thin as the limbs of a praying mantis.
'Zama,' Jim called as he brought up the string of mules. 'Unload one of the chagga bags.'
When Bakkat started to make his report, Jim silenced him. 'Eat and drink first,' he ordered, 'and then sleep. We can talk later.'
Zama dragged up one of the leather bags filled with chagga made from the eland meat. The salted strips had been half dried in the sun, then packed so tightly into the bag that the air and the flies could not get to them. The first African travellers had probably taken the idea from the pemmican of the North American Indians. Treated like this the meat would not putrefy, but keep indefinitely. It retained much of its moisture, and though the taste was high and gamy, the salt disguised the tang of rot. It was a taste that, in circumstances of need, could be readily acquired.
Bakkat sat in the shade by the mountain stream and, with a heap of the black chagga sticks in front of him, began to eat. After Louisa had bathed in one of the pools further downstream she came to sit beside Jim and they watched Bakkat eat.
After a while she asked, 'How much more can he take in?'
'He is only now starting to get the taste for it,' Jim said.
Much later she said, 'Look at his stomach. It's beginning to swell.'
Bakkat stood up and went to kneel at the pool. 'He has finished!' Louisa said. 'I thought he would go on until he burst.'
'No.' Jim shook his head. 'He just needs to wash it down to make room for the next course.'
Bakkat returned from the pool, water dripping from his chin, and fell on the pile of chagga with undiminished appetite. Louisa clapped her hands and laughed with amazement. 'He is so tiny, it does not seem possible! He is never going to stop.'
But at last he did. With an apparent effort he forced down one last mouthful. Then he sat cross-legged and glassy eyed and hiccuped loudly.
'He looks as though he is eight months along with child.' Jim pointed out his bulging stomach. Louisa blushed at such an intimate and improper reference, but she could not hold back her smile. It was an apt description. Bakkat smiled at her, then collapsed sideways, curled himself into a ball and began to snore.
In the morning his cheeks had filled out miraculously and his buttocks, although not yet restored to their former grandeur, showed a distinct bulge under his kilt. He set upon a breakfast of chagga with renewed gusto and, thus fortified, was ready to make his report to Jim.
Jim listened mostly in silence. When Bakkat told him of discovering the evidence that Xhia had followed them into the mountains, that he would certainly bring Keyser to Majuba, that they would follow their spoor from there, Jim looked worried. But then Bakkat gave him his father's message of love and support. The dark clouds around Jim seemed to lift, and his face lit with the familiar smile. When Bakkat had finished, they were both silent for a while. Then Jim stood up and went down to the pool. He sat on a rotten tree stump, and brooded heavily. He broke off a lump of rotten bark, picked out the white wood maggots he had exposed and flicked them into the water. A large yellow fish rose to the surface and, in a swirl of water, gobbled them down. At last he came back to where Bakkat waited patiently, and squatted, facing him. 'We cannot go on to the Gariep with Keyser following us. We will lead him straight to my father and the wagons.' Bakkat nodded. 'We must lead him away, and throw him off the spoor.'
'You have wisdom and understanding far beyond your tender years, Somoya.'
Jim picked up the sarcasm in his voice. He leaned across and gave Bakkat an affectionate cuff. 'Tell me then, Prince of the Polecat Clan of the San, what must we do?'
Bakkat led them in a wide, meandering circle, away from the Gariep, back the way they had come, following game trails and crossing from one valley to the other until they arrived back above the Majuba camp. They did not approach within half a league of the stone and thatch hut, but camped instead behind the eastern watershed of the valley. They made no fire but ate their food cold and slept wrapped in jackal-skin karosses. During the day the men took turns to climb to the high ground with Jim's telescope and watch the camp at Majuba for Xhia, Keyser and his troopers to arrive.
'They cannot match my speed through these mountains,' Bakkat boasted. 'They will not arrive until the day after tomorrow. But until then we must keep well hidden for Xhia has the eyes of a vulture and the instincts of a hyena.'
Jim and Bakkat built a hide of dead cripple wood branches and grass below the crest. Bakkat examined it from all angles to make certain that it was invisible. When he was satisfied, he cautioned Jim and Zama not to use the telescope when the sun was at an angle to reflect from the lens. Jim set himself the first morning shift in the lookout hide.
He had settled down comfortably and sunk softly into a pleasant reverie. He thought about his father's promise of wagons and supplies. With this help, his dreams of a journey to the ends of this vast land might become reality. He thought about the adventures he and Louisa would experience, and the wonders they would find in that unexplored wilderness. He remembered the legends of riverbeds lined with gold nuggets, of the vast ivory herds, the deserts paved with glittering diamonds.
Suddenly he was startled to reality by the sound of a loose pebble rattling down the hillside behind him. He reached instinctively for the pistol on his belt. But he could not risk a shot. Bakkat had chided him none too gently about the musket shot that had brought down the eland and had led Xhia to them.
'Xhia would never have unravelled my spoor if you had not led him on, Somoya. That shot you fired confounded us.'
'Forgive me, Bakkat,' Jim had apologized ironically. 'And I know how you hate the taste of eland chagga. It would have been far better for us to starve.'
Now he dropped his hand from the pistol, and reached for the handle of his knife. The blade was long and sharp, and he held it poised for a defensive stroke, but at that moment Louisa whispered softly outside the back wall of the hide, 'Jim?'
The alarm he had felt at her approach was replaced with a lift of pleasure at the sound of her voice.
'Come in quickly, Hedgehog. Don't show yourself.' She crawled in through the low entrance. There was barely room inside the lookout for both of them. They sat side by side, only inches between them. The silence was heavy and awkward. He broke it at last. 'Is everything well with the others?'
They are sleeping.' She did not look at him, but it was impossible for her not to be intensely aware of him. He was so close, and he smelt of sweat, leather and horses. He was so powerful and masculine that she
felt confused and flustered. Dark memories mixed with new conflicting emotions, and she drew as far away from him as the space allowed. Immediately he did the same.
'Crowded in here,' he said. 'Bakkat built it to fit himself.'
'I didn't mean--' she started.
'I understand, Hedgehog,' he said. 'You explained to me once.' She shot him a glance from the corner of her eye, but saw with relief that his smile was unfeigned. She had learned over the past days that the name 'Hedgehog' was not a rebuke or an insult, but friendly teasing.
'You said you once wanted one as a pet.' She followed her thoughts.
'What?' He looked puzzled.
'A hedgehog. Why didn't you find yourself one?'
'Not easy. There aren't any in Africa.' He grinned. 'I've seen them in books. You are the first in the flesh. You don't mind when I call you that?'
She thought about it, and realized that now he was not even teasing her, but using it as an endearment. 'I did at first, but now I am accustomed to it,' she said, and added softly, 'Let me tell you that hedgehogs are sweet little creatures. No, I don't mind too much.'
They were silent again, but it was no longer tense and awkward. After a while she made a peephole for herself in the grass of the front wall. He handed her the telescope and showed her how to focus it.
'You told me you are an orphan. Tell me about your parents,' he said. The question shocked her, and her temper flared. He had no right to ask that. She concentrated on her view through the telescope, but saw nothing. Then the anger subsided. She recognized a deep need to speak of her loss. She had never been able to before, not even to Elise while she still trusted the old woman.
'My father was a teacher, gentle and kind. He loved books and learning.' Her voice was almost inaudible but became stronger and surer as she remembered all the wonderful things about her mother and father, the love and kindness.
He sat beside her quietly, asking a question as her words faltered, leading her on. It was as though he had lanced an abscess in her soul, and let all the poison and the pain escape. She felt a growing trust in him, as though she could tell him everything and he would somehow understand. She seemed to lose track of time, until she was jerked into the present by a soft scratching sound at the back wall of the hide. Bakkat's voice whispered a question. Jim replied and Bakkat went again as silently as he had come.
'What did he say?' she asked.
'He came to take over the watch, but I sent him away.'
'I have been talking too much. What time is it?'
