hoard of silver, his six fine tusks of ivory, his goat herd, his dozen bags of white salt, the bar of copper, his two European-made axes, the bolts of trade cloth all of his treasures gone! It required an heroic effort to rouse himself from the stupor of despair and make his few futile preparations for flight.
Mohammed's Askari caught him as he was heading for the bush at a trot, and when they led him back to meet Sebastian Oldsmith, the tears that coursed freely down his cheeks and dripped on to his chest were genuine.
Sebastian was very susceptible to tears. Despite the protests of Mohammed, Sebastian pressed upon Saali twenty silver escudos. It took Saali about twenty minutes to recover from the shock, at the end of which time he, in turn, shocked Sebastian profoundly by offering him on a temporary basis the unrestricted services of the girl, Gita. This young lady was witness to the offer made by her husband, and was obviously wholeheartedly in favour of it.
Sebastian set off again hurriedly, with his retinue straggling along behind him in a state of deep depression.
Mohammed now had a bad case of the mutters.
Drums tap-tap- tapped, runners scurried along the network of footpaths that crossed and crisscrossed the bush; from hilltop to hilltop men called one to the other in the high pitched wail that carries for miles. The news spread. Village after village buzzed with incredulous excitement, and then the inhabitants flocked out to meet the mad German commissioner.
By this time Sebastian was thoroughly enjoying himself.
He was carried away with the pleasure of giving, delighted with these simple lovable people who welcomed him sincerely and pressed humble little gifts upon him. Here a scrawny fowl, there a dozen half-incubated eggs, a basin of sweet potatoes, a gourd of palm wine.
But Santa Claus's bag, or, more accurately, his tobacco pouch, was soon empty and Sebastian was at a loss for some way to help alleviate the misery and poverty he saw in each village. He considered issuing indulgences from future tax... the bearer is hereby excused from the payment of hut tax for five years... but realized that this was a lethal gift. He shuddered at what Herman Fleischer might do to anybody he caught in possession of one of these.
Finally he struck on the solution. These people were starving. He would give them food. He would give them meat.
In fact, this was one of the most desirable commodities Sebastian could have offered. Despite the abundance of wild life, the great herds of game that spread across the plains and hills, these people were starved for protein. The primitive hunting methods they employed were so ineffectual, that the killing of a single animal was an event that happened infrequently, and then almost by accident. When the carcass was shared out among two or. three hundred hungry mouths, there was only a few ounces of meat for each. Men and women would risk their lives in attempting to drive a pride of lions from their kill, for just a few mouthfuls of this precious stuff.
Sebastian's Askari joined in the sport with delight. Even old Mohammed perked up a little. Unfortunately, their marksmanship was about the same standard as Sebastian's own, and a day's hunting usually resulted in the expenditure of thirty or forty rounds of Mauser ammunition, and a bag of sometimes as little as one half-grown zebra. But there were good days also, like the memorable occasion when a herd of buffalo virtually committed suicide by running down on the line of Askari. In the resulting chaos one of Sebastian's men was shot dead by his comrades, but eight full-grown buffalo ri)llowed him to the happy hunting grounds.
So Sebastian's tax tour proceeded triumphantly, leaving behind a trail of empty cartridge cases, racks of meat drying in the sun, full bellies, and smiling faces.
Three months after crossing the Rovuma river, Sebastian found himself back at the village of his good friend, M'tapa. He had bypassed Saali's in order to avoid the offended Gita.
Sitting alone in the night within the hut that M'tapa placed at his disposal, Sebastian was having his first misgivings. On the morrow, he would begin the return to Lolapanzi, where Flynn O'Flynn was waiting for him. Sebastian was acutely aware that from Flynn's point of view the expedition had not been a success and Flynn would have a great deal to say on the subject. Once more Sebastian puzzled on the fates which took his best intentions, and manipulated them in such a manner that they became completely unrecognizable from the original.
Then his thoughts kicked off at a tangent. Soon, the day after tomorrow, if all went well, he would be back with Rosa. The deep yearning that had been his constant companion these last three months throbbed through Sebastian's whole body. Staring into the wood-fire on the hearth of the hut, it seemed as though the embers formed a picture of her face, and in his memory he heard her voice again.
'Come back, Sebastian. Come back soon.'
And he whispered the words aloud, watching her face in the fire. Gloating on each detail of it. He saw her smile, and her nose wrinkled a little, the dark eyes slanted upwards at the corners.
'Come back, Sebastian.'
The need of her was a physical pain so intense that he could hardly breathe, and his imagination reconstructed every detail of their parting beside the waterfall. Each subtle change and inflection of her voice, the very sound of her breathing, and the bitter salt taste of her tears upon his lips.
He felt again the touch of her hands, her mouth and through the wood-smoke that filled the hut, his nostrils flared at the warm woman smell of her body.
'I'm coming, Rosa. I'm coming back, he whispered, and stood up restlessly from beside the fire. At that moment his attention was jerked back to the present by a soft scratching at the door of the hut.
'Lord. Lord. 'He recognized old M'tapa's hoarse croaking.
'What is it?'
'We seek your protection.'
'What is the trouble?' Sebastian crossed to the door and lifted the cross-bar. 'What is it?'
In the Moonlight M'tapa stood with a skin blanket draped -around his frail shoulders. Behind him a dozen of the villagers huddled in trepidation.
'The elephant are in our gardens. They will destroy them before morning. There will be nothing, not a single stalk of millet left standing.' He swung away and stood with his head cocked. 'Listen, you may hear them now.'
It was an eerie sound in the night, the high-pitched elephant squeal, and Sebastian's skin crawled. He could feel the hair on his forearms become erect.
'There are two of them.' M'tapa's voice was a scratchy whisper. 'Two old bulls. We know them well. They came last season and laid waste our corn. They killed one of my sons who tried to drive them off.' In entreaty, the old man clawed hold of Sebastian's arm and tugged at it. 'Avenge my son, lord. Avenge my son for me, and save our millet that the children will not go hungry again this year.'
Sebastian responded to the appeal in the same manner that St. George would have done.
In haste he buttoned his tunic and went to fetch his rifle.
On his return he found his entire command armed to the teeth, and as eager for the hunt as a pack of foxhounds.
Mohammed waited at their head.
'Lord Manali, we are ready.'
'Now, steady on, old chap.' Sebastian had no intention of sharing the glory. 'This is my show. Too many cooks, what?'
M'tapa stood by, wringing his hands with impatience, listening alternately first to the distant sounds of the garden raiders feeding contentedly in his lands, and then to the undignified wrangling between Sebastian and his Askari, until at last he could bear it no longer. 'Lord, already half the millet is eaten. In an hour it will all be gone.'
'You're right,' Sebastian agreed, and turned angrily on his men. 'Shut up, all of you. Shut up!'
They were unaccustomed to this tone of command from Sebastian, and it surprised them into silence.
'Only Mohamed shall accompany me. The rest of you go to your huts and stay there.'
It was a working compromise, Sebastian now had Mohamed as ally. Mohammed turned on his comrades and scattered them before falling in beside Sebastian.
'Let us go.'
At the head of the main gardens, high on its stilts of poles, stood a rickety platform. This was the watch-tower from which, night and day, a guard was kept over the ripening millet. It was now deserted, the two young guards had left hurriedly at the first sight of the garden raiders. Kudu or waterbuck were one thing, a pair of bad-tempered old elephant bulls were another matter entirely.
Sebastian and Mohammed reached the watch-tower and paused beneath it. Quite clearly now they could hear the rustling and ripping sound of the millet stalks being torn up and trampled.
'Wait here, whispered Sebastian, slinging his rifle over his shoulder, as he turned to the ladder beside him. He climbed slowly and silently to the platform, and from it, looked out over the gardens.
The moon was so brilliant as to throw sharply defined shadows below the tower and the trees. Its light was a soft silver that distorted distance and size, reducing all things to a cold, homogeneous grey.
Beyond the clearing the forest rose like frozen smoke clouds, while the field of standing millet moved in the small night
