squeezed it, the girl winced slightly and Vicky seeing the crimson
linen of her blouse dampened in a wet dark patch at the nipple realized
that the girl's breast was heavy with milk.
Vicky's artificial sense of well-being was fast fading now, sinking
once again under the weight of her weariness, and lulled by the food in
her belly, the thick smoky atmosphere and the hypnotic cadence of the
Amharic language. She was on the point of excusing herself from the
Lij and leaving when there was a disturbance outside the room, and the
shrill angry cries of a voice creaking with age and indi nation The
room was immediately electric with a charged feeling of expectation,
and Ras Kullah looked up and called out querulously.
A youth of perhaps nineteen years of age was dragged into the room and
held by two armed guards in the centre of the hastily cleared space
before Ras Kullah. His arms were bound with rawhide that cut deeply
into the flesh of his wrists, and his face was wet and shiny with the
sweat of fear, while his eyes rolled wildly in their sockets.
He was followed by a shrieking crone, a wizened baboon like figure,
swathed in a voluminous black sham mastiff with filth and greenish with
age. Repeatedly she attempted to attack the captive youth, clawing at
his face with bony hooked fingers, her toothless old mouth opened in a
dark pink-lined pit as she leaped and cavorted before the terrified
youth, trying again and again to reach him, while the two guys pushed
her away with c ee gu aw and playful blows, never relinquishing their
grip on their prisoner.
The Ras leaned forward to watch this play with awakening interest, his
dark dull eyes taking on a sparkle of anticipation as he asked a
question, and the crone flew to him and flung herself full-length
before him.
She began to bleat out a long high-pitched plea, attempting at the same
time to grasp and kiss the Ras's feet. The Ras giggled with
anticipation, kicking away the old woman's hands and occasionally
asking a question that was answered either by the guards or the
grovelling crone.
'Miss Camberwell whispered the Prince. 'I suggest that you leave now.
This will not be pleasant to watch.'
'What is it?' Vicky demanded, her professional instincts roused. 'What
are they doing?' 'The woman accuses the youth of murdering her son.
The guards are her witnesses and the Ras is trying the case.
He will give judgement in a moment, and the sentence will be carried
out immediately.'
Here? 'Vicky looked startled.
'Yes, Miss Camberwell. I urge you to leave. The punishment will be
biblical, from the Old Testament which is the centre of the Coptic
faith. It will be a tooth for a tooth.' Vicky hesitated to take the
Prince's advice, all human experience was her field no matter how
bizarre, and suddenly it was too late.
Laughingly, the Ras thrust the old woman away again with a kick to the
chest that sent her sprawling across the beaten earth floor and he
called a peremptory command to the guards who held the accused youth.
