The Veiled Raiders

by John Blaine

“Now,” Tony whispered.

  They loaded pockets with food and rolled up the sleeping bags, then gathered around while Tony slowly and carefully levered the bolt back. The spike slipped on the steel now and then and the whole process took a half-hour. Finally, under Scotty’s urging, the door squeaked open. Scotty slipped through it and was gone into the darkness. Tony and Rick waited. Rick had complete faith in his pal’s ability to scout out the Emir’s stronghold, but he was tense. His ears ached with straining to hear any sound that would indicate Scotty had been seen.

  The minutes passed so slowly, it seemed to Rick that at least an hour had gone by. But not more than fifteen minutes had elapsed before Scotty returned, as silently as he had gone.

  “All clear,” he reported. “There was only one guard inside the compound. I took care of him. The dogs started to growl, but I guess my scent was familiar because they didn’t bark. I gave them a pocket of rice Page 32

  just to be safe.”

  The nondescript dogs ofAfrica roamed at will, and each of the Spindrifters had been thoroughly sniffed the first few days and ignored thereafter. Rich wondered how Scotty had taken care of the guard, but didn’t take time to ask. The ex-Marine was an expert at unarmed combat and could have used any one of several methods.

  They slung the water over their shoulders, tucked sleeping bags under their arms, stuffed toilet kits into pockets,then followed Scotty’s lead through the darkness. They emerged into the lesser darkness of the outdoors. The moon was not yet up, and they crossed the compound like three wraiths and paused at the gate. It was closed and barred. Tony and Rick lifted the bar from its hooks and set it carefully to one side. Scotty pulled the gate open with a squeal of hinges that sounded like the wail of a banshee to Rick’s sensitive ears, but actually was not audible more than ten yards away.

  They slipped through the gate and paused, alert for any sign of an outside guard. Apparently there was none. A comment Elijah had made had led Rick to believe that the Emir depended on distant patrols rather than on heavy guard at the homestead. At least he hoped that was the case.

  Once in the clear, they settled down to a steady dogtrot, following a well-worn path to the south. The harmattan was blowing lightly, and the principal stars were visible through the haze. Night navigation would be no problem.

  When the moon rose they left the trail, heading in a southwesterly direction. Sooner or later that direction would take them to civilization. Another reason for leaving the trail was that they would need to hole up during the day, and for safety they needed the open savanna.

  Rick’s legs moved unfalteringly and he held his head high. They were free! He had no doubt they would remain free. They would reach civilization, and they would be back, to collect their equipment.

  Rick intended to meet the demonstration deadline. Plenty of time remained. The Sultan of Sokoto would speak to the world on schedule.

  CHAPTER IX

  The Green Mamba

  It was the dry season, and the cattle that normally foraged on the savanna grasses had moved south, following the declining seasonal moisture. Rick had seen the long-horned beasts aroundKano . Except for a hump like a zebu, they might have been cattle following the trail fromTexas toKansas . Of course their herders were not cowhands, American style, but stately Fulanis in long robes, usually carrying a Japanese-made transistor radio and listening to programs from the Voice of America transmitters inLiberia .

  Rick would have given much to see any such sign of civilization, but the savanna was empty of domestic life. He had expected lions, and other wild beasts, but there were none. They had been pushed back towardLake Chad , Tony said.

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  The land was not smooth and unbroken. There were watercourses that ran in flood for brief moments during the rains of the wet season, and occasional rocky outcroppings, some of them occupied by monkeys who scolded sleepily in the growing light of dawn.

  The first day, the trio slept in the shelter of a stream bed, in the curve where a great sandstone ledge had altered the stream’s course. They kept no watch by day; it was useless.If found, there was nothing they could do without weapons.

  The second day, they curled up in the tall grass under a baobab tree. It was one of many trees in this area, all widely separated, but looking like sentinels from horizon to horizon. The grass was plentiful in spots, but bone-dry, unfit even for Fulani cattle without ample water.

  Travel by night was not easy. The moon rose later each night, increasing the hours of almost total darkness. They stumbled over hummocks and crashed into brush. Sometimes they had to slow down and pick out each step with care over loose rock. A fall would be disastrous. The stoppers had loosened in the calabashes as they dried, and a fall would mean lost water.

  There were animals abroad in the night, harmless ones, foraging for food. The Spindrifters didn’t know what they were, because it was impossible to see in the darkness, but Tony thought they were mostly desert foxes and rabbits. There were snakes, too, although Rick knew there were probably fewer than he imagined. Once they had caught a glimpse of a cobra silhouetted against the horizon, just in time to backtrack and give it a wide berth. After that, Rick translated every rustle of the grass into a reptile. His reaction to snakes was a common one. He would have preferred to face a charging rhino any day than one ofAfrica ’s many varieties of crawling death.

  One by one, as opportunity offered, they outfitted themselves with reasonably stout sticks picked up in thickets or under the baobab trees.

  Rick had plenty of time for thought. Besides, concentrating on a problem helped to keep his mind off food and water. They were on short rations; the food was almost gone and the water supply dwindling at the predicted rate.

  He reviewed the demonstration in which they were to take part, and went over every step of their own training. He planned a new network of tiny radio transceivers to take the place of the one he and Scotty had made earlier, and which they had dubbed the “Megabuck Network.” He mentally designed a new underwater camera case. He wrote amusing letters mentally to two old friends, Chahda Sundararaman , their Hindu companion who lived inBombay , and Hassan , their former dragoman inCairo who had become a friend during the adventure of The Egyptian Cat Mystery.

  But Rick’s thoughts often turned to the Emir. The story he had told just couldn’t be true. A business executive of R. C. McCauley’s stature just wouldn’t feed pork to a Muslim. The Emir had eaten the famed American hot dog-and in fact had consumed more than one. Rick was sure they had been beef.

  He doubted that either a Czech or a German would know about beef hot dogs.

  Crazy, Rick thought. A silly misunderstanding had caught three innocent bystanders on the rebound.

  Morning dawned on the third day. In the pale light of the pre-sunrise sky they could see that the land was changing. They were moving gradually to a lower altitude, and the savanna was giving way to rocky desert sparsely dotted with brush.

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  “We’re descending from an upland plateau,” Tony said. “I wish I had studied the topography ofAfrica more thoroughly. This might be a useful clue.”

  Scotty and Rick kept turning their heads. If the Emir’s men were about, they intended to see them first, rather than be seen first. They could take cover and hide until the men passed-if they kept alert.

  The harmattan was not blowing and the sky was crystal clear, not a cloud in sight. Only an intensification of light to the east told them the sun was about to rise.

  “We’d better hunt our hole for the day,” Tony said. “There seems to be a gully of some sort a quarter mile ahead. Let’s steer for it.”

  Rick saw that the ground seemed to drop away. He followed Tony, meanwhile keeping his head swiveling until his neck ached.

  Tony had a good eye. There was a gully, and in it were tumbled rocks and some brush that would offer excellent shelter for the day. Their principal problem was keeping in the shade, out of the rays of the dehydrating sun.

 
The gully was about fifteen feet deep. Tony led the way into it and the boys relaxed a little. They could not be seen unless a searching party looked down at them from the run.

  There was a particularly fine bush of some kind, still green, indicating deep roots that reached subsurface moisture far below. Rick was attracted to it. There were few green things in this part ofAfrica .

  “Let’s get in the shelter of that bush,” he suggested, and led the way.

  The leaves were shaped much like those of a dogwood tree, but were much sparser, and of a more yellowish green. The bush stems were thick, and probably pithy for the storage of water. Rick looked more closely, and saw one of the stems move.

  Even as Rick’s muscles tensed to leap back, a round, green streak lashed forward with fantastic speed and struck one of the calabashes hanging from his shoulder.

  Mamba!

  The snake drew back into a sinuous S and lashed forward again, but Rick had not waited. He had left the ground in a backward leap that sent him crashing into Tony. The two of them rolled in a tumbled heap to the bottom of the gully.

  Tony had seen the reptile. He joined Rick in rolling frantically away, the two of them entangled like wrestlers.

  The mamba had struck twice, futilely, and it was angry. It flowed from the bush in pursuit of the two, a slender, vivid, deadly, living whip. Within a heartbeat, it was within striking distance, flashing back in the fatal S and lunging forward.

  Scotty’s stick flailed in a great, one-arm swing that intercepted the lightning strike and flung the snake back. It landed in a writhing coil of green, its back broken from the combined force of the swing and its own striking velocity. Even so, it tried again. The broken creature came forward with astonishing speed, and reached striking distance. This time Scotty was the target.

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  The mamba arched into its deadly S and the broken back betrayed it. The strike fell short, and as the vicious head went down Scotty struck again, and again, and again.

  Rick and Tony got to their feet and found their sticks, but it wasn’t necessary. The mamba was in its death throes, its head crushed.

  Reaction hit Rick. He just stood there and shook like a palsied old man. Tony sat down on an outcropping of rock and closed his eyes. Under the deep tan his face was ashen.

  Scotty put his arm around Rick’s shoulders. “I saw it hit you.Where?”

  “The calabash,” Rick said weakly. “I think it aimed for my face, but I was a shade too far away.”

  “Sit down,” Scotty commanded, and pushed him to a seat next to Tony. The ex-Marine examined the broken calabash hanging from Rick’s shoulder and shook his head. The scraping mark of the mamba’s short fangs was clear, and there was a trace of venom sinking rapidly into the dry surface of the gourd.

  Scotty walked to where the two had fallen and picked up the remains of the other calabashes each had carried. In the broken shards were small puddles of water, which he poured carefully into the one gourd that was still mostly whole, only its neck snapped off. Then he made both Rick and Tony drink.

  Rick felt better. He looked over to where the mamba lay in a loose coil that still twitched, and a shudder racked him. “That beast was out to kill,” he stated.

  Tony nodded. “There are few aggressive snakes in the world, thank Heaven, but the mamba is one.

  They have even been known to pursue and strike a man on horseback. I’ve heard of a case where a mamba chased a jeep. The driver had to hit nearly fifty miles an hour before he drew away far enough for safety.”

  “How could one of those reach a man on horseback?” Scotty asked unbelievingly.

  “They grow to ten feet and perhaps more, and they can strike while standing almost on the last fifth of their tails. That one was nearly eight feet long, I’d say.”

  The scientist rose.“One other thing. Mambas often travel in pairs, male and female. I don’t want to be around if this one’s mate is nearby. Let’s get out of here,”

  Scotty looked ruefully at the broken calabashes.“Another thing. We’re now short of water. I suggest we travel until the sun is high, because if we don’t reach civilization before what I’m carrying gives out, we’re in trouble.With a capital T!”

  CHAPTER X

  Defeat

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  A pint of water a day had never been adequate for the Spindrifters, although they had held rigidly to that amount. It might have been enough had they lain quietly in a cool place, conserving their body moisture, but they had set a fast pace, and their daytime camps had not been cool-there were no cool places in that country; there were only some places not as hot as others because they were out of direct sun.

  The striking mamba had resulted in the loss of all the water carried by Tony and Rick, except for the few drops Scotty had salvaged. That was two-thirds of their supply, since they had divided the load evenly.

  On Tony’s warning that the deadly snakes traveled in pairs, they put distance between them and the gully where the mamba had struck. They stopped under a baobab tree only when the sun’s heat warned them that dehydration-the steady loss of essential moisture from their bodies-might weaken them so much that travel would not be possible.

  “How long can we last?” Rick asked. He was still shaky from the encounter with the mamba, and the sun had made his head ache.

  Scotty had already estimated the quantity of water remaining.“Six pints. That’s two apiece.”

  “Two days at most,” Tony said wearily. “And I’m including today. We’ve already had a drink, but we need more right now. Let’s all have a mouthful, Scotty.”

  Rick waited for his turn, eyes on the calabash. “We must be losing some of the water by evaporation,”

  he said.

  Tony licked his lips and passed the gourd to Rick. “Of course we are. I’d say that calabash has about three-fourths of the original content, maybe less.”

  “So we don’t actually have six pints?”

  Scotty held up the remaining calabash. “We do. These were the largest, and they must have held two quarts apiece. This one still has at least three pints in it.”

  That was tomorrow’s supply, Rick thought. And after that, what?

  “There must be water underground,” Rick observed. “The trees are green. They get moisture from somewhere.”

  Tony agreed. “They do. But they’re very deep-rooted, and they’re tapping moisture, not water. If we could drill a well we might strike water, but unless you can conjure up some drilling equipment, we’re out of luck.”

  “If I had the energy,” Scotty said, “I’d do a Navaho rain dance.”

  Rick grinned. “If I thought it would help, I’d join you.” He cradled his head on his arm and made himself as comfortable as possible. Back home at Spindrift there was water aplenty, drawn from deep wells, so deep that they carried not a trace of ocean salt. In addition, there was a pipeline that ran from the Whiteside water system to the island, passing under the tidal flats that separated Spindrift from the mainland. He had never really appreciated the luxury of turning a faucet and having clear, cool, pure water cascade into a glass.

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  A sudden thought struck him. Once, during the days before leaving forEgypt , Parnell Winston had promised Jan Miller and Barby that he would take them on his very next field trip-the one Rick was on now. Winston was ready to carry out his promise, but one thing had interfered. The Brants and Millers had refused to let the girls take time off from school.

  Rick was grateful. Had it worked out otherwise, his sister and Jan might have been with them. He shuddered at the thought of the two girls facing the barren lands ofWest Africa without water.

  Finally he fell asleep, as did Tony and Scotty. The sun drilled through the inadequate shade and elevated their skin temperatures. Their bodies responded, adjusting the temperature by pouring moisture into the battle. The moisture evaporated almost instantly in the dry air, to be replaced by more moisture from their dwindling reservoirs. The process would conti
nue until there was no more moisture to evaporate and cool their skins, until their temperatures went up, their body chemistry failed, and fever and delirium marked their last moments.

  The sun set, and the unequal battle slowed. The three awoke and sat up, groggily, unrefreshed . The battle had drained strength from them even as they slept.

  There was no food with which to break their fast. Rick’s attempt to find some moisture and nourishment in grass stalks only resulted in his mouth feeling drier than ever.

  A mouthful of water each, and they started on the trek toward the southwest once more. They were too tired even to scan the horizon with their customary care, and except for Scotty’s sharp eyes would not have seen the horsemen in time.

  “Down!”Scotty snapped. The three dropped to the cracked ground amongst a series of termite mounds.

  Lifting his head cautiously, Rick saw six riders silhouetted against the darkening sky. He watched as the horses picked their way with care over the ground in the fading light. Fortunately, the riders were west of them, but traveling toward the north.

  When the group had disappeared over the northern horizon, the three rose and continued on their way.

  “I wonder if they were the Emir’s men,” Rick said.

  Tony shrugged. “We have to assume they were. We’re surely not out of his territory yet.”

  “Wonder when we will be,” Scotty remarked.

  Rick was beginning to doubt that they would ever leave the Emir’s territory, but he didn’t voice his thought. This was no time to cast doubt on the probable success of their venture.

  As full darkness set in, they reached a rugged area of stony ground and rocks, a patch of true desert such as they had seen from time to time during the trip. It slowed them down to a bare crawl, feeling each step with care in the moonless night. They were keenly aware of the penalty a twisted ankle or even a bad bruise would bring. It could mean death for all three.

  After an hour of travel they stopped, and barely wet their lips from the diminishing supply. Then, a half-hour later, they had to rest again.