she saw the godlike profile, perfect and cold. As the cry of agony
died away, he leaned forward, took a burning twig from the fire and lit
the long black cheroot between his white teeth.
He drew deeply and held the smoke, then let it trickle out through his
nostrils. Then he turned deliberately to Vicky.
'You heard what the lady said. It's the custom.' He spoke to
Vicky, but the remark was addressed to Jake Barton, and his eyes
flicked mockingly to him, a half-smile on his lips.
The two men held each other's eyes, unblinking and expressionless.
The cry of agony came again but this time weaker, the aching ringing
tone reduced to a sobbing echo on the dark night.
Jake Barton rose to his feet, coming erect with one fluid movement, and
in a continuation of the same movement he crossed to the piles of
captured Italian weapons. He stooped and picked up an officer's
automatic pistol, a 7 men. Beretta, still in its polished leather
holster, and he unbuckled the flap and drew the weapon,
discarding the leather holster and waist belt. He checked the loaded
magazine and then, with a slap of his palm, thrust it back into the
recessed butt, pumped the slide to throw a round into the breech,
flicked the safety-catch across and slipped the pistol into the pocket
of his breeches.
Without looking again at any of the others, he strode away,
disappearing beyond the firelight into the darkness, in the direction
of the Galla encampment.
'I told him a long time ago that sentimentality is an oldfashioned
luxury an expensive one in this age, and especially in this place,'
murmured Gareth, and inspected the ash of his cheroot.
'They will kill him if he goes in there alone,' said Sara in a
completely matter-of-fact tone. 'They will be hungry for more blood
and they'll kill him 'Oh, I don't know it's as bad as that, 'Gareth
demurred.
'Oh, yes. They'll kill him,' said Sara, and turned back to Vicky.
'Are you going to let him go? They are only Italians,' she pointed
out. For a moment, the two women stared at each other, and then Vicky
leaped to her feet and went after Jake, the blue linen swirling
gracefully around her legs and the firelight playing like liquid bronze
gold on her hair as she ran.
She caught up with Jake at the perimeter of the Galla encampment,
and she fell in beside him, taking two quick steps to each of his
strides.
'Go back,' he said softly, but she did not reply and skipped to keep up
with him.
'Do what I say.'
'No, I'm coming with you.' He stopped and swung to face her, and she
lifted her chin defiantly, throwing back her shoulders and drawing
herself up to her full height so that she came to his shoulder.
Listen to me ' he began, and then stopped as the tortured being cried
again in the night, and it was a blubbering incoherent sound,
half moan, half sob followed almost immediately by the throaty roar of
many hundred voices, the blood roar of a hunting pack, deep and
