earth was Flynn? Why had Mohammed not returned? What had happened to Sebastian? Was he safe, or had he been discovered?
Had Flynn gone to assist him?
Should she wait here, or follow them down the draw?
Her eyes haunted, her mouth hard set with doubts, she sat and twisted the braid of her hair around one finger in a nervously restless gesture.
Then Mohammed came. Suddenly he appeared out of the thicket beside her, and Rosa jumped up with a low cry of relief. The cry died in her throat as she saw his face.
Mohamed said. 'He is hurt. The great elephant has broken his bones and he lies in pain. He asks for you.' Rosa stared at him,
appalled, not understanding.
An elephant?'
'He followed Plough the Earth, the great elephant,
and killed him. But in dying the elephant struck him, breaking him.'
'The fool. Oh, the fool!' Rosa whispered. 'Now of all times. With
Sebastian in danger, he must...' And then she caught herself and broke off her futile lament. 'Where is he, Mohammed? Take me to him.'
Mohammed led along one of the game paths, Rosa ran behind him. There was no time for caution, no thought of it as they hurried to find
Flynn. They came to the stream of the Abati, and swung off the path,
staying on the near bank. They plunged through a field of arrow grass,
skirted around a tiny swamp and ran on into a stand of buffalo thorn.
As they emerged on the far side Mohammed stopped abruptly and looked at the sky.
The vultures turned in a high wheel against the blue, like debris in a lazy whirlwind. The spot above which they circled lay half a mile ahead.
'Daddy!' Rosa choked on the word. In an instant all the hardness accumulated since that night at Lalapanzi disappeared from her face.
'Daddy!' she said again, and then she ran in earnest.
Brushing past Mohammed, throwing her rifle aside so it clattered on the earth, she darted out of the buffalo thorn and into the open.
'Wait, Little Long Hair. Be careful.' Mohammed started after her.
In his agitation he stepped carelessly, full on to a fallen twig from the buffalo thorn. There was a worn spot on the sole of his sandal,
and three inches of cruet red tipped thorn drove up through it and buried in his foot.
For a dozen paces he struggled on after Rosa, hopping on one leg,
flapping his arms to maintain his balance and calling, but not too loudly.
'Wait! Be careful, Little Long Hair.' But she took not the least heed, and went away from him, leaving him at last to sink down and tend to his wounded foot.
She crossed the open ground before the fever-tree grove with the slack, blundering steps of exhaustion. Running silently, saving her breath for the effort of reaching her father. She ran into the grove,
and a drop of perspiration fell into her eye, blurring her vision so she staggered against one of the trunks. She recovered her balance and ran on into the midst of them.
She recognized Herman Fleischer instantly. She had run almost against his chest, and his huge body towered over her. She screamed with shock and twisted away from the beanlike arms outspread to clutch her.
Two of the native Askari who were working over the crude litter on which lay Flynn O'Flynn, jumped up. As she ran they closed on her from either side, the way a pair of trained greyhounds will course a hare.
They caught her between them, and dragged her struggling and screaming to where Herman Fleischer waited.
'Ah, so!' Fleischer nodded pleasantly in greeting. 'You have come in time for the fun.' Then he turned to his sergeant. 'Have them tie the woman.' Rosa's screams penetrated the light mists of insensibility that screened Flynn's brain. He stirred on the litter, muttering incoherently, rolling his head from side to side, then he opened his eyes and focused them with difficulty. He saw her struggling between the Askari and he snapped back into full consciousness.
'Leave her!' he roared. 'Call those bloody animals off her.
Leave her, you murderous bloody German bastard.'
'Good!' said Herman
Fleischer. 'You are awake now.' Then he lifted his voice above Flynn's bellows. 'Hurry, Sergeant, tie the woman and get the rope up.' While they secured Rosa, one of the Askari shinned up the smooth yellow trunk of a fever tree. With his bayonet he hacked the twigs from the thick horizontal branch above their heads. The sergeant threw the end of the rope up to him, and at the second attempt the Askari caught it and passed it over the branch. Then he dropped back to earth.
There was a hangman's knot fixed in the rope, ready for use.
'Set the knot, said Fleischer, and the sergeant went to where
Flynn lay. With poles cut from a small tree they had rigged a combination litter and splints. The poles had been laid down Flynn's flanks from ankle to armpit, with bark strips they had bound them firmly so that Flynn's body was held rigidly as that of an Egyptian mummy, only his head and neck were free.
The sergeant stooped over him, and Flynn fell silent, watching him venomously. As his hands came down with the noose to loop it over
Flynn's head, Flynn moved suddenly. He darted his head for-ward like a striking adder and fastened his teeth in the man's wrist. With a howl the sergeant tried to pull away, but Flynn held on, his head jerking and wrenching as the man struggled.
'Fool' grunted Fleischer, and strode over to the litter.
He lifted his foot and placed it on Flynn's lower body. As he brought his weight down on it Flynn stiffened and gasped with pain,
releasing the Askari's wrist.
'Do it this way.' Fleischer lunged forward and took a handful of
Flynn's hair, roughly he yanked Flynn's head forward. 'Now, the rope,
quickly.' The Askari dropped the noose over Flynn's head and drew the slip-knot tight until it lay snugly under Flynn's ear.
'Good.' Fleischer stepped back. 'Four men on the rope,' he ordered. 'Gently. Do not jerk the rope. Walk away with it slowly. I
don't want to break his neck.' Rosa's hysteria had stilled into cold horror as she watched the preparations for the execution, and now she found her voice again.
'Please,' she whispered. 'He's my father. Please don't.
Oh, no, please don't.'
Hush, girl,'
'You'd not shame me now by ' pleading with this fat bag of pus.'
roared Flynn.
He swivelled his head, his eyes rolled towards the four Askari who stood ready with the rope end.
'Pull! You black sons of bitches. Pull! And damn you. I'll beat you to hell, and speak to the devil so he'll have you castrated and smeared with pig's fat.'
'You heard what Fini told you,' smiled Fleischer at his Askari. 'Pull!' And they walked backwards in single file,
shuffling through the dead leaves, leaning against the rope.
The litter lifted slowly at one end, came upright and then left the ground.
Rosa turned away and clenched her eyelids tight closed, but her hands were bound so she could not stop her ears, she could not keep out the sounds that Flynn Patrick O'Flynn made as he died.
When at last there was silence, Rosa was shivering. Bar spasms that shuddere&through her whole body.
'All right,' said Herman Fleischer. 'That's it. Bring the woman.
We can get back to camp in time for lunch if we hurry.' When they were gone, the litter and its contents still hung in the fever tree.
Swinging a little and turning slowly on the end of the rope. Near it lay the carcass of the elephant, and a vulture planed down slowly and made a flapping ungainly landing in the top branches of the fever tree.
It sat hunched and suspicious, then suddenly squawked and launched again into noisy flight, for it had seen the man coming.
The little old man limped slowly into the grove. He stopped beside the dead elephant and looked up at the man who had been his master and his friend.
'Go in peace, Fini.' said Mohammed.
The alleyway was a narrow low-roofed corridor, the bulkheads were painted a pate grey that glistened in the harsh light of the electric globes set in small wire cages at regular intervals along the roof.
At the end of the corridor, a guard stood outside the heavy watertight door in the bulkhead that led through into the handling room of the forward magazine. The guard wore only a thin white singlet and white flannel trousers, but his waist was belted in a blanc oed webbing from which hung a sheathed bayonet, and there was a Mauser rifle slung from his shoulder.
From his position he could look into the handling room, and he could keep the full length of
