when we came hunting up here. We thought it might deaden the sound of his snores,' Jim told Louisa. 'Of course it didn't work. Nothing could deaden his snores.' He laughed. 'But now we will put you there.'
'I don't snore,' she protested.
'Even if you do, it won't be for long. We're going to move on as soon as I have rested the horses, repacked the loads and put some decent clothes on you.'
'How long will that be?'
'We will go on before they can send soldiers after us from the castle.'
'To where?'
'I don't know.' He smiled at her. 'But I will tell you when we get there.' He gave her an appraising glance. Her tattered shift left her almost naked and she drew the cloak around herself. 'You are hardly dressed for dinner with the governor at the castle.' He went to one of the mule packs, which Zama had stacked against the wall. He rummaged in it and pulled out a roll of trade cloth, and a canvas housewife roll, which contained scissors, needles and thread. 'I hope you can sew?' he asked, as brought them to her.
'My mother taught me to make my own clothes.'
'Good,' he said. 'But we will sup first. I haven't eaten since breakfast two days ago.'
Zama ladled out venison stew from the three- legged hunter's pot standing on the coals. On top of it he placed a chunk of stiff maize cake. Jim took a spoonful. With his mouth full he asked Louisa, 'Did your mother teach you to cook also?'
Louisa nodded. 'She was a famous cook. She cooked for the Stad holder of Amsterdam, and the Prince of the House of Orange.'
'Then you have much employment here. You shall take over the cooking,' he said. 'Zama once poisoned a chief of the Hottentots, without even exerting himself. You may not think this a great accomplishment, but let me tell you that a Hottentot will grow fat on what kills the hyenas.'
She glanced at Zama uncertainly, her spoon half-way to her mouth. 'Is that true?'
'The Hottentots are the greatest liars in all Africa,' Zama answered, 'but none can match Somoya.'
'So it is a joke?' she asked.
'Yes, it is a joke,' Zama agreed. 'A bad English joke. It takes many years to learn to understand English jokes. Some people never succeed.'
When they had eaten, Louisa spread out the roll of cloth and began to measure and cut. Jim and Zama unpacked the mule loads that Jim had thrown together in such haste, and they noted and rearranged the contents. With relief Jim donned his own familiar boots and clothing, and gave Keyser's tunic and breeches to Zama. 'If we ever get into a battle with the wild tribes of the north, you can impress them with the uniform of a Company colonel,' he told him.
They cleaned and oiled the muskets, then replaced the flints in the locks. They placed the lead pot on the fire and melted lead to cast additional balls for the pistol Jim had captured from Colonel Keyser. The shot bags for the muskets were still full.
'You should have brought at least another five kegs of powder,' Zama told Jim, as he filled the powder flasks. 'If we meet hostile tribes when we start hunting, this will not last long.'
'I would have brought another fifty kegs, if I had found another twenty mules to carry them,' Jim said acidly. Then he called across the hut to where Louisa was kneeling over the bolt of material she had spread on the floor. She was using a stick of charcoal from the fireplace to mark her pattern before cutting it. 'Can you load and fire a musket?'
She looked abashed, and shook her head.
'Then I shall have to teach you.' He pointed to the material she was working on. 'What is that you are making?'
'A skirt.'
'A stout pair of trousers would be more useful, and would take less cloth.'
Her cheeks turned an intriguing shade of pink. 'Women don't wear trousers.'
'If they are going to ride astride, walk and run, as you are, then they should.' He nodded at her bare feet. 'Zama will make you a fine pair of velskoen boots from eland skin to go with your new trousers.'
Louisa cut the legs of her trousers very full, which made her appear even more boyish. She trimmed the tattered hem of her convict shift
into a long shirt that she wore over the top and it hung half-way down her thighs. She gathered this in at the waist with a rawhide belt that Zama made for her. She learned that he was an expert sail maker and leather-worker. The boots he made fitted her well. They reached halfway up her calves, and he turned the fur on the outside, which gave them a dashing appearance and enhanced the length of her legs. Lastly, she made herself a canvas bonnet to cover her hair and keep off the sun.
Early the next morning Jim whistled for Drumfire. He charged up from the bank of the stream where he had been cropping the young spring grass. In his usual display of affection, he pretended he was going to run his master down. Jim bestowed on him a few affectionate insults while he slipped the bridle over his head.
Louisa appeared in the door of the hut. 'Where are you going?'
'To sweep the back trail,' he told her.
'What does that mean?'
'I must go back the way we came to make certain we are not being followed,' he explained.
'I would like to come with you, for the ride.' She looked out at True heart. 'Both the horses are well rested.'
'Saddle up!' Jim invited her.
Louisa had hidden a large chunk of maize bread in the pouch on her belt, but Trueheart smelt it as soon as she stepped out of the door of the hut. The mare came to her at once, and while she ate the bread Louisa settled the saddle on her back. Jim watched her buckle the girth and mount. She moved easily in her new breeches.
'She must be the luckiest horse in Africa,' Jim commented, 'to have exchanged the colonel for you. An elephant for a hedgehog.'
Jim had saddled Drumfire: he slid a long musket into the sheath, slung a powder horn over his shoulder then sprang on to Drumfire's back. 'Lead the way,' he told her.
'Back the way we came?' she asked, and without waiting for his reply she started up the slope. Louisa had a light hand on the reins, and a natural seat. The mare seemed not to notice her weight, and flew up the steep mountainside.
From behind Jim appraised her style. If she was accustomed to the side-saddle, she had adapted readily to riding astride. He remembered how she had endured during the long night ride, and was amazed at how
auickly she had recovered. He knew that she would be able to keep up, no matter how gruelling the pace he set.
When they reached the crest, he moved into the lead. Unerringly he found his way back through the labyrinth of valleys and defiles. To Louisa each sheer cliff and hillside seemed the same as the one before it but he twisted and turned through the maze without hesitation.
Whenever a new stretch of ground opened before them he dismounted and climbed to a vantage-point to scan the terrain ahead through the lens of his telescope. These halts gave her respite to enjoy the grand scenery that surrounded them. After the flat country of her native land, these mountain tops seemed to reach to the heavens. The cliff walls were umber, red and purple. The scree slopes were densely clad with shrubs: some of their flowers looked like huge pincushions, and the colours were daffodil yellow and brilliant orange. Flocks of long tailed birds swarmed over them, probing their curved beaks deeply into the flowers.
'Suiker-bekkies -sugar-beaks,' Jim told her, when she pointed them out. 'They are drinking the nectar from the pro tea bushes.'
It was the first time since the shipwreck that she had been able to look around her, and she felt drawn by the beauty of this strange new land. The horrors of the Meeuw's gundeck were already fading, seemed now to belong to an old nightmare. The path they were following climbed another steep slope, and Jim stopped below the skyline and handed her Drumfire's reins to hold, while he climbed to the crest to observe the far side of the mountain.
She watched him idly. Suddenly his manner changed abruptly. He ducked down, doubled over, and scrambled back to where she waited. She was alarmed, and her voice shook: 'Are we being followed? Is it the colonel's men?'
'No, it's much better than that. It's meat.'
'I don't understand.'
'Eland. Herd of twenty or more. Coming straight up the far side towards us.'
'Eland?' she asked.
The largest antelope in Africa. As big as an ox,' he explained, as he checked the priming in the pan of the musket. The flesh is rich with fat and closer to the taste of beef than any other antelope's. Salted and dried or smoked the flesh of a single eland will last us many weeks.'
'Are you going to kill one? What if the colonel is following us? Won't he hear the shot?'
'In these mountains the echoes will break up the sound and confuse
the direction. In any event, I cannot miss this opportunity. We are already short of meat. I must take the chance if we are not to starve.'
He took hold of the bridles of both horses and led them off the path, then stopped behind an outcrop of raw red
