06 African Adventure

by Willard Price

  The stranger seemed to win the argument. Joro at last threw out his hands in a gesture that appeared to mean, ‘Very well. I will do as you say.’

  Then he went to the supply wagon and disappeared inside. In a few moments he was out again and wandered over to the open fire, on which a pot of gazelle meat was simmering - the stew that would very soon be brought to the table. The cook was busy preparing other food. Joro stood with his back to the pot and his hands behind him.

  Could it be that he was dropping something into the pot?

  Presently he wandered away, his head down, his shoulders slumped. Whatever he had done, if he had done anything, he was not happy about it.

  The cook had brought fruit to the table. Roger and his father were eagerly devouring bananas and mangoes. Hal did not eat.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Roger asked his brother. ‘No appetite?’

  ‘Something funny is going on,’ Hal said. ‘Don’t look round.’

  The cook ladled the gazelle stew out of the pot. He brought the steaming dishes to the table and set them before the three hungry Hunts. Roger was about to dig in when Hal said sharply:

  ‘Wait!’ Then he turned to his father. ‘Dad, do you see anything wrong with this stew?’

  ‘Why should there be?’

  ‘It may be all right. But I thought I saw Joro put something into it.’

  ‘It certainly smells good,’ John Hunt said. He dipped up a spoonful and examined it carefully. ‘No sign of any poison.’

  ‘Hal is just imagining things,’ Roger put in. ‘Let’s eat.’

  ‘Hold it,’ his father warned. ‘What are these tiny bristles? They look like bits of stiff hair - chopped up.’ He studied them for a moment. Then he said unhappily, ‘I would never have believed Joro would do this.’

  ‘Do what?’ demanded Roger, impatient to get on with his meal.

  ‘I’ll explain later. Just now, I want to test Joro. I’m sure he’s a leopard-man, but I still can’t believe he would let us die. Act as if nothing was wrong. Pretend to eat - but don’t.’

  He stirred the fragrant stew, then took up a generous spoonful and raised it slowly to his lips.

  ‘Bwana!’ It was a sharp cry, and it came from Joro. He strode over to the table.

  ‘What is it. Joro?’

  Two more hippos! They are on shore - not far away.’

  ‘Don’t bother me now,’ John Hunt replied. ‘After dinner we’ll take a look at them.’

  ‘But they will go into the river. Then it will be very hard to get them,’

  ‘We can do better after we’ve had some food,’ Hunt insisted. This smells mighty good.’ He again made as if about to take some of the stew. Joro stopped him.

  ‘No, no. It is not good. The cook made a mistake. He used bad meat. It is spoiled. It will make you sick.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Hunt. This gazelle was fresh-killed this morning. It’s perfectly good.’

  Joro grew more excited. ‘I beg you - don’t eat it’ But the three ignored him and bent over their dishes. Hysterically, Joro seized Roger’s dish and emptied the contents on the ground. Then he did the same with the other two dishes. The cook came hurrying over to see what was wrong. Joro broke down, shaking and sobbing.

  ‘I did it,’ he confessed. The cook is not to blame. I did it. I put death in it.’ He was trembling as if attacked by a violent fever.

  John Hunt rose and put his hands on the black man’s shaking shoulders.

  ‘Pull yourself together, Joro. We understand. I know you are a leopard-man. I guessed it that night in the woods. I know how the Leopard Society works. They made you promise to kill us. Now it’s all right - we didn’t swallow any of the whiskers - so stop worrying.’

  ‘Whiskers?’ exclaimed Roger, staring as if he thought his father had gone off his head.

  ‘Yes, whiskers. Joro, bring the leopard skin here.’ Joro hesitated. Then he went to the supply wagon and came back carrying the skin of the man-eating leopard that Hal had drowned on that first night of the safari.

  John Hunt took the head in his hands and turned it so that the boys could look full into the beast’s face. ‘Do you see anything wrong?’

  ‘It doesn’t look quite natural,’ Hal muttered, ‘especially round the mouth.’ Roger guessed what made the difference. ‘The hairs,’ he said, ‘the stiff white hairs round its mouth - they’re all

  gone.’

  ‘Exactly. And you notice they weren’t cut off. They were pulled out by the roots. Then they were chopped into small bits and and put into the stew.’

  ‘But how could a few bits of hair hurt anybody? Are they poisonous?’

  ‘Not at all. But they kill just the same. They don’t dissolve in the stomach. They pierce the stomach wall and cause cysts. These become inflamed and lead to peritonitis. The Africans don’t know the disease by name, but they do know that people die in terrible agony some time after swallowing leopards’ whiskers.’

  Hal saw Joro looking off into the bush. He followed his glance and spotted the black stranger. The man’s face was full of anger and evil. Then he turned and ran.

  Hal told his father what he had seen.

  John Hunt said, ‘He will probably report to the Leopard Society. He will tell them that Joro failed to carry out his pledge.’

  ‘Then what will they do?’

  ‘I don’t know. One thing is certain. They’ll do something, and whatever it is we’re not going to like it. Keep your eyes skinned. If you see any sign of trouble, let me know.’

  Chapter 21

  Night attack

  It was an anxious afternoon.

  The boys were busy preparing the cage trucks for the trip to the coast. But no matter how busy, they could not get rid of the uneasy feeling that they were in great danger. They watched warily for any black strangers lurking in the bushes. Roger hunched his shoulders.

  ‘Any minute I expect to get a poisoned arrow in my back.’

  Hour by hour they worked, and waited. The sun finally went down in a blaze of glory. There was a deep quiet over the plain, the woods, and the river. The birds peeped sleepily, a wart-hog sniffled, and the breeze made music in the long grass.

  ‘Reckon nothing is going to happen after all,’ hoped Roger.

  ‘All the same,’ Hal said, ‘we’d better keep watch tonight. You bed down in the bushes at that side of the camp, I’ll take the other.’

  Roger went outside the ring of tents and made a nest for himself in the long grass. He tuned his ears to catch the slightest sound of approaching footsteps. This was rather exciting. He liked the idea of standing guard - especially if you could stand guard lying down.

  An hour went by, and another hour, and he began to get drowsy. Then he slept, and dreamed.

  He was standing guard on the battlements of a castle. Poisoned arrows were whizzing by him on all sides. It was not exactly a whizzing sound, more like a crackling - the crackling of fire. Then the castle, though it was built Of solid stone, burst into flames. Roger woke.

  There was a crackling. He stood up. There was a fire in the woods. The wind was carrying it towards the camp.

  He heard another sound besides the crackling. It was the peculiar sawing voice of a leopard. It was joined by others. Now the sound came from all sides. The camp seemed to be completely surrounded by leopards.

  Roger ran to his father’s tent and found Hal already there, reporting on what he had seen and heard.

  They aren’t leopards,’ John Hunt said. ‘They’re the leopard-men. I’m afraid we have the whole Leopard Society moving in on us. And they’re counting on the fire to help them. We may lose all our animals if that fire reaches them. Rouse the men. Have them drive the cage trucks over to the side of the camp away from the fire.’

  ‘Do you think our crew will help us fight the leopard-men?’ wondered Hal.

  ‘Who knows? They’re scared to death of leopard-men. Tell Joro to come here.’

  A few moments after the boys had left, Joro entered. />
  ‘Joro,’ John Hunt said, ‘the time has come for you to decide whether you are with us or against us. If you help the leopard-men, you may save yourself and your wife and children. If you help us, they may kill both you and your family. I can’t advise you what to do. But whatever you do, do it quickly.’

  Joro did not answer. He turned and left the tent.

  Motors were roaring. The cars were being moved to the safer side of camp. The entire woods were a sheet of flame and a steady wind brought it on towards the camp.

  The leopard voices were now very close, and by the light of the fire leopard-clad figures could be seen coming out of the shrubbery. Roger was glad that at least they carried no bows and poisoned arrows. But he caught the flash of firelight on their long steel claws.

  Of course they would not use arrows, for they considered that they had changed into real leopards. And a real leopard would use only his claws and teeth.

  As they came rushing into camp, their smell came with them - the sour smell of leopard. For they had greased themselves from head to foot with leopard fat.

  One of them came straight for Roger, claws outstretched. When he was within five feet, he leaped, as a leopard would leap upon an antelope.

  Possibly he thought the boy would be an easy victim. But Roger, large and strong for his age and acquainted with some of the tricks of Japanese judo, flipped the flying body so that it came down with a whack on the stony ground. There the man who had thought himself a beast lay badly stunned. For a while at least he would give no more trouble.

  Roger saw Hal, his face streaming with blood from scratches of steel claws, fighting three of the man-beasts. Roger plunged in to help him. He tripped one of the attackers so that he fell face down and Roger promptly sat on him. He could hardly stand the strong leopard stink that rose from the man’s slippery hide. He saw that Hal had discouraged one of his assailants with a punch in the solar plexus and the other had run off to find an easier victim.

  What about the safari men? They were not doing too well. Some fought half-heartedly, the others stood to one side, shaking with fear. To them, these creatures with the voices of leopards were leopards, or evil spirits, or both. But Joro - Joro was fighting tooth and nail. He, himself a leopard-man, was not fighting with the leopard-men.

  He stood squarely in front of John Hunt’s tent and barred anyone who tried to enter. Skilfully he avoided the flashing claws and hurled back every opponent until he had a wriggling pile of them on the ground before him. And all the time Joro shouted to the other safari men, urging them to fight with him.

  The tent flaps behind him opened and John Hunt came out. He was weak and unsteady and in no condition to fight. Joro roughly forced him back into the tent.

  Another would-be fighter appeared, Colonel Bigg with his gun. He fired two rounds, but his aim was so poor that he nearly got safari men instead of leopard-men. At the first scratch of steel claws he howled with pain and dashed back into his tent.

  But Hal, Roger, Joro, and two or three faithful safari men could not hope to stand up to twenty steel-clawed devils.

  Then help came from an unexpected quarter. Three hundred screaming baboons fled before the fire straight towards the camp. The humans who had helped them before perhaps would help them now. Driven mad with fear, they poured into the camp ground.

  But there they found the creatures they hated and abhorred more than any others on earth. Their nostrils were assailed by the sickening stench of their most deadly enemies, the leopards. The horrible spotted hides were all about them.

  Every leopard skin drew the attack of a dozen baboons, twenty, thirty, as many as could get their teeth into it.

  The leopard-men ran for their lives. But wherever they ran, there were more baboons.

  One of the now badly frightened human leopards noticed the open door of an empty elephant cage on one of the big Bedfords. He leaped through the door and was promptly followed by the other leopard-men.

  Hal saw Joro running towards the cage. Was he going to join his leopard companions after all? But Joro had no such idea. He seized the cage door and swung it shut. Its automatic lock snapped.

  j The safari men, seeing twenty leopard-men behind bars, suddenly became very brave. These men or beasts or spirits could not have such magical powers after all, if iron bars could hold them. They crowded round the cage, screaming taunts and flinging pebbles at the prisoners.

  The fire died out at the edge of the bare, stony camp ground. Tongues of fire licked on around the camp, terrifying the caged animals so that they gave out a wild chorus of screeches, snorts, hoots, croaks, and roars.

  Their tumult died away when they found that they were safe from the flames, which raced on before the wind and would keep going until they reached bare sand or a river.

  Joro went into the master’s tent. Hunt’s electric torch revealed torn clothes, bloody skin, and a happy smile. Joro looked as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.

  John Hunt felt a tide of affection for this man who had suffered and dared so much and had come through at last with flying colours. Here was a real friend if ever there was one. Hunt had a lump in his throat and did not trust himself to speak. Silently he reached up and gripped the former leopard-man’s blood-stained hand.

  Chapter 22

  Elephant

  Dawn saw the cage trucks on their way to the coast. Hal went along to superintend loading on to the ship.

  The imprisoned leopard-men would be handed over to the police at Kampala.

  At the same town the safari would see the last of Colonel Bigg and his gun. Probably he would brag to the end of his days about how he had fought off twenty devils single-handed and captured a magnificent collection of wild beasts.

  The men not needed on the trip to Mombasa stayed in camp with Roger and his father.

  ‘We’ll have a surprise for Hal when he comes back,’ said Hunt. ‘Ever hear of the Mountains of the Moon?’

  ‘Who hasn’t?’ exclaimed Roger. ‘Land of the giants. Where flowers are as high as trees and even the worms are three feet long!’

  ‘And elephants grow as big as mastodons,’ Hunt added.

  Roger saw the sparkle in his father’s eye. ‘I’ll bet that’s what you’re after. Elephants. How soon do we start?’

  ‘As soon as your brother comes back.’

  So both Roger and the reader must wait a bit until Hal returns. The adventures of the Hunts in pursuit of the biggest of all land animals is told in Elephant Adventure.