followers along the bank of the stream. It cut through a steep, rugged barrier of hills. By now their robes were stained and the hems so tattered that they seemed to have been nibbled away by rats, barely covering their knees. They had made sandals for themselves from the hides of game they had killed before the locusts came. The ground was harsh and stony underfoot. There were areas carpeted with the three-pointed devil thorns, which always presented one of their spikes uppermost. The auger points could pierce even the most leathery sole to the bone.
By now the rains had repaired most of the damage wreaked by the locust swarms. However, they had no horses and they had travelled hard on foot, from before dawn until sunset each day. Kadem had decided that they must head northwards, and try to reach one of the coastal Omani trading centres beyond the Pongola river before their powder ran out. They were still a thousand leagues or more short of their goal.
They halted again at midday, for even these indefatigable travellers must stop to pray at the appointed times. They had no prayer mats with them, but Kadem estimated the direction of Mecca from the position of the noon sun and they prostrated themselves on the rugged earth. Kadem led the prayers. They affirmed that God was one and Muhammad his last true Prophet. They asked no boon or favour in return for their faith. When their worship was completed in the pure, strict form, they squatted in the shade and ate a little more of the cold roasted venison. Kadem led the quiet conversation, then instructed them in religious and philosophical matters. At last he glanced up at the sun again. 'In God's Name, let us continue the journey.'
They rose and girded themselves, then froze together as they heard, faint but unmistakable, the sound of musket fire.
ThenI Civilized men, with muskets and powder!' Kadem whispered. 'To have ventured this far inland they must have horses. All the things we need to save ourselves from perishing in this dreadful place.'
The gunfire came again. He cocked his head and slitted his wild eyes as he tried to pinpoint the source of the sound. He turned in that direction. 'Follow me. Move like the wind, swift and unseen,' he said. They must not know we are here.'
in the middle of that afternoon, Kadem found the spoor of many horses moving towards the north-east. The hoofs were shod with steel and had left clear prints in the rain-damp earth. They followed them at a trot across the plains, which danced and wavered with mirage. In the late afternoon they saw the dark smear of smoke from a campfire ahead. they went forward more cautiously. In the gathering dusk they could make out the twinkle of red flames below the smoke. Closer still, Kadem saw the shapes of men moving in front of the fire. Then the wind of the
day faded away, and the night breeze puffed from another direction. Kadem sniffed the air and caught the unmistakable ammoniac tang. 'Horses!' he whispered, with excitement.
Koots leaned back against the hole of the camel-thorn tree and carefully pressed shreds of crumbling dry shag into his clay pipe. His tobacco bag was made from the scrotum of a bull buffalo with a drawn string of sinew to close the mouth. It was less than half full, and he was rationing himself to this half-pipe a day. He lit it with a coal from the fire and coughed softly with pleasure as the first powerful inhalation filled his lungs.
His troopers were spread out under the surrounding trees; each man had picked his own spot to lay out his fur kaross. Their bellies were stuffed with the meat of the hartebeest, the first time in over a month that they had eaten their fill. So that they could better savour this feast, Koots had allowed an early halt to the day's march. There was almost an hour left of daylight. In the normal run of events they would have camped only when the dusk obscured the wagon ruts they were following.
From the corner of his eye Koots picked up a flicker of movement and he glanced around quickly, then relaxed again. It was only Xhia. Even as Koots watched him he vanished into the darkening veld. A Bushman, with every hand turned against him all his life, would never lie down to sleep until he had swept his back trail. Koots knew he would make a wide circle out across the ground that they had already travelled. If an enemy was following them, Xhia would have cut his tracks.
Koots smoked his pipe down to the last crumb, savouring every breath. Then, regretfully, he knocked out the ash. With a sigh he settled down under his kaross and closed his eyes. He did not know how long he had slept, but he woke with a light touch on his cheek. As he started up Xhia made a soft, clucking sound to calm him.
'What is it?' Instinctively Koots kept his voice low.
'Strangers,' Xhia replied. 'They follow us.'
Then?' Koots's wits were still fuddled with sleep. Xhia did not deign to answer such an inanity. 'Who? How many?' Koots insisted, as he sat up.
Quickly Xhia twisted a spill of dried grass. Before he lit it he held up a corner of Koots's kaross as a screen from watching eyes. Then he held the spill to the dying ash of the fire. He blew on the coals, and when the spill burst into flame he screened it with the kaross and his own
body. He held something in his free hand. Koots peered at it. It was a scrap of soiled white cloth.
'Ripped from a man's clothing by thorns,' Xhia told him. Then he showed his next trophy, a single strand of black hair. Even Koots realized at once that it was a human hair, but it was too black and coarse to have come from the head of a northern European and it was too straight, free of kinks, to have come from the head of a Bushman or an African tribesman.
This rag comes from a long robe such as Mussulmen wear. This hair from his head.'
'Mussulman?' Koots asked in surprise, and Xhia clicked in assent. Koots had learned better than to argue.
'How many?'
'Four.'
'Where are they now?'
'Lying close. They are watching us.' Xhia let the burning spill drop and rubbed out the last sparks in the dust with the palm of his childlike hand.
'Where have they left their horses?' Koots asked. 'If they had smelt ours they would have whinnied.'
'No horses. They come on foot.'
'Arabs on foot! Then, whoever they are, that is what they are after.' Koots pulled on his boots. 'They want our horses.' Careful to keep a low profile, he crawled to where Oudeman was snoring softly and shook him. Once Oudeman was fully awake he grasped quickly what was happening, and understood Koots's orders.
'No gunfire!' Koots repeated. 'In the dark there is too much risk of hitting the horses. Take them with cold steel.'
Koots and Oudeman crept to each of the troopers, and whispered the orders. The men rolled out of their blankets, and slipped singly down to the horse pickets. With drawn sabres they lay up among shrub and low brush.
Koots placed himself on the southern perimeter furthest from the faint glow of the dying campfire. He lay flat against the earth, so that any man approaching the pickets would be silhouetted against the stars and the fading traces of the great comet, by now only an ethereal ghost in the western sky. Orion was no longer obliterated by its light: at this season of the year he was standing on his head below the dazzle of the Milky Way. Koots covered his eyes to enhance his night vision. He listened with all his attention, and opened his eyes only briefly, so that they would not be tricked by the light.
Time passed slowly. He measured it by the turning of the heavenly
bodies. For any other man it might have been hard to keep his level of concentration screwed up to the main, but Koots was a warrior. He had to close his ears to the mundane sounds made by the horses as they shifted their weight or cropped a mouthful of grass.
The last glimmer of the great comet was low on the western horizon before Koots heard the click of two pebbles striking together. Every nerve in his body snapped taut. A minute later, and much closer, there came the slither of a leather sandal on the soft earth. He kept his head low, and saw a dark shape move against the stars.
He is closing in, he thought. Let him start to work on the ropes.
The intruder paused when he reached the head of the horse lines Koots saw his head turn slowly as he listened. He wore a turban and his beard bushed and curled. After a long minute he stooped over the running line to which the head halters of the horses were secured by steel rings. Two of the animals jerked their heads free as the line slipped through the rings.
As soon as Koots guessed that the intruder was absorbed in unravelling the next knot he rose to his feet and moved towards him. But he lost sight of him as he crouched below the skyline. He was no longer where Koots expected him to be, and abruptly Koots stumbled up against him in the darkness. Koots shouted to warn his men, then the two of them were struggling chest to chest, too close for Koots to use his blade.
Koots realized at once that the man he was wrestling was a formidable adversary. He twisted like an eel in his grip, and he felt all hard muscle and sinew. Koots tried to knee his groin, but his kneecap was almost torn loose as it struck the hard, rubbery muscle of the man's thigh instead of the soft bunch of his genitals. In an instantaneous riposte the man slammed the heel of his right hand up under Koots's jaw. His head snapped back and it felt as though his neck was broken as he went over backwards and sprawled on the ground. He saw the intruder rearing over him and the glint of his blade as it went up high for the forehand cut to his head. Koots threw up his
