Killers Kraal | Page 4

a knife which evidently had been dropped by one of the
men who had attacked the camp. The blade was double-edged, curved,
and twice the span of her hand in length. It had an ivory handle, most
cunningly carved, and she took it over to the fire to examine it more
closely.
Figures were carved on the handle, men dressed like Rick, but with
funny, thin legs. And there was a strange, prancing buck, with a beard
like a goat and a single horn sticking straight out from between its eyes.
And something that looked like a canoe with tall trees growing out of
it--strange trees, becatise all the branches grew across the trunks
without a twist or a downward bend. She thought it was strange that
one who could carve men with such skill should make such a poor
likeness of a tree. Any child could do better. But it was a good knife.
She was sliding it into the band of leopard skin about her waist when
Rick called her by name. But when she ran into the tent and bent over
him, he did not know her. He kept shouting her name, and then tried to
get up, and it took all her strength to hold him down. She spoke softly
to him. Her voice seemed to reach into the darkened chambers of his
mind; for he ceased to struggle and lay quiet again.

She did not know what else she could do to help him, and she rose and
looked down on his handsome face with troubled eyes. Her
foster-mother would have said that he was possessed of a devil, and she
would have made a magic to cast it out. But long ago something deep
in Sheena's nature had rebelled against the darker practices of her
people. She had faith in their simple remedies, because she had seen
them heal; but she had no faith in witchcraft, because too often she had
seen it fail. And besides, Ebid Ela had taught her many a fraudulent
trick.
On the following day at sundown, as before, she heard the drum again;
but she was too concerned over Rick to be more than vaguely aware of
it. It spoke again on the third day, and again the Abama villages gave
ear in silence. No answering call, no clue to the message the great drum
cried out to the rim of the horizon. And it flashed into her mind that the
drummer must be using some fetish-code, known only to the
witchdoctors.
Minutes later when she went into the tent it was to look deeply into the
gray eyes of Rick. They were very bright, and it was not only the
effects of his fever that made them so; for he lifted himself on his
elbow, and the slow smile came to his lips.
"It's been a long trek--mbali sana, sana!" he said in Swahili. "But I did
fight my way through all those black devils. I did get through to you."
"Truly," she said softly. "It was a hard fight, and now you must rest."
He passed his hand over his eyes. "A little dizzy yet," he muttered; then:
"You did not send your Abamas against me, Sheena?"
"No--no!" She was startled into a too vehement denial.
"Ah" His eyes probed her. "But you knew I was coming, the drums
would tell you that You came to meet me, Sheena!"
"I have not said so! And you must go back to the coast when you are
well again."

He made as if to rise, then fell back with a sharp intake of breath. In a
moment she was on her knees beside him. "Be still! Be still!" she
pleaded. His hand wound her hair into a golden twist, and drew her lips
down to his. His weakness was his strength. She dared not pull away
for fear of hurting him, and it was neither unpleasant, nor dangerous to
yield just for a moment when there was no strength in him.
"I came a long way for this," he said at last, and sank back on his
pillow. She stayed with him until he fell asleep, a smile still on his lips,
his breathing deep and regular.
On the following morning he ate all that she gave him, and begged for
more. When he had eaten enough for two men he sat up on the cot,
pressing his head between the palms of his hands.
"No pain," he announced with a grin. "Good solid bone clean through."
"You remember what happened now?"
He was silent for a moment, frowning slightly; then: "Yes," he said.
"My boys, six Lobitos, were cooking the evening meal. I was on this
cot, and a drum--a big drum--was talking somewhere back in the jungle.
I was