generally in the crowding of close combat when you cannot bring the weapon about.
Kisu was, I had little doubt, quite similar in strength to myself. He was not, however, a trained warrior. It was little wonder that he and his forces had been defeated by the askaris of Bila Huruma.
He lifted his head, looking at me in amazement. He did not understand how such a blow could have stopped one of his strength. Then he threw up in the marsh.
The askaris waded to us, shouting angrily. They struck both of us with the handles of their stabbing spears.
We were separated and each thrust back to our own places, the chain line being then again strung out.
After a time Kisu turned about and called to Ayari. Ayari then spoke to me. 'He wants to know why you did not kill him,' he asked.
'I did not want to kill him,' I said. 'I only wanted to talk with him.'
This was conveyed to Kisu. He then, again, said something.
'He is Mfalme of Ukungu,' said Ayari to me. 'He cannot speak to commoners.'
'Very well,' I said. This assent was conveyed then to Kisu.
'Dig!' called the nearest askari.
We returned then to our digging.
21
What I Saw One Night In The Marsh, While I Was Chained In The Rogues' Cage
'Awaken,' said Ayari. nudging me.
I rolled over in the chain, on the raft.
'Something is coming,' he said.
'Raiders?' I asked.
'I do not think so,' he said.
I struggled to a crouching position, the iron ring, with its chain, heavy on my neck. The raft on which the rogues' chain was kept was a long one, covered by a barred cage, locked.
I peered into the darkness.
'I do not see anything,' I said.
'I saw the brief glint of a dark lantern, momentarily unshuttered,' said Ayari.
'Whoever it is, then, moves in stealth,' I said. Raiders, of course, would not possess such lanterns.
'Listen,' said Ayari.
Suddenly the snout of a tharlarion, half lying on the edge of the raft, thrust against the bars. I drew back. It grunted. It kept its snout for a time on the edge of the raft. Then, with a soft splash, it slipped back in the dark, shallow water.
'Listen,' said Ayari.
'I hear it now,' I said. 'Oars, muffled, several of them.'
'How many vessels?' asked Ayari.
'Two, at least,' I said, 'and moving in tandem order.' I could hear, slightly out of time, the softer entry into the water of a second set of oars.
'They could not be askaris,' said Ayari.
'No,' I said. Askaris used not oars but paddles, and used canoes. Moreover, when moving at night, each canoe's paddles kept the exact rhythm of that of the lead canoe. This makes it difficult to count their number. It is common, of course, to use a tandem order in night rowing, the first vessel's untroubled passage marking the safe channel, its impeded passage marking the location of an obstacle.
'How do you judge the draw?' asked Ayari.
'The craft are light,' I said, 'and, being rowed in this water, must be shallow-drafted.'
'The number of oars suggests length,' said Ayari. 'They must be light galleys.'
'No,' I said. 'I know the draw of a light galley. These vessels are too light for even such a galley. Furthermore, any light galley with which I am familiar, though comparatively shallow-drafted, would be too deeply keeled to traverse this marsh.'
'What manner of vessels can they be?' asked Ayari. 'And where would they come from?'
'They can be but one thing,' I said, 'and yet that they should be here, now, at night, is madness.'
We then heard a thrash in the water, as a tharlarion, perhaps the same one which had thrust its snout against the bars of our cage, struck against wood in the darkness, some twenty yards from us.
We heard a cry of anger and, for an instant, a dark lantern was unshuttered. We saw two men, in the prow of a low, medium-beamed, bargelike vessel. One pushed down with a spear, forcing the broad head of the tharlarion away from the vessel.
I clutched the bars of the cage in which, on the raft, I was confined.
Then the dark lantern was again shuttered. The vessels slipped past us. There were three of them. The shafts of the oars, where they rested in the open, fixed-position, U-shaped oarlocks, had been wrapped in fur, that they might make no sound as they moved against these fulcrums. The oars themselves had barely lifted from the water and had then entered and drawn again, almost splashlessly. The oarlocks, too, had been lined with fur.
'What is wrong?' asked Ayari.
'Nothing,' I said.
In the light of the dark lantern, when it had been briefly unshuttered, I had seen the faces of three or four men, the faces of those in the prow and two others, who had stood near to them. One of the faces I knew. It had been that of Shaba, the geographer.
I clenched the bars. I was helpless. For a moment I shook them with futile rage. Then I was quiet.
'What is wrong?' asked Ayari.
'Nothing,' I told him.
22
I Continue To Dig In The Canal
I hurled mud from my shovel to the mud raft.
I had heard no drums coming from the west, nothing to suggest that there was a pursuit of Shaba.
Yet I was certain that it had been he who had passed us in stealth in the night. There had been three vessels, of the sort which had been prepared in Ianda and brought to Schendi, and then to Lake Ushindi by way of the Nyoka, part of the fleet which Bila Huruma was organizing to support the explorations of Shaba, navigating the Ua into the far interior. But there had been only three of the vessels, out of some one hundred. And Shaba had moved in secrecy. There had been, as far as I could tell, no convoy of askari canoes with him, nor askaris, as far as I saw, in the vessel I had seen. The men with him, I suspected, or most of them, were members of his own caste, geographers of the scribes, perhaps, but men inured to hardships, perhaps men who had been with him in his explorations of Ushindi and Ngao, men he trusted and upon whom he could count in desperate situations, caste brothers.
I brushed insects away from my face.
It seemed clear to me that Shaba must be in flight, and I had little doubt that he must have the ring with him, to obtain which had been the object of my journey to Schendi. He had now passed us, moving silently, secretly, to the east.
I thrust the shovel again down, hard, into the mud at my feet.
I dug, and Shaba, my quarry, moved further away from me with each thrust of the shovel, each bite and sting of each tiny insect.
