The Leopard Woman | Page 2

children of the wilderness as that which gets the greatest result from the least effort. Dressed in the brown cork helmet, the brown flannel shirt with spine-pad, the khaki trousers, and the light boots of the African traveller little was to be made of either his face or figure. The former was fully bearded, the latter powerful across the shoulders. His belt was heavy with little leather pockets; a pair of prismatic field-glasses, suspended from a strap around his neck, swung across his chest; in the crook of his left arm he carried a light rifle.
Immediately at his heels followed a native. This man's face was in conformation that of the typical negro; but there the resemblance ceased. Behind the features glowed a proud, fierce spirit that transformed them. His head was high but his eyes roved from right to left restlessly, never still save when they paused for a flickering instant to examine some gazelle, some distant herd of zebra or wildebeeste standing in the vista of the flat-topped trees. His nostrils slowly expanded and contracted with his breathing, as do those of a spirited horse. In contrast to the gait of the white man he stepped vigorously and proudly as though the long day had not touched his strength. He wore a battered old felt hat, a tattered flannel shirt, a ragged pair of shorts, and the blue puttees issued by the British to their native troops. The straps of two canteens crossed on his breast; a full cartridge belt encircled his waist; he carried lightly and easily one of those twelve-pound double cordite rifles that constitute the only African life insurance.
Fifty yards in the rear marched the carriers. They were a straight, strong lot, dressed according to their fancy or opportunity in the cast-off garments of the coast; comical in the ensemble, perhaps, but worthy of respect in that all day each had carried a seventy-pound load under a tropical sun, and that they were coming in strong.
And finally, bringing up the rear, marched a small, lively, wizened little fellow, dressed as nearly as possible like the white man, and carrying as the badge of his office a bulging cotton umbrella and the _kiboko_--the slender, limber, stinging rhinoceros-hide whip.
It was the end of a long march. This could be guessed by the hour, by the wearied slouch of the white man, above all by the conduct of the safari. The men were walking one on the heels of the other. Their burdens, carried on their heads, held them erect. They stepped out freely. But against the wooden chop boxes, the bags of cornmeal potio, the bundles of canvas that made up some of the loads, the long safari sticks went _tap, tap, tap_, in rhythm. This tapping was a steady undertone to the volume of noise that arose from thirty throats. Every man was singing or shouting at the full strength of his lungs. A little file of Wakamba sung in unison one of the weird wavering minor chants peculiar to savage peoples everywhere; some Kavirondos simply howled in staccato barks like beasts. Between the extremes were many variations; but every man contributed to the uproar, and tapped his load rhythmically with his long stick. By this the experienced traveller would have known that the men were very tired, tired to the point of exhaustion; for the more wearied the Central African native, or the steeper the hill he, laden, must surmount, the louder he sings or yells.
"_Maji hapana m'bale, bwana_," observed the gun bearer to the white man. "Water is not far, master."
The white man merely nodded. These two had been together many years, and explanations were not necessary between them. He, as well as Simba, had noticed the gradual convergence of the game trails, the presence of small grass birds that flushed under their feet, the sing-sing buck behind the aloes, the increasing numbers of game animals that stared or fled at the sight and sound of the safari.
Nothing more was said. The way led to the top of one of those low transverse swells that conceal the middle distance without actually breaking the surface of the veldt. In the corresponding depression beyond now could be discerned a wandering slender line of green.
"_Maji huko!_" murmured Simba. "There is the water."
Suddenly he stooped low, uttering a peculiar hissing sound. The white man, too, dropped to the ground, throwing his rifle forward.
"_Nyama, bwana!_" he whispered fiercely, "_karibu sana!_"
He pointed cautiously over the white man's shoulder. The safari, at the sight of the two dropping to a crouch, had stopped as though petrified, and stood waiting in silence.
"We have no meat," Simba reminded his master in Swahili.
The white man eased himself back to a sitting posture, resting his elbows on his knees, as all sensible good rifle shots