you had decided on Jake first. I would have advised you-' At that
instant a sound carried from the camp of the tance and Gallas to where
they sat. It was muted by ths almost obscured by the closer hubbub of
the feasting Harari filling yet the terrible heart-stopping quality of
it pierced Vicky so that she gasped and clutched Sara's wrist.
Beside her Jake and Gareth had stiffened and were listening also,
their heads turned to catch the sound that rose and died in a
long-drawn-out rending sob.
'You have not handled them correctly, Miss Camberwell.' Sara went on
speaking as if she had heard nothing.
'Sara, what is it what was that?' Vicky shook her arm urgently.
'Ah!' Sara made a gesture of disdain and contempt. 'That fat pervert
Ras Kullah has come down from his hiding-place.
the victory, he has come to enjoy Now that we have won the booty.
He arrived an hour ago with his fat milch cows and now he feasts and
entertains himself.' The sound came again. It was inhuman, a terrible
high pitched screech that tore across Vicky's nerves. It rose higher
and higher, until Vicky wanted to cover her ears with both hands. At
the instant that it seemed her nerves must snap, the sound was cut off
abruptly.
A listening silence had fallen upon the revelling throng around the
bonfires, and the silence persisted for a few then there was a seconds
longer after the scream had ended, murmur of comment and here and there
a burst of careless, cruel laughter.
'What is it, damn it, Sara, what are they doing?'
'Ras Kullah is playing with the Italians,' Sara said quietly, and Vicky
realized that she had thought no further of the prisoners taken that
day from the routed Italian column.
'Playing, Sara? What do you mean?' And Sara spat like an angry cat, a
gesture of utter disgust.
'They are animals, those beasts of Ras Kullah. They will make sport of
them all night, and in the morning they will cut away their man's
things,' she spat again. 'Before they can marry, they must take a
man's things what do you call them, the two things in the little
sac?'
'Testicles,' said Vicky hoarsely, almost choking on the word.
'Yes,' agreed Sara. 'They must kill a man and take his testicles to
the bride. It is their custom, but first they will make sport with the
Italians.'
'Can't we stop them? 'Vicky asked.
'Stop them?' Sara looked amazed. 'They are only Italians, and it is
the Galla custom.' Again came that cry, and again there was complete
silence from the revellers. It climbed high into the silent desert
air, shriek upon shriek, so that it seemed impossible that it could
come from a human lung, and their souls cringed at the dimensions of
suffering which could give vent to that pinnacle of agonized sound.
'Oh God! Oh God!' whispered Vicky, and she lifted her eyes from
Sara's face to that of Gareth Swales who sat beyond her.
He was silent and still, his face turned half away from her, so that
