rotting.
'So, it's wood?' enquired Mike.
'Wood burns,' explained Bruce. 'It would be easy to burn it down.' He
leaned his elbows on the guard rail, drained the beer bottle and dropped
it to the surface of the river twenty feet below. There was a thoughtful
expression on his face.
'Very probably there are Baluba in the bush'- he pointed at the banks
-'watching us at this moment. They might get the same idea. I
wonder if I should leave a guard here?' Mike leaned on the rail beside
him and they both stared out to where the river took a bend two hundred
yards downstream; in the crook of the bend grew a tree twice as tall as
any of its neighbours. The trunk was straight and covered with smooth
silvery bark and its foliage piled to a high green steeple against the
clouds. It was the natural point of focus for their eyes as they weighed
the problem.
'I wonder what kind of tree that is. I've never seen one like it
before.' Bruce was momentarily diverted by the grandeur of it. 'It looks
like a giant blue gum.'
'It's quite a sight,' Mike concurred.
'I'd like to go down and have a closer,-' Then suddenly he stiffened and
there was an edge of alarm in his voice as he pointed.
'Bruce, there! What's that in the lower branches?'
'Where?' Just above the first fork, on the left-' Mike was pointing and
suddenly
Bruce saw it. For a second he thought it was a leopard, then he realized
it was too dark and long.
'It's a man,' exclaimed Mike.
'Baluba,' snapped Bruce; he could see the shape now and the sheen
of naked black flesh, the kilt of animal tails and the headdress of
feathers. A long bow stood up behind the man's shoulder as he balanced
on the branch and steadied himself with one hand against the trunk. He
was watching them.
Bruce glanced round at the train. Hendry had noticed their agitation
and, following the direction of Mike's raised arm, he had spotted the
Baluba. Bruce realized what Hendry was going to do and he
opened his mouth to shout, but before he could do so Hendry had snatched
his rifle off his shoulder, swung it up and fired a long, rushing,
hammering burst.
1 'The trigger-happy idiot,' snarled Bruce and looked back at the tree.
Stabs of white bark were flying from the trunk and the bullets reaped
leaves that fluttered down like crippled insects, but the Baluba had
disappeared.
The gunfire ceased abruptly and in its place Hendry was shouting with
hoarse excitement.
'I got him, I got the bastard.'
'Hendry!' Bruce's voice was also hoarse, but with anger, 'Who ordered
you to fire?'
'He was a bloody
Baluba, a mucking big bloody Baluba.
