the back limb. The wire noose had cut through the skin, through sinew and flesh, and had come up hard against the bone as the animal struggled to break out of the snare.
Below the wire the leg had gangrened and the smell was nauseous, summoning a black moving wad of flies.
Mark made the shallow gutting stroke, deflecting the blade upwards to avoid puncturing the gut. The belly opened like a purse. He freed the anus and vagina with the deft surgeon strokes, and lifted out bladder and bowel and gut in one scoop. He dissected the purple liver out of the mass of viscera, cut away the gall bladder and tossed it aside. Grilled over the coals, the liver would make a feast for his dinner. He cut away the rotten, stinking hind leg, and then he carefully wiped out the stomach cavity with a handful of dry grass. He cut flaps in the skin of the neck.
Using the flaps of skin as handles, he hefted the whole carcass and lugged it down to the camp by the river. Cut and salted and dried, he now had meat for the rest of his stay. He hung the strips of meat high in the sycamore fig to save them from the scavengers who would surely visit the camp during his daily absences, and only when he had finished the task, and he was crouching over his fire with the steaming mug in his hand, did he think again of the snaring wire that had crippled the impala doe.
He felt an indirect flash of anger at the person who had set that noose, and then almost immediately he wondered why he should feel particular anger at the trapper, when a dozen times he had come across the old abandoned camps of white hunters. Always there were the bones, and the piles of rotting worm-riddled horns.
The trapper was clearly a black man, and his need was greater than that of the others who came in to butcher and dry and sell.
Thinking about it, Mark felt a despondency slowly overwhelm him. Even in the few short years since he had first visited this wilderness, the game had been reduced to but a small fraction of its original numbers. Soon it would all be gone, as the old man had said, The great emptiness is coming. Mark sat at his fireside, and he felt deeply saddened at the inevitable. No creature would ever be allowed to compete with man, and he remembered the old man again. Some say the lion, others the leopard. But believe me, my boy, when a man looks in the mirror, he sees the most dangerous and merciless killer in all of nature. The pit had been built to resemble a sunken water reservoir. It was fifty feet across and ten feet deep, perfectly circular, plastered and floored in smooth cement.
Although there were water pipes installed and its position on the first slope of the escarpment above Ladyburg was perfectly chosen to provide the correct fall to the big gabled house below, yet it had never held water.
The circular walls were white-washed to gleaming purity, and the floor was lightly spread with clean-washed river sand and neatly raked.
Pine trees had been planted to screen the reservoir. A twelve-stranded barbedwire fence enclosed the wholeplantation, and there were two guards at the gate this evening, tough, silent men who checked the guests as the cars brought them up from the big house.
There were forty-eight men and women in the excited, laughing stream that flowed through the gate, and followed the path up among the pines to where the pit was already starkly lit by the brilliant glare of the Petromax lanterns suspended on poles above it.
Dirk Courtney led the revellers. He wore black gaberdine riding breeches and polished knee-length boots to protect his legs from slashing fangs, and his white linen shirt was open almost to the navel, exposing the hard bulging muscle of his chest and the coarse black body hair which curled from the vee of the neck. The sleeves of the shirt were cut full to the wrist, and he rolled a long thin cheroot from one corner of his mouth to the other without touching it, for his arms were around the waists of the women who flanked him, young women with bold eyes and laughing painted mouths.
The dogs heard them coming and bayed at them, leaping against the padded bars of their cages, hysterical with excitement as they tried to reach each other through the gaps, snarling and snapping and slavering while the handlers attempted to shout them into silence.
The spectators lined the circular parapet of the pit, hanging over the edge. In the merciless light of the Petromax, the faces were laid bare, every emotion, every stark detail of the blood lust and sadistic anticipation was revealed the hectic colouring of the women's cheeks, the feverish glitter of the men's eyes, the shrillness of their laughter and the widely exaggerated gesturing.
During the early bouts, the small dark-haired girl beside Dirk screamed and wriggled, holding her clenched fists to her open mouth, moaning and gasping with fascinated, delighted horror. Once she turned and buried her face against Dirk's chest, pressing herbody, tremblingand shuddering, against him. Dirk laughed and held her around the waist. At the kill she screamed with the rest of them and her back arched; then Dirk half lifted her, as she sobbed breathlessly, and supported her to the refreshment table where there was champagne in silver buckets and sandwiches of brown bread and smoked salmon.
Charles came to where Dirk sat with the girl on his lap, feeding her champagne from a crystal glass, surrounded by a dozen of his sycophants, jovial and expansive, enjoying the rising sense of tension for the final bout of the evening when he would match his own dog, Chaka, against Charles'animal. I feel bad, Dirk, Charles told him. They have just told me that your dog is giving almost ten poundsThat mongrel of yours will need every pound, Charles, don't feel bad now, keep it for later, when you'll really need it. Dirk was suddenly bored with the girl, and he pushed her casually from his lap, so that she almost lost her balance and fell. Piqued, she settled her skirts, pouted at Dirk and when she realized he had already forgotten her existence, she flounced away. Here. Dirk indicated the chair beside him. Do have a seat, Charles old boy, and let's discuss your problem. The crowd drew closer around them, listening eagerly to their banter, and braying slavishly at each sally. My problem is that I should like a small wager on the bout, but it does seem most unsporting to bet against a light dog, like yours. Charles grinned as he mopped his streaming red face with a silk handkerchief, sweating heavily with champagne and excitement and the closeness of the humid summer evening. We all know that you make your living betting on certainties. Charles was a stock-broker from the Witwatersrand. However, the expression of such noble sentiment does you great credit. Dirk tapped his shoulder with the hilt of his dog-whip, a familiar condescending gesture that made Charles'grin tighten wolfishly.
dy ou will accommodate me then? he asked, nodding and winking at his own henchmen in the press of listening men. At even money? Of course, as much as you want. My dog Kaiser, against your Chaka, to the death. Even money, a wager of - Charles paused and looked to the ladies, smoothing the crisp little mustache with its lacing of iron grey, drawing out the moment. One thousand pounds in gold. The crowd gasped and exclaimed, and some of the listeners applauded, a smattering of handclaps.
No! No! Dirk Courtney held up both hands in protest. Not a thousand! and the listeners groaned, his own claque shocked and crestfallen at this loss of prestige.
Oh dear, Charles murmured, too strong for your blood?
Name the wager then, old boy. Let's have some real interest, say ten thousand in gold. Dirk tapped Charles
