thought about it for only a moment. The sovereigns that he had from the old man's hoard might have to carry him long and far.
He went on out to the bridge over the Baboon Stroom.
and climbed down on to the bank, moving upstream to find a place to cam There was a fine site, with trees and firewood a quarter of a mile above the bridge, but when Mark went down the bank to the water, he could smell the stink of it before he touched the surface with the canteen; he paused, squatting on his haunches.
There was a thick soapy scum thrown up along the edge, and it had coated the stems of the reeds. For the first time Mark realized that the reeds were dead and brown, and that the water bubbled with sullenbeads of gas. He scooped a handful and sniffed at it, then flicked it away with disgust and stood up, wiping his hand on the seat of his pants.
There was a big yellow fish, at least four pounds in weight, its swollen belly upwards and rotting opaque eyes bulging from its head as it floated in the sluggish current, turning gently in the eddy at the edge of the reeds. Mark watched it with a feeling of disquiet, of foreboding, as though that poisoned and rotting carcass had some special significance in his life. He shuddered softly and turned away, climbed the bank again and shouldered his pack.
He made his way upstream, Pausing now and then to peer down into the river-bed, until he was opposite the steel structure of the new sugar mill; here the waters of the stream boiled and steamed with wisps of pale gas that hung like mist in the stiff brown reeds. Around the next bend, he came upon the effluent pipe, a six-inch black iron pipe that stuck out over the far side of the bank from which the hot, steaming discharge poured in a continuous stream.
A change in the breeze carried the acrid chemical stench of it to where Mark stood, and he coughed and turned away.
A hundred yards further upstream, the clear water chuckled through clean stands of green reeds that bowed and swung gracefully on the breeze, and Mark saw the deep waving shape of an eel in the pool beyond, and watched the small black and pink crabs scurrying across the sugarwhite sand below the surface.
He found another camp site on the first slope of the escarpment, beside a waterfall and its slowly swirling pool.
In the trees above him, the ferns hung like soft green veils, and when he stripped his clothing and went into the pool, the water was a cool and refreshing delight.
He shaved with the old cut-throat, sitting naked on a mossy rock beside the pool. He dried himself on his shirt and then rinsed it out and hung it beside the small bright fire to dry, and while he waited for the canteen to boil he wandered, bare to the waist, on to the open slope and looked down into the valley.
The sun was already touching the rim of the escarpment, and its low rays were ruddy and warm rose. They burnished the iron roofs of the town, and tinted the column of smoke that rose from the chimney stack of the sugar mill to a beautiful golden bronze. The smoke rose tall into the evening sky, for the breeze had dropped in that peculiar stillness and hush of the African evening.
Movement caught his eye, and he blinked to clear his vision.
There was a hunting party in the open land beyond the town. Even at this distance, Mark could tell they were hunters. Four horsemen moving slowly in a group, one with a rifle or shotgun held against his hip, its barrel pointing to the sky as he leaned forward intently in the saddle.
The other three were armed also; he could see the guns in the scabbards at their knees, and they also had that intent air of suppressed excitement, the air of the hunter. Ahead of the group was a single figure, a Zulu in ragged cast-off western clothing but he led the horsemen in the characteristic attitude of the tracker, trotting in that deceptively fast gait of the Zulu, head down, eyes on the ground, carrying a stripped reed in one hand, the tracker's wand to part the grass, or touch the spoor.
idly Mark wondered what they were hunting, so close to town, and on the bank of that dying and poisoned river, for they were coming along the same trail that Mark had followed to the escarpment.
The light was going swiftly now, the shining beacons of the iron roofs winked out swiftly as the sun went below the crest, but in the last of the light, Mark saw the leader of the group of horsemen rein in his mount and straighten in the saddle. He was a stocky figure, sitting square on his mount. The man looked up towards the escarpment where Mark stood, then the light was gone and the group became a dark blob against the darkening land.
Vaguely disturbed, and troubled by the day just past, by the cold memories of the old man, by the sadness of that dying river, and at last by that distant figure, Mark crouched over his fire, munching his stew of tinned bully and then sipping his coffee.
When at last he pulled on his coat and rolled into his blanket close beside the fire, he could not sleep. The sense of disquiet seemed to grow rather than abate, and he found himself wondering again what four horsemen could find to hunt on the edge of a busy town. Then he thought again about the way that they had followed his own path along the river, and the disquiet deepened, sleep receded.
Suddenly he remembered how the old man would never sleep beside his cooking fire. I learned that when we was a chasing the Boer. A light in the night brings things other than moths, lions, hyenas and men. He could almost hear the old man's voice saying it, and he rose immediately, with the blanket still around his shoulders, and moved away up the slope fifty yards until he found a hollow filled with dead leaves.
Sleep came at last and the soft skirt of it was falling lightly across his eyes when a Scops owl called in the forest near him; instantly he was fully awake. It was a familiar night sound, but this one had jarred some deep chord in him. The imitation had been clever, but it did not deceive an ear so closely tuned to the sounds of the wild.
Tense and listening, Mark lifted his head slowly and peered down the slope. His fire was a puddle of pink embers and above him the shapes of the trees were dark and fluffy against a crisp sky of white stars.
The owl called again down near the pool, and, at the same moment, Mark heard something move stealthily near him in the darkness, something big and heavy, the brush brush of footfalls in the dead leaves. Then there was silence again.
Mark strained his eyes and ears into the darkness, but it was impenetrable under the trees.
Far below in the valley, a locomotive whistled three times, the sound carrying clearly in the stillness, and then there was the huff and puff of the train pulling out from the goods yard and settling into a steady rhythmic beat of boiler and tracks.
