'Where is Boris?'he asked.
'He and the trackers are searching the banks lower down the river. I
think he is looking forward to finding your corpse.'
'What has he done with my dik-dik?'
ainly nothing too much the matter with
'There is cert you if you can worry about that. The skinners have taken
it down to the camp.'
'Damn it to hell! I must supervise the skinning and tion of the trophy
myself. They will ruin id' He put prepara his arm around Tamre's
shoulder. 'Come on, my lad! Let's see if I can break into a trot.'
las knew that in this heat the carcass of icho the little antelope would
decompose swiftly, and the hair would slough from the hide if it were
not treated immediately. It was imperative to skin it out immediately.
Already it had been left too long, and the preparation of a hide for a
full body mount was a skilled and painstaking procedure.
it was already dark as they limped into the camp.
Nicholas shouted for the skinners in Arabic.
'Ya, Kif! Ya, SalinP and when they came running from living huts he
asked anxiously, 'Have you begun?' their
'Not yet, effendi. We were having our dinner first.'
'For once gluttony is a virtue. Do not touch the creature until I come.
While you are waiting for me, fetch one of the gas lights!' He limped to
his own hut as fast as his aches would allow. There he stripped and
anointed all his visible scrapes and abrasions with Mercurochrome, flung
on fresh dry clothes, rummaged in his bag until he found the canvas roll
which contained his knives, and hurried down to the skinning hut.
By the brilliant white glare of the butane gas lantern he had only just
completed the initial skin incisions down the inside of the dik-dik's
legs and belly when Boris pushed open the door of the hut.
'Did you have a good swim, English?'
'Bracing, thank you.' Nicholas smiled. 'I don't expect you want to eat
your words about my striped dik-dik, do you?' he asked mildly. 'No such
bloody animal, I think you said., 'It is like a rat. A true hunter would
not bother himself with such rubbish,' Boris replied haughtily. 'Now
that you have your rat, perhaps we can go back to Addis, English?'
'I paid you for three weeks. It is my safari. We go when I say
so,'Nicholas told him. Boris grunted and backed out of the hut.
Nicholas worked swiftly. His knives were of a special design to
facilitate the fine work, and he stropped them at regular intervals on a
ceramic sharpening rod until he could shave the hairs from his forearm
with just the lightest touch.
The legs had to be skinned out with the tiny hooves still attached.
Before he had completed this part of the work, another figure stooped
into the hut. He was dressed in a priest's shamma and headcloth, and
until he spoke Nicholas did not recognize Mek Nimmur.
'I hear that you have been looking for trouble again, Nicholas. I came
to make sure that you were still alive.
There was a rumour at the monastery that you had drowned yourself,
though I knew it was not possible. You will not die so easily.'
