows. Then Sukeena gripped his arm, digging her fingernails into his flesh, and he knew that she had seen it also.
Abruptly that gale of terrifying noise broke over them again, raising the hair on their scalps. The women shrieked and the men quaked a
nd tightened their grip on the weapons that now seemed so frail and inadequate in their hands.
"There!" whispered Zwaantie, and this time there could be no doubt that what they saw was real. It was a monstrous feline shape that seemed as tall as a man's shoulder, which passed before their gaze on noiseless pads. The flames lit upon its brazen glossy hide, turning its eyes to glaring emeralds like those in the crown of Satan himself. Another came and then another, passing in swift and menacing parade before them, then disappearing into the night once more.
"They gather their courage and resolve," Aboli said. "They smell the blood and the dead flesh and they are hunting us."
"Should we flee from the stockade, then?" Hal asked. "No!" Aboli shook his head. "The darkness is their domain. They are able to see when the night stops up our eyes. The darkness makes them bold. We must stay here where we can see them when they come."
Then, from out of the night, came such a creature as to dwarf the others they had seen. He strode towards them with a majestic swinging gait, and a mane of black and golden hair covered his head and shoulders and made him seem as huge as a haystack. "Shall I fire upon him?" Hal whispered to Aboli.
"A wound will madden him," Aboli replied. "Unless you can kill cleanly, do not fire."
The lion stopped in the full glare of the firelight. He placed his forepaws apart and lowered his head. The dark hair of his mane came erect, swelling before their horrified gaze, seeming to double his bulk. He opened his jaws, and they saw the ivory fangs gleam, the red tongue curl out between them, and he roared again.
The sound struck them with a physical force, like a storm-driven wave. It stunned their ear-drums and startled their senses. The beast was so close that Hal could feel the breath from its mighty lungs blow into his face. It smelt of corpses and carrion long dead.
"Quietly now!" Hal urged them. "Make no sound and do not move, lest you provoke him to attack." Even the women and the child obeyed. They stifled their cries and sat rigid with the terror of it. It seemed an eternity that they remained thus, the lion eyeing them, until little one-eyed Johannes could bear it no longer. He screamed, flung up his musket and fired wildly.
In the instant before the gunsmoke blinded them Hal saw that the ball had missed the beast and had struck the dirt between its forelegs.
Then the smoke billowed over them in a cloud, and from its depths came the grunts of the angry lion. Now both women screamed and the men barged into each other in their haste to run deeper into the stockade. Only Hal and Aboli stood their ground, muskets levelled, and aimed into the bank of smoke. Little Sukeena shrank against Hal's flank but did not run.
Then the lion burst in full charge out of the mist of gunsmoke. Hal pressed the trigger and his musket misfired. Aboli's weapon roared deafeningly, but the beast was a blur of movement so swift, in the smoke and the darkness, that it cheated the eye. Aboli's shot must have flown wide for it had no effect upon the lion, which swept into the stockade, roaring horribly. Hal flung himself down on Sukeena, covering her with his own body and the lion leapt over him.
It seemed to pick out Johannes from the huddle of terrified humanity. Its great jaws closed in the small of the man's back and it lifted him as a cat might carry a mouse. With one more bound it cleared the rear wall of the stockade and disappeared into the night.
They heard Johannes screaming in the darkness, but the lion did not carry him far. just beyond the firelight it began to devour him while he still lived. They heard his bones crack as the beast bit into them, then the rending of his flesh as it tore out a mouthful. There was more roaring and growling as the lionesses rushed in to share the prey, and while Johannes still shrieked and sobbed they tore him to pieces. Gradually his cries became weaker until they faded away entirely and from the darkness there were only the grisly sounds of the feast.
The women were hysterical and Bobby waited and beat his little fists in terror against Althuda's chest. Hal quieted Sukeena, who responded swiftly to the feel of his arm around her shoulder. "Do not run. Move quietly. Sit in a circle. The women in the centre. Reload the muskets, but do not fire until I give the word." Hal rallied them, then looked at Daniel and Aboli.
"It is our Store of meat that draws them. When they have finished with Johannes they will charge the stockade again for more."
"You are right, Gundwane."
"Then we will give them eland meat to distract them from us," Hal said. "Help me."
Between the three of them they seized one of the huge hindquarters of raw eland flesh and staggered with it to the edge of the firelight. They threw it down in the dust.
"Do not run," Hal cautioned them again, "for as the cat pursues the mouse, they will come after us if we do." They backed into the stockade. Almost immediately a lioness rushed out, seized the bloody hindquarter and dragged it away into the night. They could hear the commotion as the others fought her for the prize, and then the sounds as they all settled down to feed, snarling and growling and spitting at each other.
That hunk of raw meat was sufficient to keep even that voracious pride of the great cats feeding and squabbling for an hour, but when once more they began to prowl at the edge of the firelight and make short mock charges at the huddle of terrified humans Hal said, "We must feed them again." It soon became clear that the lions would accept these offerings in preference to rushing the camp, for when the three men dragged out another hindquarter from the stockade, the beasts waited for them to retire before a lioness slunk out of the night to haul it away.
"Always it is the female who is boldest," Hal said, to distract the others.
Aboli agreed with him. "And the greediest!"
"It is not our fault that you males lack courage and the sense to help yourselves," Sukeena told them tartly, and most of them laughed, but breathlessly and without conviction. Twice more during the night Hal had them carry out legs of eland meat to feed the pride. At last as the dawn started to define the tops of the thorn trees against the paling sky the lions seemed to have assuaged their appetites. They heard the roaring of the black-maned male fading with distance as he wandered away. He roared for the last time a league off, just as the sun pushed its flaming golden rim above the jagged tops of the mountain range that ran parallel with the route of their march.
Hal and Althuda went out to find what remained of poor Johannes. Strangely the lions had left his hands and his head untouched, but had consumed the rest of him. Hal closed the staring eyes and Sukeena wrapped these pathetic remnants in a scrap of cloth and prayed over the grave they dug. Hal placed slabs of rock over the fresh turned earth to deter the hyenas from digging it up.
"We can spend no more time here." He lifted Sukeena to her feet. "We must start out immediately if we are to reach the river today. Fortunately, there is still enough meat left for our purpose."
They slung the remaining legs of eland meat on carrying poles, and with a man at each end staggered with them over the rolling hills and grasslands. It was late afternoon when they reached the river and, from the high bluff, looked down onto its broad green expanse, which had already proved such a barrier to their march.
The Golden Bough dropped her anchor at the head of the channel in Elephant Lagoon, and at once Llewellyn set his crew to work, pumping out the bilges and repairing the storm damage to the hull and the rigging. A full gale still raged overhead, but though the surface of the lagoon was whipped into a froth of white wavelets the high ground of the heads broke its main force.
Cornelius Schreuder fretted to go ashore. He was desperate to get off the Golden Bough and rid himself of this company of Englishmen whom he had come to detest so bitterly. He looked upon Lord Cumbrae as a friend and an ally and was anxious to join him and ask him to act as his second in the affair of honour with Vincent Winterton. In his tiny cabin he packed his chests hurriedly and, when a man could not be spared to help him, lugged them up onto the deck himself. He stood with the pile of his possessions at the entry port staring out across the lagoon to Cumbrae's shore b
ase.