again, but his mouth had dried. Batula placed the ant in the opening of the reed tube in his ear and closed the end with a plug of whittled soft wood.
'You will hear the ant as it comes down the tube,' Batula told Kadem. 'Its footsteps will sound like the hoofs of a horse. Then you will feel it walking in your eardrum. It will stroke the membrane of your inner ear with the sharp tips of its feelers. Then it will sting you.'
They watched Kadem's face. His lips twitched, then his eyes rolled back in their sockets until the whites showed and his whole face worked furiously.
'Allah!' he whispered. 'Arm me against the blasphemers!'
The sweat burst out from the pores of his skin like the first drops of monsoon rain, and he tried to shake his head as the footfalls of the ant in his eardrum were magnified a thousand times. But the thong held his head in a vice-like grip.
'Answer, Kadem,' Batula urged him. 'I can still wash out the ant
before it stings. But you must answer swiftly.' Kadem closed his eyes to shut out Batula's face.
'Who are you? Who sent you?' Batula came closer and whispered in his open ear. 'Swiftly, Kadem, or the pain will be beyond even your crazed imagining.'
Then, deep in the recesses of the eardrum the ant humped its back and a fresh globule of venom oozed out between its curved mandibles. It sank the barbed points into the soft tissue at the spot where the auditory nerve was closest to the surface.
Kadem al-Juri was consumed by waves of agony, and they were fiercer than Batula had warned him. He screamed once, a sound that was not human but something from a nightmare. Then the pain froze the muscles and vocal cords in his throat, his jaws clamped together in such a rock-hard spasm that one of the rotten teeth at the back of his mouth burst, filling his mouth with splinters and bitter pus. His eyes rolled back in his skull like those of a blind man. His back arched until Mansur feared that his spine would crack, and his body juddered so that his bonds cut deeply into his flesh.
'He will die,' Mansur asked anxiously.
'A shaitan is hard to kill,' Batula answered. The three squatted in a half-circle in front of Kadem and studied his suffering. Although it was dreadful to behold, none of them felt the slightest twinge of compassion.
'Regard, lord!' said Kumrah. 'The first spasm passes.' He was right. Kadem's spine slowly relaxed, and although a series of convulsions still shook him, each was less violent than the one before.
'It is finished,' Mansur said.
'No, lord. If God is just, soon the ant will sting again,' Batula said softly. 'It will not finish so swiftly.' As he said it, so it happened: the tiny insect struck again.
This time Kadem's tongue was caught between his teeth as they snapped closed. He bit through it, and the blood streamed down his chin. He shuddered and leaped against the chain. His bowels loosened with a spluttering rush, and even Mansur's lust for vengeance faltered, the dark veils of hatred and grief parted and his instinct for humanity shone through. 'Enough, Batula. End it now. Wash out the ant.'
Batula withdrew the wood plug from the end of the reed and filled his mouth with water. Through the hollow reed he spurted a jet into Kadem's eardrum, and in the overflow the drowned red body of the insect was washed down Kadem's straining neck.
Slowly Kadem's tortured body relaxed, and he hung inert in his bonds. His breathing was rapid and shallow, and every few minutes he let out a harsh, ragged exhalation, half sigh and half groan.
Once again, his captors squatted in a semi-circle in front of him and watched him carefully. Late in the afternoon, as the sun touched the tops of the forest trees Kadem groaned again. His eyes opened and focused slowly on Mansur.
'Batula, give him water,' Mansur ordered. Kadem's mouth was black and crusted with the blood. His torn tongue protruded between his lips like a lump of rotten liver. Batula held the waters king to his mouth, and Kadem choked and gasped as he drank. Once he vomited up a gush of the jellied black blood he had swallowed, but then he drank again.
Mansur let him rest until sunset, then ordered Batula to let him drink again. Kadem was stronger now, and followed their movements with his eyes. Mansur ordered Batula and Kumrah to relax his bonds to allow the blood to flow back, and to chafe his hands and feet before gangrene killed off the living flesh. The pain of the returning blood must have been agonizing but Kadem bore it stoically. After a while they tightened the leather thongs again.
Mansur came to stand over him. 'You know well that I am the son of the Princess Yasmini whom you murdered,' he said. 'In the eyes of God and of men, vengeance is mine. Your life belongs to me.'
Kadem stared back at him.
'If you do not reply to me, I will order Batula to place another insect in your good ear.'
Kadem blinked, but his face remained impassive.
'Answer my question,' Mansur demanded. 'Who are you and who sent you to our home?'
Kadem's swollen tongue filled his mouth, so his reply was slurred and barely intelligible. 'I am a true follower of the Prophet,' he said, 'and I was sent by God to carry out His divine purpose.'
'That is the same answer, but it is not the one I wait for,' Mansur said. 'Batula, select another insect. Kumrah, place another reed in Kadem's ear.' When they had done as he ordered, Mansur asked Kadem, This time the pain may kill you. Are you ready for death?'
'Blessed is the martyr,' Kadem replied. 'I long with all my heart to be welcomed by Allah into Paradise.'
Mansur took Batula aside. 'He will not yield,' he said.
Batula looked dubious. His tone was uncertain as he replied, 'Lord, there is no other way.'
'I think there is.' Mansur turned to Kumrah. 'We do not need the reed.' Then, to both of them, 'Stay with him. I shall return.'
He rowed back down the stream. It was almost dark by the time he reached the encampment, but the full moon was already lighting the eastern sky with a marvelous golden glow as it pushed over the tops of
the trees. 'Even the moon hastens to assist our enterprise,' Mansur murmured, as he went ashore on the beach below the camp. He saw the lamplight shine in chinks through the thatched wall of his father's hut and he hurried there.
His uncle Tom and aunt Sarah sat by the mattress on which Dorian lay. Mansur knelt beside his father and kissed his forehead. He stirred but did not open his eyes.
Mansur leaned close to Tom and whispered low, 'Uncle, the assassin will not yield. Now I need your help.'
Tom rose to his feet and jerked his head for Mansur to follow him outside. Swiftly Mansur told him what he wanted, and at the end said simply, 'This is something that I would do myself, but Islam forbids it.'
'I understand.' Tom nodded and looked up at the moon. 'Tis favourable. I saw a place in the forest close by here where they feed each night on the tubers of the arum lily plant. Tell your aunt Sarah what I am about, and that she is not to fret. I shall not be too long gone.'
Tom went to the armoury and selected his big double-barrelled German four to the pound musket. He drew the charge and reloaded the weapon with a handful of Big Looper, the formidable lion shot. Then he checked the flint and the priming, made sure that his knife was on his belt and loosened the blade in its sheath.
He selected ten of his men and told them to wait for his call, but he left the camp alone: silence and stealth were vital to success. When he waded across the stream he stooped to take up a handful of black clay and smear it over his face, for pale skin shines in the moonlight and his quarry was stealthy and cunning. Although it was a huge creature he was hunting it was nocturnal in its habits, and for that reason few men ever laid eyes on it.
Tom followed the far bank of the stream for almost a mile. As he came closer to the swamp in which the arum lilies grew his steps slowed and he paused every fifty paces to listen intently. At the edge of the swamp he squatted and held the big gun across his lap. He waited patiently, never moving even to flick away the mosquitoes that whined around his head. The moon rose higher and its light grew stronger so that the shadows thrown by each tree and shrub had sharp edges.
Abruptly there came a grunt and a squeal from close at hand, and his pulse tripped. He waited, as still as one of the dead tree stumps, as the silence fell again. Then he heard the squelch of hoofs in the mud, more grunts, the sound of hog-like rooting and the champing of tusked jaws.
1 from eased forward towards the sounds. Without warning they ceased as abruptly as they had begun, and he froze. He knew that this was the
customary behaviour of the bush pigs. The entire sounder would freeze together and listen for predators. Although Tom was on one leg, he froze in that attitude, still as an ungainly statue as the silence drew out. Then the grunting and feeding started again.
With relief he lowered his foot, his thigh muscles burning, and crept forward again. Then he saw the sounder just ahead of him: there were several dozen, dark hump-backed sows, with their piglets underfoot, rooting and wallowing. None was large enough to be a mature boar.
Tom moved with infinite care to a mound of harder earth at the edge of the swamp and crouched there, waiting for the
