'Tessay has been in camp all day with him. There has been more trouble
between them. She told me that as soon as they get back to Addis Ababa
she is going to leave him.
She can't take any more of this.'
'The only thing I find surprising is that she ever got mixed up with an
animal like Boris in the first place. She is a lovely woman. She could
pick and choose.'
'Some women are drawn to animals,' Royan shrugged.
'I suppose it must be the thrill of danger. Anyway, Tessay has asked me
if she can come with us tomorrow. She cannot stand another day in camp
with Boris on her own.
I think she is really afraid of him now. She says that she has never
seen him drink like this before.'
'Tell her to come along, Nicholas said resignedly. 'The more of us the
merrier. Perhaps we will be able to frighten the dik-dik to death by
sheer weight of numbers. Save me wasting ammunition.'
It was still dark when the three of them left camp the next morning.
There was no sign of Boris and, when Nicholas asked about him, Tessay
said simply, 'After you went to bed last night he finished the bottle.
He won't be out of his hut before noon. He won't miss me.'
Carrying the Rigby, Nicholas led them tip into the weathered limestone
hills, retracing the path along which Tamre had taken them the previous
day. As they walked, Nicholas heard the two women talking behind him.
Royan was explaining to Tessay how they had sighted the striped dik-dik,
and what they planned.
The sun was well up by the time they again reached the spot under the
thorn tree on the lip of the chasm, and settled down to wait in ambush.
'How will you retrieve the carcass, if you do manage to shoot the poor
little creature?' Royan asked.
'I made certain of that before we left camp,' he explained. 'I spoke to
the head tracker. If he hears a shot he will bring up the ropes and help
me get across to the other side.'
'I wouldn't like to make the journey across there.' Tessay eyed the drop
below them.
'They teach you some useful things in the army, along with all the
rubbish,' Nicholas replied. He made himself comfortable against the
thorn tree, the rifle ready in his lap.
The women lay close by him, talking together softly.
It was unlikely that the sound of their low voices would carry across
the ravine, Nicholas decided, so he did not try to hush them.
He expected that if it came at all, the dik-dik would show itself early.
But he was wrong. By noon there was still no sign of it. The valley
sweltered in the midday sun. The distant wall of the escarpment, veiled
in the blue heat haze, looked like jagged blue glass, and the mirage
danced across the rocky ridges and shimmered like the waters of a silver
lake above the tops of the thorn thickets.
The women had long ago given up talking, and they lay somnolent in the
heat. The whole world was silent and heat-struck. Only a bush dove broke
the silence with its mournful lament, 'My wife is dead, my children are
dead, Oh, me! Oh, my! Oh, me!'Nicholas found his own eyelids becoming
