“If there were enemies abroad they would have fallen on us before now, not when we are within two miles of the citadel!” scoffs she. “Besides, there is nothing to be seen or heard.”
I might have quoted Kit Carson’s wisdom that it’s when you
I slid down my screw’s flank, hand on bridle, foot cocked over the saddle, Cheyenne fashion, and not before time, for above me shafts were buzzing like angry hornets, one smacked quivering into the saddle beside my leg, and here was Uliba alongside, crouched low and pointing ahead, and on my other side the knight was galloping full tilt, yelling at her, possibly “I told you so!” in Amharic. It occurred to me briefly that I was in the company of like minds, for neither of them had so much as checked to ask after the arrow-smitten Ab, who was still bawling the odds behind us. Ahead was a narrow gully, and as we swept into it the knight reined his horse back on its haunches and leaped down, sword in hand. He slipped his shield on to his left arm and yelled to Uliba, his teeth bared in a savage grin, shaking his sword in salute.
“On!” cries Uliba fiercely, and she must have been gratified by my prompt obedience. We raced up the gully knee to knee, and then it was down a rocky scree, with our beasts slithering and stum bling, and on to level ground, while faintly behind us the clash of steel mingled with yelling voices, one of them raised in what sounded like a war-cry.
She didn’t check until we’d covered a good half-mile, and then turned to look back. The first dawn light was coming over the ground, but there was no sign of movement at the distant gully.
“Who are they?” I cried. “Not Theodore’s people?”
She gave a little grimace of disgust, drawing the shell-embroidered cloak close about her. “No. One of my suitors and his jackals. They must have been lying in wait while another tracked us and signalled our approach. Sarafa was right, after all.”
“Your escort… who stayed behind?”
She nodded. “He will hold them for a while. He is a very expert swordsman.” Suddenly her voice was weary. “He will be glad to die for my sake.”
Well, there’s one born every minute, but old Colonel Tact muttered something about devotion and greater love and similar tarra-diddle, only to be shocked by the most brutal valedictory I’ve ever heard in my life, and damned if she didn’t brush away a tear as she snapped it out.
“He loved my body. And I loved his. And he is dying not for any love of me, but because he made oath to my husband to guard me with his life.” She jerked her reins, wheeling her mount. “Come! Even Sarafa cannot hold them forever.”
Her domestic arrangements were no concern of mine, but I confess I found it singular that her lover should give his life for an oath sworn to a husband for whom she’d said she didn’t care two straws. Deep waters here, evidently, but of less immediate moment than the halloo which was breaking out behind us as a little cav alcade of riders came scrambling down the distant scree. Sarafa had plainly handed in his dixie, and we were off like the wind towards a rocky crest a mile away.
When we’d covered about half the distance I stole a look back and was relieved to see we were holding our own, and I was just demanding of Uliba how far it was to her citadel when I felt my horse stumble, and knew that she’d gone lame. Uliba let out a cry of dismay as the screw staggered, and even as I swung clear, landing on all fours, the thought was in my mind: will she ride on and leave me as she left Sarafa and the unfortunate arrow- fancier?
She didn’t, wheeling and calling to me to mount behind her, which was dam’ sporting and completely useless, since they’d have run us down in a couple of furlongs—they were coming on like the Heavy Brigade, yelling in triumph, half a dozen robed figures brandishing their lances, sure now of a capture and kill.
“Down, sultana!” cries I, drawing the pistol Napier had given me, and seeing what I was at she slipped from the saddle and down beside me as I took cover in a clump of rocks. I was hoping to God our pursuers had no firearms, but even if they had we’d no choice but to make a stand. It was a piece I’d never handled before, an American Joslyn .44 with five shots in the cylinder, any one guar anteed to stop a rhino in its tracks. My immediate aim was to stop a horse, for I’m no Hickok and knew that if I let them come near enough to shoot a rider, and missed him, they’d be all over us.
So I rested the long barrel on a rock, waited with my heart thumping, sighted on the foremost horse, took the pressure, and let fly at thirty yards. The beast went down like a stone, screaming, her rider flew head-first into a boulder and with any luck cracked his skull, and his mates hauled their wind with cries of alarm and sheered off out of range.
“Kill them!” Uliba was blazing with rage. “Shoot the swine! See there—the one with the lion scarf! That is Yando, Gobayzy’s toad! Kill the bastard, I say! Kill him!”
“Not at this range,” says I. “Keep a grip of that bridle, will you? We’re going to need that screw!”
They didn’t have firearms, fortunately, and seemed to be at a loss until their leader, Yando, sent forward a reluctant scout to see how their fallen companion had fared. The fellow came on in little runs from boulder to boulder, while I lay doggo, calming Uliba’s demands that I blow him to damnation. When he reached the fallen body I tried a snap-shot which missed but struck splinters from a rock beside him; he scuttled off in panic, and they made no further sortie, but started shouting at us, and Uliba got to her feet and called back. From the spirited exchanges which ensued, in Amharic, between her and Yando, a burly brute with a hectoring manner, I gathered he was making an informal proposal which she was declining in grossly insulting terms, for from cajoling he passed to threatening and concluded in a veritable passion, jumping up and down, stamping, and hurling his fine lion robe to the ground. I decided to try a long shot at him, and missed again but winged one of his companions, to Uliba’s delight.
That discouraged them, and presently they rode off, Yando shouting what sounded like a mixture of pleas and menaces.
“They will return,” says Uliba. “Yando dare not go back to Gobayzy with a tale of failure. We shall have them round my citadel before night, so the sooner we are within the walls the better.”
She rode her horse and I led my lame screw, and as we went I demanded and got an explanation of our recent stirring encounter. She gave it straight-faced matter-of-fact, as though it were an account of everyday social activities among the smart set—which I guess it was, Abyssinian style.
Her husband, she reminded me, was held prisoner by King Gobayzy of Lasta, who had lustful designs on her and had threat ened to have hubby dismembered at length unless she placed herself at his majesty’s disposal. This she had declined to do, so Gobayzy had ordered Yando, a local petty chief, to abduct her. But Yando too had designs on her, and these being troubled times, with Gobayzy at sporadic war with Theodore, had decided to take her for himself, possibly passing her on to Gobayzy later or fobbing him off with some fiction. Hence Yando’s ambush, foiled by resourceful Flashy. Whether her husband remained whole and intact or not, she forgot to mention.
I could see now what she had meant by referring to her “suitors', and how right she’d been to describe herself as an unsafe travel ling companion. Half Abyssinia seemed to be nuts on her, eager to abduct her, and happy to butcher her chance associates, such as myself—and this was the woman who was to guide me through hostile country and present me to her barmy half-sister whom she might well try to depose. By Gad, Speedy could pick ’em, couldn’t he just?
In addition to which, she was the sort who abandoned lovers to their fate, and didn’t seem to care if someone dissected the man she’d sworn to love, honour and obey… but then again, she had a lovely figure, and such legs as the faithful imagine on the houris of paradise.
And she was not without womanly sentiment. “God send that Sarafa died quickly in the fight,” says she. “If he was taken alive Yando will give him a thousand deaths because he was my lover.”
I said Yando might not be aware of that, and she looked at me in astonishment. “Why, Sarafa will taunt him
