and then went away at a full run, Fat Kwi streaking after him.
Water. Centaine stood in the stirrups. They have smelled the water. Are you serious? he stared at her.
I couldn't believe it the first time, she laughed. O'wa could smell it from five miles. Come on, I'll prove it to you. She urged the gelding into a canter.
Ahead of them a low irregularity in the terrain appeared out of the dusty haze, a hillock of purple shale, bare of all vegetation except for a strange antediluvian tree on its summit, a kokerboom with bark like a reptile's skin. Centaine felt a pang of memory and nostalgia. She recognized the place. She had last been here with the two little yellow people she had loved, and Shasa heavy in her womb.
Before they reached the hillock, Kwi and Fat Kwi broke their run and stopped, side by side, to examine the earth at their feet. They were chattering excitedly when Centaine rode up, and she translated for Blaine, her tongue tripping with her own excitement.
We have cut the spoor. It's De La Rey, no doubt about it.
Three riders coming up from the south heading for the fountain. They have abandoned their used-up horses, and they're riding hard, pushing their mounts to the limit. The horses are floundering already.
De La Rey has judged it finely. Centaine could barely contain her relief. She had guessed right. Lothar was heading for the Portuguese border after all.
He and the diamonds were not far ahead of them.
How long, Kwi? she demanded anxiously, springing down to examine the spoor for herself.
This morning, Nam Child, the little Bushman told her, pointing to the sky, showing where the sun had stood when Lothar passed.
Just after dawn. We are eight hours or so behind them, she told Blaine.
That's a lot to make up. He looked serious. Every minute we can save will count from now on. Troop forward! When they were half a mile from the hillock with its kokerboom crest, Centaine told Blaine, 'There have been other horses grazing around here. A large troop of them over many weeks. Their sign is everywhere. It was just as we guessed, De La Rey has had one of his men herding them here. We should find further evidence of that at the waterhole. She broke off and peered ahead. There were three dark amorphous heaps lying at the base of the hill.
What are they? Blaine was as puzzled as she was. Only when they rode up did they realize what they were.
Dead horses! Centaine exclaimed. De La Rey must have shot his used-up horses. No. Blaine had dismounted to examine the carcasses. 'No bullet holes. Centaine looked around. She saw the primitive stockade in which the fresh horses had been kept awaiting Lothar's arrival and the small thatched hut where the man left to tend them had lived.
Kwi, she called to the Bushman. Find the spoor going away from here. Fat Kwi, search the camp. Look for anything which will tell us more about these evil men that we are chasing. Then she urged her gelding towards the fountain head.
It lay beneath the hillock. Subterranean water had been trapped between strata of the impervious purple shale and brought to the surface here. The hooves of wild game and the bare feet of San people who had drunk here over the millennia had worn down the shale banks. The water lay fifteen feet down in the bottom of a steep conical depression.
On the side nearest the hillock a layer of shale overhung the pool like the roof of a verandah, shading the water from direct rays of the sun, cooling it and protecting it from rapid evaporation. It was a tiny clear pool, not much larger than a bath tub, fed constantly by the up welling from the earth.
From experience, Centaine knew that it was brackish with dissolved minerals and salts, and strongly tainted with the droppings and urine of the birds and animals that drank from the spring.
The pool itself held her attention for only a second, and then she stiffened in the saddle and her hand flew to her mouth, an instinctive expression of her horror as she stared at the crude manmade structure that had been erected on the bank at the edge of the pool.
A thick branch of camel-thorn had been peeled of its bark and planted in the hard earth as a signpost. At its base rocks had been piled in a pyramid to support it, and on its summit an empty half-gallon can had been placed like a helmet.
Below the can a plank was nailed to the post, and on it were burned black charred words, probably written with the tip of a ramrod heated in the fire:
THIS WELL IS POISONED
The empty can was bright red with a black skull and crossbones device and below that the dreaded title:
ARSENIC
Blaine had come up beside her and they were both so silent that Centaine imagined she could hear the shale beneath them ticking softly like a cooling oven, then Blaine spoke: The dead horses, he said, 'that accounts for it. The dirty bastard. His voice crackled with outrage. He pulled his horse around and galloped across to join the troop. Centaine heard him calling, Sergeant. Check the water that is left. The well is poisoned, and Sergeant Hansmeyer whistled softly.
Well, that's the end of the chase. We will be lucky to get back to Kalkrand again. Centaine found she was trembling with anger and frustration. He is going to get clean away, she told herself. He has won on the first trick. The gelding smelled the water and tried to get down the bank. She forced him away with her knees, slapping him across the neck with the loose end of the reins. She tethered him at the end of the horse line and measured a ration of oats and mash into his nose bag.
Blaine came to her. I'm sorry, Centaine, he said quietly.
We'll have to turn back. To go on without water is suicide. I know. It's a pretty filthy trick. He shook his head. Poisoning a water-hole that supports so much desert life. The destruction will be horrible. I have only seen it done once before.
