never taking her eyes from the chink. Her hand was seized in a hard, cool grip. The touch that had offended her only minutes before now gave her more comfort than she had ever believed possible. She did not even marvel that she had reached for Sean's hand rather than her own papa's.
She stared into the chink, and suddenly there was another eye beyond, a huge round eye glistening like yellow agate, a terrible inhuman eye, unblinking, burning into hers with a dead black pupil in its center, a hand span from her face.
She wanted to scream, but her throat was closed. She wanted to leap to her feet, but her legs were dead. Her swollen bladder was like a stone in her lower belly, and before she could control it she felt a few warm drops escape. That checked her; the humiliation was greater than her terror, and she tightened her thighs and buttocks and clung to Sean's hand, still staring into that terrible yellow eye.
The lioness sniffed again loudly, and Claudia started silently but held on. 'I won't scream,' she told herself.
Again the lioness snuffled beyond the grass wall, her nostrils filled with the man-odor, and she let out an explosive grunt that seemed to rock the flimsy grass walls. Claudia caught the scream in her throat before it could escape. Then the yellow eye was gone from the chink and she heard the pad of great paws circling back around the hide.
Claudia swiveled her head to follow the sound and looked straight into Sean's face. He was smiling. That was what shocked her after what she had just lived through; there was a devil-may care grin on his lips and mockery in those green eyes. He was laughing at her. Her terror subsided and her anger flared.
'The swine,' she thought. 'The arrogant bloody swine.' She knew that her face was bloodless and that her eyes were dark and wide with terror. She hated herself for it, and she hated him for being witness to it. She wanted to jerk her hand out of his grip, but she could still hear that great cat out there, still very close, circling them, and though she loathed him, she knew that without his grip she would not be able to control herself. So she held on, but turned her face away, following the furtive sounds of the lioness so Sean could not see her face.
The lioness passed in front of the blind. Through the peephole she saw the blur of the golden body, quickly gone, and she saw also that the young lioness and the cubs, alerted by the warning grunt, had disappeared into the undergrowth. The killing ground below the bait tree was deserted.
The light was going swiftly now. Within minutes it would be dark, and the thought of that brute in the darkness was almost too much to bear. Sean reached over her shoulder and pressed something small and hard against her lips. For a moment she resisted, then she opened and let him slide it into her mouth. It was a cube of chewing gum.
'The man has gone mad.' She was bewildered. 'Chewing gum at a time like this?' But as she crunched down onto the cube she realized that her saliva had dried out and that the inside of her mouth was as seared and puckered as if she had bitten into a green persimmon. At the taste of spearmint her saliva flowed again, but she was so angry with Sean that she felt no gratitude. He had known her mouth was dry with terror, and she resented it fiercely. The lioness growled in the semidarkness behind the hide, and Claudia thought longingly of the Toyota parked a mile back up the track. Almost echoing her thought, her father asked softly, 'When did you tell the gun bearers to bring the truck?'
'After the last of the shooting light,' Sean answered him quietly.
'Another fifteen or twenty minutes.'
The lioness heard their voices and growled again threateningly.
'Cheeky bitch,' Sean said cheerfully. 'Snarly Sue in person.'
'Shut up!' Claudia hissed at him. 'She'll find us.'
'Oh, she knows we're here now,' Sean replied. He raised his voice and called, 'Get away with you, you silly old bitch, go on back to your babies.'
Claudia jerked her hand out of his grip. 'Damn you! You'll get us killed.'
But the loud human voice had alarmed the cat, and for minutes there was silence beyond the grass wall. Sean took up the short, ugly, double-barreled rifle propped against the wall beside him and placed it across his lap. He opened the breech of the.577 Nitro Express and slid the fat brass cartridges out of the chambers, changing them for two others from the loops on the left breast of his jacket. It was a little superstitious ritual of his, that changing of cartridges; he always performed it at the beginning of a hunt.
'Now listen to me, Capo,' he addressed Riccardo. 'If we kill that old whore without good reason, the game department is going to pull my license. 'Good reason' is when she has already chewed somebody's arm off, not before. Do you hear me?'
'I hear you.' Riccardo nodded.
All right, don't shoot until I tell you, or by God I'll shoot you.'
They grinned at each other in the half light, and Claudia realized with disbelief that the two of them were enjoying themselves. These two crazy oafs were actually having fun.
'By the time Job arrives with the truck it will be pitch dark, and Job can't get the truck up to the hide. We'll have to go down to it in the river-bed. You go first, Capo, then Claudia between us. Stay close together, and whatever you do, don't run! For the love of God, don't anybody run!'
Now they heard the lioness again, padding softly around them.
She growled once more, and almost immediately was answered from the far side of the hide. The young lioness was out there now.
'The gang's all here,' Sean commented. The sound of voices and the old lioness's growls had summoned the rest of the pride, and the hunters had become the hunted, trapped in the hide. The darkness was almost complete. The sunset was merely a dun red furnace glow on the western horizon.
'Where is the truck?' Claudia whispered.
Sean said, 'It's coming.' Then his voice changed. 'Down!' he said sharply. 'Get down!' And though she had heard nothing, she dropped out of the canvas chair and crouched on the ground.
The lioness had crept up to the front wall again, almost soundlessly, and now she flung herself at it, roaring furiously as she tore at the flimsy structure with her front claws. With horror Claudia realized that it was coming in on top of her.
'Keep your heads down,' Sean shouted, lifting the double barreled rifle just as the wall burst open. He fired, a stunning burst of sound as the muzzle blast swept through the hide and lit the interior with flame, brilliant as a flashbulb.
'He's killed the brute.' Despite her hatred of blood sport, Claudia felt a guilty relief, but it was short-lived. The shot had merely startled the cat and driven her off for the moment. Claudia heard the lioness gallop away into the undergrowth, snarling viciously.
'You missed,' she accused him breathlessly, the stink of burnt gunpowder in her nostrils.
'Wasn't trying to hurt her.' Sean opened the rifle and reloaded from the cartridge loops on his breast. 'Just a warning shot over her bows.'
'There's the truck coming.' Riccardo's voice was level and unconcerned. Claudia's ears were still singing from the crash of gunfire, but she could make out the distant beat of the Toyota's diesel engine through it.
'Job heard the shot.' Sean stood up. 'He's coming early. All right, let's get ready to move out.'
Claudia scrambled up eagerly, then looked over the low grass wall of the roofless hide into the dark, forbidding forest around her and remembered the track that led down to the dry river-bed that served as a road. They would have to travel almost a quarter of a mile in darkness to reach safety. Her spirit quailed at the prospect.
In the trees not fifty yards away, the lioness roared again.
'Noisy brighter,' Sean chuckled, and took Claudia's elbow to guide her to the door. This time she did not try to pull away, but instead found herself clinging to his arm.
'Take hold of Capo's belt.' Gently he disengaged her hand and guided it to her father's belt at the small of his back.
'Hold on,' he told her. 'And remember, whatever happens, don't run. It will put them onto you instantly. Cat with mouse, they can't resist it.'
Sean switched on the flashlight. it was a big black Maglite, but even its powerful beam seemed puny in the immensity of the forest as he played it in a circle around them. Eyes reflected in the beam, glowing like menacing stars, many eyes out there in the dark bush; it was impossible to tell cubs from full-grown lionesses.
'Let's go,' Sean said quietly, and Riccardo started down the rough narrow track, dragging Claudia with him.
They went slowly, bunched up tightly, Riccardo covering the van with his lighter rifle and Sean in the rear guard with the heavy rifle and the flashlight.
Each time the flashlight beam picked up the flash of cat's eyes in the night, they seemed closer, until Claudia could make out the body of the animal behind the glowing eyes. They were pale as moths in the torchlight, nimble and restless as they circled, both lionesses closing in now, pacing swiftly through the undergrowth, watching them intently but turning their heads away whenever the powerful light hit their eyes.
The track was steep and rough, and oh so long. Each step was an agony of impatience for Claudia as she stumbled along behind her father, not watching her footing, watching instead those pale feline shapes that paraded around them.
'Here comes
