A PRIDE OF LIONS

by

ISOBEL CHACE

Everybody had warned Clare not to fall in love with Hugo Canning. Women meant nothing to him, they said, compared with his beloved lions.

But Clare found it was one thing to listen to advice -- another thing altogether to follow it!

A lion pride is a hunting unit, and this would seem to be its sole reason for existence. And it is the extraordinary dominance of the male lion,and little else, that welds the society together.

Robert Ardrey: African Genesis (by permission of Collins Publishers)

CHAPTER ONE

MRS. FREEMAN poured the tea with a languid hand. This was her third pregnancy and her husband, Luke, had sent her down to the coast fora while ‘to put some flesh on her bones’, as he put it. Kate, happily, one might even say complacently, married for ten years, glanced at myflushed face and smiled.

“Have you ever met Hugo Canning?” she asked.

“No,” I answered doubtfully. Having reached the age of twenty-five without having been tempted into marriage, I rather resented thematchmaking proclivities of even my dearest married friends.

“Ah!” said Kate.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” I asked, slightly rattled.

“My dear Clare, what should it mean? I don’t think you’re going to like him much. I must say they make very nice sandwiches here,” she addedgreedily, helping herself to a couple and sitting back to enjoy them with an almost feline grace.

“Don’t they?” I agreed. I hesitated. “Tell me more about Mr. Canning!”

Kate looked amused. “What is there to tell? He’s a male of the species and—and a bit of a fanatic. Luke admires him.”

And if Luke admired him, she did too. Naturally.

“Well, I’m only going to work for him—”

“Oh, not for him, surely? I thought you would be working for this Dutch architect? You’d better tell me about the job all over again. I don’tseem to have got it at all straight!”

So I did. My name is Clare deJong. DeJong is an awkward name to have when one is English-speaking, but my father’s family were Boers fromthe south and came to Kenya in the last of the Great Treks northward. His side of the family have all the Afrikaner virtues. They are solid,hard-working and obstinate, with those flashes of brilliance that have given South Africa such a great heritage in art and letters. From him Ihave inherited a love of Africa and the ability to speak pure Dutch, as well as its awkward dialect of Afrikaanse.

My mother is different. She is the daughter of a missionary and spent most of her childhood in a state of semi-starvation because her familynever had enough money to live on. The marks of that childhood still lurk in the corners of her face, a face so lovely that there is apt to be asudden intake of breath when she walks into a room. My mother does not know that she is beautiful—she shares my grandmother’s convictionthat it is wrong to stare at oneself in a glass—and so she has never been able to understand why my father picked her to be his wife, a fact forwhich she is still pathetically grateful. From her I have inherited my looks, a pale shadow of her own, but nevertheless well enough with a littlecareful make-up. I do not see anything sinful in either cosmetics or a looking-glass!

It was Mother who had insisted that I put my knowledge of languages to good use. In the Kenya of today where tourism is the second industryof the country, translators are badly needed, and I have a working knowledge of Swahili, the lingua franca of the whole area, as well as beingable to speak Kikuyu and Masai, picked up in childhood from the workers on my father’s farm. Up to now I had scraped a living in aninternational firm centred in Nairobi, but then, two days before, this marvellous opportunity had come my way and I was still hugging myselfwith glee at my good fortune.

“They’re going to build another Safari Lodge in Tsavo National Park—”

“I know that much!” Kate interrupted me.

“The Ghui Safari Lodge,” I went on lovingly. Chui is the Swahili word for a leopard.

“Who is going to build it?” asked Kate, getting straight to the heart of the matter.

“The Government, of course! But—and this is the glorious partl—they’re getting a Dutch architect to design the building!”

“Which is where you come in,” Kate said placidly.

I nodded enthusiastically. “He, the architect, doesn’t speak much English and he certainly doesn’t speak any Swahili. Isn’t it marvellous?”

Kate thought about it. “Yes, it is,” she agreed. “Where does Hugo Canning come in?”

“He doesn’t really,” I said vaguely.

Kate’s expression was one of complete disbelief. “Then what are you doing here?” she asked.

I hoped I didn’t look as uncomfortable as I felt. “Mr. Canning is on holiday here,” I explained uneasily. “I—I have to meet him before I startwork.”

“Why?”

I frowned at my friend. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I think we have to stay in a tented camp while the Lodge is being built. I expect it comesunder his general jurisdiction. Wouldn’t you think?”

Kate shrugged. “I’ll ask Luke,” she said. “He’ll be telephoning tonight anyway. He’s thinking of going into politics.”

“Luke is?” Somehow, since Independence, one thought more about white people leaving the political scene in Kenya rather than entering it.

“The Party approached him last week,” Kate said with a magnificent lack of interest. “You know how interested he is in these farming co-operatives.”

I hadn’t known, but then I am younger than Kate and her husband. I had only got to know them through Luke’s younger brother, Martin, and,although I liked them both very much and knew that they liked me, our paths only crossed occasionally. It had been marvellous, though, whenI had come from the tiny airport to the hotel to find Kate already in residence and anxious to hear all my news.

Kate grinned at me. “And what happens if Hugo Canning doesn’t approve of you?” she asked slyly.

I felt a nervous flutter somewhere in my middle. “Why shouldn’t he?” I said reasonably.

“I told you! He’s a bit of a fanatic—”

“Well, he doesn’t have to see anything of me on the site!” I retorted.

“His fanaticism,” Kate said delicately, “lies in other directions. Nothing, but nothing, is allowed to interfere with his precious animals. I imaginethat if anything goes wrong on the building site you’ll be in the thick of it?”

“But it won’t be my responsibility! All I have to do is to translate between one group and another—”

“Exactly!” said Kate.

I winced, for if there is one thing I cannot bear it is heated altercations anywhere near me. “I don’t think it will be as bad as all that,” I saidbravely.

“Probably not,” Kate agreed kindly. “But Hugo Canning is rather overpowering when he’s roused. I thought I’d just warn you.”

I made a face. “You mean his big guns will outclass anything I can produce,” I said wryly.

Kate nodded slowly. “Something like that,” she admitted. “But you can always take cover in your tent, if you see trouble coming.” She laughedsuddenly. “Perhaps your Dutchman will protect you!”

But somehow that thought was of very little comfort to me. I had heard about Hugo Canning before from other people and I had a mentalpicture of him as an enormous savage, looking rather like John the Baptist, with wild eyes and a contempt for personal comfort. A man whopreferred the friendship of the wild animals to that of his fellow men.

“Malindi seems such an odd place for a man like that to come on holiday,” I mused more to myself than Kate.

She moved restlessly in her chair, trying to ease her body. Luke was right, I thought, she was having trouble with this pregnancy, though itwould be a hard matter to get her to admit it.

“He fits in rather well, as a matter of fact,” she said. “I saw him yesterday in a dinner jacket, looking as smart as paint, and with a ratherhandsome young thing on his arm. I couldn’t quite make up my mind who she is, but I imagine she is local, for she isn’t staying at the hotel.”

That explained it, I supposed. I lost interest in Hugo Canning for the moment, my attention caught by sounds of laughter coming from theswimming pool nearby. “I say, Kate, do let’s have a quick swim. Can you? I mean—”

“I can if I potter round the shallow end,” she responded casually. “As a matter of fact it helps sometimes.” A thought struck her. “Do you thinkit’s going to be a water baby?”

I grunted. “More likely a farmer like Luke,” I said.

She smiled, well pleased. “It couldn’t be anything better!” she declared.

Kate and I went in to dinner together. The dining room is large, the far wall consisting almost entirely of windows that look out across theIndian Ocean. The other walls are all painted white, without any decorations except the occasional copper plate and Arab carpet, and the wholeeffect is very fine and spacious. A smiling waiter showed us to a table and presented us each with a menu.

“He isn’t here yet,” Kate remarked, looking round the room, “so you can relax, Clare. A cat on hot bricks has nothing on you!”

“I wish I could get it over with,” I answered savagely. “I’m sure there’s nothing he can do! I mean, I’ve already been hired by the Government.But it worries me all the same.”

“He must have some say or you wouldn’t be here,” Kate put

in.

“That’s what worries me!” I admitted dryly. “I thought it was all arranged and then wham, there was this message for me to fly downimmediately to Malindi to be interviewed by Mr. Canning.”

“From him?” Kate asked curiously.

I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. It came from someone in the Department for Wild Life and Tourism.”

“He has great influence there,” Kate warned me.

“I know,” I said flatly.

It was almost an anti-climax when Mr. Canning did finally walk into the dining room. Kate saw him immediately and froze. “He’s here,” she saidout of the corner of her mouth, and I turned and saw him for the first time.

He was not very like John the Baptist after all. He was tall all right and he moved with the careful confidence of a man who walks miles everyday. Really he looked very much like other men, smooth-shaven, with hair only just long enough to be fashionable, and a suntan that had to beseen to be believed!

He walked straight over to our table, smiling a greeting to Kate.

“May I join you?” he asked smoothly.

Kate looked pleased. “I didn’t like to interrupt you yesterday,” she teased him gently, “but I did so want to say a few words to you. Luke will beso pleased I’ve seen vou.”

He wasn’t in the least put out by Kate’s reference to his companion of the previous evening, I noticed. To tell the truth, I couldn’t take my eyesoff him. He had a kind of animal magnetism that I disliked by instinct. It was a pity, though, that my reaction was obvious to him. He wasunkind enough to be amused and that, in turn, made me feel both young and gauche.

“You wanted to meet Clare deJong,” Kate’s cool voice broke the silence. “Clare, this is Hugo Canning!”

“Oh!” I said weakly.

I noted the quick frown that appeared between his eyes with dismay. With an effort I pulled myself together and forced a smile.

“May I sit down?” he asked Kate rather tetchily.

She inclined her head, throwing me a speaking look that another time might have sent me into helpless giggles. How right she had been! I didnot like Mr. Hugo Canning!

“I suppose the Chui Safari Lodge is going to be in your area,” I said abruptly. “Is that why you wanted to see me?”

Hugo Canning gave me a long, distinct stare. “Did I ask to see you?” he said. “I thought it was the other way about.”

I turned red with rage. “But—” I began.

“Mr. Doffnang did say he wanted my personal assurance that you really do speak Dutch,” he went on, ignoring my interruption. Mr. Canningfrowned. “His English is decidedly poor.”

“Well, I do,” I said sourly.

“Then that’s all that matters,” he said. ‘You can drive to Tsavo with me tomorrow. Mr. Doffnang is already there—” he grinned suddenly—“going slowly mad because no one understands a word he is saying to them!”

After that, Mr. Canning turned all his attention and, I have to admit it, his considerable charm, on to Kate, leaving me to my own devices and toeat my dinner in almost complete silence. If I had not disliked him so much, I might have found much of his conversation extremely interesting,as Kate did, but I was still burning with rage at his casual treatment of my qualifications to do the job I had been approved for. True, it was onlyan hour’s flight from Nairobi to Malindi, but I never would have come if it had not been for him, and he could have asked me quite well over thetelephone whether I spoke Dutch or not. Not that I was prepared to grant that it was any of his business in the first place!

We had reached the pudding course before he spoke to me again. He had been turning the name deJong over in his mind and he suddenlyrealised that he had heard of my father.

“Harry deJong!” he exclaimed.

I bridled. “What of it?” I said.

“Are you Harry deJong’s daughter?” he rapped out.

I nodded mutely. What now? I wondered.

For the first time he looked at me with real interest. He smiled warmly at me, his eyes lighting up in a way that was oddly attractive. “Thenyou’ll be very welcome in Tsavo whether you speak Dutch or not—”

“Indeed?” I said coldly.

His smile did not falter. “Yes, indeed,” he said.

Kate was as puzzled as I was. “Why don’t you ask him?” she suggested.

I blenched. “Mr. Canning?” I swallowed.

“No, silly, your father!”

I thought about it. “I’ll ask him when next I write,” I said mildly. “Though I’m quite sure that he doesn’t know Mr. Canning from a hole in thewall! He’d have said so! I’m sure he would have mentioned it even if they had only met!”

Kate looked non-committal. “It’s odd,” she said at last. “Very odd! But I shouldn’t let it worry you, my dear. You’ll hardly see the man whenyou get to Tsavo—you’ll both be far too busy. I should leave it at that!”

I didn’t think I had much choice in the matter, so I did my best to forget it. This was made quite easy for me, for no sooner had I adjusted tothe air-conditioning, which made a noise remarkably like the interior of a jet aeroplane, than Kate came in to my room, full of the conversationshe had just had with her husband on the telephone.

“Clare, my love, he says I can go home!” she triumphed. “Oh, you don’t know how much I’ve missed him!”

I grinned. “I can guess,” I said.

She had the grace to look a trifle embarrassed. “My mother is home again and he had to agree that she was much the best person to see methrough—she saw me through all the others, after all!”

From where I was lying, I could see her shape clearly outlined against the rough white wall. ‘You’ll be lucky if you get home in time!” I observedfrankly.

She smiled down at herself, well satisfied with her condition. “You wait!” she gloated. “When it’s your turn, I’ll come and make rude remarks toyou and you won’t care a bit!”

“Hadn’t I better find a husband first?” I suggested mildly.

Kate smiled placidly. "Perhaps this Dutchman—” she began.

“No!” I cut her off sharply.

She started and looked at me curiously. “What’s the matter with him?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Have you ever been to Holland?” I asked her. She shook her head. “It’s so small!” I rushed on. “It has everything, and the peopleare wonderful, but it isn’t Africa.”

“And Africa has your heart?”

I nodded. In my mind’s eye I could see the vast open spaces, the mountains, the wide rivers, the forests, the multitudes of animals, all thethings that made up that intangible something that I had been born and bred to. What man could compete with that?

“That’s why I’m going to Tsavo,” I said. My voice trembled and I steadied it only with effort. “I can’t explain,” I said, “but even in Nairobi I felthalf stifled. But Tsavo is the largest National Park in the world. There are miles and miles of beautiful nothingness and the animals walk freeand go wherever they will! It’s a place to dream about!”

I think perhaps Kate did understand a little. She was silent for a long moment and then she said: “Oh well, rather you than me!”

I laughed. “It’s sheer bliss!” I insisted. I hesitated. “I’m glad you’re going home to Luke,” I added awkwardly.

It was her turn to be amused. “That’s certainly bliss for me!” she agreed. She got up awkwardly from her seat on the spare bed, and smiled atme very gently. “Goodnight, Clare,” she said. “And good luck!”

When she had gone, I thought about the days that were to come and hugged myself with glee. Not even Hugo Canning could spoil my pleasurein my new job. At last I was to be a part of Africa and share in the great heartbeat of the unspoilt land. It was a bit much to imagine that Ishould tread on soil where no man had ever trod before, but here at least no man had ploughed it, planted it, or harvested it. Here the animals,the first inhabitants, still roamed free.

It rained in the night. Because of the air-conditioning I had no idea of it until my early morning tea arrived sharp at seven o’clock. Then Islipped out of bed and stared disapprovingly at the dripping trees under a lowering, steamy sky. There was no breeze at all anywhere. I sighed,turning away from the window. It was going to be a hot, sticky day and just when I had hoped that there would be nothing to make me feelmore prickly than I need be in the company of Hugo Canning.

I drank my tea slowly, mentally reviewing all that I knew of my new job. I had only visited Tsavo National Park once before. My father hadtaken me as a treat for passing all my exams. We had stayed at the Killaguni Lodge in Tsavo West. I remembered it well and the restaurantthat is placed on the verandah overlooking the artificially made drinking areas and salt-licks. I had only to shut my eyes and I could see againthe elephants coming in to drink at dusk, their huge shapes looking even bigger in the gloaming. The braver ones had come right to the edge ofthe verandah, waving their restless trunks across the low stone wall that was the only barrier that kept them out. Cameras had flashed and onebull elephant had trumpeted his displeasure. And then they had gone, pushing their young into the centre of a group of females for safety.

I could wish that my father was with me now as his name seemed to have some magic for Hugo Canning! But my father was busy with his ownaffairs. He had his farm to run and his own interests. His daughter was going to have to do as well as she could without him!

When I had finished the tea, I dressed myself in khaki trousers and an olive-coloured shirt with long sleeves, that I rolled up to just above theelbows. I thought the colour suited my well-tanned skin and sun-bleached fair hair, for my eyes had much of the same colour; they weresometimes green and sometimes brown and, sometimes, when I was in a rage, they would shine yellow like a cat’s. The eyes of a lion, myparents had laughingly told me, and I had not minded their teasing, for I had been rather proud of the fact.

The full force of the sticky heat of the day met me at the doorway of my room. I hurried down the steps and into the dining room, aware that atrickle of sweat was already sliding uncomfortably down between my shoulder blades. One or two of my fellow guests at the hotel smiled at meas I walked to my table. Of Mr. Canning there was no sign.

I helped myself to some pawpaw from the central table that was laden with fruit juices, slices of pawpaw, pineapple, mangoes, and practically

every other fruit one can think of. I was just squeezing some lemon juice over the bright orange flesh of the fruit when Mr. Canning came in. Helooked at me with something like approval and sat down opposite me at the same table.

“I put Kate on the early plane,” he said. “I gather Luke is meeting her in Nairobi.”

“I can’t think why he sent her down to the coast in the first place,” I answered. “They’re miserable whenever they’re separated!”

Hugo Canning grinned, “That’s how it ought to be!”

For some reason, I could feel myself blushing. “What time do you want to leave?” I asked him, to change the subject.

He glanced down at his watch. “In about half an hour? Can you be ready by then?”

I said I could be. I hadn’t even begun to pack my things and I still had my bill to pay, but nothing would have induced me to keep Hugo Canningwaiting. It was a mad race to be in the hotel foyer on time. The heat was terrific and the sweat poured down my face and little rivulets undermy shirt. The rain had stopped and the sun had come out, but there was no sign of the reviving breeze that normally comes in off the sea tomake life bearable. By the time I had arrived, breathless, at the reception desk, I was hotter than I ever hope to be again in my life, and thecool amusement of the patiently waiting Mr. Canning did nothing to endear him to me.

He had a Toyoto Landcruiser, a tough-looking vehicle that bore the dents and scratches of a good many rides through the bush. Mr. Canningthrew our baggage into one of the rear seats and me into the seat beside him.

“You’d better hang on,” he bade me. “As soon as we get out of Malindi we get to a murram surface and with all this rain we’re bound to sliparound a bit.”

That, I thought, was the understatement of the day. Mr. Canning eased the Landcruiser into gear and we waved goodbye to the cheerfulreceptionist whose black face peered out at us through the open door. The road to Mombasa was now quite good, but we turned off almostimmediately, going through some of the nearby villages with their unique houses ornamented with pieces of pottery and broken stones, stuckinto the mud facing. People and animals swarmed round the market stalls, a bright chaos of colour and sound, that melted away before theoncoming vehicle.

The road fell to pieces soon after that. The red murram clay is excellent as a cheap surface material when it is dry, as it is for the majority of thetime, but come the rains and it is just like driving over oil. Mr. Canning managed a great deal better than I should have done. As we slitheredfrom side to side of the road, he pulled us neatly back into the centre without any apparent effort, keeping up a flow of small talk all the time ashe did so.

We drove through fruit plantations, mangoes, oranges and lemons, and some cotton fields, and then through thickly wooded scrub that diesaway into dry, silver thorn bushes, where some tall giraffes made their stately way across the road just ahead of us. About three hours after wehad left Malindi we came to the first entrance to the Tsavo National Park and the askari in charge came running out to meet us.

He knew Mr. Canning well, as did all the game park wardens. Ramming his French-type kepi on to his head, he saluted smartly and invited usinto his office. Mr. Canning went round to the back of the Landcruiser and opened a bottle of fizzy orangeade for all of us and we stood, leaningagainst the decorative wrought-iron rhinoceroses on the gates while we drank it. It was deliciously cool, straight out of the ice-box, and some ofthe heat and weariness from the long drive fell from me as I listened to the two men gossiping about the latest movements inside the Park.

“Are you going to Aruba?” the askari asked Mr. Canning.

“I thought we might stop off there for lunch,” he answered.

The African shook his head sadly. “They say the Hons have moved there and that they are hungry,” he said.

Mr. Canning was immediately interested. “How many?” he demanded.

But the askari didn’t know. He had heard that there were as many as twelve, and some said even more. “It is the Old Man amongst them. Thisone is not content with a few wives to hunt for him.”

“But surely, if he’s old—” I said.

Hugo Canning laughed. “It’s the old story of the dominant male!” he teased me. “This one has the cunning of all his kind. I saw him once, ahandsome beast, unscarred by any battles. Even the other males are moving in under his protection, bringing their families to feed their youngproperly, and then we shall have trouble.”

“But the more there are in a pride, surely the more there are to go hunting?” I suggested.

“That’s true, up to a point,” he agreed. “The lion pride is the best adapted hunting system there is in the animal world. It’s run by the male,who usually hunts in the centre of the line, making the females hunt the animals across him. From that position, he can organise everything

that’s going on. But he rarely kills himself. He leaves that to the female. But as soon as the prey is dead, it’s he who eats first, then the othermales, then the females, and last of all the young. When the pride gets too big, by the time the adults have fed there’s nothing left for the youngand they starve to death. No fully gorged adult is going to kill again, even for her own kittens.”

I knew that such dominance was necessary in the lion’s social life, but my heart bled for the hungry young that came last to the feast.

“And is twelve too many?” I asked quickly.

“It can be,” he said.

The askari finished his orangeade with a flourish and opened the gates to let the Landcruiser through. “You will find them by the Aruba dam,”he said certainly. “Yesterday there was a dead buffalo in the water, killed by lions, and Dedan has seen their spore nearby. He told me, when hecame for your letters.”

Mr. Canning smiled and thanked him. “We’ll go and take a look while we’re having lunch,” he said.

And so it was on a note of some excitement that we entered the Park, driving at a great pace down the freshly cleared dirt track towardsAruba.

CHAPTER TWO

The rains from the coast had not yet reached Tsavo. Dust clung to the leaves of the plants which were themselves burned brown by therelentless sun. Behind us, as we travelled along the road, a cloud of dust billowed out adding a thick coating that lay over everything. Above wasthe fiery globe of the sun, beating down on the canvas and metal roof of the Landcruiser. There was no wind at all.

Travelling along the road, there were few animals to be seen. The heat had driven them to find what shade they could. Thin elephants, red withdust, huddled together under the shade of a tree, flapping their large ears to fan their neighbours and to keep the insects away, but otherwise Isaw nothing more than the occasional buck fleeing away from the approaching vehicle.

I wound down the window beside me as far as it would go, enjoying the hot wind generated by the movement of the car.

“Is it always like this?” I asked Mr. Canning.

“I’m afraid it’s a sticky kind of day,” he answered. “I’d like to tell you that it will be cooler at Aruba when we stop for lunch, but I’m afraid itwon’t be!”

I smiled reluctantly. “It doesn’t matter,” I said quickly.

“I imagine the rain is on its way,” he went on. “Sometimes one can almost feel the clouds gathering.”

He was right when he said it would be no cooler at Aruba. The roads in Tsavo have beautifully made roundabouts at all the intersections, onwhich are written the various places of interest and the mileage from where one is. At one of these, we turned off on to a different road andcame immediately to the artificial lake with its well built dam and the permanent camping site that is available to visitors. We rattled our wayacross the cattle barrier that effectively kept the wild animals out of the enclosure and came to a stop under a tall, spreading tree.

“Would you like to go and sit in the shade?” Mr. Canning suggested. “I’ll bring the lunches over.”

I went over to where he had pointed, where a lattice-roofed verandah hung on to the side of the main building, where there was a shop, sometoilets, and an office where one could hire bedding if one was staying the night. There was a table and a few chairs carefully placed to be in themaximum shade from the creepers that spread over the lattice work. It was a charming place. At one time a few mud huts had provided theonly shelter, but these had now been taken away and replaced by square brick shelters that provided everything the camper could possiblyneed. Beyond lay the lake where the animals came in every evening to drink. I screwed up my eyes to see if

there was anything there now, but only a few wart-hogs were dashing hither and thither, their tails raised high over their backs. Of the lionsthere was no sign.

Mr. Canning strolled over to the edge of the compound, his hands in his pockets. For a long moment he stared out across the lake, then heturned and came slowly back to the Landcruiser and brought the two lunch-boxes over to where I was sitting.

“Are they there?” I asked him.

He looked at me almost sternly. “I think so,” he grunted. “I’ll take a closer look in a minute.”

I was pleased. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than a couple of lions at one time,” I confided. “I can hardly wait!”

“You’d better get your camera ready!” he snorted.

I wasn’t in the least put out. “It may be every day to you, living here,” I retorted, “but for me it’s a whole new world!”

He opened his lunch-box, flicking back the lid with his forefinger and studying the contents with all the gravity of a judge. “With Harry deJongas your father?” he drawled.

I nearly dropped the egg I was eating. “He’s a farmer,” I burst out.

“I know,” he said calmly.

“Well then,” I went on, “cattle and sheep are about the only animals he knows anything about.”

“That’s all you know!” Mr. Canning told me. I waited for him to go on, but he merely sat there, eating his sandwiches with an abstracted air.

“So?” I prompted him.

He was plainly surprised by my interest. “It was some story that someone once told me,” he said mildly. “I remembered the name, that’s all.”

“That’s all!” I repeated. “Mr. Canning—”

‘You’d better call me Hugo,” he grinned at me.

I swallowed. “Don’t you know that you’ve had Kate and me at fever pitch of curiosity ever since you first asked me if Harry deJong is myfather?”

He looked amused. “Of course,” he answered calmly. “Well, then?”

“It probably happened before you were born,” he teased me. He laughed openly at the mutinous expression on my face. “I should have thoughtyou would have known! It was when all the farmers were driving all the wild animals off their land up your way. It was Harry deJong whorealised that it was the elephants who made the drinking places for all the other animals in dry weather. They chum up the dry river beds,making waterholes. Without them, he would have had to lay on water for all his cattle. So he took a couple of men with him and turned a smallherd of elephants back on to his farm at the foot of the escarpment. It was one of the first examples of practical ecology I ever heard about.”

I couldn’t help wondering why it was that I had never heard about it, but I had never heard my father even mention such an adventure.

“Was that really enough to change your mind about me?” I asked, astonished.

“Not entirely,” he said in a voice that brooked no further questions. He picked up his field-glasses, leaned back in his chair, and casuallyobserved the dam behind the lake. “They’re there all right,” he said at last. “Want to have a look?”

I accepted the binoculars eagerly, wondering at my own excitement. I had to adjust the lens to fit my eyes, but as the vision cleared I caughtsight of something moving and leaned forward with a small gasp of emotion. “There are lots of them!” I exclaimed.

“Mmm. We’ll find out exactly how many afterwards.”

“I don’t believe there can be as many as twelve, though,” I observed.

Hugo shrugged. “You can’t possibly tell from here,” he rebuked me. “Hurry up and finish your lunch. I want to get going.”

I swallowed down the last of the cake from my box and began to peel the small orange that was still inside. The thin skin was bright green andthere were almost as many pips as there was fruit inside, but it was sweet and full of flavour and I had no intention of hurrying over myenjoyment of it.

Hugo watched me with increasing impatience. I pretended not to notice, but it wasn’t easy, for I was aware of his every movement. He was thatkind of man. When at last I had finished, he was already on his feet, pulling the safari hat he wore down over his eyes against the glare. Iplonked my own cloth hat on the back of my head and retreated behind enormous dark glasses that I had bought in a highly fashionableboutique in Nairobi.

“My word!” said Hugo.

I grinned. “They’re the last word, aren’t they?” I said.

“The bitter end!” he retorted.

Undismayed, I screwed up the now empty lunch-boxes and stowed them away in the trash bin. A blue-necked lizard froze on the wall besideme. I looked at it with interest, noting the green, gold, and bright yellow colouring that marked its back. Then, with a sudden scurry, it wasgone. I could feel Hugo’s eyes on the back of my neck and, with a sigh, I made my way back to the Landcruiser and climbed into the front seat.

“Ready?” Hugo asked with a touch of sarcasm.

I maintained a dignified silence, which was ruined only by the fact that he didn’t appear to notice. We started off with a sudden jolt and my darkglasses slipped down my nose. I thought that Hugo smiled, but if he did, he quickly suppressed it, and I busied myself with waving goodbye tothe three or four wardens who sat gossiping in the shade. They waved lazily back, hardly moving a muscle.

“Why didn’t you ask them about the lions?” I asked suddenly.

He looked a trifle embarrassed. “I thought we might as well have a look for ourselves,” he muttered.

I thought about it for a moment. “Good idea!” I said.

We exchanged triumphant glances and I thought with a sense of shock, This is Hugo Canning! But I didn’t freeze with fright as I would havedone that morning and I was quite worried that I didn’t. If things went on like this, I would end up by liking Hugo.

He drove straight down to the lake. The family of warthogs moved away in a flurry of indignation, slipping and sliding through the mud. A deadbuffalo had been dragged half into the water, the stink from its decaying body filling the air.

“Did the lions do that?” I asked, awed. It was the first time I had ever been only a few feet away from a buffalo and I was disconcerted by itssize. From a distance they looked so very like the domestic cattle they are so like, except for the thick spread of their horns across theirforeheads, that I had imagined them to be very much the same size. But this beast was enormous.

Hugo cast an indifferent look over the stinking carcass. “It was killed by lions all right,” he confirmed.

“Oh,” I muttered inadequately.

“What’s the matter? Shocked?” he pressed me.

“N-no,” I said. But I was not so sure. There was something shocking about the death of the great beast, brought low by what must have been asavage attack and a rather horrid end.

“It isn’t as bad as it looks,” he comforted me. “Things that are natural seldom are. We had a warden who was taken by a lion and who laterescaped. He said he wasn’t even frightened at the time. He felt quite indifferent—”

“I don’t believe it!” I burst out.

“You can,” he assured me. “The warden in question is a truthful man.”

There is no arguing in the face of certainty, so I swallowed my doubts and turned my attention to other matters. There is a certain distinction inbeing the first to spot any animal for which one is looking, and I was determined that, as far as these lions were concerned, it would be I whosaw them first.

I was not disappointed. As my eyes swept the green belt that surrounded the dam, a lioness stretched herself lazily and flopped down again inthe shade of her chosen tree.

“There!” I exclaimed with barely concealed excitement.

Hugo’s quick eyes followed where I was pointing. “One, two, three of them there. Can you see any more? I think we’d better go closer. Holdon!”

Despite the warning I had difficulty in holding on to my seat as we lurched off the track and mounted the wall of the dam itself, so that we couldlook down on the family of lions below.

They were sleepy in the hot sun and quite uninterested in anything that we might do. Panting, to keep themselves cool, they watched usblandly through eyes that were really very like my own. Several of the still-spotted kittens were idly playing with each others’ paws a little wayaway from their proud parents. At our first rough count there were about five kittens and three lionesses in the group, but there were no malesto be seen.

Hugo revved the engine and we crept forward a few feet. The lions flicked their ears and stared, but made no motion to move away from us.

“There’s one!” Hugo said suddenly and we careered along the top of the dam for another few yards, coming to an abrupt stop about ten feet

away from the largest, most beautiful male lion I had ever seen. He lay, stretched out, beneath a scrubby tree, his head lifted slightly by a softtuft of grass. He didn’t even bother to look up at our approach. It was the king who slept and it felt very like lese-majeste even to be watchinghim.

Hugo emitted a low whistle of admiration. “That’s him!” he whispered. “No wonder his pride is a large one!”

“He is rather splendid,” I agreed.

“His own kind seem to think so anyway,” Hugo said, rather smugly, I thought. He began to count again in earnest, a look of concern crossing hisface. “I make it twelve in all,” he said at last.

I nodded. “Twelve,” I agreed. “But that isn’t overlarge, is it?” I added anxiously.

“I’d prefer it if there were only seven of them,” he answered lightly. “Oh well, we don’t have to worry about it now. Let’s be getting on!”

He turned the Landcruiser in a single sweep and we drove back, past the lake, away from Aruba and towards Voi. With the end of theexcitement of seeing the lions, the heat seemed to come back in waves of increasing intensity. I would have liked to have slept, but the motionof the car made this impossible. The road was endless and we would never get there, I thought. But then, quite suddenly, we came to anotherpark gate and Hugo brought the Landcruiser to a stop and leaped out of his seat to greet the askari in charge. A few seconds later, we had leftthe Reserve and were travelling fast along the metal road that runs all the way from Mombasa to Nairobi.

“Where are we going?” I asked indignantly, cross that I had not been consulted over what I took to be a change in our plans.

“It’s quicker this way,” he said, unperturbed.

I settled back in my seat. “As long as you’re not kidnapping me—” I murmured.

“I wouldn’t dare!” he retorted.

I turned the matter carefully over in my mind. “Why not?” I asked at last.

His eyes filled with amusement. “Do you really have to ask that?”

I was silent, unsure where the conversation was leading and not at all sure that I liked the look of it anyway. I was relieved

when his attention was distracted by our coming into the small township of Voi, where we drew into a garage and opened both the doors wide.

Hugo glanced at his watch. “We have time for a cup of tea, if you’d like one? Will you order it while I get the Landcruiser filled up?”

There was a small cafe attached to the garage and I went thankfully inside and sat down at one of the small tables. The paint on the walls waspeeling in places and, at my entrance, the flies came rushing to meet me, glad of something new to pester. I pushed them away with the back ofmy hand, but there is nothing more persistent than a fly, and I knew that it was a losing battle.

An Indian appeared behind the counter, dressed only in a pair of shorts and a brightly coloured shirt that was flapping loose to give him anillusion of coolness.

“Ndio? Yes?” he said.

I ordered the tea and we carefully discussed whether I wanted a mixed brew, or a brand from the slopes of Kilimanjaro, or another from upcountry in Kenya. I settled for the mixed brew, hoping that it would also be the strongest, and the Indian congratulated me kindly on the extentand use of my Swahili.

“So you are not touring here?” he deduced.

I shook my head. “I’m working as translator on the new Safari Lodge,” I told him.

His eyes lit up. “Will it be near here?” he asked me.

“Fairly near,” I said.

His face fell. “I have never been anywhere but here,” he confessed. “My elder brother is in Nairobi, at University there, but I have not evenbeen to visit him yet.”

I looked at his boyish face beneath the smooth black cap of his hair. “There is time yet,” I said.

“But everything is happening in Nairobi!” he explained. “Nothing happens here. A few tourists come here, on their way to the Park, ortravelling up and down the road, but nothing happens here!”

He produced the tea, stirring the milk into the cups as he put them down on the counter. I carried them over to the table and then came back topay him. Happily the tea was hot enough to deter the flies from going too close to either cup.

“Is it always so hot?” I asked the Indian boy.

He shrugged his shoulders. “It depends—Not always like this, but it doesn’t get cold either. When the rain comes it will be better,” he added.“The long rains failed and the ground and the animals are very thirsty.”

I sipped at my tea thankfully. It was hot and very strong, with a delicate fragrance that makes Kenya tea a little more like the Ceylon varietythan that of India. I wondered what Hugo could be doing for so long, and I was just covering his tea with his saucer when he came in and threwhimself down on the chair opposite me, wiping the sweat from his brow with his handkerchief.

“One of the nuts had worked loose on the rear wheel,” he said heavily. “The attendant saw it, fortunately, but the nut was cracked through andwe had to find another one that would fit!” He made a sour face. “The vehicles round here have to take quite a beating one way and another.”

He swallowed down his tea, grunted, and rose to his feet. I followed him reluctantly. Even the peeling paint and the flies seemed preferable tobraving again the heat outside. In this I was right, for the Landcruiser had been sitting in the full sun all this time and the seat was so hot that Igave a little involuntary gasp as I sat on it, which at least gained me a sympathetic, if wry, smile from Hugo.

“Only another couple of hours now!” he said with forced cheerfulness. “Hold on to your hat while we low-fly up the metal road for as long as wecan!”

He was as good as his word. We stormed up the road, passing the one or two vehicles we met on the road. But then suddenly we left the mainroad again, turning off through a large village that had grown up around the railway line. There was a train waiting in the station that began toslowly pull out as we approached it. A number of women, mostly wearing highly coloured handkerchiefs round their heads, made a rush for theslowly moving train and jumped on board, pulling their laden shopping baskets after them. Hugo let in the clutch and we rattled across the linesand on to the dusty track beyond. There were one or two notices telling us that we were now back in Tsavo East and that this was not an officialentrance and so the public were not permitted to make use of it. An askari came out on to the road and waved the Landcruiser on, salutingsmartly in response to Hugo’s friendly wave.

“It really isn’t long now,” said Hugo. “I always feel better when I get to the last lap.”

Surprisingly, I was not as tired now as I had been before. The sun had slipped a little from being directly overhead and the animals werebeginning to come out from the shade of the long grass. Again and again we startled some of the tiny dikdik and we could see them darting ontothe bushes ahead of us. The hartebeestes, tall and elegant, turned their heads to watch us go by, decided that we were not dangerous and wenton with their search for food.

We came to a river and, over on the other side, I could see the temporary camp where we were staying while the Chui Safari Lodge was beingbuilt. The long dry season had reduced the river to a depth of little more than a foot, but the red colour of its water indicated that it had alreadybeen raining further upstream. I wondered how we were going to get across. I need not have concerned myself. Hugo drove along the bank forabout a quarter of mile and then launched the Landcruiser into the water.

I rather enjoyed slithering across the reeds, mounting a halfsubmerged shelf of rock and off again, sending the crocodiles, who were larger thanI liked, rushing off into the deeper water and away from our churning wheels. We doubled back on ourselves, picking out a way across byfollowing the marks of previous vehicles where they showed up in the muddy shallows and on the edges of the rocks. Ten minutes later, Hugodisengaged the four-wheel drive and we roared along the narrow track towards the camp, where I was to live for the next few months.

A row of tents had been pitched looking across the river, presumably to be used as bedrooms. In the centre of the camp were some rather moresubstantial buildings, with mud and wattle walls, where they had any at all, and thick thatched roofs to keep them dry. The first of these turnedout to be a place where everyone could gather to play games and have a drink and, on our arrival, a number of people came running out fromthere to greet us.

I staggered out of the Landcruiser, unbelievably stiff after the long drive from the coast, and became immediately aware of a pair of cool femaleeyes appraising me. Who on earth was she? I wondered.

“Hullo there!” she said.

“Hullo,” I answered. I sounded as surprised as I felt.

“Clare deJong? I’m Janice Kemp. I’m strictly a visitor, trespassing on Hugo’s kindness. Actually, I’m with a team looking into the survival ofanimals—sort of scientific.” She smiled, well pleased with herself.

“Oh,” I said.

She was a very pretty girl, with the sort of long flaxen hair that I would have loved to have had myself, and clear blue eyes that she accentuatedby using a blue eye-shadow on her eyelids.

“I’m not particularly scientific,” she went on, laughing. “But I take very good photographs and I don’t mind roughing it in the wilds of Africa.”She gave me a closer look. “Looking at you, roughing it is the right word!” she added in a pretty drawl.

“It’s a bit cooler here,” I said flatly. “It was one of the stickiest days I ever remember at Malindi.”

“Oh yes?” she said with a supreme lack of interest. “Well, don’t let me get in the way of meeting your future boss. He doesn’t speak a word ofEnglish!”

“That’s why I’m here,” I told her.

Mr. Doffnang was easy enough to pick out from the little gang of men who surrounded him. He was obviously very pleased to see Hugo again,pumping his hand up and down with increasing enthusiasm. I got the impression that he had been rather lonely on his own while Hugo had beendown at the coast.

“This is Miss deJong,” Hugo introduced me, making his escape as fast as he could.

The Dutchman swung round to face me. He had a round face with slightly protruding, anxious eyes that flickered here and there in ceaselessactivity. His relief at finding someone who spoke his own language I found rather pathetic.

“Who is that young woman?” he asked immediately, pointing a sly, stubby finger in Janice Kemp’s direction.

I told him all I knew about her, while he nodded his head and sucked anxiously at his upper lip. Finally he began to talk excitedly himself.

“You can have no idea what I have suffered from that woman! Daily she has been coming round the site, making trouble with this man and thatman. And me, I can say nothing to her—nothing at all!”

I had difficulty in not laughing. “What kind of trouble?” I

asked curiously.

“She has only to appear!” he said crossly. “Take a look at her, Miss deJong, take a look! Waving that long fair hair around! Why doesn’t she bindit up like a decent woman would?”

“It wouldn’t be very fashionable,” I said dryly.

I thought Mr. Doffnang would explode with rage. He began a long dissertation on exactly what he thought of fashionable ladies tramping roundthe National Parks and holding up his work.

“She plays poker too!” he ended on a brooding note.

I giggled. “Don’t you?” I asked him.

He looked very stern and sober. “I do not!”

But Janice Kemp was only one of his difficulties. He had been given an Indian assistant to help him procure the materials for the new hotel and,as they were totally unable to communicate with one another, Mr. Patel had spent his time wilfully misunderstanding every word that Mr.Doffnang had said to him.

I began to wonder what I had let myself into, but I couldn’t help liking Mr. Doffnang. Beneath his anxieties, I suspected there lurked the samekind of sense of humour that my father had. Sooner or later the absurdity of his situation would strike him and his fright at being totally cut offby the language barrier would fall away. Or at least I hoped it would!

“We’ll sort it out tomorrow, Mr. Doffnang,” I comforted him. “If you’ll excuse me now, I must go and find out where I’m sleeping and get cleanagain.”

He nodded disconsolately. “It’s getting dark,” he agreed. “But why should this girl want to come here? Tell me that! Never mind Mr. Patel! Didyou know that last night an elephant walked through the camp? I could hear it breathing from my bed!”

I swallowed nervously. “I’m sure it’s quite safe really,” I murmured.

Mr. Doffnang made an expressive noise in the back of his throat. “You will find out!” he threatened. “But, by all means, go now. You must havehad an uncomfortable ride, no?”

I smiled. “It wasn’t too bad!” I said.

I looked around the camp and an African came running, bidding me to follow him and he would show me to my tent.

“My name is Katundi,” he told me with dignity on the way down the earthen path that ran along the line of tents. “If you need anything, youhave only to call me. Would it please you if I prepared a shower for you now?”

“Oh, please!” I said.

He left me at the entrance to my tent after showing me how to zip myself into it at night. The groundsheet was welded on to the sides to giveadded security against insects and other small animals and there was mosquito netting on all the windows, which could also be covered bycanvas flaps to give one greater privacy. The tent itself was really very comfortable. A strip of matting had been laid on the floor beside themetal-framed bed. There was also a table and a chair. Hanging on the tent-pole was a naked electric light bulb that came into flickering actionwhen the generator was switched on, which happened around sunset.

I sat down wearily on the bed, too tired even to pull off my clothing. In the distance I could hear two birds squabbling and the trumpeting of anelephant. These were the sounds of the wild I had so longed for. This is what the world had been like since the beginning of time—since beforeman had arrived on the scene, anyway.

The sun fell out of the sky with the abrupt suddenness of the tropics and Katundi came by with a lighted hurricane lamp which he hung on thepost outside my tent.

‘Your shower is ready now!” he told me.

And on a rising tide of excitement, I gathered up my washing things and went off to tackle the canvas bag-full of water that he was pleased tocall a shower.

CHAPTER THREE

I met Hugo coming back from the shower. I pulled my cotton dressing gown closer about my still damp form, feeling foolishly tongue-tied atbeing caught at such a disadvantage. “Can you cope with Doffnang?” he asked me.

“If I can cope with that shower, I can cope with anything!” I assured him blithely.

He grinned. “I’ll have you know that that shower is my handiwork!”

I was contrite. “Perhaps when I see it by the light of day—” I began apologetically.

“You’ll be even more shocked when you do!” he retorted. “It’s

held together by nothing more substantial than a piece of string!”

I sighed. “I might have guessed!” I said.

He took a step closer to me, so that I could see his face clearly in one of the electric light bulbs that had been rigged up all round the camp. Helooked very serious, and it was that that stopped me from brushing past him and going on to my tent.

“I think it might be better if you don’t tell the others about the lions quite yet,” he said.

“But they’re miles away!” I protested.

“They are right now,” he said grimly.

I felt suddenly cold and shivered. “What have you heard?” I demanded. “Are they moving?”

“Not so far as I know,” he hedged.

“And what does that mean?”

He looked amused. “Blast!” he said. “I didn’t want to tell you—”

“Obviously not!”

He still hesitated. “There are some more lions travelling to Aruba,” he said abruptly. “They went past here today.” “How—how many?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ll take a look in the morning and try and find out.” He put out a hand and turned my face to the light. “There’sno need to look so scared,” he said gently. “They’re a long way from here.”

“But you’re concerned!” I managed to say.

“It’s my job to be concerned,” he reminded me. “Everything to do with the animals in Tsavo is my concern.”

I forced a rather weak smile. “Even the human beings?” I asked him shakily.

He grunted. “If necessary. But I’m relying on you to keep Doffnang and his builders out of my hair as much as possible!”

I wondered how I could possibly have imagined that I didn’t like this man. “I’ll try,” I said.

“Good,” he returned briskly. “See you at dinner.” He walked off along the path and in the dim light I caught a glimpse of Janice Kemp’s brighthair as she came out of the shadows to meet him.

Dinner was served out in the open. True, there was a thatched roof overhead. And true, mosquito net walls had been let down to keep out theinsects that would otherwise form themselves into suicide squads, throwing themselves against the light, again and again, until they fellexhausted into a heap on the floor. But, despite the al fresco atmosphere, a freshly laundered damask cloth covered the table which was setwith heavy, solid silver and cut-glass that looked oddly out of place in such a place.

Hugo sat at the top of the table, with Janice Kemp on his right hand and me on his left. Next to me sat Mr. Doffnang. A man I had not yet met,young and bespectacled, sat next to Janice, and facing Hugo sat Mr. Patel in a resplendent turban that added more than a touch of glamour tothe gathering.

Hugo poured the wine, passing over Mr. Patel’s glass, to the latter’s relief, while two Africans served the soup from a gigantic tureen into somebone china soup bowls that were placed in front of each one of us, one by one. How odd it was, I thought, that people should solemnly sit downto a formal dinner miles away from any centre of civilisation. And yet here we were, sipping a French wine and eating food that would not havedisgraced any hotel in Europe, and outside was nothing but raw Africa. And then, as if to prove my point, a lion roared not so very far away, andthe sound of it filled the whole camp, making the backs of our hands tingle with that primitive fear that is quite pleasurable as long as one knowsthat one is safe and warm, no matter what is going on elsewhere.

My eyes met Hugo’s and he smiled at me. Quite why, I don’t know, but I found it comforting to think that the lions were his concern. I couldhardly imagine them coming into the compound of the camp with him around. It made me feel very safe and calm. But the roaring lion madethe others jittery. Mr. Doffnang looked nervously about him.

“What is it? Is it coming here?”

I reassured him as best I could. “No, no,” I said. “It’s only a lion. It’s a long way away from here.”

“A long way? It sounds close to me,” he replied.

“You can hear a lion five miles away,” I said firmly.

The bespectacled young man, who was sitting next to Janice, nodded his head. “I have heard them myself,” he said in German.

Mr. Doffnang was overcome by delight. “Can you understand me also?” he said in simple Dutch.

The young man nodded. “Enough. I don’t speak German very well. I’m sorry.”

But Mr. Doffnang was enchanted. “We must talk together more! ” he insisted genially.

“If you like,” the young man assented. He turned his attention from Mr. Doffnang to myself. “What are you here for?” he asked me in English.

“To translate for Mr. Doffnang,” I told him.

He looked surprised. “Oh,” he said. “I thought you might have a speciality too?”

“What sort of speciality?” I asked, puzzled.

“Like Janice and her photography,” he answered laconically. “Or me, come to that. I fly little aeroplanes about, tracking groups of animals ontheir migrations. You don’t—”

“No,” I said hastily, “I don’t.”

To my surprise he looked very pleased. “Good. By the way, my name is Johnny Hurst.”

“Mine is Clare deJong,” I responded.

“Dutch?” he said.

“No.” I hesitated. “I’m Kenyan really,” I said. “My father’s people came originally from South Africa and my mother is British.”

“Oh, I see,” he said. I had the feeling he didn’t see at all. “I’m an all-American boy!”

We laughed together, Mr. Patel joined in, though I’m sure he hadn’t the faintest idea what the joke was.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” Johnny went on cheerfully. “Abdul here likes flying round with me a good deal better than he likes working on buildingsites, don’t you, eh?”

Mr. Patel nodded sorrowfully. “It’s all too true,” he agreed. “When I get my own licence to fly, I shall say goodbye to building once and for all!”

Janice winked at me. “Johnny takes too many risks!” she said lightly. “Be warned by me!”

“If he did, he wouldn’t be working for me,” Hugo interposed sharply.

Janice put her hand on his arm and squeezed it “I was only joking, darling.”

I noticed that Hugo didn’t pull his hand away. “I’m not in the mood for such jokes,” he retorted calmly. “Johnny does excellent work and he’s avery good pilot.”

“For which recommendation, many thanks!” the American put in irrepressibly.

Janice made a face at him. “All the same, you shouldn’t take

up more than two people at a time in that aeroplane of yours!” she protested. “It isn’t safe.”

“You mean you were afraid when we swooped down so that we could get that shot of yours of those zebras!” Johnny answered sourly. “It willbe some time before I take you up again, let me tell you!”

The plates were changed and we were served with the most enormous pork chops I had ever seen, rubbed in garlic, and served with sautepotatoes and cauliflower. This in its turn was followed by bread and butter pudding and a choice of Kenya cheeses, bearing the familiar names ofthe English counties, with only one or two of the more famous French and Italian types.

It was already after nine when the meal came to an end. I was glad that no one suggested that we should sit under the trees and listen to thenight, for I was tired and longing for bed. In less than half an hour I had zipped myself into my tent and had eased myself between the sheetson the bed. The lights flickered ominously and died, but I didn’t care. I plonked the paperback I was reading down on the floor beside the bedand turned over and went fast asleep.

Some time during the night the rain came tumbling down out of the sky. It was too heavy to be of any use. I could imagine it pouring down,washing the precious top-soil into the river and down to the coast. In my mind’s eye I could see the exposed roots of the trees we had drivenpast that day. It seemed unfair that such badly needed rain should all come at once. What use was it when one had three inches in an hour andthen nothing for weeks on end?

Somehow, even after the rain had ceased, I couldn’t get off to sleep again. There was an elephant close by, too close for my comfort, and I couldhear a lion hunting on the other side of the river, and some hyenas howling into the night. Yet I must have slept, for it seemed only the nextmoment that the grey light of dawn came creeping into the tent and the first sounds of movement could be heard in the camp.

As soon as I had washed and dressed, I went in search of breakfast. The net walls of the night before had been rolled up and were hidden underthe roof, and the table, without its damask cloth, bore a utilitarian air quite different from the previous evening. Katundi asked me how I wouldhave my eggs and whether I would begin with porridge. I managed to persuade him that eggs and bacon would be quite sufficient, but it wasplain that he thought I could do better if I tried.

“Has anyone else had breakfast yet?” I asked him.

“Not yet. Bwana Doffnang comes first,” he told me. “Bwana Four-Eyes is always late!”

“And Memsahib Kemp?”

Katundi shrugged his shoulders. “We call her the Memsahib Golden Syrup,” he confided. “She comes only when she is hungry.”

African nicknames are always apt when they are original, I thought. I thought that Johnny had probably inspired his nickname by making afeeble joke about his shortsightedness, but I couldn’t help wondering how Janice had come by hers. It didn’t only suit the colour of her hair!

“I—I wondered if I should see Bwana Canning?” I said at last, a bit put out by my own interest in his doings.

“But he is not here for breakfast!” Katundi laughed at the thought. “He goes at night to his own house over the hill. It is only while you are herethat he comes for the evening meal, and that is because the china and the cooking pots come from his house and the vegetables from hisgarden.”

“Oh,” I said. “Do you normally work there too?”

Katundi nodded. “It is easy to find. All you have to do is follow the path by the baobab tree.”

“Perhaps I’ll go and have a look some time,” I agreed in an off-hand voice.

Katundi grinned. “He is usually there to drink tea in the afternoon,” he said slyly.

“You shouldn’t tell me that! He probably likes his privacy!” I reproved him gently.

“Maybe,” Katundi laughed. “Maybe, maybe not!”

I was tempted to go that way on my way back to my tent. The baobab tree stood a little apart from the other trees that surrounded the camp.It was the largest tree and the strangest. They say that the Devil, or so the legend goes, turned this magnificent tree upside down, burying itsbranches deep in the earth and condemning its roots to be permanently exposed to the air. It certainly looked like that. At best the baobab treehas few leaves, and then only in the wet season, but it does have the prettiest flowers that hang from its stumpy, dead-looking branches. As atree, it is so easily recognised that it is not surprising that there should be so many stories about it. The ‘upside down’ tree, as my parents werewont to call it, had been a part of my childhood. It seemed fitting now that it should be a baobab tree that guarded the path to Hugo’s house.

I hesitated by the tree, a little embarrassed by my own thoughts. I really couldn’t imagine why I should be so interested in Hugo’s home. Ireminded myself that I didn’t even like him much—but I was curious, very curious about the house that he had built here where only theanimals were at home. I even went a few steps along the path, but I came to an abrupt stop when I saw in the distance a half-grown elephantcoming over the brow of the hill towards me.

I took to my heels and ran. And the elephant came trumpeting down the path after me, waving her trunk in the air ahead of her, apparentlyrather hurt by my attitude. I took refuge in my tent, though what good I thought the frail canvas would be if the elephant came after me, Ireally don’t know. I tried, with trembling fingers, to do up the zip, but it stuck fast half-way up. I was still struggling with it, in mountingdesperation, when I felt the exploratory tip of the elephant’s trunk breathing gently against my skin.

“Give her some sugar and she’ll go away!” someone said from outside the tent.

“I haven’t got any sugar!” I gasped back.

The voice laughed, “I’ve got an orange. She adores oranges!”

The elephant’s trunk disappeared, to my great relief. I undid the zip a little and peered out. The elephant was busy munching up the orange shehad been given, while she searched for a second one with her trunk, hopefully looking in Johnny’s pockets. The surprising thing, however, wasthat Johnny didn’t appear to be in the least afraid of her, despite the fact that her shoulder was rather higher than his head.

“Is she tame?” I asked curiously.

“More or less,” Johnny said. “Hugo brought her up when her mother was killed by poachers. She was only a year old then. She’s free to comeand go as she likes now, but she comes in most nights and allows herself to be shut into the boma Hugo had built for her. She finds enough foodthere to keep her going through the night, without having to do any work herself. Lazy old lady, aren’t you, Karibu!”

I thought ‘Welcome’ to be rather a good name for an elephant, but then I was feeling braver now. I unzipped the entrance to my tentcompletely and came outside to have a closer look at her. Immediately she saw me, Karibu began rumbling with joy, keeping her eye on myevery movement. Her trunk waved over my head and nuzzled me gently towards her. I patted her on the shoulder, marvelling at her thickskin. She didn’t seem to mind what I did to her, she rumbled on, giving every sign of intense pleasure.

“I think she likes you,” Johnny said, smiling. “But be careful of her. She’s still a wild animal.”

I had every intention of being careful!

“Thank you for coming to my rescue,” I said with true gratitude.

“Think nothing of it!” Johnny answered. “Were you on your way up to the site?”

I glanced at my watch. “I suppose so,” I agreed without much enthusiasm.

“I’ll walk up there with you,” Johnny offered.

We set off up a path that led up from the other side of the baobab tree, with Karibu trotting along behind, still rumbling by way of keeping upher end of the conversation. It was a steep and, despite the rain that had fallen in the night, a dusty climb to the top of the great pile of rocks onwhich it was planned to build the Chui Safari Lodge. At the top of the path, looking rather ridiculous in the middle of nowhere, was a slattednotice-board headed with the picture of a leopard resting in a tree. Underneath were the names of the architect, Mr. Doffnang, and the variouscontractors for each part of the building.

Of the building itself there was as yet no sign. A group of African labourers had built a temporary road up one side of the rocky plateau and theywere busy now, driving up the raw, red soil, a number of bulldozers and mechanical diggers to begin the foundations. Most of them were sittingby the road, gossiping, while the heavy machinery ploughed past them. If there was much more rain, I thought, the road would be a greasymire and nothing would be able to get up or down at all.

“We’ll have to give that road a top dressing of stone chips,” I said, more to myself than to Johnny. He shrugged his shoulders, plainlyuninterested in such considerations.

“I come up here strictly for the view,” he said. “Have you ever seen anything better than that?”

I turned to where he was pointing. It was true that it was a fantastic view. From the top of this outcrop of rock one could see a hundred miles ofAfrica before one. Above was the blue and gold of the hot sky, bleaching the colours from the grass and brush below. But nothing could takeaway from the colours of the rust soil and the deep purple shadows. The horizon was so far away, it looked as though the land gave way towater, but it was sheer distance that turned the far-off hills a vivid, deeper blue than the pale sky. And in all that space nothing apparentlymoved. It was only after one’s eyes had grown accustomed to the sheer size of the land before one that one could make out some elephantscrossing the river to go up to the plateau, some warthogs trooping from one place to another, and the olive baboons that played on the slopes atour feet, drinking from the dripping irrigation pipes that were to bring the water from the river to a permanent artificial lake below.

“Oh well,” said Johnny, “I’d better take myself off. See you this evening!”

I nodded abstractedly. Karibu rumbled gently in my ear, calling herself to my attention. With a sigh, I leant against the grey pillar that was herforeleg and pulled my hat down over my eyes against the glare. Karibu’s trunk embraced my waist.

“It’s all home to you, isn’t it?” I said to her.

She rumbled her assent, reluctantly letting me go as Mr. Doffnang came toiling up the steep path towards us.

“So Miss deJong, you are already here,” he said fussily. “Are you sure that elephant is safe?”

Karibu rumbled some more. “I hope so,” I said in Dutch. “Mr. Doffnang, we’ll have to do something about that road. That murram surface willbe washed off in no time as soon as the rains come in earnest!”

Mr. Doffnang and I happily inspected the road in question and there began my first full working day on the site. I was kept pretty busy. Mr.Doffnang’s orders had to be translated to Abdul Patel, and the men’s comments had to be translated back again. More often than not, therewere messages to be run as well from one end of the site to the other, explaining in detail exactly where a trench was to be dug, either inSwahili, which most of the men understood, or in Kikuyu, or sometimes in the few words of Masai that I had at my disposal. There were notmany Masai workers on the site, however. They preferred to live their own free, untrammelled existence, untouched by

the remotest touch of civilisation, in their own lands. Most of the men were Kikuyus, Embus, and Wakamba, who had come away from theirown homelands to earn the big money that building hotels in the middle of nowhere could bring them.

In the middle of the day, when the heat shimmered over the land and even the elephants huddled together seeking the pathetic shade of thenearest thorn tree, the work came almost to a stop. Mr. Doffnang and I sat under a tree and shared our sandwiches and coffee.

Mr. Patel, visibly wilting, confided that he was in the middle of the Moslem feast of Ramadan and could partake of nothing, not even a drop ofwater, until sunset. Without his turban of the night before, he looked smaller and much less impressive, if rather nicer. He wore a pair of sand-coloured shorts that I suspected he had inherited from the British Army, for they came well down to his knees. On the top part of his body hewore a bright pink shirt, the tail of which hung down over his shorts, for he refused to tuck it in, giving him an oddly doleful look. He talked,when he talked at all, of his wife and children sadly left behind in Mombasa, which was where he normally lived.

We were still resting under the tree when Janice came up the steep path to take a look at us, her camera slung over her shoulder.

“Johnny said I might get some good shots of Karibu up here,” she said by way of greeting.

Mr. Doffnang leapt furiously to his feet. “No, no!” he said harshly in Dutch. “It is too much! Please tell the young lady that she is to leave usalone!”

Janice paid him no heed at all. “It doesn’t look to me as though you are doing anything at all!” she remarked coolly. “Where is Karibu?”

“Down by the river,” I said.

Janice gave me a cool look. “Hugo is fond of her,” she said lightly. “I don’t think he’ll like it if you cut him out with her.”

I laughed. “There’s not much danger of that!” I protested. “She was sorry this morning that she had given me a fright.” I stopped, puzzled. Howhad Janice known about that? She hadn’t been there when I had made my spectacular dash for my tent. “J-Johnny introduced us,” I added,not quite truthfully.

“Johnny would!” she said dryly.

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“He likes to think he’s more important than he is. But he hasn’t got the way with animals that Hugo has. I help him sometimes, you know, withhis little private zoo. The only thing that annoys him is when they get into his flower garden and eat his precious flowers! I feel rather honouredreally that he asked me to help out with them. I’m the only female he allows around his house. There aren’t many women that he likes at all.But I expect you know that?”

“I suppose I do,” I answered as casually as I could. “Kate Freeman practically said as much.”

Janice’s expression hardened. “And she would know?”

I heard myself laugh. “She’d know! She and her husband know all about everyone!”

“Really?” Janice drawled. “I don’t think I know her.”

I let the remark lie. It was too hot to duel with hidden words and it was not a game I had ever much enjoyed. Janice shook out her fair hair andMr. Doffnang made a sound of explosive anger and walked away from us.

“What’s the matter with him?” Janice asked.

I smiled faintly. “I think he finds your presence distracting,” I told her.

She looked astonished. “Mr. Doffnang?”

“Why not?” I said.

“I thought he didn’t like me,” she said frankly. She wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. “Perhaps he doesn’t. It’s a bit different to be distracted bysomeone to liking them, don’t you think?”

I stared at her. I couldn’t make up my mind about Janice Kemp. “I suppose it is,” I drawled.

The colour crept into her cheeks. “Don’t pay any attention to me,” she said. “I say silly things all the time!” She laughed, biting her lip. Shelooked very pretty indeed. “I take the most marvellous photos, though. I’ll show them to you some time.”

“I’d like that,” I said sincerely.

She rose to her feet easily, stretching her long limbs. “Poor Mr. Doffnang! The language barrier does have its problems for him, doesn’t it?”

I grinned. “But I’m a terrific translator!” I said lazily.

She laughed. “I daresay, but I can think of occasions when you might be rather de trop—”

“You could always learn Dutch,” I suggested helpfully.

“Mmm,” she considered, “I could. I might if it weren’t for Hugo. Happily, we speak the same language—and I don’t only mean English!” Shewandered away, easing the strap of her camera on her shoulder, leaving me uneasily aware as to her meaning. As far as Hugo was concerned,she was busily putting up the signs of ‘Keep off the grass’ for me to read. Well, she was welcome to him. I had other, far better things on mymind!

Work came to an abrupt end at four o clock in the afternoon. I was surprised to discover how tired I was. It had been an ordeal in more ways

than one, for language is a hard taskmaster, and to work in three or four languages at a time was more than I had ever done before. Butsomehow we had scrambled through the day and Mr. Doffnang had calmed down into his usual amenable self, once more in contact with therest of the world.

“It will be the most beautiful hotel I have built,” he sighed happily, as we scrambled down the steep path towards the camp. “It will be perfect!How often does one have the opportunity to plan every detail? Even the cups and saucers will be made to my design! It is an opportunitywithout parallel!”

I could understand his excitement. Even the colour of the tiles on the floor was to come under his general supervision, even the material of thecurtains in the bedrooms and the tablecloths in the dining room. Everything was to bear the Doffnang hallmark.

“How long will you have to stay here?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “Perhaps a year. For such a long time I would be wise to learn a little English, don’t you think?”

“I’ll teach you!” I offered cheerfully.

I slid down the last few feet of the path, coming to a breathless stop by the baobab tree. A triumphant trumpeting announced Karibu’s pleasureat my arrival. She rushed towards me, fondling me gently with her trunk and rumbling in my ear. Close behind her stood Hugo.

“The Elephant Child herself!” he said dryly.

I tried vainly to get free of Karibu’s attentions. “Can’t you take her away?” I asked crossly.

He grinned. “I never interfere in others’ love affairs!” he said smugly.

Karibu rumbled on affectionately. “I’m not so sure her devotion is reciprocated,” I said.

He laughed. ‘You make a charming couple!” he assured me. “Come and meet my other orphans and I’ll give you a cup of tea.”

I hesitated for a long moment, remembering all that Janice had said.

“Well?” said Hugo.

“I’d love to!” I said with a burst. I was an Elephant’s Child in more ways than one, I thought ruefully; for I was quite insatiably curious aboutthe house where he lived and the flower garden he tried so hard to protect from the ravages of his orphaned animals.

CHAPTER FOUR

Hugo’s house had been built on the other side of the rocky plateau where the Safari Lodge was destined to be built. The view from the housewas only a little less magnificent than from the other side, but it had the advantage of taking in a stretch of the river as well as the endless bush.Around the house were samples of most of the trees for which the Tsavo Park is famous. There was the aromatic gum tree which supplied themyrrh and frankincense of old; some of the many species of acacia; and the beautiful tamarinds I had heard so much about. Nearer still to thehouse, Hugo had planted an avenue of jacaranda trees which were now purple with flowers and were breathtakingly lovely. On the corner of thehouse, hiding the dustbins at the back door, was a flamboyant tree from Madagascar, a mass of scarlet flowers which truly lived up to its name.

He had taken trouble with his garden. Apart from the obvious varieties of bougainvilleas, there were frangipani, petunias, marigolds andgaladias, and a whole orchard of fruit trees, mostly bananas and pawpaws, mangoes and custard apples, all of which looked ready for thepicking.

“Karibu is devastation in a garden,” Hugo remarked dryly as I feasted my eyes on this bright oasis of colour. As if to prove his words, the youngelephant trotted forward between the trees, taking a mouthful of blossom as she went. She obviously felt absolutely at home anywhere inHugo’s domain and she knew where all the garden taps were and would turn them on with her trunk, drinking whenever she would. She wasrather less inclined to turn the tap off again.

“I never would have thought that anything could be so beautiful!” I sighed. “It must have taken a long time—”

Hugo smiled. “I’ve been here quite a while,” he agreed. “I’m glad you like it. There are certain hazards to gardening in the bush, but I find theresults well worth while. We can grow pretty nearly anything in this country, so why not?”

One of the hazards, however, was an enormous and now abandoned termite nest in the middle of the front lawn. It rose to the lofty height ofabout four feet, blood-red and shot through with cleverly engineered passages and a number of entrances and exits. Hugo was amused by myinterest in it.

“A family of mongooses have taken it over,” he told me. “They like the air-conditioning that the termites put in.” He laughed. “I didn’t like to

turn them out even though it hardly improves my efforts at a lawn.”

The mongooses surfaced, chasing each other in and out of the ex-termite hill. They seemed to know Hugo pretty well, for one of them ran uphis trousers and hid round the back of his neck, observing me with a pair of bright eyes from just behind his ear.

“This is Rikki,” Hugo introduced me. “Not a very original name, I’m afraid!”

He walked off into the house, carrying the mongoose with him. An elderly and rather portly dog greeted him with a lazy thump of her tail. Fromthe top of a bamboo screen a vervet monkey peered down at us, swearing at the mongoose with such energy that his small black face wascompletely contorted with fury. Then, in a flash of olive and bright blue, he had darted across the room and out into the garden.

“Please sit down,” Hugo said to me. He clapped his hands together and an African came running into the room. “Laiti chai,” he said briefly.“How do you like it?” he added to me. “Milk? Lemon?”

“Just ordinary,” I said.

“Milk and sugar?”

“Milk,” I nodded.

The room was extraordinarily comfortable and I wondered why Hugo should bother to come down to the camp for his main meal. The floor wasof polished hardwood on which had been casually thrown a few Indian rugs. The chairs were covered in real leather and were deep andcomfortable. The one I had chosen had a clear view down to the river and I could see Karibu doing her best to knock over one of Hugo’sprecious banana trees. She was making a good job of it too, stacking the fruit to one side before stripping off the leaves and demolishing thetender inside of the main part of the tree.

“Do you mind her doing that?” I asked Hugo, when I could bear it no longer.

“I do,” he said, “but I don’t actually froth at the mouth if she leaves me the bananas. The trouble is that the monkey takes them if he can andthen I’m left with nothing!” He didn’t seem to mind very much. He sat back in his chair and watched the light playing on my face until I wasembarrassed.

“I think perhaps I ought to be getting back,” I said diffidently.

“Why?” he questioned simply.

I had to admit that I didn’t know why. The pleasure of being in his house was having an extraordinary effect on me. It wouldn’t be wise to comehere often, I thought.

“I’ll show you something that I bet you’ve never seen before!” he said suddenly. He jumped to his feet and went into the kitchen beyond,coming back with a hen’s egg in one hand. Carefully, he laid it on the polished floor a few feet from the fireplace. “Come on now, Rikki, do yourstuff!” he said proudly to the mongoose.

The African mongoose is, of course, much smaller than the Indian kind. It is sometimes called a dwarf mongoose and they are very smallanimals. Rikki curled himself round the egg, but it was far too big for him to exert sufficient pressure to crack it. Finally, he lined it up besidethe wall, turned his back on it and, with his back legs, shot it against the bottom of the fireplace in a movement so quick that I wasn’t sure I hadreally seen it. Turning with a single, lithe flick of his body, he followed the egg to the wall, pulled apart the now cracked shell and began to supup the raw inside.

Hugo and I laughed together. “Don’t you regret that the new Lodge is so near to you?” I asked him curiously.

“No. Why should I?”

I shrugged. “It’s been all yours for so long,” I said

inadequately.

He looked at me sharply. “The more people who come here to see the animals, the better chance they have of survival. One has to be realistic.”

I felt snubbed, knowing that my own attitude to the animals was completely romantic. I hated to hear financial considerations being weighedagainst the lives of the unique beasts that still strode across East Africa. They have been banished from so many other places, surely, whetherthey paid hard cash into the treasury or not, they ought to be sure of a home somewhere in the world.

“Realism seems to me rather selfish,” I burst out.

“It’s the only way of saving them in the long run,” Hugo returned. “But I think it’s going to work. Since Independence there are more NationalParks, not fewer, as was complacently forecast. The tourist industry is bound to have a lot to do with that.”

“I suppose so,” I agreed meekly. Perhaps I didn’t sound entirely convinced, for Hugo looked amused and I felt that prickle of embarrassmentagain that I found so disturbing.

Hugo did himself pretty well. There was a choice of cakes as well as bread and jam. The tea, I remember, was excellent. “Would you like to walkdown to the river?” he asked when we had finished. He glanced down at my feet. “You seem to have some good strong shoes,” he commented.

“I shall need them, clambering up and down that path to the site,” I answered wryly. “The road is useless! It only has to rain hard once and thewhole surface will be washed away.”

Hugo grunted. “I tried to tell Hans as much before I went to Malindi. Perhaps telling him in Dutch will have more effect?”

I sighed. “I don’t think so—”

“Then he’ll have to learn from experience,” Hugo rejoined cheerfully. “Cheer up, he’ll probably listen to you once he’s suffered the disaster!”

“It seems a bit hard,” I said.

“Poor Clare! You’ll have to harden your heart, you know, if they don’t all make mincemeat of you between them. If I were you, I’d get awayfrom them whenever you can at week-ends.” “How?” I retorted quizzically.

He considered the point carefully. “You can make a start by

flying over the Park with Johnny and me next Sunday,” he suggested. “We’re going to check up on these lions.”

I flushed with excitement, but even so I hesitated. “Wh-who else is going?”

“No one,” he said.

“I thought Janice—”

“Janice has her own work to attend to,” he said flatly.

I swallowed. “I-I’d like to,” I stammered, “if Johnny doesn’t object.”

“It isn’t his place to object,” Hugo returned positively. “Come along and I’ll walk you home.”

I didn’t enjoy the walk along the bank of the river very much. I was sure that there was a crocodile lurking behind every drooping weed and,because I didn’t want to give Hugo any excuse to laugh at me, I felt obliged to put on a brave face and make the best of it. By the time wewalked into camp I was exhausted from the effort. It was nearly dark and a firefly danced in front of us, a scarlet trail of light in the oncomingdarkness.

“How long have you known Kate Freeman?” Hugo asked me suddenly.

I was surprised by the question. “Ever since she came to Kenya,” I answered. “I knew Luke before that—though my parents know him better!I suppose I know Martin best in the family. He’s—he’s more my age.

“That’s what I understood,” he said grimly.

“Don’t you like Martin?” I hazarded timidly.

“Yes, of course,” he snapped back gruffly. I was astonished. He didn’t sound as if he liked him much! “I suppose you see a lot of him?”

“Sometimes. When he’s home.”

He took a deep breath. “That’s what Kate says,” he confirmed. “It all sounds very suitable,” he added nastily.

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. The idea that Martin and I should be anything to each other beyond being friends was very funny. I had knownMartin for ever!

“Madly suitable!” I agreed smugly.

Hugo looked downright cross. “What’s so funny about that?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “What exactly did Kate say?”

“She said you were very good friends,” he grunted.

I took my courage in my two hands. “And do you mind about that?” I asked him humbly.

For a moment he looked outraged. “Certainly not!”

I turned away, a little hurt. I didn’t know why he should be so interested, but I had to admit myself flattered.

“We are good friends,” I heard myself saying. “But only friends. Kate knows that. I can’t think why she should have given you any otherimpression—”

“No,” Hugo agreed dryly. “Neither can I!”

We gained the camp just as the last of the light was fading. A damp mist was rising over the river and some thick black clouds were gatheringacross the sky, veiling the stars.

Janice was strolling through the middle of the camp as we came into the lit-up area. Her relief at seeing us was obvious.

“I thought you might have got lost!” she said to me immediately.

I shook my head. “I don’t get lost very easily,” I murmured. She smiled sweetly. “Don’t you? How can you be so sure?” She came closer,putting a friendly hand on Hugo’s shoulder and smiling up at him. “Have you been entertaining her? How sweet of you! You’re so kind to us all,Hugo dear, and we’re being such a nuisance to you!”

“It’s quite nice to have company,” Hugo replied stolidly.

Janice laughed. “Perhaps. But this time you’ve managed to upset Mr. Doffnang! You forget that Clare is his tongue and his ears! He’s beenabsolutely miserable without her!” She shrugged her shoulders with elegant care. “I did my best, of course, but I’m afraid he thought it was apretty poor thing!” Much of my pleasure went out of the evening. I hated the thought that I might have been neglecting my work in any way.

“You haven’t been annoying him, have you?” I shot out at her.

She raised her eyebrows. “Not deliberately,” she assured me. To my surprise, Hugo looked no more than amused. “I’ll leave you both to sort itout between you,” he said.

I watched his retreating back, unaccountably feeling that he had, in some way, left me in the lurch. “Johnny speaks a little German,” I saidflatly. “Why couldn’t you have asked him?” Janice looked very meek and demure. “Oh, but I did! Only he thought the translation might sullymy delicate ears! What in

the world have I done to offend the famous Dutchman, do you suppose?”

I thought she probably knew only too well. “He thinks it’s wrong to mix business with pleasure!” I said dryly.

Janice gave me a penetrating look. “Cheek!” she muttered, well pleased. “You can tell him from me that while Hugo is around I have betterthings to do!” She laughed, sounding faintly conceited. “He doesn’t have to worry about me! You tell him that, Clare. In fact, you’d better tellhim at once!”

I wondered at the ecstatic look on her face. Perhaps it was only the yellow, faltering lights that gave her such an odd expression. Her very fairhair and her eyes were lit up with excitement.

“Not me!” I said. “I’m off to have a shower before dinner.”

“But you’ll tell him when you see him, won’t you? You will, won’t you, Clare?”

I felt suddenly weary of the whole affair. “I’ll tell him,” I agreed. I shook a particularly insistent insect out of my hair and went running downthe path towards my tent.

I was unaccustomed to awakening to a grey dawn. It had rained all night long and was still dripping through the trees and off the thatchedcoverings to the tents. Perhaps it would rain all day? I thought with an unaccountable feeling of depression. I hated it to rain in the daytime. Myclothes felt damp to my touch as I pulled them on and there was a grey haze hanging over the whole camp which the sun was unlikely to dispelbefore lunchtime.

Hans Doffnang was already seated at the table when I went across to eat my breakfast. He smiled at me politely, half rising to his feet as I camein.

“You were right about the road,” he said heavily. “I have been to look at it this morning. It will have to be re-made before we can use itfurther.”

He looked about as gloomy as I felt.

“Oh well, if it had to happen, it’s better right at the beginning than at some other, more important stage,” I answered with resignation.

“It should never have happened at all!”

I felt sorry for him. ‘You weren’t to know,” I consoled him. “Building projects inevitably get held up in the rains here.”

“But not my projects!” he responded gently. “I should have been told of the dangers.”

I gave him a quizzical look. “They probably didn’t think the short rains would amount to much,” I told him. “Often they don’t. Only the longrains failed this year and so the ground is drier than ever. The top soil falls away under the weight of the water all too easily when it is a littlemore than dust. Then too the water sluices down underneath it and it falls away in great chunks. We often have landslides during the rains.”

“We’ve got one now,” he said gloomily.

“Oh well,” I comforted him, “when the rain stops, we’ll go and have a look. I daresay we can think of something to give it a firm surface. A fewculverts will probably do the trick.”

He smiled at me a little more cheerfully. “How glad I am to have you here with me! You understand it all, my invaluable Miss deJong!”

“I try to,” I said. “But the sooner you learn a few words of English the better!” I added bitterly.

His bright blue eyes filled with laughter. “Why?” he asked.

I blushed. “Because you need to say some things yourself—”

“I am intrigued!” he teased me.

“Yes,” I said, “I daresay. Well, I have work to do even if you haven’t!”

I finished my breakfast in a hurry. The rain, dripping off the roof, had dug a trench in the dust around the boma where we were eating. I lookedat it with acute displeasure, swinging my raincoat over my shoulders.

“Where will I find you?” Mr. Doffnang called after me.

“Down by the river,” I answered him. “I promised Katundi that I’d scrub the water filters for him.”

The Dutchman grinned. “Mind the crocodiles!” he warned me.

I made a face at him. “I will,” I assured him.

Cleaning the filters was a daily task that was necessary to keep the camp going. The waters of the river were never very clean and so everydrop that we drank, and most of the water that we had to use for other purposes, had to be purified and stored. The filters did this jobeconomically and highly effectively. They were dropped into the water and sucked it up, cleaning it on the way before it dripped out of thelength of tubes at the other end into the waiting tank. The dirt that the filters kept out clung to the outside of the filters and had to be scrubbedoff to allow the water to pass more quickly. It was a

dirty job and not one which I enjoyed very much.

Katundi had already pulled the filters out of the water when I joined him. Together, we dropped them into a number of handy buckets,watching the green algae spread out round them. I picked up one of the scrubbing brushes and set to with a will to restore the filters to theirformer pristine state.

Katundi gave me a sly smile. “Now you have seen the house of Bwana Canning? It would be easy to live happily in such a house! ”

It would indeed! I allowed myself to think about it for a moment before replying. “When the hotel is finished it will be even finer,” I said.

Katundi was not bluffed. “It is not good for a man to live for ever without a woman,” he stated, apparently to himself.

“There is always Janice,” I said dryly. “Memsahib Kemp.”

Katundi shook his head, grinning. “Many white people come to Africa, but Africa only accepts some of them. You will see! Memsahib Kempthinks always of her English home!” He looked at me curiously. “But you think only of Africa, mama. Why is that?”

“I was born here,” I answered, laughing. “I have no other home to go to even if I wanted to.”

He considered that. “The Kikuyu have a custom called kuheera. This would give you a home—”

I stood up abruptly, throwing my scrubbing brush on to the ground. “I think we’ve finished, more or less,” I said with finality.

Katundi turned away. “Ndiyo, memsahib,” he said sourly. There was no familiar mama now. I was afraid that I had hurt his feelings, but Ididn’t know what to say to make things better. The trouble was that I had heard of the Kikuyu custom and I knew exactly what he meant. Inthe old days any single woman who was left on the shelf could look about her for a suitable married man and offer herself to him. If she wereaccepted, the man was obliged to make her his legal wife, giving her a respected position in his tribe.

“I couldn’t!” I blurted out frankly.

Katundi nodded sagely. “I understand,” he assured me solemnly. Which was a great deal more than I did! “It is shauri Mungu, the affair ofGod.”

“Something like that,” I agreed. “I hardly know Bwana

Canning at all!” I added fiercely.

“No, but you have looked at him.”

He had been squatting all this time while he worked, but he rose now and began to put the clean filters back into the river, magnificentlyunconcerned about anything else. Considering what a hare he had started within my own emotions, I was resentful that he should shrug off thewhole conversation so easily. Did he think that I didn’t know that ‘looking’ was a typical African euphemism for ‘loving’?

If it had been a less dreary morning I might have found something to laugh at in my own state of bereft annoyance, but my sense of humourhad departed with the sun. The non-stop, dripping rain expressed my feelings all too well. What was needed, I thought, was action, and thatmeant work and lots of it. So, with a touch of grimness, I pulled my raincoat more closely about me and set off for the site and the damagedroad to the top to see what I could do about it.

The gangs of men were sheltering under the trees. Like cats, they treated rain with fastidious displeasure, shaking the water off their clothesonly to watch it gathering again in unwelcome rivulets. The only happy creature was a weaver bird, chortling with song, as it carried out somerapid repairs to its perfectly woven pendulous nest that hung from a nearby acacia tree. The flash of yellow coming and going did much torestore my failing spirits. We needed the rain. Especially did the animals need the rain and a break in the drought that had gone on without abreak for more than a year. From where I stood I could see the elephants below, crossing the river on their way to the plateau and the newfeed that would now spring out of the ground, now that the rain had finally come.

I was surprised to find Hans Doffnang there before me. He was standing with an air of solid dejection, looking at the precipitous naked rock thatwas all that remained of the road.

“Well?” I greeted him.

“It is not well!” he snapped back. “Not well at all! We shall have to dynamite our way into the rock to provide a proper foundation.”

I grimaced. “Let’s do it, then.” I said.

“No dynamite!” he said flatly.

We stood in the rain and considered the situation. Finally it was decided that Mr. Doffnang would go back to the camp and arrange for Johnnyto fly to Nairobi to pick up some dynamite and some other supplies that we needed, while I would get the men to clear the mess of earth androots and small rocks that had descended to the foot of the rocky table where the hotel was to be built.

The men worked in teams. Some of the teams were formed by men of the same tribe working together, but others were mixed, so there was norule about it. Their foremen took their job very seriously indeed and there was a great feeling of rivalry between one team and another as towho could do the most work and therefore earn the highest rates of pay. They were reluctant now to come out from under the trees into the fullforce of the rain.

“It is dangerous,” one of the foremen told me. “Perhaps there is more to fall down on top of us!”

We looked at the newly revealed naked rock in silence. “Meanwhile,” I said, “nothing can go up or come down.”

The men nodded silently. They were mostly dressed in cotton drill shorts and torn white vests, stained rust-coloured by the red earth. Some ofthem had ancient well-worn felt hats, but most of them did not even have that between themselves and the pelting rain.

“It would be good to collect the good soil for the garden,” they said. They selected a place where the mounds of earth could be moved to andstored, all of which involved endless conversation, argument and good advice. Then, at last, they picked up their hoes and, standing in lines andchanting as they went, they attacked the fallen earth, dumping it into enormous plaited baskets, while yet others carried it away from thebottom of the would-be service road.

By lunchtime we had cleared about half of the fallen earth. Little streams of water gushed down the rocks, ruining our efforts by washing thefiner soil down into the river. Fallen trees added to the task, for some of them were extremely heavy. In the end I organised a special team ofmen to cut up these trees into manageable pieces, some of which could be burned in the kitchen, and some of which were stacked into neat pilesfor later use.

Mr. Doffnang was pleased with our efforts.

“We have only to blast our way into that rock and we’ll have a road for all seasons!” he exclaimed, beaming at the progress the

men had made.

“I hope so,” I said.

He gave me a solicitous look. “You must come back to camp,” he fussed over me. ‘You need dry clothes and—” he smiled as he caught sight ofmy face “—a good wash also! There is no need for you to wait here longer!”

I went back with him willingly enough. It had been quite a day.

“What are the others doing?” I asked him.

“Playing poker in the bar,” he answered, his voice harsh with disapproval. “How can a young girl do such a thing?”

I chuckled. “Why not? I expect she’s rather good at it. She doesn’t give much away, does she?”

He seemed to resent any criticism of Janice as much as he resented her playing cards for money.

“You must tell her!” he insisted. ‘You must tell her that it is bad for her to do such a thing!”

I shook the rain off my eyelashes, laughing at him. “You must learn some English and then you’d be able to tell her yourself!” I told him.

“It is shameful!” he said with dignity.

I licked my lips, wondering how best to take his mind off the matter. “Perhaps she doesn’t agree with you,” I suggested diffidently. “It doesn’tseem very serious to me.”

He gave me a long, hard look. “No,” he agreed slowly. “Not serious for you perhaps, but for her, with no aim in life for her energies, it is a badthing!”

I raised my eyebrows. It seemed to me that Janice knew exactly where she was going. “Why don’t you tell her that? I’ll help you, if you like?”

He shook his head with a deep sigh of regret. “It would be no good,” he admitted. “But to see a fine woman, so fragile, so beautiful, and not towant her to be perfect, is very hard! Why is she here? Why is she not in a good home, the wife of a good man?”

“I think she likes what she’s doing,” I observed dryly. There was really very little difference between Katundi’s and Hans Doffnang’s view ofthe proper place of women, I thought.

Mr. Doffnang squeezed my arm and smiled deep into my eyes. “I think she will like to be a married woman better!” he insisted confidently. Hissmugness was almost unbearable!

“Why don’t you ask her?” I suggested crossly.

He fingered his smooth, round face thoughtfully. “When I am ready I will tell her what I think,” he announced, well pleased with his own privatethoughts. “And she will listen then,” he said.

I had my own doubts about that, but something warned me that this was not the moment to voice them. Thank goodness, I thought, that the

next day was Sunday. Sunday had a calm, confident quality that was not to be found on other days of the week. And besides, I was going to seeHugo Canning. It was a little unnerving to discover how much that meant to me, but then, with the rain still sluicing down, nothing was unmixedjoy.

It wasn’t to be expected!

CHAPTER FIVE

SUNDAY was different. The sun shone bright and clear over a land that was suddenly green and fruitful. The trees had come into flower andthe birds were in a fever of activity, taking advantage of the thousands of insects that had apparently come to life during the night. It isimpossible to describe the change that had taken place in just a few hours. What had been dry sticks a couple of days before were now leafy,flowering bushes and trees, each one incredibly beautiful. The gnidia trees and bushes had broken out into bright yellow flowers that wouldlater fade to brown; fire bushes, originally from Colombia, were living up to their name; Australian flame trees were covered with masses ofsmall scarlet blooms, which the indigenous Nandi flame trees did their best to compete with, merging into the lovely rosy red of the redflowering gum trees. Even the baobab trees had produced their white, hanging flowers that would lead to its equally odd oblong, woody fruitsfilled with pulp which, together with its leaves, are edible.

Impossible to describe too was the variety of greens that had replaced the sunbaked straw of the dry weather, or the carpets of wild flowersthat splurged over the ground everywhere one looked. It is an odd quirk of nature that where her opportunities are few, she runs riot when shecan, leaving memories of colour and abundance to last through the long, long time of drought.

We were all up early that Sunday. The brightness of the day brought us out of our beds, hungry and expectant, long before

our normal hour. When I came back from the shower I found Janice concentrating on a series of bird photographs that she was taking in herspare time, hoping to publish them in a book later on. She had just finished a whole lot of colour photographs of the southern carmine bee-eaterthat occasionally passed through the camp in a flash of bright pink. Now she was trying to capture the local members of the starling family.Most of the ones that fought for the crumbs from our table were the redbreasted superb starlings, though one or two of the even morespectacular splendid glossy starlings came and went at intervals. Much more magnificent than the starlings of Europe, these were colourfulbirds that were rewarding to photograph, though perhaps not quite as exciting as their even more magnificent oriental relations, the birds ofparadise.

Janice looked up from her camera. “Hullo,” she drawled, and pushed her fair hair out of her eyes with one hand. “I hope you were properlyflattered by Hugo’s invitation to tea?”

I laughed. “I was, as a matter of fact,” I said.

“But you enjoyed it?”

“I liked his animals,” I hedged.

Her eyes mocked me. “Is that all? Perhaps that is what Hugo meant—”

“Meant by what?” I asked indignantly.

She smiled and shrugged. “He’s the complete bachelor, isn’t he? You know, I wasn’t trying to mislead you by saying that he only allowed me tovisit his animals. What I meant was that he feels safe with me. Evidently he feels safe with you too!”

“Safe?” I repeated.

“Why not?” she grunted. “You’re not hoping for a less platonic relationship, are you?”

Her amusement made me blush. “No!” I said faintly.

She turned her attention to her camera. “I thought not,” she said, a thread of laughter running through her voice. “We’ll have to make do withcompeting for the attention of Hans Doffnang, where I have to admit you have a head start by being able to speak his language.”

“Er—yes,” I said, even more faintly.

“The idea doesn’t appeal to you?” she asked.

“N—no,” I admitted.

“Perhaps you prefer Johnny?”

I gathered together my scattered wits. “I don’t think I’m entering the lists at all,” I said.

She sighed, smiling with a total friendliness that was very appealing, even to me. “How dull! Never mind, I expect you know best what you’reabout. Could you move a little? You’re frightening the birds.”

I hurried on to my tent and left her to it. I felt oddly deflated by her remarks. The truth was that Hugo Canning filled my horizons whenever Iwas near to him.

I could conjure up at will the line of his jaw and the way it sat on his strong, masculine neck. Or the slight flare of his nostrils when he wasthinking. Or even the way his eyes crinkled when he looked into the sun. It wasn’t something I had wanted to happen! It even frightened mewhen I thought about it, how aware I was of every detail of the way he looked, when other, nicer men made little or no impression on me at all.

Did Janice know that he was a confirmed bachelor? She might have been only guessing, for I was pretty sure that Hugo knew exactly whateffect he had on the females with whom he came in contact. And he was far too normal not to enjoy the flutter he caused in many a femalebreast. But it was disturbing all the same to feel myself plunging deeper and deeper into the mire of his attraction when all it could possiblybring me was heartache and regret. I was not such a fool as to think that Clare deJong was going to bowl him over as easily as he had her!

On the other hand, I was enough of a fool to dress with particular care for my Sunday treat. I had never seen Johnny’s aeroplane, so I had noidea how big it was, but I was reasonably sure that my tailored trousers and the neat cream shirt that went over them were both suitable andgood to look at. I couldn’t see what I looked like very well in the one looking-glass that my tent boasted, but I felt comfortable and I kept tellingmyself that it didn’t really matter what Hugo thought anyway.

Johnny had already had his breakfast and was working on the aeroplane when I went along for my own. Only Mr. Doffnang was at the table,avidly reading one of the paperback thrillers he had brought with him. He looked up as I entered and waved a friendly hand.

“So today you go to count the lions, ja?” he said politely, hardly looking up from the printed page.

“Yes,” I agreed with barely suppressed excitement. “It couldn’t be a better day for it, could it? Don’t you think the whole world is beautifultoday?”

He gave me a look of sympathy. “Do you like to fly so much?” he asked.

I hesitated. “I don’t know,” I said at last.

“Well, well, enjoy yourself!” he muttered. He looked up and his whole expression changed to one of complete disapproval. I turned to see whathe was looking at and saw that Janice had come into the boma. She was smiling straight at the Dutchman, her eyes sparkling with amusement.

“Goode morgen, meneer,” she said sweetly.

Hans Doffnang was completely stunned. “Does she learn Dutch now?” he demanded of me.

I stared at Janice, who was plainly enjoying the sensation she had caused.

“Are you learning Dutch?” I asked her abruptly.

“Why not?” she smiled, and shrugged her shoulders indifferently. “He complains whatever I do,” she said.

“What does she say?” Mr. Doffnang shot at me.

I managed a fairly tactful translation which did nothing to improve his temper. He sat and glared at Janice across the table. “I am notcomplaining!” he snorted. “Why does she say good morning in Dutch?”

Janice looked more amused than ever. “Why is he so annoyed?” she countered.

Mr. Doffnang thumped the table with his fist. “I will have nothing to do with her!”

Janice laughed, delighted. She leaned across the table, helping herself to a piece of toast which she slowly buttered and spread with marmalade.“It’s my good manners that made me address him in his own language,” she mused thoughtfully. “How does he reconcile that with theimmodest vision that he has of me? He might even learn enough English to wish me good morning in my language!” she added, challenging himdeliberately by arranging her hair across her cheek and grinning at him through it.

They stared at each other with mutual anger, forgetting all about me. Janice wasn’t wasting much time, I thought. But I could have wished thatshe didn’t go out of her way to annoy Hans Doffnang. He was so vulnerable to her jibes and he was such a nice man that I didn’t relish his beinghurt.

Relief came in the form of Hugo. He had already had breakfast, but the sight of us eating made him want some more coffee. He sat down at thehead of the table, allowing Janice to pour him out a cup of the boiling liquid and fuss over his comfort and whether he had enough sugar and

cream.

“You spoil me!” he teased her.

“I like to,” she answered lightly. “It’s a more rewarding occupation than any other I’ve attempted this morning!”

Hugo set his jaw thoughtfully. “What’s the matter? You can’t complain of the light today! ”

She hunched up her shoulders, looking faintly sulky.

“Don’t you ever think of anything else but work?” she demanded.

Hugo grinned. “Not often,” he admitted. His eyes met mine, taking in my neat cream shirt with quick appreciation. “Talking about work, we’dbetter join Johnny on the strip before Karibu realises that she’s going to have to do without your society for the day! Are you ready?”

I jumped eagerly to my feet. “I suppose you fly often?” I hazarded, hoping to hide from him my own state of nervous excitement at the thoughtof roaring through the heavens in Johnny’s bi-plane.

“Often,” he agreed. I wasn’t bluffing him one bit. “Johnny is an excellent pilot. You don’t have to worry.”

“I’m looking forward to it!” I said.

The airstrip was on the other side of the rocky outcrop. The bush had been cleared away and the exposed red earth had been beaten down intoa hard surface. At one end a weather sausage dangled at the top of a pole beside the distinctive flag of Kenya with its shield and crossed spearsin the centre of the black, red and green stripes. The rain of the day before had already been swallowed up by the greedy earth. Indeed, itmight never have fallen there at all, if it were not for the bright green of the surrounding grass and the belts of wild flowers struggling for lifewherever they could find a foothold.

Johnny had a small office in a ramshackle corrugated shed at one end of the strip. It was surprisingly tidy inside. The papers on the desk wereall in neat piles and the radio was clean and well cared for. Behind the desk sat a tiny African figure, neatly clad in the uniform of the Parks’wardens. He was little taller than a dwarf, but when I looked at him more closely, I could see he was an old man with grizzled hair and large sadeyes.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to get kitted up before we go out to the plane,” Johnny told me. He was more serious when he was working, I noticed. Hepointed towards a selection of airmen’s helmets for me to take my choice. He himself was already dressed in clothes that looked to me as if theyhad come straight out of the war. He even had some goggles dangling round his neck and these I rather envied him, for the glare off the landwas much stronger than I liked.

Hugo busied himself with the radio. The static was appalling, but once he had managed to clear the line he received an answering call from thevarious other stations all over the gigantic area of Tsavo.

‘You’re going to have a lion count at Aruba, right?” a crisp voice came over the air.

“Affirmative,” Hugo replied. “When I came through there the other day there were about a dozen there. Yesterday the askari there countedmore than twenty. If they’re still coming in, we’ll have to do something to split them up.”

“What’s the attraction?” the crisp voice asked.

“There’s a male there,” Hugo said dryly. “We caught a glimpse of him. The most splendid brute I’ve ever seen. I should hate anything tohappen to him.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“I thought that if they don’t split up naturally, we might anaesthetise some of them and move them across country—”

“It won’t take them long to walk back.”

“They might not want to,” Hugo said hopefully.

There was a grunt from the other end of the radio. “I wish you luck!” the voice said. “I don’t think it will work, but I can’t suggest anythingbetter. If you want any help, say the word!”

“I will,” Hugo promised. “Over and out.”

“Out,” said the voice. The radio went dead and then the static began again until Hugo turned the radio off. There was a moment’s silence in the

shed, then Hugo shrugged his shoulders and laughed without humour.

“He’s not very optimistic, is he?” he commented briefly. “Well, come on, let’s away!”

We walked across the airstrip to where the small bi-plane was waiting for us. The askari came with us, carrying a large box to help us climb intothe tiny cockpit. Hugo went first, dragging me after him as I almost missed my footing. He pushed me towards a narrow seat and strapped mefirmly in despite my indignant protests that I could manage quite well by myself.

I was rather unnerved to discover that Hugo intended sharing my seat with me. By the time he had strapped himself in we were so close to oneanother that every time he took a breath I could feel the slight movement beside me.

“You look cosy!” Johnny teased us as he stepped into his own seat.

“I feel crushed!” I retorted.

“A very suitable sentiment,” Hugo put in.

I took a deep breath. “If it were only a sentiment—”

He laughed. “What else?”

“A physical fact!” I snorted.

He gave me a look that made me tremble. “A rather nice physical fact,” he said in my ear.

Whatever he may have intended, he certainly diverted my attention from our take-off. It seemed to me that one moment we were on theground, with the askari waving us off, and the next we were high in the sky, but how we got there I really couldn’t say! Once up, however,there seemed very little to be afraid of. As I looked out, I could see the sun glinting off our silver wings, and below the timeless land, a land soold that it may have been here that man sprang into being, a land old enough to live in mysterious contentment with itself. Below were theanimals that had once walked the whole continent. They had lost the battle for survival almost everywhere, but here the mighty elephant stilllived in freedom, and the lion, once feared as far away as China where it had never even been seen, was still king here.

It was strange to me to watch our dancing shadow as it fell on the ground below, a small black shape in the midst of a bleached world that wasonly now turning green again. The elephants were easy to see. It was less easy to spot giraffes, unless they took fright and ran with theirdistinctive, loping action. Then, suddenly, I began to see more and more. Where everything had appeared empty, I could now see teeming life.Herds of zebra ran, sometimes with elands, and sometimes with wildebeestes or gnus, as if they were afraid to be alone with only their ownkind to support them. There is something particularly satisfying about watching zebras. No matter how hard the conditions, there they are,their fat buttocks as well covered as when the feed is plentiful and green.

We could see the artificial lake at Aruba almost immediately. The bright green of the well-watered trees that edged the lake shone out like abeacon. The lions had chosen a good place, I thought. A place that one might have chosen oneself, close to water and with enough long grass togive good cover when they were hunting the animals that came to the lake to drink.

“Do you want to fly over first?” Johnny asked through the intercom.

“Try it once or twice,” Hugo directed. “I want to take a good look round before we actually begin the count.”

“Will do,” Johnny came back.

I pulled my binoculars out of their case and focused them carefully on the bank of the dam below. Without even trying I could see half a dozenlions stretched out in the long grass, sleeping away the hot middle hours of the day. A pair of rhinos were standing knee-deep in the mud thatlingered round the lake, their tough hides fidgeting as the insects moved in on them, annoying them despite the tick-birds that clung to theirears and marched up and down their backs.

Hugo began counting under his breath. “One, two, three, five—no, six ... damn it, at least nine males! What do you make it?”

I counted with him, ignoring the females and the young playing together under the trees.

“There he is!” I breathed. “Oh, Hugo, can you see him? He is splendid, isn’t he?”

“Very splendid!” he agreed, his voice dry with mockery.

“But you can understand why they all want to join up with him, can’t you?” I persisted. “I’m sure he’s as clever as he’s beautiful!”

Hugo smiled faintly. “I daresay. Apart from man, the lion is the best hunter that the animal world has ever produced. Brains and teamwork!”

“And all organised by a mere male,” I added provocatively.

“That’s why you think he’s so splendid,” he retorted crushingly.

There was a certain amount of truth in that, I supposed, so I withdrew from the conversation as gracefully as I could by deliberately startingthe count once again from the beginning.

“I think there are about forty animals in all,” I said at last.

Hugo groaned. “As many as that? I made it thirty- eight.” He tapped Johnny on the shoulder. “All right, Johnny, take her down and we’ll have achat with the askari. He may have an idea how we can break up the pride.”

“Okay,” said Johnny.

We swooped down out of the sky to a perfect landing near to the Aruba compound. A group of askaris came running down to meet us, salutingsmartly as soon as they saw it was Hugo.

“The simbas are still coming in, Bwana,” their leader greeted us. “Is that why you have come?”

Hugo nodded. “What are you doing about it?” he asked immediately.

The askari shrugged. “Yesterday and today we have provided extra food so that the young will have enough to eat. There is nothing else to dowhile the Mzee gathers them round himself.”

Mzee, old man, is a term of deep respect more commonly used of the President than a lion. Yet, when I thought of that magnificent animaldrowsing in the hot sun, it seemed an apt title.

Hugo smiled at the collected askaris. “I was thinking of forcibly splitting them up,” he said, almost apologetically. “I’ll need trucks and a greatmany men.”

“Where can you take them that will be far enough away?” one of them asked.

“I don’t know,” Hugo sighed. “To begin with we’ll take half of them across to Tsavo West. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to get permission totake a few to Amboseli or Masai Mara. It will give us time to work on the problem if nothing else!”

“Ndiyo, Bwana.”

There was an air of excited expectancy amongst the men that was catching. They were pleased to be pitting their wits against the king of thebeasts. There was more than the spice of danger that such an enterprise demanded, there was also the doubt that they would win. It was afairer fight than most. The lions would not tamely give in to the will of man this time. They had their own cunning and their own customs toprotect. “How are you going to mobilise all these people?” Johnny asked languidly.

“On the radio,” Hugo answered. “I’ll have to ask you to fly back to my place to get the anaesthetic and the darts. You’d better take Clare backwith you.”

I glared at him. “I won’t go,” I said flatly.

Hugo raised his eyebrows. “Won’t?” he said softly. “What about Hans Doffnang? This may take all of a week.”

Of course I knew that my job would have to come first, but it was a bitter disappointment to me.

“I suppose Janice will want to come to take photos of it all,” I said dejectedly.

Hugo grinned. “Why don’t you suggest it to her?” he said meanly.

“I will,” I assured him.

Johnny pretended not to notice the undercurrents that lurked behind the exchange. “I’m going to brew up some coffee while you’re making outthe list of the things you need,” he said lightly. “Shall we all go up to the compound?”

He pulled me away, taking me firmly by the arm and smiling pleasantly all the time. “It’s not his fault,” he said as soon as we were out ofearshot.

“No,” I agreed, unconvinced.

“Then why make it difficult for him?” he asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m not!” I said sulkily. “The thing is that he doesn’t want me to stay!”

Johnny laughed. “Unbelievable!”

I gave him a grudging smile. “I know I’m not being reasonable—” I began to explain.

“Oh, quite reasonable!”

I was shocked. “What do you mean?”

“Stands out half a mile,” he said with brotherly frankness. “It’s not so much the lions, it’s Hugo!”

I swallowed hard. “I don’t think that’s true,” I said more to myself than to him.

“Well, if you ask me, you’re in love with the guy,” he went on in matter-of-fact tones.

I blenched. “Nobody is asking you!” I retorted.

“And,” he continued, ignoring my complaint, “as Hugo isn’t blind, I daresay he knows it too!”

“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, much struck. “I really believe that you’re going to recommend kuheera too!”

Johnny laughed. “I might—if I knew what it meant!” There was a moment’s silence. “Aren’t you going to tell me what it means?” he asked atlast.

I shook my head. “No,” I said bluntly.

He grinned. “I’ll have to ask Hugo about it,” he teased me.

“If you do,” I threatened, much put out, “I’ll never speak to you again!”

We had reached the compound by this time and Johnny went straight to the shop to purchase some instant coffee. Apparently he thought thewhole thing was extremely amusing, but he said with a kindness I had not expected, “Then I won’t And as a bonus I won’t tell Janice either!”

I didn’t need to ask what he meant by that. I helped him light the small blue camping gas fire and set the tin kettle on to boil, annoyed that myhands were trembling as I did so.

“Men have all the fun!” I said bitterly.

Johnny’s eyes glinted behind his spectacles. “I wouldn’t be too sure!” he said blandly.

By the time Hugo and the askaris joined us, the kettle was boiling and I felt no more than slightly awkward in Hugo’s presence.

“I’m sorry it has to be like that,” he said as he accepted his mug of coffee.

I gave him a cheerful grin. “It doesn’t matter.”

He leaned forward slightly. “Shall I fly back with you? I could collect my own gear and come back with Johnny tomorrow?”

“There will be less room for the gear,” I reminded him smugly.

His eyes lit. “It might be worth it!”

But I shook my head. ‘You’d better save your energies to deal with the Old Man,” I told him sharply.

“All right,” he agreed. “On your own head be it!” Johnny and I walked back to the aeroplane alone. I had some difficulty getting into the cockpitand when I was there I could hardly see the seat belt properly for the unaccountable tears that had come, unbidden, into my eyes. Johnny satdown heavily in his own seat. He started up the engines and settled more comfortably before the panel of dials and gadgets with which he flewthe plane. We went slowly forward, increased our pace and lifted gently into the air. Aruba fell away behind us. There was no reason, I thoughtdully, why I should ever see the place again.

Johnny was unnaturally cheerful once we had got into the air.

“Do you want to make a small diversion?” he asked me over the intercom. “We could take a look along the river and see if we can spot any morelions coming in.”

“All right,” I said without enthusiasm.

He banked sharply. It did something dreadful to my stomach. I concentrated hard on keeping my body and soul together, with my eyes shutfast. My earphones clicked, or it could have been my ears, and then Johnny’s voice came again.

“Hey! Clare, take a look over there!”

“Where?” I asked sharply. My stomach no longer seemed to matter to me. I stared out of the window, but I could see nothing but brush and anoccasional animal taking shelter from the heat.

“Bloody poachers!” exclaimed Johnny.

"What?” I exploded, intensely excited.

“Sorry! Poachers! Look at ’em! They’ve got something too! Hold on, Clare, I’m going down to look!”

He put the nose down and we dropped down out of the sky, buzzing the practically naked group of men below us. One of them threw a spear atus, a pathetic attempt to make us go away. The rest of them scattered, running here and there to escape us.

“I’ll have to go back to Aruba,” Johnny said clearly. “Hugo will have to know about this.”

I blinked. “But the elephant is still alive,” I gasped.

Johnny snorted angrily. “Butchers! I’ll see them caught if it’s the last thing I do!”

We banked sharply upwards and I had to twist my head to see the writhing elephant that the poachers had brought down but had not managedto finish off. It had the most enormous tusks of any that I had ever seen. A huge beast—he must have stood a good twenty feet high at theshoulder—he trumpeted in agony.

“If I had a gun!” said Johnny sharply.

“I feel a bit murderous myself,” I replied, marvelling that I should sound so calm.

A second later we were falling out of the sky again. The scattered poachers were feeling braver and they stood in a line, defying us as wehurtled towards them.

“It’s no good,” Johnny said reluctantly. “I’ll radio Hugo and tell him to be ready for us.”

It was a nightmare flight back to Aruba. Johnny threw the plane through the air, making me feel decidedly sick. His face was tense and bitter aswe came in to land, and there, almost to my surprise, Hugo stood waiting for us. It seemed to me that we had barely landed before we hadtaken off again, a grimfaced Hugo and a couple of rifles vying with my shins for the totally inadequate leg-room in front of our shared narrowseat.

CHAPTER SIX

JOHNNY set the plane down not far from the dying elephant. Hugo dropped down on to the ground and turned to reach up for the heavier ofthe two rifles.

“I’ll have to put the beast out of its misery,” he said darkly. The trumpeting cries of the dying elephant were almost unbearable to all of us.

I watched him load the rifle with a sinking feeling. How could people be so cruel as to murder this massive animal for its ivory? I could havewept. An elephant will live for sixty years, and there are few enough left, God knows, and yet it only took a second to bring down such ananimal. How could they?

Hugo walked away from the aircraft towards the elephant. I grabbed the other rifle and jumped down on to the ground behind him. Withoutturning his head he reached out his spare hand to me and drew me close in behind him.

“You won’t like this,” was all he said.

“But it has to be done,” I consoled him.

He stood stock still, some yards away from the elephant. The muscles in his neck stood out as he raised the rifle. Carefully, he took aim. He

knew exactly what he was doing. The shot cracked through the air and smacked into the elephant. There was a long, last sigh of breath andthen there was nothing but a great mountain of flesh. Hugo took a few cautious steps towards the dead animal, making sure that it was indeeddead. I followed at an even more cautious distance, marvelling that any animal could be so big. It was quite as big as some of the African housesthat spread throughout the country.

“They’ll come back for the ivory, we’ll catch them then,” Hugo said in an unnaturally calm voice.

I gritted my teeth together. There was a great gash on the elephant’s shoulder where a spear had hit home. There was another behind thegreat beast’s ear which was already covered with flies.

“They’ll see the aeroplane,” I argued.

Hugo looked at me. “Johnny will have to go on to the camp.

The lions won’t wait—even for poachers.”

My spirits lifted dramatically. I clutched the rifle I was holding closer to me. “I shall have to stay, won’t I?” I said.

Hugo’s face was completely enigmatic. He might have been playing poker. “Can you shoot that thing?” he asked.

I nodded. I didn’t want to actually tell a lie and the truth of the matter was that I wasn’t at all sure.

“Good,” he said.

I felt decidedly weak at the knees. I could hardly believe that I was to stay after all, that I didn’t have to go back to camp. It was indeed good!Hugo walked back to the aeroplane.

“We’ll have to wait here,” he called up to Johnny. “Hang on a second, I’m coming aboard to collect a few garments and any food you have.”

“I haven’t got much,” Johnny answered.

Hugo made a face. “I should have brought some supplies with me. Never mind, some askaris will be coming as soon as they can get thetransport organised. Get back to the camp as fast as you can, Johnny. We’ll need the gear first thing in the morning. We should have coped withthese fellows all right by then.”

Johnny gave him the thumbs-up signal to show that he had understood. I watched Hugo clamber on board. He threw out a couple of heavycoats, a Red Cross box, and a packet of American rusks that Johnny took with him wherever he went. A minute later his head appeared.

“Here, catch!” he called to me.

I reached up and accepted the cold box. It was quite heavy and was therefore gratifyingly full of cold drinks. It gave me great confidence toknow that whatever else might happen, at least we wouldn’t go thirsty.

Hugo came down out of the plane again. Johnny roared the engines while we hurried away to a safe distance. The plane shook violently, shotforward, and took off in a cloud of red dust. When it had gone out of sight, we were completely alone in an empty world.

Hugo looked about us. “I think that tree will do—”

I looked where he was pointing. If there was one thing I hated, it was climbing trees! “Up that?” I said faintly.

Hugo grinned. “I’ll look after you!” he promised.

It was, after all, not a very difficult tree to climb. It had convenient, sticky-out branches that allowed me to get right up amongst the new greenleaves at the top. It was another matter to find a comfortable perch for myself when I was there, but I did the best I could, rolling up one of thecoats as a makeshift cushion.

Hugo made a complete circular tour of the tree, bidding me hide the cold box better and making one or two adjustments to his own hiding placebefore he climbed up into it.

“Not bad,” he said, as he wedged himself firmly into position. “Let’s hope they’re not too long. I have a feeling that we shall get cramp if we’rehere for the night.”

I prised open the cold box. “Have a beer?” I suggested.

He accepted a Tusker lager, opening it with a gadget attached to the knife he wore at his belt. “What are you having?” he asked.

I giggled. There was something quite idiotic about our position, miles from anywhere, lying in wait for dangerous men, sitting in a tree andswigging beer.

“I don’t like beer much,” I said. “I think I’ll have a Fanta.” I passed a bottle of fizzy orange over for him to open it. It was deliciously cool todrink, sliding down my throat. I was beginning to enjoy myself.

“Where did you learn to shoot?” Hugo asked me. “Did your father teach you?”

I squinted down to the rifle I was looking after. “I suppose,” I said, “that if anyone taught me, it was Martin—”

“Oh!” said Hugo.

“It was self-defence!” I said hotly. “Kate turned out to be a natural shot and that put all the Freeman men on the defensive. Martin used tospend hours practising every day!” “And you with him?” Hugo suggested sweetly.

I blushed. “Not exactly,” I said.

He gave me a mocking glance. “What were you doing then?”

“Well,” I began, “to be quite honest, I’m not much good with any gun—”

“Now she tells me!”

“So,” I continued bravely, “nobody was prepared to waste much ammunition on me.”

“In fact,” Hugo said witheringly, “you don’t know how to fire the thing?”

“Oh yes!” I assured him eagerly. “You point it and then you pull the trigger!”

He closed his eyes in horror. “You squeeze the trigger! Very gently! And without shutting your eyes!”

“Well, I expect I can do that too!”

“My dear girl, I shouldn’t expect anything of the sort!”

I grinned. “There’s no need to be unkind,” I reproved him. “Doubtless, when I’m frightened enough I shall be capable of anything!”

“Doubtless!” he groaned. “I only hope you can restrain yourself from shooting me!”

“I’ll do my best,” I reassured him kindly. “Anyway, I’m sure you’re more than able to defend yourself. Your rifle is bigger than mine!”

He groaned again. “Have you never seen a .416 rifle?”

“No,” I admitted, “I don’t think I ever have. Is that what you used on the elephant? I suppose it would make rather a mess of a man.”

He finished the last of his beer and disposed of the bottle in a convenient hole in the tree.

“The idea,” he said gently, “is not to murder these ignorant butchers, but to arrest them and train them to better things.”

I raised my chin, quite prepared to argue the point. “They murdered that elephant,” I said.

“Granted, my love. But the guilty men are sitting safely on the coast, making all the money.”

Enchanted by this form of address, I was silent. I glanced down at my watch and saw that it was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon. If thepoachers were waiting for the cover of darkness before they came back to the scene of the crime, we were in for a long wait and my legs, fromthe knees downwards, had already gone to sleep. But nothing would have induced me

to complain about our position. Hugo, I thought, had enough to put up with without having a moaning female companion as well.

It is possible to see further in the evening light. The glare is less hurtful to the eyes, and a warm, golden glow takes possession of the land. Frommy perch in the tree, I thought I could see about twenty-five miles, perhaps more, in any given direction and, wherever I could see, I could seethe trees felled and stripped of their bark by the elephants. It could only be a matter of time before they ate themselves out of their own home.I said as much to Hugo.

“You’re probably right,” he said. “It began with the railway, so they say. The elephants helped themselves at night to the water that was keptbeside the lines for the steam engines. This meant that they didn’t have to migrate to other feeding grounds to find water. The worst of it isthat we’ve made matters worse by creating all these artificial water-holes in Tsavo. The land never gets a rest.”

“So what’s the answer?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. We may have to close down the water-holes at certain times of the year to force the elephants out of the park. Itmight help, but it certainly wouldn’t if they all get killed the moment they go outside. That’s why your father’s attitude, and other farmers likehim, is so hopeful to their future.”

I smiled and stretched my aching limbs. ‘You’d like my father,” I said.

“Would I?” He sounded amused.

“I think so. On the surface he has more in common with Mr. Doffnang, but underneath he has more in common with you.”

Hugo grunted. “I’m intrigued,” he said.

I wondered if it would be greedy to help myself to another cold drink and decided that it would. “On the surface,” I said with love, “he has adeep distrust of anything attractive, but he has flashes of brilliance which he thinks are obvious to anyone. Only you can’t be sure which thingshe will mistrust and which he will welcome. But underneath—” I hesitated, considering the problem. “Underneath he is a part of all Africa. Hesays that anything natural can’t be wrong, that all we need is space to live and the ground under our feet. He should have had sons, like theBoer that he is, but he only had me.”

“And you think I’m like that?” Hugo put in.

I blushed. I had forgotten that I had made the comparison. “A bit,” I said. ‘You’re part of Africa too.”

He gave me a surprised, flattered look. “I certainly ought to have lusty sons around me at this moment, instead of only you!” he teased me.

I looked away, hotly embarrassed. “You’ll have to get married first.”

His laughter rang out across the empty land. “So I will! But raw Africa is harder on a woman than it is on a man—”

“The dominant male?” I murmured.

“Not exactly. But it isn’t like living in Nairobi or Mombasa, is it?”

I chuckled, “Praise be for that!”

He gave me a quick look of interest but said nothing. The time could not have gone slower. I tried swinging my legs and was rewarded by thesharp prick of pins and needles in my feet. At last the light was beginning to fade and an orange glow had seized the sky, broken only by thesilhouettes of the surrounding vegetation.

The vultures still circled over the dead elephant and other scavengers, led by a pack of hyenas, began to move in. Otherwise we had no visitorsbeyond a single rhinoceros who was feeding on the tasty thorn trees below. The grinding of his teeth on the thorns was clearly audible, but hewas far too myopic to spot us. Only when he moved down-wind did he scent that there was something strange about our tree. He camecharging up to within a few feet of us and then stopped, pawing the ground in front of him. He was uncertain now and relying on his senses ofsmell and hearing to help him overcome the handicap of his nearly blind eyes. He stormed away, sniffed | he air, his ears twitching, thencharged back again towards the tree.

“Damn,” said Hugo. “If anyone is watching, he’ll give our position away.”

Although he had spoken in a whisper, the rhinoceros had heard him. He drove his horn into the tree and retired angrily to a discreet distance.Then his contempt for us overcame his prudence. He turned his back on the tree and expelled a powerful jet of urine over the base of the treefrom about twelve feet away. This done, he trotted off into the bush, apparently well content that we were of no immediate danger to him.

Hugo and I gave a sigh of relief. It was now practically dark. Only a faint light over the western horizon showed where the sun had set. Thestrange sounds of the night had already started. A bush-baby’s eerie cry rang out quite close by, nearly dislodging me from my perch. I couldfeel my pulse beating madly and the odd pricking sensation on the back of my hands that fright produces.

“Hush!” Hugo whispered harshly.

I listened more frantically to the sounds all about us, wondering what he could have heard. The butt of the rifle rested comfortably in my groinand it occurred to me that I had no idea whether it was loaded or not. It was too late to ask Hugo though, for now I too could hear some muffledfootsteps coming towards us, signalled by the call of an owl that was too perfect to be real.

I sat up sharply, suddenly cold. Now that the moment had come, I wished myself anywhere but where I was. I was frightened! I stared out intothe darkness, knowing that the poachers were coming closer, but quite unable to see anything at all. They would see us more easily, I thought,for our skins were white. The tree seemed a very fragile protection against their sharp eyes.

Hugo was apparently unmoved. There was no movement at all from his side of the tree, but I knew his eyes were fixed on the dead hulk of theelephant, waiting, waiting for what? They were there! I knew they were there, so why didn’t he do something? Was he going to go on waitinguntil they had seized the ivory and departed?

It seemed not. His muscles were tensed as hard as the tree in which he sat. Then slowly, very, very slowly, he took a strong grip on the boughin front of him and, completely silently, dropped down on to the ground below.

If I had been frightened before, I was now scared stiff. I hugged my rifle to me, fondly imagining that I was going to give

Hugo some kind of cover as he moved forward. But he didn’t move at all. Beyond him, I too could see the corpse of the elephant. I could smell ittoo. The strong smell of elephant mixed with the already rotting flesh where the flies had been at work round the wounds that the poachers’spears had made in the thick grey skin.

Then, from nowhere, came the poachers. They walked steadily in a line, one behind the other, dressed in torn shorts and singlets, a few with ablanket tied at the corners around their shoulders. They were armed with the weapons of a former age: bows and arrows; long-bladed spears;and the all-purpose machete, used for digging, fighting or gardening, the panga. Hugo was undoubtedly right. The guilty men were the richones, making all the money while they sat on the coast, secure behind their cover of genuine businesses that hid their remorseless greed. Thesewere the fools, dazzled by the colour of the coins they would never see, exploited as surely as the poor animals they murdered.

The men stopped a few yards away from the elephant. There was a moment’s discussion as they noticed the circle of hyenas, snarling dares ateach other to close in on the dead beast, but united in resisting any attempt by the poachers to take their meal away from them. Hyenas look socowardly—they are often mistaken for such, but they have unlooked-for depths when they are attacked and it was clear that the poachers wereunwilling to tangle with them.

The endless African discussion went on and on. The rise and fall of their voices was a natural part of their way of doing things. All would beheard. All would give lengthy advice as to what they should do. They would begin with the youngest amongst them and end with the eldestbefore any decision would be made. This, I thought, was my opportunity to follow Hugo down on to the ground. Gently, I rocked backwards andforwards, hoping to restore the circulation to my legs. I was not as neat as Hugo had been, but somehow I scrambled down on to the ground,still clutching the rifle to me. My foot scraped against the bark of the tree, but none of the poachers even looked round. Hugo did, though. Hemade a quick gesture for me to come up behind him.

“Wait,” he breathed. “Wait until they actually close in. We’ve got to get them with the goods in their hands.”

I nodded breathlessly, sure that they would have heard him speak, but they went on talking as before. Hugo crept a little closer with mefollowing behind in his footprints. If the Africans didn’t hear us, the hyenas were sure to, I thought anxiously. I slipped the safety catch off therifle, scarcely aware that I was doing so. A twig broke beneath my feet and the bush-baby’s eerie howl echoed once more around us.

I held my breath. One of the poachers, losing interest in the talk of the others, raised his spear and threatened the leader of the hyena pack.The animal snarled back at him, edging closer to the group of men. The man lost his nerve and threw his spear at the angry beast. The hyenahowled in agony, but it kept on coming. I thought it would pull the man down and raised the rifle to my shoulder, keeping the hyena in mysights. The hyena sprang and I fired. The rifle kicked back into my shoulder painfully, but I held on to it as though my life depended on it. Thehyena fell back dead and the rest of the pack began to ooze away into the darkness where they turned again to face this unknown menace. Icould see their eyes shining in the darkness, completely ringing the dead mound of elephant, the Africans, Hugo and I.

Surprisingly, I was no longer as afraid as I had been. The poachers, startled by the rifle shot, looked almost ridiculous as they stared throughthe darkness to where we were standing. One of them called out something in a dialect that I couldn’t understand. Hugo answered him, quietly,an attractive lilt to his voice that I found soothing. He advanced a few steps, his rifle in one hand and a torch in the other. He flashed the light intheir faces and said, quite gently, that they were to come closer.

The men were undecided. They clung together, assessing the situation in their minds. I stepped bravely out beside Hugo, my rifle at the ready,though nothing would have induced me to use it again.

“You will not use an elephant gun on a man,” the leader of the poachers said nervously to Hugo.

“No,” Hugo agreed.

“But the memsahib will use her gun?”

Hugo’s lips twitched. “I hope not,” he said. I could only wonder at his strange sense of humour that could allow him to joke at a time like this.

The man pointed towards the hyena. “Why did she kill that?” His brow crinkled in the light from the torch. “It is known that animals are

protected in this place.”

“Would you rather I had allowed the hyena to kill one of you?” I asked indignantly, unable to keep silent a minute longer.

“It is still against the law to kill the animals in the park,” the man retorted.

Hugo looked grim. “I have the necessary authority,” he snapped. “What authority did you have for killing this elephant?”

The poacher looked completely blank. “I?” he repeated. “I know nothing of any elephant.”

“But I saw you!” I accused him hotly. “I saw you from an aeroplane! I recognise your blanket!” This made him angry. Apparently he was notprepared to deny that he knew anything about the aeroplane. The coming of the plane was the one thing he had not allowed for in his plans.Perhaps he thought we had taken photographs of them all, I don’t know, but angry he certainly was. He waved his spear about in the air andcursed us thoroughly in his own peculiar dialect.

“Put down your weapons,” Hugo said sternly. “I’m arresting the lot of you for poaching. Now! Put down your weapons!”

There was a clatter of wood against steel as the men did so. All except one. Too late, I saw their leader wave his spear in the air one last timeand, with a perfectly balanced movement of his body, fling the spear in my direction. I ducked out of instinct, but I was too late to getcompletely out of the way. It caught me on my upper left arm. The force of the weapon pushed me off balance and I collapsed backwards on tothe ground. At the same moment I must have pulled the trigger of the rifle, for there was a shattering roar, followed by a blaze of light and agreat deal of hustling and bustling that meant nothing to me. I rather think I must have fainted.

The lights turned out to be headlights. They cast long shadows all round me, shadows that were frightening and suspect to my bewildered stateof mind.

“Where did they come from?” I pleaded with anyone to tell me.

“Johnny sent them,” Hugo answered. He was so close that I could have reached out a hand and touched him. “Apparently they thought the rifleshot was a signal for them to show themselves.”

I lost interest rapidly, aware only of a nagging ache in my arm. “Hugo,” I said, “don’t go away!”

“I won’t,” he said comfortably.

My mind cleared a little and I tried to move, but the spear was still effectively pinning me to the ground. “I can’t move!” I cried out.

Yes, you can,” he retorted with scant sympathy. “You daft female! Whatever induced you to start an argument like that?” I was breathlesswith the injustice of it all.

“Indeed?” I said fiercely. “He was going to get away with it! You couldn’t have identified him!”

“There wasn’t the slightest necessity to identify anyone at that particular moment,” he answered with impeccable logic. “You’d better hold myhand, my sweet, because I’m about to hurt you rather badly. Are you ready?”

“I’ll do it myself!” I said childishly.

“And deny me my best sadistic impulses?” he demanded. “Not on your life!”

I had always known he was a brute, but that didn’t prevent me from holding his hand as if my life depended on it. I heard him say thatsomeone had better hold my arm and I was astonished when it was Katundi—where had he come from?— whose gentle black hands held mesteady while Hugo drew out the spear with a single, sharp movement.

“Ah, mama, you must be brave in the eyes of your man,” Katundi whispered, dismayed by my yelp of pain.

Hugo grinned down at me. “Well, well,” he said.

I wished I were dead.

“I’m sorry, my love,” he went on in quite different tones, “but I shall have to clean the wound.” He gave Katundi some detailed instructions asto what to do and then, opening a flask, he poured what smelt like whisky into the bloody gash in my arm.

It was the most agonising moment of my life.

When it was over, he was kind. He pushed Katundi out of the way and hugged me tightly to him. “There, there, my darling. It’s all over now!”

I wept bitterly. “Much you care!” I sobbed.

I could feel his laughter. “I care,” he said dryly. “Even if it was all your own fault!”

I pulled myself away from him. “I might have known you’d find something beastly to say!” I stormed at him. I made an attempt to get up, for Ifelt at a distinct disadvantage, reclining on the ground at his feet. My knees felt as though they weren’t there and I was sure that I had brokenevery bone in my body.

My distress was only equalled by my astonishment as I looked about me. There must have been half a dozen vehicles ringing the tree where wehad spent the greater part of the afternoon. Askaris, uniformed and looking very official, swarmed everywhere. And there, in the centre of allthe fuss, was Janice, calmly taking photographs of everything in sight. “Katundi brought her,” Hugo told me. “Very lucky for you!”

I watched the blood oozing out of my arm with a fascinated interest. “Why?” I asked him.

“Because, my love, when I’ve bound you up, they’re going to take you to Voi Safari Lodge for a good night’s sleep. They have a doctor there andyour arm can be properly attended to.”

I felt cold inside “I won’t go!” I said.

“Why not?” he shot back. Something in my expression must have told him, for he went on abruptly: “I can’t come with you. Johnny will be backin the morning and I have to deal with the lions—”

“Who wants you?” I said lightly.

He had found a bandage in the Red Cross Box we had taken from the aeroplane and he set about bandaging up my arm with calm efficiency.When he had done, he took one last look at me and called to Katundi.

“Help Memsahib into the car,” he ordered briefly. “Then take her and memsahib Kemp to Voi Lodge.”

I was quite glad to get into the nearest Landcruiser. I was shaking with sheer reaction to the ordeal I had been through. I thought I was goingto be sick, but Hugo brought me some whisky and stood over me until I had swallowed about half of what he had left in the flask. I no longer feltsick after that, but my brain felt more woolly than ever.

Janice jumped into the back of the Landcruiser, delightedly laughing at something Hugo had said to her.

“I’ll look after her,” she said.

“I don’t need any looking after!” I protested wearily. The askaris were pushing the poachers into special vehicles that were caged in at the backand the hyenas were still howling in the background. “Did you get some good photos?” I asked dully.

“Not bad,” she said in triumph, “not bad at all!”

Katundi climbed into the driving seat and started up the engine. He gave me a quick, searching look. “Try to sleep, mama, it’s only a few miles.”

I tried to smile back at him, failed miserably, and slumped back into my seat, shutting my eyes so that I could be miserable in peace. So I wasnot aware that Hugo had leaned into the car until I felt his lips hard on mine.

“That’s to give you something to think about until I next see you!” he said.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Safari Lodge at Voi was the dream realisation of what we hoped Chui Lodge was going to be. We arrived in darkness, so I had no idea ofwhat the surroundings were like, and anyway, I was too sore and tired to care. But I could not ignore the sheer beauty of the reception area,round in shape, with odd pieces of the living rock left to give interest and contrast to the polished stone floor. Away to the left were the diningroom and bar. To the right were the bedrooms, so designed that each one had the same spectacular view across miles and miles of red earthand bush. In the front of the Lodge the ground fell away in an almost perpendicular descent at the bottom of which were two artificialwaterholes to attract the animals.

Katundi helped me down the steps, rather pleased by the immediate interest we caused amongst the guests and reception staff alike. Janice,however, was not amused. She swept up to the desk and collared the nearest blue-coated receptionist.

“My friend needs a room and a doctor,” she announced in ringing tones. “And I need a room and a bath!”

Almost before I was aware, she had gathered up the keys of our rooms and had whisked me away up the stairs and along the passage to thenearer of the two rooms. Here, too, she was unexpectedly efficient.

“I brought a nightdress with me. It looks as though you’d better wear it, though—at least until you’ve seen the doctor! Can you manage? Or doyou want some help?”

I thought I would be able to manage. I struggled out of my clothes, the effort making my arm start to bleed again. When I looked down at thesodden bandage round my arm, I felt slightly sick. But at least I was ready and a bit cleaner, even if I couldn’t have the bath that I longed for,and I slipped into bed.

I was not much too soon. Janice returned with the doctor. I remember being surprised that he was a European, but his hands were gentle.

“This is a nasty mess you’ve got yourself into, Miss deJong. But don’t worry, someone did a good job of patching you up, and I’ll give yousomething to take the pain away.”

He was as good as his word. With fresh bandages and a shot of something that made me feel sleepy, if almost as good as new, I revelled in thecomfort of the bed, which was sheer bliss after the one I had at the camp.

“Will it leave a bad scar?” Janice asked the doctor on my behalf.

“It will not be so bad,” he grunted. “It will show, of course, if you wear a sleeveless dress.” He smiled down at me. “It’s an honourable wound! Ithink you may be proud of it!”

I winced. “Hugo said it was all my own fault!”

“He did? He was probably hiding his worry for you.”

“That’s all you know!” I said grimly.

The doctor laughed. “Be reasonable, Miss deJong. How could you know that the fellow was going to fling a spear at you?”

Slightly mollified, I relaxed against the pillows. “The maddening thing is that he was right!” I sighed. “Have you ever known anyone who wasalways right?”

“I can’t say that I have,” he said with a smile.

“Then you don’t know Hugo Canning,” I said.

The doctor shook his head at me. “But I know of him, Miss deJong. He is a charming man from all accounts.”

“Oh yes!” I agreed eagerly. “He’s a charming man, besides being brave and handsome and everything one could wish! And completelyungallant!”

The doctor’s eyes twinkled. “I believe you’re feeling better already,” he said with satisfaction. “But you would do well to spend a very quiet daytomorrow. Would you like me to contact the camp to tell them you won’t be back until Tuesday?”

Janice was pleased by the offer. “She’ll be all right, won’t she, doctor?” she fussed.

“Oh yes!” he answered. “Mr. Canning did a good job. It’s a nice clean wound that won’t take long to heal. Miss deJong is young and healthy—”

“And cross?” Janice drawled. “You don’t want to pay any attention to her, doctor. Mr. Canning is more than kind to both of us. He couldn’t bekinder if we were his sisters!”

Seeing the surprised look on the doctor’s face, I could have killed her there and then, but there was nothing to do except grin and bear thesudden look of solicitude the doctor gave me. I could almost hear him thinking, So it’s like that!

“Speak for yourself!” I growled at Janice. “I can very well do without Mr. Canning’s brotherly concern!”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Clare!” she exclaimed.

I blushed. “I think I’m going to sleep,” I said defensively. “Goodnight, all.”

The doctor patted my hand comfortingly. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he said tactfully. “I’m sure Miss Kemp will have some food sent up toyou if you’re hungry. Goodnight.”

I was more than hungry, I was starving! I remembered with a new sense of grievance that I had had nothing more than a Fanta since breakfasttime.

“Oh, Janice, could you?” I asked her, as soon as the doctor had gone. “Do you mind going in to the dining room on your own?” I added. “I couldget up and come with you, if you like?” “I don’t like!” she flashed back. “If you think I want your putty-coloured face looking at me over thedinner table—” She broke off. “Oh, Clare! Hugo Canning will hurt you badly if you let him! ”

I nodded gravely. “I know,” I admitted wearily.

“Well then?” she prompted me.

“Well nothing!” I said flatly. “Nothing looks particularly well to me just now!”

“Are you in love with Hugo?” she asked me gently.

I shrugged, and winced away from the pain in my arm. “Does it matter?”

Tears welled up into her eyes. “I feel sorry for you!” she exclaimed. “I know how unkind Hugo can be! Especially when he knows he has anadvantage over one. Oh, Clare! He doesn’t care how miserable he makes one feel!”

I stared at her. “Probably not,” I said dryly.

“Believe me,” she said, “I know!”

I wondered if she really did. I shrugged again and uttered a yelp of pain. I never learn anything easily.

“Janice, I’m starving,” I said as casually as I could. “Please, could you go and eat?”

“Oh, all right,” she said ungraciously. “But I do think someone ought to warn you—”

“Everybody has warned me,” I told her in a voice I scarcely recognised as my own. “Kate Freeman warned me, you warned me, even Katundi,in his own way, warned me! I just wish you’d all leave me alone!”

Janice looked hurt. “Very well, if that’s what you want, but don’t blame me when you get hurt!”

“I won’t,” I promised. “If I get hurt.”

She gave me a look that withered the small burgeoning hope that had been within me ever since Hugo had kissed me. “You’re a nice girl, Clare—”

“And Hugo isn’t nice?”

She hesitated. “I wouldn’t say that ” she said at last. “But it isn’t the first description of him that comes to my mind!” She shut the door with asharp click behind her and I sighed with relief at her going. I felt decidedly ill and sore, and wretched! Nice wasn’t the first description of Hugothat came

to my mind either. I could think of others that made my heart thump and took my breath away. The blood of my ancestors had often been atwar in my veins, but now both Boer and English clamoured to be heard and to answer Hugo’s lightest touch. It was a humiliation that I wasn’tprepared to tolerate. I’d show him, I thought with gritted teeth. I’d show him! I was every bit as free as he! And every bit as proud! If he couldkiss and walk away, why, so could I! And if I had any doubts about the matter, I’d never, never let him see. In a long history, no deJong hadever been accused of cowardice in the face of the enemy!

There was no sign of the enemy the next day. It was, on the contrary, a very happy day, and I was pleased to discover that my worst fears hadnot been realised: I was still able to enjoy all sorts of things without any memory of Hugo even crossing my mind.

To begin with, it was a lovely day. The sunshine came slowly, dispelling the grey clouds of the night with slanting pillars of light that diffusedinto full sunlight, leaving only the white, fluffy clouds that were always hanging round the horizon or chasing one another in the thermal windsthat came and went across the plains.

The doctor came and went early, pronouncing that the wound in my arm had completely stopped bleeding and was already beginning to heal.

“It won’t be any hardship to you to sit around here for a day, will it?” he teased me. “Tomorrow, we shall see about your going back to camp!”

I thanked him, well pleased with his prescription. I had never been anywhere more beautiful than this fantastic hotel and I was more thancontent to sit on one of the comfortable chairs, under cover and yet in the open, much like being on a terrace, watching the olive baboonsclimbing up and down the rock face just below us, playing with their young, and grooming one another with that intensity of purpose they sharewith all the monkey family.

Katundi came in with Janice to have a cup of coffee in the middle of the morning. We fell naturally into speaking Swahili because of his presence,which put Janice at a disadvantage, for

she didn’t speak it at all well.

“You look better, mama,’’ Katundi told me.

I grinned at him. “I feel better! It will be quite a come down to go back to work tomorrow!”

Katundi’s eyes glowed. He was well aware that he too was getting a holiday out of my misadventure. “It would be perfect if the Bwana werehere,” he said slyly.

“That’s part of the rest cure!” I retorted.

But nothing would persuade Katundi that I was serious. “Have you seen many animals today?” he asked me, jerking his head towards thewaterholes below us.

“There was a hartebeeste just now,” I said. “And warthogs galore, and the baboons that seem to live here.”

“Last night some rhino came,” he told me.

I leaned forward, interested. “Perhaps they will again tonight!”

He gave the long grunt that all Africans use to show that they are still in the conversation even if they have nothing at that particular momentto say. And I answered it with my own “Ayeeh,” as was only polite.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” said Janice.

“Look!” Katundi breathed, his eyes widening. “Look, now!”

“What is it?” I asked him carelessly, turning to where he pointed.

“Duma!" he exclaimed.

“It’s a leopard!” Janice shrieked, jumping up and down in her chair.

“It’s a cheetah,” I said slowly. “It’s too big to be a leopard. Isn’t it splendid?”

“I envy it its coat!” Janice murmured.

There was a short, horrified silence. “How could you?” I demanded hotly. “How could you?”

“Easily,” Janice assured me, laughing. “Be honest! Wouldn’t you love to have a coat like that?”

“No!” I said shortly.

“You’re too good to be true!” she retorted sharply.

“I’m not!” I stormed back, equally angry. I could have wept with sheer indignation on the animals’ behalf. “It’s because of you that they’redying out!”

“Hardly me personally,” she said reasonably. “I couldn’t afford so much as a fur stole!”

“Good!”

Janice gave me a curious look. “I can’t think why you get so steamed up about it,” she remarked. “I should think this country must have madea good thing from selling skins to the markets of the world.”

“How can you say so? Only the poachers make any money! It would be a tragedy if these animals were to cease to exist! Who would come to aplace like this then?”

“Other countries find other reasons for tourists,” Janice argued.

“But tourism is the second largest feature of the whole economy here,” I pointed out. “What else would they come for?”

But Janice was already bored by the whole conversation. “What earns the most money?” she asked with a total lack of interest.

“Coffee,” I said.

Katundi handed me the binoculars he had been using. “Look!” he begged me. “I have never seen a larger or a better marked cheetah than thisone!”

I trained the lens in on the cheetah, marvelling at the way its shoulders swelled as it leaned forward to drink. All cats have much the samemovements when they move, but with the bigger cats their feline grace seems the more remarkable. Not that the cheetah is a true cat in everyway. They alone are unable to retract their claws, but have paws more like a dog’s. It is this that gives them their speed, for they are the fastestof all animals and can go for short periods as fast as sixty miles an hour.

The cheetah looked from left to right, stared up at the Lodge for a long moment, so that through the binoculars it looked as if it were lookingstraight at me, and then disappeared into the brush. So good was the camouflage of its spots that almost immediately I lost sight of it, and therest of the animal world, that had been holding their breath while it had been there, came back to life in a sudden cacophony of sound.

At dinner that evening there was a cool breeze blowing in from the plains. It was heavy with the smell of elephant and I knew that they werevery close to us. The four-ton animals came and went, making way for the two-ton rhinos who followed them closely. These were the blackrhino, with their prehensile upper lip. Watching them in the lights from the hotel, I was interested to see confirmed what I had been told in thestories of my childhood, that the rhinoceros will break up his own dung and, if short of certain minerals, will even eat it. The Africans in Kenyasay that it is out of respect for the elephants who resent finding dung as large as their own on the ground. Further south, they say that the rhinois always searching for the precious needle, given him by the gods to sew his armoured skin together, and long since lost.

That night I had a bath. It was bliss. After it, I slept like a log all night.

The jolting of the Landcruiser over the rough ground didn’t do my arm any good at all. Katundi drove as carefully as he could, easing right downwhen we came to the places where the rains had washed away the surfacing of the roughly made roads, leaving only the hardcore underneathand a mass of tangled weeds taking their short opportunity for life.

The dikdiks fled from before our path, leaping into the bush, their shy faces peering over their shoulders at us from the safety of theundergrowth. Otherwise there were few animals to be seen. I allowed my eyes to comb the land all about us, but there was little to see, exceptthe silver wrecks of the elephant-mauled trees and the red termite heaps that spread over the area like a rash.

It was a relief when we reached the short track of good road before we re-entered the Park and made our way to the camp. It was queer that ithad become so dear and familiar to me when it was only a few days since I had first seen it. Now, despite an aching arm and the wearyconsciousness that my job was to help Mr. Doffnang and not to catch poachers, it seemed like home.

The whole camp had come along the bank of the river to greet us. They stood and watched as we slithered into the water and crossed by thedevious path that would allow the vehicle to find enough grip to press forward through the brown, muddy waters. There was a faint cheer ofsatisfaction as we gained the other side, muted as their black faces watched mine closely to see if I were still feeling any pain. In their midststood Mr. Doffnang, his round flat face as cheerful as theirs.

“Are you well, meisje?”

I smiled at him. “Well enough,” I said. But I could not deceive him. The long drive had hurt me more than I knew. My face was grey, where ithad not been reddened by the dust, and there were dark circles beneath my eyes.

“It seems to me that they have not been looking after you,” he said crossly.

“Everyone was very kind,” I insisted.

His blue eyes flashed in Janice’s direction. “She was kind?” he mocked.

“Very kind!” I snapped back.

He looked surprised. “She was? She wasn’t pleased that Hugo should take you with him. You know that?”

“Ja,” I said briefly.

“Then why should she be kind—?”

Unwilling to continue this conversation, I changed the subject abruptly. “Have you managed to do anything about the road?” I asked him.

He nodded slowly. “We’ve made good progress today,” he said. He gave me a peculiar look. “I think you should go straight to your bed,” hesuggested.

It was an attractive idea. Janice came to my tent and changed the dressings for me. Her hands were surprisingly gentle and efficient, just as shehad been all along.

“What was the Dutchman saying about me?” she asked, as she re-bandaged my arm.

“I was telling him you had been kind to me,” I turned her question.

She made a face at me. “And he didn’t believe you?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” I demurred.

“Just as well,” she said lightly. “You’re a rotten liar, Clare deJong! Don’t mind me, tell the truth!”

“We-ell,” I began, “Hans Doffnang is a puritan—”

“And I’m not?”

I looked up at her almost timidly. “I don’t think so,” I said.

“Poor Hans,” she said.

I was glad when she had gone. The iron bedstead creaked horribly as I got into it, but it was still good to be home. I tried the radio for a while,but there was little to be heard in either English or Swahili. I was disappointed, for I had hoped to hear what had happened to the poachers. TheVoice of Kenya was silent on the subject, however, and there was nothing else in the news that really interested me. It was a relief whenKatundi brought my evening meal, making sure that I ate every bite of it.

“The Bwana is on the radio now,” he told me.

My heart made a dramatic dive within me. “Oh?” I said with studied indifference.

“They have captured the Mzee lion and driven the others away. They are bringing the Mzee here to let him loose. It is far from Aruba—” Heshook his head doubtfully.

“Far enough?” I asked him.

“I couldn’t say, mama. The Mzee has the wisdom of his blood.”

I chuckled. “And Hugo?”

“The Bwana too,” he agreed with an answering gleam. “But it is the Mzee who has roamed free in these lands all his life. He will answer the callof his kind. The hunting of the whole pride depends on him. It is his skill that makes the pride successful. The other lions look to him and hefeels the responsibility. It will not be easy to make him go here when he wants to go there!”

I thought about this for a while, pushing a piece of potato about my plate.

“When will they be home?” I asked at last.

“They will be here tomorrow. They must take the Mzee to the waterhole in the evening. He is not a woman to accept his food at a man’s hands.He must catch his own.”

I thought it was the lioness who made the killing,” I objected, nettled.

Katundi nodded. “But it is he that drives the food to her feet.”

When he was gone, I settled down to sleep. I turned off the light so that there was only the glow of the hurricane lamp outside to break up thedarkness. But I could not sleep. I was still awake when the electricity went off all over the camp. The noises of the night had their own dramaand on any other night I shouldn’t have minded lying awake and listening to them, the heartbeat of Africa. But that night I could only think ofHugo and the menacing lion. When I did sleep, I dreamed that they were stalking one another through the darkness— and I couldn’t be surethat it would be Hugo who would win. When I awoke, I was exhausted and cross, but the night was over and there was nothing else for it but toget up and begin the day.

It was astonishing the amount of work they had done on the site in the two days I had been away.

I had been expecting to find it much as I had left it, but it had been transformed. The road to the top had been completely levelled and drainedand was already in use. On the site itself, the foundations had at last been finished and the first of the concrete was being mixed, ready to pourit into the deep trenches provided. There was some doubt as to the wisdom of doing too much until the rains were over, but Hans Doffnang hadrigged up a cover over the trenches and the work was going speedily ahead. It almost seemed as if I were not needed by any of them. They hadmanaged extraordinarily well without me.

My confidence was slightly restored by Mr. Doffnang’s visible relief at finding me on the site.

“We have done good work, ja?” he gloated. “But now we need to get down to making better arrangements for the gangs of workers. Will you callall the foremen to come and see me at lunchtime? Then we can make good plans for the next stage.”

It was good to be working again. The meeting went remarkably well, despite certain tribal difficulties that no one would admit to, and we went along way towards ironing out a number of difficulties in organising the labour and sorting out which gang would do what when the actualbuilding began.

But by four o’clock I had had enough. My arm ached abysmally and I was more tired than I liked. It was not the normal, healthy physicalfatigue that I was accustomed to, albeit not often, but a prickly tiredness caused by lack of sleep and a constant, nagging sense of unhappiness.So when the whistle went, I was the first one to start off down the steep path towards the camp, even though I knew that Hans Doffnang wouldhave liked me to have stayed on while he walked round the site, examining the work of the day.

Karibu was waiting for me under the baobab tree. She trumpeted her glee the instant she set eyes on me, advancing at a smart trot that hadme sidestepping back and forth across the path, hoping to escape her. But Karibu was in no mood to stand any nonsense. She had missed mewhile I had been away and with unerring instinct she knew immediately that I had been hurt in some way. Her trunk fondled the back of myneck, her breath blowing down my back. She was very gentle. In no time at all she had caught a whiff of the disinfectant on my arm and sherumbled her alarm while she carefully examined every inch of my head and limbs.

“It’s all right, Karibu,” I whispered in her ear. “Hugo was with me.”

Her ears flapped back and forth at his name. There was no doubt that she was deeply upset. I put my hand on the base of her ear and gave it agentle tug.

“Come on,” I said to her. “Let’s walk along the river.”

So brave I had become! I hardly noticed the crocodiles along the bank and it never even occurred to me that I would be in danger fromanything else. With Karibu plodding along behind me, I felt completely safe.

It was partly by chance, therefore, that I was down by the ford when Hugo arrived home. Karibu heard the motor of the Landcruiser longbefore I did. She pawed at the ground and flapped her ears, bellowing a greeting at the top of her lungs. She was answered by the indistinct,defiant roar of a single lion.

The noise was exciting. I could feel it in my flesh, so animal was my own reaction to their cries. And then I saw the Landcruiser coming towardsus and I was jumping up and down and waving my arms in the air, just like a schoolgirl who had waited all night for a glimpse of her favouritepop star.

The Landcruiser dipped and skidded its way across the river, responding to every touch of Hugo’s capable hands. Then at last, with a final roarof the engine, the vehicle mounted the bank and came to a halt beside me.

I was bitterly aware of the last time I had seen him. I could almost feel his lips on mine, just as if there had been no intervening time betweenthen and now.

“Have you brought Mzee with you?” I asked, only for something to say, for I could see the great lion, caged but hardly defeated, in theLandcruiser that was coming along behind.

Hugo smiled. He looked amused. “I’m going to take him to the waterhole on the other side of Chui plateau and release him there. Do you wantto come?”

I nodded quickly, before he could change his mind. “Are you going straight away?”

He grinned. “I don’t like to see him caged,” he said.

I could understand that. I hurried into the seat beside him after giving Karibu a quick pat and a push, hoping that she would go back to thecamp. But the elephant had other ideas. She was not going to allow me to get away from her again. Hugo let in the clutch and the vehicle movedslowly forward.

“I’m afraid she’ll come with us,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter,” he reassured me. “If she gets tired, she’ll go home.”

The second Landcruiser gained the bank and followed us at a discreet distance as we encircled the rocky outcrop on which the new hotel wasbeing built. Mzee paced up and down the narrow confines of his cage, but he made little attempt to escape. Perhaps he had already discoveredthat he had no chance of getting away from his captors until they chose to release him.

“How are you going to let him go?” I asked. I was already

bothered by his brooding presence in the vehicle behind us.

“We’ll put the vehicles down wind of the waterhole, open the cage, and sit tight until he’s far enough away not to bother us.” ‘You make it soundso simple!” I sighed. “But won’t he remember?”

Hugo nodded grimly. “He’ll remember,” he agreed.

I didn’t like to press the point. I sat in silence while we went on in convoy to the waterhole. Karibu was still following us, more anxious than everfor my safety. She, at least, would come to no harm, I thought, for no lion would attack an elephant unless it was very small and without theprotection of the herd. Karibu, on the contrary, was getting quite big.

We stopped about a hundred yards away from the waterhole. Hugo tested the wind and directed the exact spot where the vehicles were tostand. Then he gave a signal and the driver of the second vehicle pulled a cord that opened up the cage in the back.

For a long moment Mzee stood without moving, his amber eyes, which were so like mine, staring out across the great plain in front of him.Then, with one bound, he was out of the cage and down on the ground. He never gave us so much as a backward look, but with quiet dignity hewalked away from us and into freedom.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THAT night we heard the lion roaring almost in the camp. It is hard to describe the great volume of sound that filled the air, carrying for milesin every direction. Other noises ceased in fright and there was silence as the king went by, a silence bred of fear and respect. Whatever we haddecided, I thought, the Mzee had not yet abandoned his pride.

In the morning a dead gazelle was found on the path that led up to the building site. Its eyes, glazed in death, had attracted a swarm of flies.Soon the vultures would arrive and there would be nothing left but a few bones whitening in the sun. When one thinks of the perfection ofcolouring and grace of every gazelle, it is sometimes hard to accept nature and the

circular pattern of life and death that keeps it going.

Karibu was late being let out of her stable that morning. She came rollicking down the path from Hugo’s garden, holding an enormous branch ofgreen leaves in her trunk, bellowing for me to turn round and pay some attention to her. Close on her heels came Hugo.

“You’re up early!” he greeted me.

I glanced at my watch. “Early?” I looked at him with some amusement. It was obvious that he had only just woken up, for the traces of sleepwere still in his eyes and his hair was standing on end, innocent of any attempt to bring order to the great lock that tumbled into his eyes.

“I suppose it isn’t really very early,” he admitted sheepishly. “The fact is that I overslept.

“It looks like it!” I retorted.

It was base, I suppose, to be pleased at having him at a disadvantage, but I had expected to be at a disadvantage myself, and to find that I hadembarrassed him went to my head like wine.

“Do I look terrible?” he asked, half laughing.

“Terrible!” I said seriously, beginning to enjoy myself.

He ran a hand over his chin. “I ought to go and shave. That always gives a man rather a disreputable look, don’t you think?”

My eyes widened. “I’ve never thought about it!” I said. I cast a quick look at him. He didn’t look at all disreputable to me, but I hardly liked tosay so. If anything, I rather liked him with a tousled, unkempt look. It suited his arrogant stance and the complete confidence he had in himself.

“Never?”

I blushed and shook my head. “Did you hear the Mzee last night?” I asked him.

“One could hardly help it. Did it keep you awake?” To my surprise he sounded genuinely concerned.

“Nothing would have kept me awake last night!” I said with feeling. I put a hand on Karibu and she fussed gently over me, rumbling as she didso.

“How’s the arm?” Hugo asked. He didn’t sound particularly interested.

“Well enough,” I answered defensively.

“In fact it hurts a great deal?” he suggested lightly.

I thought it was safe to admit that much. “Janice is an excellent nurse though,” I told him. “And it’s healing nicely!”

“I think I’d better take a look. What are you putting on it?”

I was strangely reluctant to have him unwind the bandages. To have him touch me was an intimacy that I knew I would do better to avoid.

“I can manage by myself!” I told him fiercely.

“That’s your whole trouble,” he sighed.

“It wasn’t really my fault!” I snapped back. “I told you that I’d never actually fired a gun before!”

“So you did!” His amusement was more than I could bear.

“I don’t see anything funny about it! How was I to know that he would throw a spear at me! I don’t see why you blame me-” He laughed outloud. “No, you wouldn’t! Didn’t it ever occur to you, my love, that you would have been safer if you’d stayed up the tree?”

I stared at him. “But you—” I began. Surely he must see that I couldn’t have allowed him to face those men all by himself. He might have beenkilled or—or anything!

“Yes?” he prompted me.

“N-nothing,” I said sulkily.

He put his hand under my chin and forced me to look at him. “Liar!” he said.

“I couldn’t let you go alone,” I admitted finally.

He grinned. “It was a sweet thought!” he teased me. “Though what good you thought you’d be—”

“I might have known you’d find something to be beastly about!” I exclaimed. “Why don’t you go and—and shave?” “Because I have everyintention of seeing how your arm is getting on first,” he returned smoothly.

He was as good as his word. In this he had an able ally in Karibu who had been longing all along to have the bandage off my arm so that she toocould investigate my wound more closely. When I tried to back away from Hugo, it was Karibu who barred my way and who pushed me gentlyback towards him.

“Good girl!” said Hugo, though whether to the elephant or myself I didn’t know.

“I can’t think why you can’t mind your own business!” I said crossly.

“Because I think it must be hurting you pretty badly,” he

answered calmly.

I thought about that for a moment. Then: “Why?” I asked.

He grinned. “Something must be making you so bad-tempered!”

I couldn’t bring myself to look at my arm when he had unwound the bandages and removed the covering lint. It hurt badly, but I wasn’t goingto give him the satisfaction of knowing it.

“I think you’d better come over to my house,” Hugo said at last.

“But that’s ridiculous!”

“Come on, my girl! I’ll doctor your arm and give you breakfast, I can hardly offer you better than that, can I?”

“But Janice will do it!” I protested.

His face took on a stony look. “Would you prefer that?” he asked silkily.

“No,” I admitted.

“Clare, I don’t like the look of your arm. It needs proper attention. Now will you come?”

Defeated, I nodded my head.

Hugo went first along the path, making sure that none of the low branches touched me as I walked along behind him. He was, in his way, verykind. He made no reference to my reluctance to go with him. On the contrary, he found all sorts of things to talk about and quite ignored theodd monosyllable that seemed to be my total contribution. Only Karibu was truly happy, following slowly, stopping every few steps to getanother mouthful of soft new leaves, pleased to be in the company of the two people she liked best. I suppose, in her mind, we were her ownfamily and that she liked to have us herded together.

Rikki gave every appearance of recognizing me from my previous visit to the house. He swung on my skirt, dodging Hugo’s attempts atcatching him, his eyes red with excitement. When I flicked my fingers, the mongoose ran up my clothing and sat on my shoulder, eyeing Hugocautiously through my hair. Hugo, with that acceptance of other beings for which I loved him, pretended a sudden interest in the flowers on thetable. Furious at being thus ignored, Rikki jumped from my shoulder to Hugo’s and nibbled the lobe of his ear with apparent affection.

“Now,” said Hugo affably, “are you feeling very brave?”

I wasn’t, of course, but I was hardly going to say so. What he did to my arm I never knew, for I couldn’t bring myself to look. It was a painfulsession and one I shouldn’t like to repeat. But when he had finished, I had to admit that my arm felt a great deal easier. Some of the tightnesshad disappeared and it no longer throbbed so badly.

“I suppose I ought to thank you,” I said when he had finished.

He chuckled. “How gracious!” he said dryly.

I flushed. “I’m sorry. The thing is that it does hurt a great deal less. And I am grateful. I—I didn’t mean to be horrid!”

He looked a good deal amused. “You’re never that,” he said.

“Well, I do thank you,” I said handsomely. “I thank you very much!”

“Do you?” He smiled. “And I thought you very brave,” he said gently.

“Well, I wasn’t!” I said flatly.

He sighed. “Must you always contradict me?” he asked with humour. And before I could think of any good reason, he had put a hand under mychin and had kissed me firmly on the lips. His face was rough from the night’s growth of his beard, but it was the nearest thing to perfect bliss Ihad ever known.

“Hugo, I wish you wouldn’t!” I murmured foolishly.

He laughed. He looked pleased with himself and more than a little pleased with me. “I invariably keep my promises,” he said smugly.

“Promises?” I repeated vaguely.

“When I last kissed you!” he reminded me.

I bit my lip. “I hope you’re not going to make a habit of it!” I managed.

“Why not?”

Why not? Why not? Surely it must be obvious why not! But it appeared that it wasn’t. Much agitated, I tried to find some reason that wouldserve as well as the truth, which was simply that I liked it far too well.

“I—I don’t think you have any right—”

“Of course not!”

I knew that he was laughing at me and felt a little gurgle of response which I only just managed to repress.

“And I won’t discuss it with you!” I ended fiercely.

“Much better not!” he agreed.

I retreated to the safety of the other side of the room and sat down, stiff-backed, on the most uncomfortable chair I could find.

“I thought we were going to have breakfast?” I said, pleased to find such an uncontroversial topic of conversation.

“So we were!” The thread of laughter in his voice did much to undermine my new-found dignity. “What will you have? Eggs and bacon?”

I inclined my head, suspicious that even breakfast might not be as innocuous as I had supposed. But Hugo was apparently as glad of a truce asI, for, with a barely expressed apology, he left the room and I could hear him ordering the breakfast in the kitchen beyond.

Left alone, I wandered about the room, exploring his possessions. A couple of bookshelves, full of paperbacks, stood against one wall. Onanother was a native shield, criss-crossed with two wicked-looking spears. The verandah took up the whole of the third wall, and as there weretwo doors in the fourth wall, there was little room for anything else. The chairs were comfortable and there were some odd tables dottedaround and a number of flower arrangements, all of them rather better than any I had ever produced.

When Hugo came back, he had shaved and done his hair, and so he had lost the raffish look of earlier. He seemed to have lost his former moodtoo, a thing which should have made me grateful, but such was my own mood that it did nothing of the sort.

“Breakfast is just coming,” he said.

I smiled at him. “Good. I’m hungry.”

He did not smile in return. “I heard last night that the poachers talked in the end. I meant to tell you about it earlier.” “What did they say?” Iasked. “I listened to practically every news broadcast, but there was no mention of them at all.”

“There will be today,” he returned grimly. “The VoK was full of it earlier. The police have arrested several dealers down on the coast who were

in the process of smuggling ivory and skins out of the country. I wish I could think they’d caught the lot!” Remembering Janice’s wish to have afur coat, I wriggled uncomfortably. “Not everyone would agree with you,” I muttered.

I have seldom seen such anger in anyone’s face. “I suppose you would willingly sacrifice any animal to put its coat on your back!” he raged atme.

“I didn’t say that,” I demurred.

'"You didn’t have to! Tell me, what kind of a coat do you want? Leopard? Or tiger, perhaps? You know there aren’t enough tigers left for themto survive another twenty years, don’t you?”

“You don’t find tigers in Africa anyway,” I returned flippantly.

“Leopard, then?” he fumed.

I shook my head. “To tell you the truth a sheepskin coat is more my mark,” I told him. “And it’s rather too hot here for one of those, don’t youthink?”

He glared at me suspiciously. “Just who is it who wants a fur coat?” he demanded.

I remembered my own anger over Janice’s remark and I regretted having said anything now.

“It—it was hypothetical,” I stammered.

“I’ll bet!” he said. But his spurt of temper had died away and he smiled “A friend of yours is serving our breakfast,” he told me mysteriously. “Iexpect he’s waiting for us.”

We went out on to the verandah where the table had been laid for breakfast. Karibu was busy demolishing a thorn bush only a few feet awayfrom the low-walled edge of the verandah. It seemed that elephants never stopped eating! She rumbled with joy at the sight of us, but she wastoo busy munching her favourite delicacy to pay us much heed.

Katundi brought our breakfast. His wide grin announced to the world his pleasure in the occasion. He laid my plate before me with a flourishthat would have been worthy of a waiter at the Ritz.

“Mama is more comfortable here?” he suggested slyly.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m pretty comfortable at the camp.”

Katundi clicked his tongue against his teeth. “But here everyone is happy to see you!” he reproved me gently. “Karibu, even the dog, ispleased!”

My eyes mocked him. “Have a heart, Katundi! The Bwana wants some place where he can escape from us all!”

Katundi’s smile returned. “Indeed?” he said in Kikuyu, obviously thinking that Hugo would not be able to

understand him. “What man does not prefer a meal cooked by his own woman? A contented man goes abroad, but he returns to his own hearthin the evening.”

I blushed, bitterly aware of Hugo’s intrigued look.

“Exactly!” I retorted in Kikuyu too. “And he doesn’t expect to find strangers round his hearth!”

“Oh, hardly a stranger, Clare!” Hugo said in the same language.

Katundi, wisely, melted away back into the kitchen, but I had no such option open to me. Hugo’s eyes held mine across the table.

“Do you feel a stranger?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” I admitted.

His eyes smiled at me. “How odd! I had thought you completely at home amongst us all.”

“With the others—” I began.

“And with Katundi?”

“Well, yes,” I said.

“I see. So it’s only with me that you feel a stranger?”

I nodded, feeling more than a little silly. “Katundi

makes me laugh,” I explained. “He thinks all of life is exactly

like his own village!”

Hugo smiled. “In a way it is,” he said. He gave me a speculative look. “I suppose you can cook?” he asked.

“Ye-es. Why?”

“Katundi seems to have matters so well in hand that I thought he could hardly have overlooked such a detail,” he commented casually.

“But—” I choked. “But he doesn’t mean it seriously!” I objected.

But Hugo only laughed. “You’ll be late for work,” he said, glancing at his watch. He rose from the table and I did so too, only too glad to escape. Ithanked him for breakfast and for doing my arm with a nervous stutter that I resented quite as much as it amused him.

“I’ll see you this evening,” he said gently.

“No!” I said sharply. “I—I’m doing something for Mr. Doffnang this evening.”

Hugo’s face was full of humour. “I expect I can wait,” he said. I departed in a state of fright. I was accustomed to thinking of myself as a level-headed individual, seldom put out by any

unexpected event. That day I learned I was nothing of the sort. I had only to think of Hugo’s lips on mine to have my innards dissolve intopanic. I was thoroughly unsettled. It was so ridiculous! Other men had courteously saluted me when they had brought me home after dinnerand a dance. Other men had paid me compliments in the most romantic surroundings possible. And through it all, I had remained staid andstolidly unmoved. But Hugo had only to spend a few disastrous moments flirting with me, probably because he had nothing better to do at thatprecise moment, and there was I in a state of shattered ecstasy, that even I could see couldn’t possibly last, unless Hugo intended that it should,and I had no reason to suppose that he did.

On the contrary, I had every reason to suppose that he did not intend anything of the sort. A fool I might be, but I was not such a fool that Ididn’t know that Hugo was playing with me, for no better reason than that he was amused by my fascination with the raw, wild Africa that heconsidered home. It would take more than tolerant amusement to make him think of marriage! Indeed, I wouldn’t have thought of it myself,had it not been for Katundi and his euphemistic suggestions that I was destined to share Hugo’s house and hearth, but the idea had managed totake root in my very being. To spend the rest of my life in Tsavo would answer every dream I had ever had.

The only answer was work and still more work. Mr. Doffnang was an able ally in this. The Dutchman had an immense appetite for the sheerbusiness of building. His plans were immaculate and he expected the work to be just the same. Every stone had to be properly laid, everycorner made good, and every load of cement properly and carefully mixed. He insisted on overseeing everything himself, and where he went, Iwent too, translating both his words and his ideas to the workmen who were carrying them out. When four o’clock came, he was exhausted.

“Johnny says it will rain again tonight,” he told me as we walked down the path back to the camp. “The insects are worse than ever!”

“You want to be careful of snakes too,” I warned him, grinning. “They creep in everywhere when it’s wet!”

“Thank you for telling me!” Hans Doffnang shrugged his shoulders. “Janice has also warned me of all the horrors I can expect. But she did thiswith no kind motive, I suspect.”

“Oh? Why do you say that?”

“She knows that she is badly behaved and that I disapprove of her,” he replied earnestly. “She resents this. She reminds me of a story I onceheard of the old Boer, President Kruger.”

I laughed. “And what was that?” I asked him.

Mr. Doffnang spread his hands in self-effacement. “Mr. Kruger had a very narrow view of women, I think,” he said. “Yes, even more narrowthan mine!”

“Is that possible?” I teased him.

“But yes!” he said, astonished that I should think otherwise. “He was invited to this dinner, you see,” he went on. “And next to him sat this ladyin a dress that had bare arms. He would not speak to her because of it and, because he was a great man and she wished to talk to him, she gotup out of her chair, went home and changed her dress, and returned to the dinner.”

“And then I suppose he deigned to speak to her?”

I put in.

Mr. Doffnang smiled benignly. “He did.”

“Well, if I had been her, I’d have walked off and left him flat!” I exclaimed.

“Would you?” he asked sadly. “Would you indeed, Clare?”

I was surprised that it seemed so important to him. It was hard to decide exactly what I would have done, after all. What person of my father’sblood did not consider Paul Kruger to be a hero? So I might have stayed.

“For him I might have thought it worth it,” I admitted at last. “Why for him?” he pressed me.

“Because he was a great old man,” I said warmly. “He was narrow-minded, even bigoted, but he was great!”

“And I am not?” he said sadly.

I stared at him. Perhaps he was, in his own way, I thought. He was world-famous for the buildings he had designed and built, or he would not behere now. With the money they were spending on the Chui Safari Lodge, they could choose any architect they pleased.

“But why should you care what Janice does?” I asked, squinting at him into the sun.

“That is not the point, meisje. Not the point at all! That is, does she care what I think of her? Would she change her dress to talk to me?”

“I don’t know,” I said frankly. “To tell the truth, I think it rather tiresome of you to ask it of her!”

Mr. Doffnang blinked at me. “Tiresome?” he repeated.

“Well, why should she pass some stupid test you’ve devised for her?” I demanded.

“But it is no test!” he denied, hurt. “I do not know what she thinks of me. To be honest, I thought she preferred Hugo Canning to me. Perhapsthis would be the best answer. If she were Mrs. Doffnang, she would have to braid her hair and not play poker any more. It would not be good ifshe did these things in the small village where I live in Holland.”

To hear Hugo’s name coupled with anyone else hurt badly. “I still think it’s some kind of test!” I said sulkily.

Mr. Doffnang shrugged. “Perhaps she thinks so too.” A worried frown appeared between his eyes. “I had not thought of that.”

We had reached the entrance to his tent and, with a vague wave of his hand, he went inside, firmly zipping up the opening behind him.

“It would seem,” said Hugo, who was standing, waiting outside my tent, “that Hans Doffnang has other fish to fry!”

For a moment I didn’t understand him, but then I remembered that I had told him that Mr. Doffnang had wanted me to do some work for himthat evening. I decided to put a brave front on it.

“He’s changed his mind,” I said off-handedly.

Hugo smiled in sheer triumph. “I had a feeling that he would,” he said.

I blushed. “I don’t know why you should think so!” I muttered.

“Perhaps it was wishful thinking!” he retorted.

But that I couldn’t believe. “But it’s true, Hugo. I am very busy,” I assured him desperately.

He came right up to me, looking carefully at the shadows on my averted face. “I think perhaps you have done enough today. How is the armnow?”

“Better,” I said. It was true too. Whatever he had done to it that morning, it had had a wonderful effect. Now the long gash no longer ached orthrobbed. If anything, it was inclined to itch and prick when I moved too quickly.

“Then there is nothing to stop you helping me with the radio,” he said smugly. “I went out and looked for the Mzee to see where he had gotduring the night. There was no sign of him locally. I want to find out where’s he got to.”

“But we all heard him last night,” I reminded him.

“That’s what bothers me,” he admitted. “The last time I heard him roar was about three o’clock this morning. There was no rain after that, andyet I can find no sign of any tracks at all.” “Perhaps he walked along the edge of the river,” I suggested. “I don’t think he’d risk the crocodiles atnight,” Hugo answered seriously. “He probably spent the day somewhere watching me looking for his spore and laughing up his sleeve. He’s acunning old devil!” He grinned suddenly. “Did you know that the Africans are having bets as to who emerges as the winner, Mzee or me?”

I giggled, delighted. “What are the odds?” I asked.

“I rather think they’re running against me! And they’re probably right at that. I’m not sure I didn’t underrate the beast by bringing it here.He’s had a good look round my headquarters by now!”

“But there’s nothing he can do!” I protested.

But Hugo wasn’t so sure. “I think it was a mistake,” he repeated. “I’ve given instructions that no one is to go outside the compound of the campalone, at least until we know where he is.”

The radio was already in use when we went into the boma where it was housed. A number of Africans were crowding round it, listening to thenews from the various parts of the thousands of square miles that made up the Tsavo National Park. They stepped back at our entrance,smiling shyly at us. Hugo strode over to the microphone and placed the earphones on his head, murmuring his thanks to the helpful black handsthat twiddled the knobs, tuning in to Aruba station.

“Is the Mzee with you?” Hugo asked abruptly.

“Not yet,” a cheerful voice came back. “We’re expecting him, though. We had a car coming through from Nairobi and he was on the mainNairobi-Mombasa road. It was just a flash, but the driver is quite sure it was him.”

“How many miles away?” Hugo demanded.

“Hard to say exactly. Reckon he’ll be here tomorrow at the

latest.”

Hugo ground his teeth. “Then I’ll be there to meet him! ”

“Does it matter so much?” the voice asked. “The rest of the pride has been successfully scattered.”

“If he’s back tomorrow, they’ll be back with him,” Hugo said flatly. “I’ll see you then!”

“You’d better bring some of your people along. We’ve got quite a few off sick just now.”

“All right,” said Hugo. “We’ll be there in full strength.” He turned round and glared at me. “And you needn’t think you’re going to escape!”

“Me?” I squeaked, much excited.

“I’ll need everyone I can get!” he grunted. “Even you!” he added with a grin. “With or without Mr. Doffnang’s permission!”

CHAPTER NINE

HANS DOFFNANG was not pleased at the prospect of having to do without me for an indefinite period of time.

“Am I not right that you are here to aid my work here?” he demanded crossly, when I went to ask him if I might go with Hugo.

“Yes, of course,” I said.

“That is what I thought too!” he grunted.

“But, meneer, it would not be for long. And it won’t only be me that Hugo will want. He wants to take Mr. Patel too.” I smiled faintly. “He mayeven want to take you!”

Mr. Doffnang’s eyes widened. “Me?”

“Why not?”

“I am no lion-catcher!”

I laughed at his dismay. “I’m not sure that I am either,” I confided, “but I wouldn’t miss it for anything!”

“But what about me?” he complained. “How am I expected to manage?”

Happily, Janice came to my rescue. “Cheer up, Mr. Doffnang, I shan’t be going,” she said cheerfully. “I’ll stick around here and fill in for Clarewith you.”

“What?” exclaimed Mr. Doffnang. “What does she say?” he appealed to me.

I looked at him thoughtfully. “I think you understood perfectly well,” I accused him.

“That’s right,” said Janice. “He did. We understand each other very well indeed.”

Mr. Doffnang grunted disagreeably. “So? If we do, what can you do for me? Do you speak Swahili well enough to translate for me?”

Janice remained completely unruffled. “I expect we’ll get along,” she said.

“But it is intolerable!” Hans Doffnang snorted. “Get along! Do you not realise that the Chui Safari Lodge is to be a world-famous hotel?Everywhere, men will say that it is a masterpiece! My masterpiece! And all you can think about is some wretched lion! Who will remember himin the years to come?”

Janice gave me a kind glance. “She will,” she informed him loftily. “She’s made that way!”

Mr. Doffnang sighed. “I suppose you will go whatever I say,” he said with resignation. “You had better be off, then. Patel can go too. I shallmanage alone!”

It was not a very happy note to leave him on, but Janice who had come with me was not in the least concerned about him.

“Nobody’s indispensable!” she remarked.

“No,” I agreed doubtfully, and frowned at her. “I should have thought you’d want to come with us?” I said. “Won’t you get some finephotographs?”

“Could be!” She laughed aloud. “I shall do much better here!”

The others were already waiting for me when I had finished pushing a few things I thought I might need into a shoulder bag and had strappedon one of Janice’s cameras, which she had asked me to take with me, just in case, as she put it.

Hugo had three askaris with him, in the back of the Landcruiser. Katundi had the middle seat to himself. He had carefully put the rifles and theanaesthetic darts down on the floor at his feet. It was to be his special job to look after them until they were needed, and he was very consciousof the dignity that such a responsibility conferred on him.

“Shall I ride in the other truck?” I asked Hugo.

He grinned at me. “I kept the front seat for you,” he answered.

I still hesitated. Although the back of the truck was still caged, there was only Mr. Patel and a single askari riding in the front. They were farless crowded than the others.

“Get in!” said Hugo.

The long drive to Aruba passed without any incident at all. Hugo was intent on his driving and I was able to sit back and watch him, withoutworrying too much about the uncertainties of our relationship. For once I didn’t pick mentally at every feeling and at each emotion as it cameand went. For today, at least, I didn’t care if Hugo was serious or not. My whole mind was on the lion and whether he would beat us in the endby keeping his pride intact despite us. Part of me rather hoped that he would.

It was lunchtime when we reached Aruba. Katundi opened up the cold box and handed out some cold drinks all round. Most of the men drankbeer, while I stuck to a peculiarly tasteless lemonade.

“We’ll have to stop the night,” Hugo said. He beckoned to Katundi. “You’d better see what accommodation is available,” he instructed him. “Youcan put Patel and me together, but Memsahib deJong will need a boma to herself.”

Katundi, nodded, giving me a sly look. “Ndiyo, Bwana.”

The look was not lost on Hugo. “I really think he’s disappointed!” he teased me. “I hope Patel won’t mind playing gooseberry!”

I refused to rise to this, though I could feel myself blushing. “Why should he?” I said reasonably.

Hugo touched my cheek with his forefinger. “Why indeed?” he agreed.

The local askaris came over to discuss what Hugo intended to do next.

“The Minister is staying at Aruba,” they told him. “He is out just now, looking at the new road, but he will be back shortly.”

“And what has he to say about the Mzee?” Hugo asked shortly.

But the askaris knew nothing. They were accustomed to the renowned coming into the Park and, although they were interested that theMinister should find everything going well, they considered the lion to be the affair of the senior wardens.

“Perhaps he will want to go out with you this evening,” they said.

“I hope he does!” Hugo retorted. “He’ll have some idea of what we’re up against if he comes with us.”

The hot sun of the afternoon blazed down on us. The recent rains had swelled the waters of the lake, but in the compound of the Lodge, it haddone no more than encourage the trees to burst into flower and the tough grass to take on a tinge of green. The earth had already turned todust that clung to the lower leaves and branches of the plants, staining them the same red as the soil.

The only visitors to come to the patio, with its latticed and creeper-clad shelter from the sun, were the lizards in search of insects. These werehighly coloured affairs, with bright blue throats, green and yellow backs, and sucker pads on their feet that allowed them to hang upside downon the roof without any visible signs of discomfort. They would stand stock still on a pillar. Only their complex eyes would revolve, searchingceaselessly for food or danger. Then, without warning, they would streak away, only to take up their post at some other point of the building.They certainly did a good job on the flies. There were hardly any to annoy us as we sat in the shade and waited for the afternoon to turn toevening.

Only the askaris were active in the heat of the afternoon. There were rumours that some lions had been seen by some tourists close by andthey went off in a body to find out exactly where they were and, more important, whether the Mzee was with them.

It was tea-time when the Minister’s Landrover turned into the compound. He stepped out of the vehicle as immaculate as if he had juststepped out of his house in Nairobi. He wore a light tropical suit and dark glasses that hid his restless, intelligent eyes. To my surprise, Hugo’sdispleasure at the day’s events dropped away from him at the sight of the Minister.

“Duncan Njugi!” he exclaimed happily.

“Didn’t you know it was I?” Mr. Njugi asked in the slightly pedantic English of most educated Africans. “Tourism and so on has been my pigeonfor a number of weeks now. I work under the Minister for Tourism,” he added with satisfaction.

Hugo shook him by the hand with evident pleasure. “How long will you be in Tsavo?” he asked him.

Duncan Njugi shrugged. “A few hours. I must be back in

Nairobi tomorrow.”

He took a chair beside me, snapping off his dark glasses as he did so. Hugo introduced him to us all and he greeted each of us with the sameintense look that he gave to everything.

“I have been hearing about your lion,” he said, smiling slightly.

“He’s on his way back,” Hugo told him, pulling down the corners of his mouth to show dismay.

“It is worse than that,” Duncan Njugi said carefully. “The lion must stay here.”

“For heaven’s sake, why?” Hugo demanded.

“It is a complicated situation. Have you seen your newspaper today?”

Hugo shook his head. “They’re delivered to Voi,” he explained. “I pick them up with the mail about once a week.” “Then you will not have seenthe picture of your lion? It has been picked up by the international press too. The lion is famous now. The tourists will expect to see him.”

Hugo snorted. “And how will they tell one lion from another?” he asked flatly.

Duncan Njugi smiled. “Normally, I would say not. But this lion is a very fine specimen, wouldn’t you say? He will be a great attraction for thePark. Everyone will be looking out for him.”

Hugo groaned. “Do you realise that he had at least forty lions in his pride here? We couldn’t let it go on, getting bigger and bigger—”

“I know,” Mr. Njugi agreed. “But it is the other lions who must go. You must scatter the pride—put them where you will, in other Parks,anything—but the Mzee must stay here!”

“And how did the newspapers get this photograph?” Mr. Patel asked thoughtfully. It was the first time he had spoken since the arrival of theMinister.

“Janice—?” I hazarded.

“I’ll ring her neck!” Hugo exploded. “Duncan, it won’t do. It’ll end up with that beast ruling Tsavo, not us! Dammit, it may even come to asituation when we won’t be able to allow tourists in because it won’t be safe for them!”

Duncan Njugi looked apologetic. “It is a little more difficult to say such things in Nairobi,” he pointed out.

“Then we’ll have to move the rest of them,” Hugo said in

despair.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Njugi said with real feeling. “What will you do?”

“Get busy!” Hugo retorted with a grin. “If we’re going to move the other males, it will be easier to do it before the Mzee gets back. That animalgives me a funny feeling! I’m sure he knows every move we’re up to! I wouldn’t put it past him to have the whole pride holed up somewherewhere we can’t get to them if we give him the chance!”

“He is still a lion,” Duncan Njugi stated firmly.

‘You tell him that!” Hugo suggested sweetly.

“No, no, that is your job!” the Minister protested. “I beard my lions in the Assembly. That is just as difficult, I assure you!”

We all laughed. All that remained was to decide where and when we were going to tackle the lions. Mr. Patel had done some similar work oncefor an American zoo and he suggested that we should get the askaris to drive the lions away from the dam, until they could be netted andcaged.

“We can try it,” Hugo said doubtfully.

Mr. Patel looked uncomfortable. “One can never insure that no animal will get hurt,” he said.

“Exactly,” said Hugo.

There was a long silence, which I broke because I felt sorry for Mr. Patel who was obviously wishing he had kept quiet.

“What about the anaesthetic darts?” I said.

Hugo cast me a look of real affection. “We might have to use them yet. Will you stand by with the gun, while we try the other way first?”

‘Yes,” I managed. I didn’t like to tell him that one way and another I was now afraid of guns.

“Good girl!” he said with warm approval. That made up for a lot. I subsided into my chair and listened to the others as they marked out on amap exactly what they were going to do. In the distance, I thought I saw a lion come out from the green bank of the dam and go down to thewater to drink, but it was too early for them to be on the move. Or so I thought.

It was a simple plan that they finally evolved out of the suggestions and counter-suggestions that everyone put forward. They were going to netin a large patch of land round some trees and drive the lions into the area, closing up their retreat as they went. All that was necessary was tofind enough men to act as beaters coming in behind the lions, and to have enough people, strategically placed, who could prevent any trouble.

We were pitiably few. Duncan Njugi, who would have loved to have stayed, had to leave with his driver, and so apart from the askaris andourselves there was no one else.

Mr. Njugi gave orders for his driver to fill up their cold box in the back of the Landrover and asked me to go along with him to take a last look atthe lake that ran alongside the edge of the compound.

“I thought you were assisting with the building of the Chui Lodge,” he said, pleasantly enough.

“I am,” I admitted. “I’m only here because Hugo wanted everyone he could get.”

Duncan Njugi grinned broadly. “Especially you?” he suggested, laughing.

“I don’t know,” I answered in some confusion.

“Then I will give you a word of warning! Beware Hugo Canning! He is a great heart-breaker! I have known him for many years, and I tell you!”He looked at me with unblinking eyes. “But it’s too late, isn’t it?”

“To warn me?” I said lightly. “Not at all. I’m well aware what Hugo Canning’s charm is worth!”

Mr. Njugi frowned. “Then I take back my warning. The best man has to fall some time. Perhaps Hugo will fall to you.”

Until then I had been rather awed of Duncan Njugi, the Minister, but now he seemed no more frightening than Katundi.

“If I were a Kikuyu, I would try kuheera,” I said rather sadly.

Duncan Njugi laughed delightedly. “He would have to be a married man for that! You had better stick to the customs of your own tribe!”

“Perhaps. I wouldn’t like to share him,” I smiled.

Mr. Njugi took out an immaculate handkerchief, patted his brow with it, and carefully re-folded it in its original folds, putting it carefully backinto his pocket.

“The old customs had their value,” he said pontifically. “I sometimes think some of them could be adapted to present times very well. Withadjustments, because we are now mostly a Christian people and have only one wife.” The pronounced twinkle in his black eyes embarrassedme.

“Mr. Njugi!” I said faintly. “If you mean what I think you mean, I’m shocked!”

“I think it is easier to hurt you than to shock you,” he divined. “Certainly where Hugo Canning is concerned.”

I wasn’t prepared to admit so much, remembering that Duncan Njugi was a total stranger to me and that I had already confided far too much.

“I—I can’t see any lions from here, can you?” I said.

He laughed. “No, I can’t.”

We walked back to the others, who were still earnestly discussing how best to capture the bulk of the Mzee’s pride. “And what have you twobeen plotting?” Hugo whispered in my ear.

“Why, nothing,” I hedged. “We were discussing—modern Africa.”

His eyes shone with laughter. “Ancient Africa in modern dress?” he suggested innocently. It was uncanny how he could read my mind with suchaccuracy.

I put a bland, demure expression on my face. “Something like that,” I said.

Hugo decided that we would have to have more men.

It was a question of balancing the dangers of delay against having a totally inadequate force with which to deal with the lions. Most of thewardens agreed that even if it gave the Mzee more time to get back to Aruba, it was a risk they would have to take.

I was rather pleased by the decision. It was pleasant sitting on the edge of the compound, watching the animals as they came to the lake todrink. As soon as the light began to fade, there were literally hundreds of different species mixed up into an orderly confusion by the lake. Someof the birds were particularly spectacular. Egyptian geese, the African spoonbill, sacred ibis, storks and pelicans, strode about the shallow water.

Even the hunched marabout storks were there in their dozens, as evil-looking in silhouette against the setting sun as they were in full daylight.

The herd of buffalo came too, taking their turn in the endless queue of hartebeestes, impalas, a family of giraffes, some zebras, the inevitablewarthogs, and the vast troops of baboons. The lions came later, when the day was only a glow on the horizon. The lionesses brought their youngdown to the water, cuffing them when they ventured too far away from her to play in the mud. The male lions came later still, walking proudlyand rebuking any impudent intruder with a long, cool stare from their amber eyes. They might have been chased away from Aruba, but theywere all back there now, waiting for the Mzee to join them.

When I had counted more than thirty-five, I gave up. They knew that the Mzee was walking back to them, that no matter how far away he hadbeen taken he would not abandon them. They knew just as we knew. The Mzee was the power who ruled them all, whether he was with themor not.

Hugo surveyed them grimly. “He s not among them,” he said.

“Not yet,” I said.

He cast me a swift glance. “I don’t like it! he ought to be here by now.”

“Perhaps he is. Perhaps he’s not showing himself,” I suggested.

Hugo grunted, “I wouldn’t be surprised!”

The last of the light faded. Twilight is no more than a quarter of an hour in the tropics, but it is all the more beautiful because it is fleeting. Whenit is gone, the night seems very dark and the insects start their incessant chirping that merges in with the cries and shrieks of the night birdsand those animals that hunt by night.

Katundi lit a log fire out in the open and we sat round it, talking, far into the night. Duncan Njugi had long since departed for Nairobi and sothere was only Hugo, Mr. Patel, Katundi and myself, besides the askaris who had come from near and far to help with the lion drive.

They sang the songs of their tribes, shuffling their feet in the dust, and the latest hit songs from the radio, which we all knew well. We buriedsome potatoes and some cobs of corn in the embers of the fire and roasted great steaks of venison on the top. It made a delicious meal. Thewood smoke gave a special flavour to the meat and got in our eyes and nostrils, and the conversation was good. We talked of the animals ofTsavo and how best to preserve them for the generations yet to come, and we talked of the peculiar ways of the cities and the men they bred;men who were without the old customs and who were rootless and afraid in the face of the new.

“Then you don’t think the cities offer greater security to a woman?” Hugo asked me, as we walked along the path to my boma.

“Not to me,” I said.

“Most white women are afraid of the open spaces,” he went on with a touch of bitterness.

“I was born and bred to them,” I said.

He smiled faintly in the darkness. “Harry deJong’s daughter?” The smile faded. “But what would you do without any shops for the greater partof the year? How would you manage without even a village duka?”

It was my turn to smile. “How do I manage now?” I said. Katundi brought me some early morning tea at six o’clock the next morning.

“The Bwana is already at breakfast, mama,” he greeted me urgently. “He wishes to look at your arm before he goes out to set up the nets.”

I eyed the day with, disfavour. “I’m coming,” I grunted.

When I was properly awake, I found it rather pleasant, lying in bed and drinking hot tea from a mug. The brick-built boma was comfortablewithout being opulent, and the view from the doorway was magnificent. I could see the whole of the artificial lake and most of the green bank ofthe dam. What I couldn’t see were any lions.

Not wanting, or daring, to keep Hugo waiting, I dragged myself out of bed and dressed as quickly as I could. Hugo was alone on the patio when Ijoined him. He looked up and smiled at me.

“How is the arm?” he asked. “Any pain?”

I hesitated. “Not really,” I said at last. “It’s more stiff than painful.”

He unrolled the bandages and peered at the rapidly healing gash in my arm. “I think you’ll live,” he said.

“I hope so!” I protested.

I watched his strong, neat fingers as he re-bandaged my arm. His hands were large, even for a man’s but he was astonishingly dexterous withthem.

“There!” he said when he had finished. “Clare, I’m going to put you behind the nets. You shouldn’t have to do anything there, but you’d bettertake one of the dart guns just in case. Will you be all right?”

I nodded. “Where will you be?”

“Right behind the lions, I hope,” he said.

I was too excited to eat much breakfast. I swallowed down some scalding coffee, but I couldn’t be bothered with anything more solid. I wantedto go with the men when they put out the nets and I was afraid they would leave me behind if I weren’t ready and waiting beside theLandcruiser.

It was a major operation. We fenced in about a quarter of an acre, with nets spread wide on either side, much like a fishing net when it isdragged behind a boat. The idea was that the lions would be beaten out of their lair and into the fenced area and the nets would be hurriedlyshut, holding the lions captive. From there they could be enticed into cages and then taken away by lorry to their various destination. Most ofthe fencing had already been done by the time we got there. Hugo and Mr. Patel helped unload the heavy nets, spreading them out from tree totree. And then, at last, we were ready.

I chose for myself the branches of a hospitable acacia tree that overlooked the whole length of the fences. There, I thought, I would be able tosee everything that was going on in reasonable comfort. Hugo loaded the gun with anaesthetic darts and handed it up to me.

“Don’t use it unless someone gets into trouble,” he ordered me. “I want to try gentle persuasion first. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

The beaters had lined themselves up along the top of the dam, armed with drums and rattles and anything else that would make a noise. Thedin was terrific. Slowly they moved forward, foot by foot, constantly alert to the danger that the lions might turn on them in their anxiety toescape. Hugo and Abdul Patel, both armed with rifles, brought up the rear.

Nothing moved. I craned forward from my perch in the tree to see better, but there was nothing to see. A family of warthogs burst out from theundergrowth, squealing and grunting a warning of danger to the world.

The beaters advanced a few feet more and a single lioness broke cover and made a rush for open country. She ran straight into the fenced area,followed closely by her cubs. In a fury, she rushed the fences, but they held against her. Defeated, she turned, and turned again, throwingherself down on the ground. There she lay panting in the sun, her ears flicking with temper, while she considered the situation. She wasfollowed by a male lion, and then another, and then four fully adult lions walked into the cage together.

One of the males came right up to the tree where I was hiding, staring out through the fence. He put his front paws on a termite heap justbeneath me, and yawned. He had a spectacular set of teeth, for he was young and well in his prime. Then, without any warning, he roared hismessage of contempt for all men in a bellow that almost unseated me. The whole tree shivered as the sound echoed round and round the hollowof the lake.

The beaters faltered in their line. A lion snarled close to their feet, threatening vengeance, but even as I watched, it changed its mind andfollowed the others into the cage. Only a few cubs remained now and I relaxed, thinking the danger was over. But even a lion cub can savage aman. One of the askaris almost stepped on an adolescent lion hiding in a bush. In retrieving the situation, he lost his hat. The cub sniffed itdisdainfully for a few seconds and then, slowly and deliberately, tore it into shreds.

The men were badly frightened by the incident, but Hugo and Mr. Patel moved in closer behind them and they pushed on the last few feet tothe nets without incident. In a few seconds, the nets were closed, and the men cheered and slapped one another on the back, delighted withtheir efforts.

“Mzee has stayed away!” they called to one another, almost in ecstasy. The Masai amongst them began to chant their age-old victory song overthe lion, a rhythm that rolled back and forth in triumphant sequences. I found myself humming the same chant under my breath, beating timewith my fingers on the branch that held me.

Then I saw him.

I saw first his amber eyes as he padded over towards the tree. Lions do not normally climb trees, so I thought I was safe enough. I should haveknown better. The acacia tree, with its spreading, low branches, made an ideal stepping-stone over the fence and into the cage beyond.

The Mzee hiccoughed in his throat, the sound of a hunting lion. I froze where I sat, quite unable to move in any direction. Beneath me, the greatlion gathered himself together and

sprang on to the branch beneath me. I clutched the gun with its anaesthetic dart closer to me, scraping the barrel against the bark of the tree.

The lion looked up and saw me. I was surprised to see that he had round pupils, like a human being’s, and not the long, slit pupils of theordinary cat. I thought for a moment he was going to ignore me and go on into the cage. He glanced down at the ground, his heavy mane movingslightly in the breeze. Then he gathered himself up again, measuring the distance between us.

I know now how a lion’s prey feels, transfixed and resigned to its fate. I even knew that I wouldn’t struggle, any more than a gazelle argueswith the smothering death that a lion deals out to its victim. But my other self refused to be hypnotised by those amber eyes. I heard a gun fireand was surprised to discover that it was I who had pulled the trigger. The dart landed with a dull thud in the great beast’s shoulder. He startedhis leap towards me, but his eyes were already clouded with sleep. He fell heavily to the ground and I fell after him. When Hugo arrived, I wasstanding over him like the traditional hero of old, yelling blue murder into the empty air.

CHAPTER TEN

“I’ve killed him!” I sobbed.

‘You’ve done nothing of the kind!”

“How could I? He would have rescued them! He would! He would!”

To my surprise, Hugo agreed with me. He thought that the lion would have found a way of breaching the fences. Indeed, he thought he had hada plan of some kind in his mind, or he would not have come out from his hiding place.

“I wish I hadn’t done it!” I said bitterly.

Hugo gave me a quick hug. “He wouldn’t have offered you much mercy,” he commented.

But that seemed a mere side issue to me. I couldn’t bear to see the fine animal lying helpless on the ground at my feet.

“What are we going to do?” I mourned.

Hugo leaned over the lion, examining in detail his large paws, the strength of his muscles, and his wide, intelligent eyes.

“No wonder you feel a sense of kinship with him,” he remarked when he came to the still open, though sightless eyes.

“Why?” I asked, still nursing a sense of grievance over the whole affair.

“You could be related, your eyes are so alike!” he teased me, “Perhaps we are,” I said.

Hugo removed the dart from the lion’s shoulder and massaged gently the place where the tip had entered. “He won’t feel a thing when hecomes round,” he said. “Happily, that won’t be for a while yet. We’d better get the other animals out of here—” “All of them?” I asked.

Hugo looked up at me over his shoulder. He was smiling. “Not all of them,” he conceded. “But certainly all the males.”

“He would be lonely by himself,” I said, happy that this was not to be so.

“I imagine he is less susceptible than you are,” Hugo grunted. “Oh?” I said coldly.

Hugo grinned. “We’ll leave him the three best-looking females together with their cubs. Will that do?”

“I suppose so,” I agreed grudgingly.

“Look,” he said, “lions don’t form prides in order to be sociable. It’s a hunting unit. Nothing more than that—”

“I suppose you could say the same about primitive man!” I suggested.

“Very probably,” he agreed. “At the moment it seems an enviable arrangement to me! At least primitive man didn’t have to considereverybody else’s happiness all the time. He clubbed his female over the head and that was that!”

I coloured faintly. “Charming!” I said. “Is that what you want to do?”

To my surprise he looked uncertain. “No,” he said. “I want a great deal more than that. Any such tactics are best left to the Hans Doffnangs ofthis world.”

He was mad, of course! Anything more unlikely than the round-faced, placid Dutchman clubbing anyone, let alone a woman, was hard toimagine.

Abdul Patel came running over to us, his dark eyes snapping with excitement. “Did you ever see anything like it?” he cried out. “That animalwas actually climbing a tree!”

Hugo stood up. “They do sometimes,” he said.

“I thought they never did!” Mr. Patel demurred.

“Sometimes,” Hugo answered. “In Lake Manyara Park, and Queen Elizabeth Park too, the lions are well known for climbing the trees. Theyrest in the branches out of the way of the tsetse flies. They make a very good tourist attraction.”

“But the Mzee could hardly have learned the trick from them!” Mr. Patel exclaimed.

“No, but this is much the same kind of tree as the ones they climb there,” Hugo remarked.

“It’s easy to climb,” I pointed out. “That’s why I was sitting in it!”

“Naturally,” said Hugo.

I made a face at him. Mr. Patel looked from one to the other of us, his eyes widening with surprise. “Am I interrupting?” he asked diffidently.

“Certainly not!” Hugo assured him.

He put an end to all such speculation by busying himself with hauling the unconscious lion into a more comfortable position. It took all hisstrength to move the great cat, for a lion is somewhat bigger than a man and probably heavier as well.

“We’d better get going with the others,” Hugo panted, when he had finished. “Patel, could you get the first lorries lined up?”

The Indian was only too pleased. He rushed away to see that the first lorry was properly backed into the entrance of the fenced-off area. Aramp was laid for the lions to walk up and yet more net was placed all round the area. The lions were then tempted, one by one, to walk into thelorry.

It was a very long process, but finally the lorries and their outraged cargoes were being driven away down the dirt track towards their newhomes, leaving only the Mzee and the three females with, their cubs that Hugo had promised to leave him.

It was well into the afternoon before the last lorry had gone.

“I am very hungry,” Abdul Patel complained, rubbing his stomach. “Have we time to have something to eat?”

“We’ll make time,” Hugo assured him.

I went over to the acacia tree, ignoring their cries to me to come on, to take a last look at the king of the lions. But he was no longer there. Sometime during the morning he must have come round and had taken himself off into the safety of the bush. I could see his tracks leading awayfrom the tree, but they were soon lost in the dust. For me, it was a sad moment. There was, after all, no reason why I should ever see the lionagain.

Mr. Patel was a dab hand at making curry out of practically nothing, and he set to work with a will back in the compound, with Katundi acting ashis assistant. In actual fact there was little to do but blow on the glowing embers and wait for the rice to cook, a job which Katundi insisted washis own.

‘You can make the curry paste and cut up the meat,” he told Abdul, faintly contemptuous of the Indian’s methods, “but none can make the firego like I can!” With this, he sat back on his heels and watched the water boil.

I sat down on the nearest chair, completely exhausted by our efforts.

“I wish we didn’t have to go back today,” I said.

Mr. Patel looked modestly down at the meat he was attempting to cut into little pieces. “There is no need for you to return today,” he said in atotally expressionless voice. “You and Mr. Canning can return tomorrow. There are two Landcruisers.”

“I don’t think so,” I said quickly.

His dark eyes flickered over me. “As you wish.”

Katundi shaded his face from the sun. “You must follow the thread of your life, mama. Now that the great lion has spared you, there is none onthe land to harm you—”

“None?” I repeated. But how could there be? I asked myself. It was strange how all people rated the lion as king of the beasts, the proudest andthe most gentlemanly by reputation. Even in far-off China, where no lion had ever been seen, even in the days when they were commonplace inEurope and forced the lords of ancient Babylon to take the field against them to protect their farmers, the Chinese had carved their distinctivestatues of lions from hearsay, to protect their temples and their Emperor.

Katundi shook his head. “None will harm you now,” he said positively.

“But no one was trying to harm me anyway!” I retorted aggressively.

“The Mzee would try, but now he cannot succeed.” Katundi was well away, lost in the muse that all storytellers share to a greater or lesserextent. “Once,” he said, “the great lion guarded the way into the hinterland. This was before the white man came. Then they built the railwayline from Mombasa to Nairobi, going along near here, close by the road.” He glanced at Abdul Patel. “That is when your people came to buildthe railway. But they could not. For years the great lion defeated them. Many of them were killed. He would walk into a signal box and slay thesignal man. He would delay the trains. For a while, they even thought of going round another way, but in the end the lion was shot. It is clearthat the Mzee holds the same spirit as the great lion.”

It was a charming fancy. Who had not heard the story of the railway? That lion, too, must have had the magnetism and the intelligence of theMzee. Perhaps, one day, the Mzee would share much the same measure of fame.

Hugo came and joined us by the fire. It was one of the few times I ever saw him looking hot. His shirt was wet with sweat and his hair wasstanding on end, red with dust. He threw himself into a chair, staring moodily at the fire.

“Isn’t it hot enough?” he asked caustically.

“We are eating curry for lunch,” Abdul Patel answered him calmly. “It is very good for the heat. We shall all feel much cooler after we haveeaten.”

Hugo groaned. “I’d sooner have a beer!” he murmured.

Obligingly, I opened the cold box only to find that the ice had long since melted into tepid water. I picked out a bottle of Tembo. “Will this do?” Iasked.

Hugo sniffed. “It will have to, I suppose,” he said. He held out his hand for the bottle, opened it with a flick of his wrist, and watched withjaundiced eyes as the froth rose and spilt slowly over the edge of the top of the bottle. Everybody else refused the beer and joined me in havinglemonade.

Abdul’s curry was excellent. The rice was cooked to perfection and made a good bed on which to serve the curry itself. It was very hot, but itleft a smooth, almost bland after-taste in the mouth that was very satisfying. Abdul cut up some bananas and oranges to sprinkle over the top,mourning the absence of any good chutney, or any of the other etceteras he was accustomed to. The rest of us were only too glad to havesomething to eat at all.

When the meal was over, Katundi took the plates away to wash them up, while the rest of us put our belongings together, ready for the tripback to camp. I went down to my boma, to find the bedding I had hired for the night and to return it to the store in the central building. When Iwas satisfied that I was leaving the brick hut as clean and tidy as I had found it, I stood for a long moment in the doorway, impressing the viewupon my memory. In the afternoon heat, the ground danced into the distance and the lake shimmered, obscuring the birds who were wading inthe shallows looking for food. It was hard to believe that in a few hours the place would be alive with animals of every sort. Now was the time toshelter as best they could from the burning sun.

I glanced over to the green bank of the dam, half hoping to see the lions we had left behind. With a shiver of excitement, I saw one of thelionesses walking sedately along the top of the bank. Then, even as I watched, the Mzee came slowly towards her, his head held proudly erect.He stood stock still for an instant, waiting for her and for the others who were all that was left of his pride. Then, when they were all assembled,even the youngest cub, he turned majestically and led them across the bank and out of my sight and away from the prying eyes of his enemy,man. He was as dignified in defeat as he had been in victory, and I was sorry that it had had to be us who had taken his rightful subjects awayfrom him. Poor Mzee, I thought, the rightful king of all Tsavo, who ought to be able to roam free with his own kind, and had somehow beenreduced by us into a promising tourist attraction.

I was surprised to discover that my cheeks were wet with tears and I brushed them impatiently away and hurried back up the path to findHugo.

Abdul Patel, Katundi, and the askaris had already departed. I stood uncomfortably on the edge of the path, under a shady tree, and watchedHugo checking with the caretaker that we had returned everything that we had used.

“Why have the others gone on?” I asked him as soon as I had the opportunity.

“I want to go back by Voi,” he answered. “Johnny took the plane up to Amboseli and I want to hear if the lions arrived all right.”

“Can’t we find out at home?” I argued. Now that the excitement was over, I felt weary and disinclined for going miles out of our way foranything.

“We could,” he agreed. “But the mail is waiting at Voi. The men have a right to get their letters as soon as possible.”

I wilted visibly. “I wish Abdul had waited—” I began.

Hugo grinned. “Cheer up,” he said. “It doesn’t add on all that much, you know. Our headquarters are just by Voi gate, and we have to go bythere anyway. We can take the main road for most of the way after that!”

“I suppose so,” I grunted.

I went and sat in the Landcruiser until he was ready. I was oddly nervous at the prospect of a long ride alone with Hugo. Fencing with him couldbe fun, but I felt my sword was blunted, and my will to get the better of him, once a great motive, had disappeared into nothing better than anurgent desire to sue for peace on whatever terms he cared to offer. Not that Hugo had ever been at war with me. It was I who had resentedhim and finally fallen in love with him. But I had no reason to suppose that he had fallen in love with me!

“Penny for them!” Hugo interrupted my thoughts, as he swung himself into the driving seat beside me.

I blushed. “They’re not for sale!”

He gave me a speculative look that sent the colour racing into my cheeks again. “Perhaps I can guess?” he said.

“No! No, you can’t! They were nothing to do with you—or Tsavo—or anything that you know about!”

He was left quite unmoved by my heated denials. He started up the engine with an amused air that did nothing for my selfconfidence.

“And I always thought you such a truthful girl!” he said.

“Well, if you must know, I was thinking that I was too tired to argue—even with you!” I told him bitterly. “And, as that’s all we ever seem to do,I was wishing that I’d gone in the other Landcruiser.”

His amusement became a broad grin. “I wonder why!”

I retired into silence. He was inhuman, I thought. Any other man would at least be showing some signs of strain after our efforts of the morning,but apart from looking extremely hot at lunchtime, he was exactly as he always was. Did he never get tired?

He drove hard and fast to Voi. It seemed no time at all before the neat buildings of the park headquarters in their clearing in the trees appearedbefore us. A troop of monkeys pelted us with the hard seeds of the tree they were climbing as we slowed down underneath them. One of themdropped with a thud on to the canvas cover over one of the look-out hatches in the back. In a second, he was in the vehicle itself, chattering andswearing to himself, partly with curiosity and partly with fright.

“Thieving little wretch!” Hugo said fondly. He stopped the Landcruiser and swooped the monkey out of the car. “They’d take the stoppings outof your teeth if you gave them the opportunity.”

Another shower of missiles fell on to the roof like a sudden hailstorm, making me jump. Hugo chuckled and eased the Landcruiser forwardagain. A second later, we drew up in front of the office building and a smiling askari came out to greet us.

Amboseli had sent messages saying they were pleased to receive the lions, and Johnny had said that he was going on to Tsavo West on somebusiness of his own before coming back to camp.

“There’s a United Nations team holding a postmortem on an elephant over there,” Hugo told me, adding with a grin: “I’ve heard that one of thevets is a pretty girl from Ohio!”

“And has Johnny heard about her too?” I enquired gently.

“I guess so. News travels very fast in these parts!”

It was odd to think that my arrival had probably been noted and discussed in its turn. Somehow one never thinks of people discussing oneself.

“How do you know she’s pretty?” I asked, intrigued.

“Well,” Hugo drawled, “she has a fragile air that doesn’t go with cutting up elephants!”

“But she’s managing just the same!” I retorted with a touch of indignation.

“Why not?” He laughed out loud. “It hasn’t stopped Johnny going to offer his assistance, has it?”

His attention was diverted from me to the need to send a message to Duncan Njugi in Nairobi, telling him of the successful conclusion of splittingup the lion pride.

“Let’s hope it’s the end of the matter,” one of the wardens put in thoughtfully.

Hugo sighed. “Let’s hope so!” he agreed. “I hate giving any of our animals away!”

The warden nodded his head. “Amboseli have enough lions of their own! Still, someone has suggested sending us some white rhinos! Did youhear about that? They’re out in the open somewhere and a few farmers are trying to get them to us.” “Can’t we help?” Hugo said, aghast.

“Unofficially we are!” the warden reassured him. “There were some villains after them, hoping to get their horns, and the farmers sent word tous. We haven’t any jurisdiction outside the park, but we sent a few men nevertheless, hoping for the best.” “Good,” said Hugo.

“You never know,” the warden went on cheerfully, “our tourist

attraction may be as good as yours! White rhino are jolly rare nowadays.” He turned to me, his black face shining with sweat. “We may get thepoachers as a bonus! We read all about you in the newspapers.”

“Did you?” I said, much pleased.

“Hear you’re thinking of staying around here?” he went on.

“I—I don’t know,” I murmured.

“There won’t be any problems about your work permit. You’re a citizen, aren’t you?” he pressed me.

‘Yes,” I said.

“Well then, there’s no difficulty. If I’ve got it right, you’re all citizens over at Chui, except for the Dutchman.”

“Yes,” I said, surprised that it should be so. “I suppose Abdul Patel is a citizen? I never thought to ask him.”

Hugo grinned at the warden. “That’s right!” he said. ‘You won’t be able to get rid of any of us!”

The warden held up his hands in willing surrender. “I wouldn’t try!” he claimed. “We make a very good team together!”

Hugo gave him a doubtful look. “Sometimes I feel that I’m working myself out of a job,” he said.

“That would be a pity,” the warden answered. “We need every good man we can get. We have increased the National Parks since Uhuru, but itwill be a long time before we have education to make all the people see that there is enough room for both people and animals. The land hasbeen a bone of contention for so many years!”

“Oh well,” said Hugo, “that’s the Government’s worry.”

“That’s right,” the warden agreed. “We have worries of our own!” He came to attention and saluted smartly as we went through the door. “Kwaherim!"

“Kwa hen!” we called back in unison.

There was some excitement at the Park gate when we reached it. An askari opened the wrought iron gate, decorated with a small butcompletely lifelike rhinoceros, and waved us through. A small convoy of German tourists were travelling the other way and the drivers of theirVolkswagen mini-buses were busy paying their fees and signing their passengers into the Park.

“Where are you going?” Hugo asked them.

“Voi Safari Lodge,” they answered. “Have you seen any game today?”

We smiled wryly at each other. “I saw a cheetah at Voi when I was there,” I encouraged them. A sigh of expectation went round the Germanpassengers. "Good luck!” I called out to them as the Landcruiser started forward.

“And to you!” they called back cheerfully. When I looked back, one or two of them were still waving. The others were busy photographing eachother in front of a notice that said that within the Park the animals have the right of way.

“I wonder if we should have told them about the Mzee?” I mused aloud.

“Certainly not!” Hugo retorted. “We owe him that much at least!”

I snuggled down in my seat, feeling more friendly towards him than I had all afternoon. “Yes, we do don’t we?” I said. “Hugo, do you feel guilty—?”

He looked amused. “Do you?”

I felt quite flat with weariness. ‘Yes. Yes, I do,” I said frankly.

“That’s because of your lion eyes!” he teased me.

“And yet you’d cage me up in a city, wouldn’t you?” I accused him, without thought.

He smiled. “Shall we say I’m keeping an open mind about that?” he said lightly.

We sped into the little town of Voi and pulled up outside the Post Office. A curious knot of children gathered about us, ostensibly on their wayhome from school. Hugo left me to chat with them while he went in to collect the letters, newspapers and magazines for the camp. A couple ofwomen came by, berating the children for getting in the way. They carried heavy, woven baskets full of fruit and vegetables, which they placedon their heads to leave their hands free to pull their cotton kangas more closely about their breasts. The children reluctantly followed afterthem, staring back at me over their shoulders, with fleeting, shy smiles and even more giggles.

Hugo brought out the mail, bagged in a small canvas sack that locked at the neck. He threw a couple of loose letters on to my knee. “They’re foryou!” he said, smiling.

For me? I had quite forgotten that I too might get some letters. I turned them over between my fingers, overjoyed to see the familiarhandwriting of my mother on one of them. The other was addressed in a less familiar handwriting and it took me a few seconds to place it in mymind.

“It’s Kate Freeman!” I said in surprise.

He glanced at the letter in my hand. “So it is!”

I tore open the envelope, pleased that she should have written to me, though I couldn’t remember that she ever had before. It was a simplenote, saying no more than that she had seen my parents and had been able to tell them that she had seen me in Malindi and that I was well.

“What does she say?” Hugo asked.

“She’s had another son!” I exclaimed. “Oh well, Luke will be pleased!”

Hugo smiled faintly. “I envy him,” he said softly.

“Do you?” I murmured, frowning over the last part of Kate’s letter. “Oh! Martin is in Mombasa!”

Hugo’s smile died. “Oh?”

I chuckled happily to myself. “Kate is so nice! She wants to know what I’m going to do when Mr. Doffnang has finished with me. She says I cango and stay with her, if I like, and help her with the children. It seems Martin can easily pick me up on his way up country.”

Hugo stiffened. “It will be a long time before Ghui Lodge is finished!” he reminded me.

“Not so very long,” I said happily.

“Then you’ll go?”

“I expect so. There’s nothing much to keep me here, is there?” “Nothing at all,” he agreed.

“Well then,” I said slowly, “I have to do something!”

“Oh quite! Especially with Martin Freeman!” he said savagely.

I trembled inwardly. “I’ve known him for a very long time,” I reminded him.

“Lucky Martin!”

He climbed into the driving seat beside me and set off at a tremendous speed through the town. It was worse still when we reached the openroad. We stormed down the metal track, the wind whipping our faces, until the engine began knocking in protest. Hugo eased off a little, but hisface was unyielding and angry. I was more than a little afraid of him.

“Hugo—”

He slowed down a bit more, though it still seemed to me that we were going far too fast to be on any public road “Hugo, it isn’t that I want togo!” I cleared my throat, annoyed that I should sound so craven.

“Nobody’s asking you to!” he retorted briefly.

I licked my lips, plucking up my courage as best I could. “But nobody’s asking me to stay either,” I said gently.

“Do you have to be asked?”

I squeezed my fingers together until they hurt. “Yes,” I said at last.

“Why?”

“Because it isn’t my home!” I explained weakly. “I have no reason to stay. Can’t you see that?”

“And what of Martin?” he insisted.

“Martin is a friend from my childhood,” I said flatly.

“So you keep saying!” he snorted.

“At least he’s kind—” I began angrily. I broke off, terribly afraid that I was going to cry,

“And I’m not?”

“Not very,” I managed.

“I don’t feel kind!” he stormed at me. "And if you need a reason for staying, you can work one out for yourself!”

“I see,” I said stiffly.

“And why go to the Freemans’ anyway?” he added irritably. “Anyone would think you had no home of your own to go to!”

I bit my lip. “Would you prefer that I went home to my parents?” I asked in a dangerously shaky tone of voice.

He shrugged his shoulders. "The matter doesn’t arise yet. It will be months before the Lodge is finished—”

“I’m not sure I shall wait until then!” I interrupted him.

He stopped the Landcruiser so violently that we skidded to the side of the road. “That,” he said viciously, “is what you think! You’ll stay untilthe last cup and saucer has been put in place, no matter what the claims of Martin Freeman! ”

‘You can’t make me!” I cried, with a courage born of despair.

“That’s what you think!”

Ignoring my protests, he yanked me across the seat towards him. His hand on my arm hurt badly, but gentleness was not his way. His mouthdescended on mine without mercy and without love.

“Hugo, please don’t!” I pleaded with him.

He let me go as suddenly as he had seized me. Very slowly, he reached for a cigarette and lit one for himself, inhaling deeply. “Very well, Iwon’t,” he ground out. “Not until you beg me to—if you ever do!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

We drove home in a sulky silence, both of us seared by the row that had blown up so quickly between us. All I could think of was that I hadn’tknown that it could be like that! Love, to me, was a comfortable, civilised emotion, not a whirlwind ready to blow one out of one’s depth withouta moment’s notice. To quarrel about Martin Freeman was ridiculous, of course. But how did one turn back and explain such a thing to HugoCanning? I couldn’t do it! I couldn’t break through the growing silence between us, because—well, frankly, because I was afraid I should beeven more hurt if I made the attempt. And I was hurt. Badly hurt.

When we reached the river, Hugo set the Landcruiser too fast at the bank and I thought we were going to stick fast in the mud that had beenbrought down by the now quite strong current. To make matters worse, it had started to rain. Great spots of rain stained the dusty bonnet infront of us, running into each other, until the whole was a wet and uniform dark green, marred by muddy streaks of red.

“You shouldn’t allow your bad temper to affect your driving!”

I observed huffily as Hugo wrenched the wheel round in an attempt to retrieve our position.

“It would serve you right if I dumped you in the river and left you there!” he retorted pleasantly.

“It looks to me as though that’s exactly what you’re going to do!” I returned.

The Landcruiser came to a tremulous stop, spraying the water up on my side. I gave a little gasp of anxiety and hoped that Hugo hadn’tnoticed. He had.

“I bet you’re wishing you were in the city now!” he said with contempt.

“Well, I expect you’re wishing we were safely over the other side,” I replied reasonably.

He laughed without much amusement. “I don’t know,” he said. “It might be an interesting experience for us both to get stuck in the mud.”

I was genuinely appalled at the thought. “Interesting?” I squawked.

“Why not? It would give us time to find out what we genuinely thought of one another.”

“I don’t want to think about it,” I said harshly.

He gave me a bitter smile. “No? I suppose you prefer to dream about Martin Freeman! ”

“You can suppose what you like!”

“I shall!”

We swerved back on to the track across the river and edged forward through the swirling waters. If there was much more rain higher up, itwould soon be impassable, I thought. Then Martin wouldn’t be able to drive up from Mombasa and collect me on the way, for the camp wouldbe isolated from the whole world, except for Johnny’s plane, for no one except a lunatic would attempt to reach the camp by any other route.The rain came pelting down, bouncing off the surface of the river, to fall again and join the swelling waters. A crocodile rose lazily on to its feetand eased itself into the brown water and was lost to sight.

“You haven’t opened your other letter,” Hugo said in a more friendly voice.

“No,” I agreed miserably. “It’s from my parents.”

“And what will they say to your deserting your job to go to the Freemans’?” he asked, his eyes firmly on the track ahead.

“Does it matter?” I returned with a sigh.

He gave me a quick look. ‘You mean that Harry deJong approves of that sort of thing?”

The Landcruiser jolted, slipped forward, and was jerked back on to course. I held on to my seat with everything I had.

“Sorry,” Hugo said briefly. He was so unapologetic, though, that I wondered why he bothered.

“I am grown up, you know,” I snapped. “So my father doesn’t come into it, one way or the other.”

“Huh!” he jeered.

I was silent, concentrating madly on this nightmare crossing of the swollen river. When we reached the other side and had rushed up the bank,Hugo disengaged the four-wheel drive and increased our speed as we drove towards the camp. I felt mentally and physically exhausted, andmy shoulder ached. I put up a hand to feel the bandage which, during the day, had grown tighter and tighter. As I had expected, I found myarm was swollen and constricted.

“I’ll have a look at it as soon as we get back to camp,” Hugo said suddenly. The kindness in his voice made me want to cry.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said.

But apparently he thought otherwise. As soon as we had reached the camp, he parked the Landcruiser neatly under the trees and came roundthe front to help me out of my seat. There was no sign that anyone had heard our arrival, only the dripping noise of the rain and the watersliding off the leaves of the trees.

‘You’d better go to your tent,” he said. “I’ll bring some hot water and some fresh bandages.”

I nodded. I was too tired to argue and, anyway, I didn’t want to. I staggered off to my tent, stiff from the hours of driving and my adventureswith the lion. I unzipped the entrance, pushed my way inside, and lay down flat on my bed, waiting for my aching muscles to ease.

Hugo was not long behind me. I swung my legs to the ground as he came in, ashamed of my moment of weakness.

“I’m not tired really,” I explained quickly. “But there isn’t anywhere to sit.”

Hugo put the bowl of steaming water down on the wash-stand just outside the tent. Without a word to me, he went to work unwinding thebandage from my arm. As it fell away, it was easy to see the bruise marks he had made when he had grabbed me and kissed me. He stood insilence for a long moment, gazing down at my arm.

“I see that I owe you an apology,” he said at last.

I wiped my free hand on the side of my trousers. “Not really,” I muttered. “It was my fault too.”

His eyes smiled at me. “That’s very generous. But not quite true. I had no business to use force—”

I bit my lip. “It’s all right,” I said awkwardly.

His hands were very gentle as he bathed away the pus that had gathered in the open gash. “As Katundi would say, a woman lives in the pastand the future as well as in the present. She links our ancestors with our descendants, therefore she ranks higher than a man. A man maystrike his father, but he may not strike his mother. This is the law.”

“But not our law,” I said flatly.

He smiled. “We, too, are African born and bred.”

“But—It’s ridiculous! In Africa, a woman may rank higher than a man, but much good does it do her!”

“Not very much,” he agreed. “But I truly am sorry, Clare.”

I wriggled with embarrassment. “So am I,” I growled. “And anyway,” I added, “I’m not your mother!”

His delighted laughter filled the tent. “Indeed you’re not!” he exclaimed.

“Well then?” I said grudgingly.

“Well then, there are other possibilities I can think of,” he retorted, “but I’ll leave you to work them out for yourself! You’ll not get away fromhere easily until the rains are over, Martin or no Martin, so there’s plenty of time!”

But time for what?

He finished bandaging my arm, pinning the end neatly on the outside where it wouldn’t rub. “There you are!” he said. He picked up the useddressings and the bowl of water and went outside into the gathering darkness. “Be seeing you!” he called out. And then he was gone.

Karibu had already been shut up in her stable for the night. I half thought, while I was waiting for dinner, that I would go and visit her, butsheer fatigue made me think again. The morning would be soon enough. In the morning, I would take her down to the river with me when Iscrubbed the filters. There was nothing the elephant loved more than to bath in the muddy waters while I looked on. If I was not very careful,she would spray me with water too, until I was as wet and muddy as she was herself.

I wouldn’t allow myself to think of Hugo at all. It took a certain amount of resolution to dismiss him from my mind, but I was not a deJong fornothing. If I failed completely to dismiss him from my heart, that was something I could keep to myself. Pride is a mask that many a womanhas worn with honour, and I was proud, proud to the backbone. If I had not been, I would have gone then and there to Hugo and told him that Iwouldn’t have minded if I had never seen Martin Freeman ever again.

It was something of a relief to find that Hugo had not come over from his house for dinner. Katundi beat the gong with relish and I walkedslowly through the darkness, rather enjoying the sensation of the heavy rain beating down on to my waterproof. Abdul Patel was already there.He had left his turban behind in his tent and his black hair glistened with water.

“What a night!” he said.

“We only just got across the river,” I told him. “By tomorrow, no one will be able to cross at all.”

Abdul shrugged, smiling. “It will keep the Mzee on the other side!” he remarked.

I went cold inside. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing. But he might have thought he’d come along, in case we’d brought the other lions here. We brought him here that first time.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” I asked him tremulously.

“Not really,” he agreed. “Anyway if we can’t get across the river, neither can he!”

I wasn’t much comforted by this assurance. I had never heard of a lion swimming, but if determination was all that it took, the Mzee wouldswim across no matter what the river was like. But he wouldn’t come! I thought of him as I had last seen him, shepherding the rump of hispride along the top of the dam at Aruba. The cubs were too young to go far in a day and he would hardly leave them to fend for themselves.

I sat down at my place at the table and filled my glass with wine. The noise of the rain on the thatched roof was like a whisper, punctuated bythe thunder that burst at intervals overhead.

“Is anyone else coming to dinner?” I asked.

Abdul Patel looked surprised. “Johnny isn’t back yet,” he said. “I don’t know where the others are.”

I motioned to Katundi to serve the soup. He came forward with the steaming bowl, carefully ladling some first into my plate and then intoAbdul’s.

“Shall I ring the gong again, mama?” he asked me.

I shook my head. “They’ll come when they’re ready,” I said. Hans Doffnang came first. We could hear him outside the mosquito netting,shaking the worst of the wet off his mackintosh. When he came into the light, I could see that he was laughing. He sat down beside me in abusinesslike way, unfolding his napkin and peering at my plate to see what I was eating.

“So you’re back!” he greeted me.

I nodded. “I’ll be back at work tomorrow,” I assured him hastily.

“Good.” He patted my hand with one of his. “I have something to tell you, meisje!”

I sat up very straight. It would be just my luck, I thought, that something would have gone badly wrong on the site while I had been away.

“Yes?” I prompted him.

“Do you remember that we talked about Kruger the other day?”

I nodded, wondering what on earth could be coming next. “I remember,” I said.

He thumped his chest with his two open hands. “I, too, am a great man!” he announced. “In a minute you will see it for yourself!”

I stared at him. “I think you’ll have to tell me—” I began.

“No, no! Clare, it is good that you went away! Never shall I be sufficiently grateful to you!”

“Then everything is all right on the site?” I asked him cautiously.

“I’m not talking about the site!” he replied, vaguely irritated by the suggestion. “Who cares about the site?”

I chuckled. “I thought you were a great architect,” I reminded him.

“So I am,” he confirmed, totally without conceit. “But now I am talking about my being a great man!”

“Oh, I see,” I said, not seeing at all.

He chuckled happily to himself as he refilled my glass with wine and then filled his own. “Life is very good!” he exclaimed with a sigh. “Verygood!”

There was a scraping noise outside as Janice fought with her umbrella. Katundi went to her aid, holding the mosquito netting apart for her tocome in. She blinked as she came into the light and it was easy to see that she was faintly put out that we should all be looking at her. Shelooked different, older, more mature, and lovelier than ever. And then I saw what it was that was different about her. She had braided her hair!

She sat down at the table with a quaint air of embarrassment.

“Did you take any decent photographs?” she asked me quickly, before anyone could mention the change in her.

I managed to look suitably guilty. “I forgot,” I said. “I’m awfully sorry. I took the camera with me, but when it came to it, I was too busy to takeany photos.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said.

Hans Doffnang dug me in the ribs with his elbow. “You see!” he said in triumph.

Janice blushed. “I wish you’d tell him, Clare, that I haven’t changed my hair for him. I find it more—more convenient, that’s all!”

Obligingly, I translated this into Dutch, but Hans Doffnang only laughed.

“That is what she says now!” he smiled. “But last night it was a different story!”

“Was it?” I asked Janice, frankly intrigued.

“Well,” said Janice, “there was no one else to talk to with all of you away.” She sounded extraordinarily unsure of herself. “Who does he think heis, anyway?” she demanded.

“Paul Kruger,” I told her. “He had very strong ideas about modesty in women’s dress.”

“I know that!” said Janice.

“And so she braids her hair and gives up playing poker!” Hans Doffnang put in with a satisfied air.

“But I don’t want to live in some puritan-minded village in Holland!” Janice wailed.

Hans Doffnang rushed round the table towards her. “You shan’t do anything you don’t want! We shall live anywhere you please! Anywhere!”

Somehow or other, Janice seemed to understand every word he said. “Oh, Hans!” she exclaimed. She stood up too and faced him, Abdul Pateland I completely forgotten. “Oh, Hans, I don’t care where I live so long as it’s with you!”

“Mijne liejde, my life, have you ever been to Holland? You will like it very well, ja! Married to me, we shall both be very happy all our days!”

Janice looked as astonished as the rest of us. It was clear that marriage had never occurred to her.

“But—” she said faintly.

Hans kissed her warmly. “We will have a celebration at once! I have some excellent wine in my tent. I will fetch it and we shall drink it togetherwith our friends.” He shot off into the darkness, completely forgetting his raincoat. Janice sank back into her chair, looking pale and lovely.

“It’s impossible!” she said weakly. “I don’t even understand what he’s saying!”

I grinned. “I have a feeling he will teach you excellent Dutch,” I said.

She gave me a horrified look. “No! I can’t! I’m no good at learning languages! ”

“That’s true,” Abdul put in, in his soft, distinctly Indian voice. “Her Swahili is very odd and quite difficult to understand.”

I quelled him with a look. “You won’t find it so bad!” I said encouragingly. “You already understand each other very well!”

“The language of love is universal,” Abdul couldn’t resist saying.

“Oh, shut up, both of you!” Janice pleaded. “I don’t even like him!”

“You’ll never convince him of that!” I chuckled. “You should never have tied back your hair! You know how he felt about your long, flowinghair!”

Janice made a face at me. “I know, Memsahib Golden Syrup, as the Africans call me! And I wouldn’t have done anything, only you’ve no ideahow dispiriting constant disapproval can be! ”

“Is that why you did it?” I shot at her.

“I think so,” she said doubtfully.

“Then what are you going to do?” I asked her.

She gulped, blushed, and bit her lip. “Marry him!” she said faintly.

Hans Doffnang came back soaked to the skin. He triumphantly waved aloft two bottles of wine, which he handed over to Katundi to open. Noteven our silence could dent his happiness.

“My lovely wife!” he said in Dutch.

Janice smiled at him, regaining much of her usual confidence. “Clare says I shall have to learn Dutch,” she told him.

He waved away any such suggestion. “No, no, it is I who will learn to speak English,” he promised her.

“But if we live in Holland—” Janice argued.

Mr. Doffnang interrupted her with a loving kiss. “What a night! Here I am, soaking wet, just when I should like to walk you back to your tent inthe moonlight. Why else should one come to the tropics?”

Katundi brought back the wine and served it with all the dignity that the occasion demanded. He cleared away the soup plates and brought inthe next course, grinning happily to himself while we ate the chicken and sweet potatoes he had brought from the kitchen. Neither Janice norHans were hungry, I don’t think either of them had the remotest idea what it was that they were eating, and I envied them. Now that the firstexcitement had died away, my own sadness seemed all the sharper. I ate the food Katundi had set before me mechanically, wishing that theevening was over. And then, when it was, I was afraid to be alone, to remember my quarrel with Hugo.

Abdul placed my waterproof over my shoulders and glanced out at the rain.

“No need of a shower tonight!” he commented. “Can you see? Or shall I come with you with a torch?”

“I can see, thank you,” I said.

We shook hands with careful formality and then I made a dash down the pathway to my tent. As I ran I could hear the thunder still rumblingoverhead. It was queer, but it sounded very like the voice of the Mzee, roaring his defiance, and threatening some new revenge. A flash oflightning lit up the flooding river rushing past the higher land of the camp, and another crack of thunder rent the sky. I zipped up my tent withcare and hurried into my bed. Surprisingly, I had hardly lain down before I was asleep.

When I awoke, the sun was already peeping through the trees and the gossamer threads of the webs of trapdoor spiders shone silver in thegrass by the river. I wriggled my arm experimentally and found that it hardly hurt at all. It was an encouraging start to the day.

I dressed in clean clothes, after spending a long time in the makeshift shower, and hurried along the path towards Hugo’s house before anyoneelse was up. It was an easy thing to find Karibu’s stable, for she had heard me coming and her trunk was sticking out through a peephole in thedoor, trumpeting wildly in her excitement.

“Have a care, love,” I bade her as she pounded on the door. Her trunk fondled my neck and she rumbled happily as she explored my body tomake sure that all was well with me. “Come, Karibu,” I whispered in her ear.

She came willingly enough. Grabbing a bundle of food from her stall, she came pounding down the path after me, much excited by thisunlooked-for treat.

Katundi was lighting the charcoal fire in the kitchen boma. He was clearly surprised to see me up and about so early.

“I thought I’d clean the filters before breakfast,” I told him. “Karibu can come with me.”

“I shall come also,” Katundi insisted. “It is necessary to be very careful by the river today.”

“All right,” I agreed. I wasn’t sorry that he was coming too, for the river was considerably higher than it had been even the night before and thecrocodiles were more difficult to see in the muddy water that was busily carrying yet more of the topsoil from upstream away for ever.

I found the buckets and the scrubbing brushes and hurried out to reassure Karibu, who was waiting impatiently outside.

“We’ll begin with you,” I told her. “You look as though you could do with a good bath!”

I gave her one of the buckets to hold, but she dropped it almost immediately. I stooped down to pick it up, talking to her all the while, for truthto tell, I couldn’t help marvelling at her gentleness when I looked at her enormous feet and her tough, wrinkled skin, perhaps the thickest in theanimal world, that sagged loosely about her enormous size.

As I picked up the bucket, I glanced up into the trees and was shocked to see the dead head of an antelope staring down at me throughunseeing eyes. I must have gasped, for Katundi, who was following behind, looked up too.

“Did a lion do that?” I asked with a touch of hysteria. I had an odd, prickly sensation in the back of my neck and I felt slightly sick.

Katundi shook his head. “Mama?”

I shook myself, pulling myself together. “Of course it isn’t a lion,” I said loudly. “Stupid of me!”

“It’s a leopard’s larder,” Katundi said. “No lion takes its kill up into a tree. There are many leopards about here.”

“Hence Chui Safari Lodge!” I exclaimed with satisfaction. It was only right and proper that there should be some of the animal the Lodge wascalled after close by. I felt distinctly better. There were no lions anywhere near.

Katundi pulled the filters carefully out of the river before I let Karibu loose to paddle in the shallows beside us. The elephant cavorted withcumbersome grace into the water, blowing bubbles with her trunk, watching me closely all the while. I filled a bucket with water and threw itover her. She trembled with pleasure, standing quite still while I ran over those parts of her that I could reach with one of the scrubbing-brushes.

“There,” I said at last. “That’s your lot!”

Her flanks quivered expectantly. She sucked up a whole lot of water in her trunk, playfully threatening me with a soaking.

“Don’t you dare!” I screamed at her.

Katundi sat back on his heels, laughing at the two of us. “You will be wetter than she is!” he called out to me.

“Not if I can help it!” I danced back out of reach, but Karibu was not to be so easily defeated. She came storming out of the water after me, onlyto turn back again into the river, her giant feet sluicing the water some eight feet into the air all round her.

I sat down on the bank beside Katundi, panting after my exertions, and started to scrub the filters free of the dirt they had picked up in the lastday.

“It will be nice when we have piped water again,” I said wistfully, for I disliked the slimy feel of the stuff that attached itself to the filters.

“The Bwana has a better system at his house,” Katundi informed me. “There, one does not have to carry water back and forth. Aieee, to livethere must be the dream of every woman! There is no work there to break her back!” His black eyes glanced quickly at me and away again.

I sniffed. “I have no intention of breaking my back doing Bwana Canning’s work!” I said.

“No,” Katundi considered, “for it will be a joy to you!” “Besides,” I added fiercely, “I’m going away! Another man is coming for me and will takeme to his sister’s house!”

Katundi looked as if I had struck him. He lapsed into a long silence, intent on his scrubbing.

“Well, why don’t you say it?” I said wearily.

“There is no need,” he retorted with infinite dignity. “Your destiny lies here in Tsavo.”

Crosser than ever at this bland conclusion, I threw caution to the winds.

“You’ll be telling me next that I have already been chosen by the Bwana’s ancestors to bear his children!” I taunted him, well aware that the oldbeliefs were far more real to him than either the Christian or the Moslem faith.

Katundi grinned, wagging his head to and fro, not at all put out by my ill temper. “Mama understands these things very well,” he agreed slyly,“so she will know that it may well be so.”

I finished scrubbing one of the filters and flung it into one of the other buckets. Karibu’s ears flapped audibly and I wondered what she hadheard in the bushes behind me. She threw up her trunk and trumpeted angrily, advancing out of the water.

“Come on, Karibu, it’s nothing,” I comforted her.

Katundi rose to his feet. “Mama! The Mzee! The Mzee!”

I smelt the lion before I saw him. It took all the courage I had to turn my head, knowing that I should look straight into the amber eyes of theMzee, and that this time I would not escape.

The lion walked slowly forward. I watched him, hypnotised, as he gathered himself to spring. I made no effort to avoid him, but stood there,waiting. It seemed as if I had always known that he would come. He was the old enemy who had long ago recognised that it was I who haddestroyed his pride. It was I who had fired the dart at him and it was my smell that he recognised. And now he was going to take his revenge.

But I had reckoned without Karibu. She was not in the least afraid of any lion. She grabbed me round the waist with her trunk and flung me onto the ground, Standing over me in exactly the same way as she would have stood over her own young. Her fury was a terrifying thing. Thenthe lion sprang and, at the same instant, the elephant rose on to her back legs and crashed the full weight of her front feet into the superb bodyof the Mzee. When she had done, she trampled him firmly and systematically into the dust, while I clung to one of her back legs, weeping myheart out for the death of the king.

CHAPTER TWELVE

KARIBU’s rage lasted long after Hugo had come and dragged me out from beneath her. The extraordinary thing is that despite her furious,savage attack on the lion, I was completely unharmed. I had always known that elephants were deft with their feet, but the fact that she hadnot trampled me seemed like a miracle to me. Her trunk flicked over me while she rumbled with fright. She had no intention of allowing me outof her sight for a long time to come. Hugo pacified her as best he could, but with me weeping at his feet and Katundi wailing some dirge over thedead lion, his patience was rapidly exhausted.

“For heaven’s sake!” he bellowed. “Shut up with that noise! Both of you!”

I was startled into a damp silence. Karibu patted me on the

head, breathing gently down the back of my neck. I watched while Hugo bent over the remains of the lion, making sure that it was the Mzeeand not some other stranger. He stood up, satisfied, and gave Katundi instructions to bury the beast. Then he turned to me.

“Well, Elephant’s Child?” he said.

I got shakily to my feet. “How did you get here?” I asked him.

He smiled at me. “I heard you letting Karibu out of her stall. Just as well you did,” he added on a quite different note.

I brushed the tears off my cheeks. “Karibu won’t get into trouble, will she? Killing our famous tourist attraction?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” he said, “I’ll get hold of Duncan Njugi myself and tell him how it happened.”

“He must have walked all night,” I said tearfully. “Through all that rain and across the river!”

Hugo put his arm round my shoulders. “It’s no good getting sentimental about him,” he said. “That’s been the trouble all along, but I doubt thegreat beast shared in your emotional entanglement.”

“That’s all you know!” I told him fiercely. “That’s what made it so horrible. We—we were looking at each other.”

He gave me a little shake. “Thank God for Karibu!” he said.

I gave her a misty smile and reached up and pulled on her ear. She had stopped shaking and was now only rumbling gleefully, her trunk resting

on my shoulder.

“Poor Mzee,” I said.

Hugo patted the elephant hard on her rump. “That reminds me,” he said. “If I get hold of Johnny in time, he can go back to Amboseli and getour other lions back.”

I stepped away from him. “How can you?” I asked him bitterly. “You don’t care a bit that he’s dead, do you?”

He looked me straight in the eyes. “I think we’ll both live through it,” he said evenly.

“Well, I won’t! I’ll never get over it!” I pulled my hand out of his and ran away from him, up the path towards the camp. Karibu came runningafter me, her trunk raised high before

her, determined not to let me get away from her.

Katundi gathered up the filters and the buckets and came after me, but Hugo stayed where he was. He doesn’t care a rap, I thought, he doesn’tcare about anything! Katundi caught up with me, his dark eyes full of pity.

“Shall I make you coffee?” he suggested. ‘You will feel better when you have eaten.”

I nodded my head disconsolately. “Why did it have to happen like that?” I asked him.

He blinked, unwilling to share his thoughts with me. “The Bwana Njugi will not blame Karibu,” was all he said.

“But I blame myself!” I told him.

Katundi blinked again, shaking his head. “The lion came to die,” he said flatly. “I shall bring your coffee to your tent, mama.”

Karibu was very reluctant to allow me to go into my tent. She stood guard on the pathway outside, doing her best to knock over a nearby tree,hoping to get at the delicious green buds at the top. It seemed as though her adventure was already forgotten and it was only I who could stilllook into the calm, amber eyes of the Mzee as he came to exact his revenge.

I blew my nose, lay down on the bed, and shut my eyes. The amber eyes were still there. I sat up and looked at myself in the glass, my owneyes reflecting the sad stare of the lion. Had he really come to die? Perhaps he knew it was the only way to bring back the stolen lions fromAmboseli. Because of his death, they would come home to Tsavo and roam free for the rest of their days.

And what of myself? I tried to remember my anger with Hugo, but it had gone. I, too, could walk the plains of Tsavo all my days if I could findthe strength to grasp my future in my own hands. I was ashamed of the pointless quarrel I had initiated over Martin Freeman. Hugo had said Iwould have to beg him, if I wanted him to kiss me again. Was I too proud for that? I looked deep into my reflected eyes and knew that I wasnot.

“Hodi!” Katundi called out from outside the tent. “I have your coffee, mama.”

“Karibu, come in,” I answered automatically.

Katundi came in, putting the tray carefully down on the table beside me. “Shall I pour it out for you?” he asked me.

I nodded, distracted by my own thoughts. “Katundi, will you be serving Bwana Canning’s dinner tonight?”

He smiled broadly. “Ndiyo, mama.”

I took a deep breath. “Why don’t you take the evening off?” I suggested. “I’m sure your wives would be pleased to see you!”

“Ndiyo, mama,” he said again a little more cautiously.

I cleared my throat, embarrassed. “I shall serve dinner,” I mumbled.

“Ndiyo, mama!” He could scarcely contain his pleasure. “Everything will be left ready. Will you cook the meal yourself?”

I nodded, unable to think of anything to say.

“Everything must be very good,” he said thoughtfully. “Everything must go well.” He scratched his head. “Does the Bwana—”

I looked him straight in the face. “Katundi,” I said.

He looked abashed. “Ndiyo?”

“Mind your own business!”

He grinned. “Ndiyo, mama!”

I felt de trop on the site. Hans Doffnang and Janice were intent only on each other. They managed to communicate surprisingly well, sinceneither of them had more than a few words of the other’s language. Perhaps they didn’t need to say very much. They were still far toosurprised that they had fallen in love with one another.

Abdul Patel was the only one of us who did a proper day’s work. He was not expecting me to come up to the top of the plateau, for the story ofthe lion had spread rapidly amongst all the workers.

“Are you feeling well enough to be here?” he asked me gently.

“I think so,” I said. “It was quite a moment!”

He was acute enough to know something of what I had felt for the lion. “I am sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m very sorry.”

“It’s all right,” I said awkwardly.

“He must have come deliberately. He knew where the camp was, so he knew where to find us.”

“Katundi says he came to die,” I told him.

Patel’s eyes opened wide. “Katundi is a wise man,” he said. “It could well have been so.”

“Then you agree with him?” Somehow I was surprised that Abdul should also feel that Mzee had come seeking his death.

“Yes. Yes, I do,” he said.

It was a comforting thought.

Hugo’s house was deserted when I got there. The sun was just setting and, when I arrived, an African was trying to persuade Karibu into herstable. The elephant, however, refused to go inside, despite bribes and threats.

“Perhaps she’ll go inside for me,” I suggested hopefully.

The African was only too pleased that I should try. He had no ambition for Hugo to come home and find the elephant on the loose. But Karibuhad quite other ideas. She refused to set foot in her stable. She flapped her ears and waved her trunk in the air, kicking out at the door that theAfrican was trying to shut behind her. “You’d better let her go,” I said.

Karibu blew down her trunk and set off at a great pace round the house. The African shrugged and went off himself, muttering imprecationsinto the night that was rapidly closing in around us. When he had gone, I plucked up my courage and went into Hugo’s house. Karibu wasplucking at his banana trees in his garden just beyond the verandah, but I hadn’t got the heart to stop her. Her method was simple. Shestripped the hands of green bananas off the tree, knocked it flat, and then ate the lot, leaving only the bananas behind.

Katundi had left everything ready for me in the kitchen. I found an apron hanging behind the door and tied it carefully round my waist, while Iconsidered what I was going to cook. I settled for a local dish called Sukumu Wiki, consisting of

saffron rice, minced meat, and sukumu leaves, which taste much like spinach and are the same dark green in colour. It had the other advantagethat it was easy to cook. By the time all the pans were steaming, a quite appetising smell was coming from the food, the first signal of success toany cook.

Although I had been expecting Hugo, I was quite unprepared for him when I heard him walk into the sitting room. I came to the door of thekitchen, unsure of my welcome. It was a long time since I had felt so shy of anyone, but, I reasoned to myself, if I was going to spend the rest ofmy life with him, the sooner I got over it the better.

“Hullo,” he said. He was smiling, a little surprised.

“Hullo.”

He raised his eyebrows, making me blush. “Where’s Katundi?” he asked.

“I—I sent him home,” I said in a rush.

He sniffed the air appreciatively and I began to feel better. “And did you also tell Karibu she could demolish my garden?” he askedconversationally.

Not exactly, I managed. “We couldn’t persuade her to go into her stall.”

He gave me a look which I couldn’t fathom. “I suppose she knew you had come to dinner,” he suggested innocently.

“She knew I was here, yes,” I said.

“And why?”

My courage disappeared with the suddenness of a pricked balloon. “S-something is boiling over!” I exclaimed, and bolted into the kitchen.

He came after me and leaned nonchalantly against the wall by the doorway. The silence was quite unbearable, made more so because it wasobvious that nothing was boiling over, or showing any sign of doing so.

“I didn’t know you could cook,” Hugo said finally.

“I don’t often,” I admitted.

“But you are tonight?”

I busied myself with testing the rice to see if it were cooked. “Yes,” I said.

“May one ask why?”

I gave him a harassed look. This was proving much more difficult than I had anticipated in my own mind.

“Are they bringing the lions back?” I countered, sounding unexpectedly aggressive.

“Thanks to Duncan Njugi,” he said wryly.

I was immediately interested. “Was he furious?” I asked.

“He wasn’t very pleased. But there was nothing to be done. He could hardly blame Karibu for saving your life, could he?”

“No,” I agreed doubtfully. “Katundi says that the Mzee came to die,” I added with difficulty.

His expression was surprisingly kind. “Did he? He chose a gentle executioner.”

“Karibu?”

“I don’t think he realised that Karibu was there,” he said.

I stared at him. "Me? But I would never have killed him! He would have killed me! There was nothing I could do about it. I wouldn’t even havestruggled.”

He laughed. “All he knew was that it was you who knocked him unconscious the last time he tangled with you,” he suggested.

“But was he clever enough for that?”

“I think perhaps he was,” he said.

“Oh,” I said inadequately. I thought that he had been right all the time. He had refused to be sentimental about the lion, but he had given himthe respect due to any living creature, and a little more, because this had been a lion in a million.

“Well?” he said at last.

“Well what?”

“Are you going to tell me why you’re here, cooking dinner, instead of eating with the others at the camp?”

“Yes,” I said.

He waited patiently for a long moment while I tried to bring order to the chaotic emotions that surged within me.

“You see—” I said, “even Duncan Njugi said it was a good idea to bring some of the old customs up to date.”

There was another long, expectant silence.

“It was something Katundi suggested, a long time ago,” I went on desperately.

The silence dragged on.

I turned and faced him. “And you said that if I wanted you to kiss me again, I—I should have to ask you.” I swallowed hard. “I’m asking now,” Isaid in a rush.

His face softened dramatically. “Oh, my darling Clare! You didn’t have to do that!”

I took a faltering step towards him. “Didn’t I? I think I did. I couldn’t go on being at odds with you!”

“Couldn’t you?” He looked as though I had handed him something precious and that he couldn’t believe his luck. “What about MartinFreeman?”

“Nothing about him. I don’t care if I never see him again!” I stamped my foot, suddenly angry. “He never did matter—only to you!”

He took my hands in his, spending a long time just looking at me. I could feel my heart thumping within me, for I thought that even then hemight reject me. But he did not. He took me into his arms and kissed me slowly and thoroughly, on my mouth, my cheeks, and my amber-coloured eyes.

“Is that better?” he asked in my ear.

“Much better!” I agreed.

“Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me what Duncan Njugi had to do with all this?” he suggested lovingly, kissing me all over again.

I blushed. “I think we’d better eat first,” I said.

“I’m not hungry!” he retorted.

“Well, I am!”

He let me go very reluctantly. He was much handier in the kitchen than I was. He drained the rice and served it neatly on two plates, while Iwas still struggling with the sukumu leaves and the meat. In the end he took the pans away from me and dealt with them with the same casualair that he did everything else.

When the meal was set on the table, my hunger had gone. I played with a few grains of rice and meat, watching Hugo as he finished up hisplateful with gusto, despite his claim not to be hungry.

“Very good!” he complimented me. “Though Katundi could probably have done as well!” His eyes rested curiously on my face.

“That isn’t the point!” I said.

He grinned. He was enjoying himself. “What is the point?” he asked me.

“You know what it means when a woman cooks a man’s food for him,” I accused him flatly.

His grin grew broader. “Of course,” he admitted. “But I don’t quite see what it has to do with Duncan Njugi—or Katundi either.”

“N-no,” I agreed, and fidgeted with my knife and fork, seeking for inspiration. “I don’t think I want to explain,” I said at last.

“You disappoint me!” he said agreeably.

I gave him an awful look. “Anyway, you know perfectly well!” I accused him in goaded tones.

“I might hazard a guess,” he conceded, “but as I can hardly imagine that you don’t expect any man to ask you to marry you, I confess I amrather baffled about that.”

“But I don’t want any man to ask me!” I complained.

“Then—?”

“I couldn’t think of anything else to do,” I admitted. “And I don’t think you’re being at all kind! You could do some explaining yourself! ”

He chuckled. “I love it when you get cross,” he told me. “I love the way your eyes change colour!”

“Do they?” I exclaimed, much interested.

“They do. Are you going to finish that rice?”

I shook my head. “I wasn’t hungry after all,” I said. He rose from the table and went and sat on one of the deep leather chairs that looked outacross the verandah. He patted the arm of the chair invitingly, his eyes smiling up at me.

“Darling,” he said in an amused voice, “don’t you know that we don’t practise Kuheera or anything like it in our tribe?”

I sat down on the arm of the chair with dignity.

“I thought you’d understand what I meant,” I said hoarsely.

“Anyway, it isn’t at all the same!”

He shouted with laughter, while the colour slowly travelled up into my cheeks.

“Not at all the same!” he agreed dryly. He pulled me down on to his knee and held me captive, amused by my confusion. “How far did youintend to go?”

“I didn’t intend anything!” I assured him. “I thought that if I— if I sent Katundi home and cooked your dinner, you wouldn’t ask anything else.I don’t see why you have to go on about it!”

He kissed me on the nose. “I can’t resist it! My love, did Duncan really suggest that you should do such a thing?”

“He was very nice to me. He knew I was in love with you and— and he thought you might be with me too—”

“I should have thought that was obvious!”

“Well, it wasn’t! I wouldn’t let myself even think about it But everyone knew how I felt. It’s a humiliating thought, but it seemed to me that thewhole world knew!” I wailed.

“Darling,” he said warmly. He kissed me again until I didn’t care what anyone thought about anything. “It was only because they’re interestedin you,” he said. “If they hadn’t liked you, they wouldn’t have bothered.”

“That’s what you think!” I said comfortably.

He chuckled. “Clare deJong, are you going to marry me?”

I nodded, unable to answer. It was a dream come true and I had never been happier in my whole life.

The amusement in Hugo’s face died. If I had ever doubted how he felt about me, I would have known in that moment. “Soon?” he pressed me.

‘Yes,” I said. “Very soon.”

Hugo was very gentle with me. It is, after all, a traumatic experience for any girl, declaring one’s love to a man, without any assurance that thisis what he wants. Apparently he understood this, for he more than made up for it in the minutes that followed.

“Actually,” I told him when I could, “I have it on the very best authority that you have absolutely no choice in the matter!”

He sighed. “Katundi again?”

I nodded, smiling. ‘Your ancestors picked me out for you a long time ago,” I teased him.

“And you believe that?” he mocked me.

I kissed him on the chin. “Why not? We, too, are African born and bred!”

He dumped me off his knee and back on to the arm of the chair. “I refuse to have my own words quoted back at me!” He stood up, pulling meafter him towards the verandah.

“Hugo, you do indeed want to marry me?” I asked him.

He turned and smiled at me. “I do indeed want to marry you!” he agreed.

I sighed with relief. “Because I couldn’t leave Tsavo now,” I confided. I pointed out into the garden. “I couldn’t not have that at my doorstepevery day now that I know what it’s like!”

He chuckled. “What about me?”

My heart stopped within me. “You, my dear, are the sun and the stars, both night and day, to me. Everything!”

He looked at me for a long time. ‘You’re very generous to me,” he said at last.

“But I want you to know!” I insisted. “Tsavo is only your shadow to me. Surely you know that!”

“I’m beginning to,” he said.

We stood side by side, looking out across the moonlit plains. The sounds of the night were very busy that evening and we were beyond the needto talk. It was more than enough that we were close to one another and very much in love. Then suddenly Hugo stiffened beside me.

“Just look at that elephant!” he said in scandalised tones.

I hardly had to look, for at that moment Karibu got scent of our presence and ran straight up the nearest flower bed towards us.

“Her feet!” Hugo moaned.

I laughed heartlessly. There was something very funny about Karibu’s unerring instinct for destruction. There was scarcely a rose-bush left.

“Perhaps we could entice her into her stall,” I suggested. “She’ll be more amenable when she realises that I’m not going to leave her.”

Hugo grinned. “You can hardly spend the night in her stall with her!” he grunted.

“No, but she’ll know I’m with you,” I said innocently.

His eyebrows shot up. “Indeed? You’ll spend the night in your own tent!”

“Yes, now, but after we’re married I’ll live here,” I argued. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t tell her that!”

He blinked. “You don’t? Well, my darling, if you can get anything through her thick head—”

“You’re talking about a friend of mine!” I interrupted him.

He gave in gracefully. “Okay,” he said, “on your head be it!”

I leaned over the wall of the verandah, whistling gently. Karibu flapped her ears and came running up to me, rumbling joyfully. Her trunkinvestigated the bandages on my arm, blowing breathily down my arm. I held Hugo’s hand firmly in my own and, with my other hand, placedher trunk on the top of our joined hands.

‘You’re pleased, aren’t you?” I said anxiously.

But Karibu was far from pleased. Her ears stood out in the most threatening manner and she shook her head to and fro in anger. Finally sheturned her back on us and walked back down the garden, snatching at the roses as she went.

“I can’t understand it!” I said faintly.

Hugo grinned. “She’s jealous!” he teased me.

“Nonsense!” I said with decision. “I’ll go and talk to her by myself.”

I hopped over the wall and stood in the clear moonlight, calling Karibu to come back. She was far too put out to heed me. She turned her head,to make sure I was watching, and then, with deliberate malice, she hauled up another young banana tree and set about the long leaves that sheliked so

much.

“Karibu,” I whispered to her. “Karibu, you wouldn’t like me to go away altogether, would you?”

I could have sworn she understood me. She rumbled faintly, still munching, but she did not go any farther away.

“And look at the mess you’ve made!” I scolded her. “It would be no more than you deserve if Hugo were to turn you out to fend for yourself!You’re supposed to be a wild elephant! Did you know that?”

“She knows I wouldn’t do that,” Hugo interrupted me. “After this morning, she can do as she likes!”

I turned my head and smiled at him. “It’s been quite a day for all of us,” I admitted.

“A happy day?” he asked.

I nodded, a little surprised that it should have been so. “Very happy!” I agreed.

“Then leave the poor beast to do her worst!”

“Certainly not!” I retorted. “We’ll never have a garden at all!” I ran down the path, tearing my legs on the fallen rose-bushes. “Karibu, that’senough! You’re going straight into your stable!” I pulled on her ear, leading her away, round the house, towards her own specially built hut. Theelephant paused, but then she came happily enough, trotting along beside me and reaching out with her trunk for a mouthful of this and that aswe went past.

She was quite pleased to see her stall. She knew that a vast pile of her favourite foods had been cut and stacked ready for her, to keep her goingthrough the long night, for even though she was not yet fully grown, she already had to eat most of the day and night to keep her vast bulkgoing.

I went in with her, enticing her to follow me with the offer of a handful of acacia leaves. When she was right inside and exploring the pile of foodfor the most succulent pieces, I shut the lower part of the stable door. She looked up immediately, but, seeing that I was still there, she wentback to her food. I slipped out of the door, still talking to her, to find Hugo waiting, for me.

Karibu’s ears flapped and she came immediately to the door, entwining her trunk around my neck.

“I’m surprised Katundi doesn’t think you a witch, Elephant’s Child!” he remarked. He put his arms round me and I reached up eagerly for hiskiss.

“Karibu,” I muttered, “go away!”

“Yes, do!” Hugo added his plea to mine, but she only blew in his face, rumbling affectionately all the while. “Dammit!” Hugo exclaimed,exasperated. “I will not share my kisses with an elephant!”

I giggled and pulled affectionately on Karibu’s ear. “It looks as though you may have to,” I said.

“That’s what you think!” He gave the elephant a shove and closed the top of the stable door with calm deliberation. Then he took me back in hisarms, his hands flat against the small of my back.

“And now, Clare deJong,” he said fiercely. “Now I’m going to kiss you and you can like it—”

“I’ll love it!” I assured him gladly.