African Enchantment

by Margaret Pemberton

  Chapter Eight

  The unpleasantness of the voyage increased; the climate almost insupportable. The large maps that were constantly spread on the cane table were inked in with strange names. The whole vast area was ringed with the same Sudd and the rivers diverging from it bore enchanting names that gave little indication of their hideousness. Bahr-el-Zeraf, the river of the giraffes: Bahr-el-Ghazal, the river of the antelope. Raoul worked with grim determination, charting their course meticulously, charting their latitude point nightly with the aid of his sextant. Often the natives were reduced to scything the vast banks of reed to enable the dahabiah to cut its way inexorably forward. To Sebastian’s distaste, Raoul stripped to the waist, and with Reverend Lane helping manfully, joined his natives in hacking a waterway through the dense mass of vegetation.

  The sweat poured down his broad back, the muscles rippling as he wielded an axe with demonic ferocity. Sebastian and Wilfred Frome watched from cane chairs, their enthusiasm for the adventure a thing of the past. Harriet watched despairingly. There was nothing she could do to help him. When he staggered back on to the dahabiah it was Narinda who ran hastily towards him with towels to wipe the sweat from his face and body. It was almost, Harriet thought as she watched Narinda sponge his forehead with a damp cloth, as if they were man and wife. A humourless smile curved her lips. Almost the first thing Raoul Beauvais had said to her had been that he was not a marrying man. No doubt his present arrangement suited him admirably.

  ‘Is there any possibility of persuading Beauvais to turn back?’ Harriet heard Wilfred Frome ask Sebastian.

  Sebastian laughed tersely. ‘None. He and Walther planned this expedition long ago. He’ll continue until he’s killed us all.’

  Harriet looked ahead to where Raoul worked, waist deep in mosquito-ridden water. He would not kill them. He would succeed – whatever the cost.

  Since the undignified incident when she had slapped Narinda’s face the girl had made no secret of her hostility towards Harriet but had been careful to cultivate the good humour of the men. Now she moved towards them gracefully, gossamer-light robes fluttering around her as she brought a tray of refreshments for them. Frome blushed slightly, patently overcome by Narinda’s obvious charms. Even Sebastian regarded her with appraising eyes. Slowly but surely she was estranging Harriet from everyone aboard. Harriet knew that no one believed Narinda had pushed her overboard. Her slapping of the girl’s face had only made matters worse. Raoul saw it as the typical behaviour of a girl of her class to a native, and despised her accordingly. Sebastian and Wilfred Frome’s protective instincts had been aroused by the girl’s tears. Only Mark Lane remained neutral. Harriet Latimer was not a girl to make wild accusations with no foundation. Neither was she so foolish as to fall over a two-foot rail into water swarming with crocodiles. Though Harriet was unaware of it he kept a close eye on her. Accidents that had happened once could happen again.

  Just when it seemed that survival was impossible, Raoul struggled back aboard the dahabiah with the natives and said exhaustedly, ‘There is a channel ahead. I’ve been correct in my judgment. We’ve reached navigable water once more.’

  ‘Thank the Lord,’ Mark Lane said sincerely, reaching for his Bible.

  ‘Thank God,’ Sebastian said less piously, reaching for a bottle of brandy.

  ‘Thank Raoul,’ Harriet said dryly.

  He was in the process of washing dried blood from the cuts on his hands. He raised his eyes, giving her a piercing glance that obliged her to turn swiftly before he saw how much it had disconcerted her.

  As the river once more became recognisable as such, everyone’s spirits lifted, even those of Wilfred Frome. The banks were no longer desolate and deserted. There was wild life in plenty to record and draw: monkeys and beautifully sleek red and white waterbuck, zebras and elephants and once, at early dawn, the breathtaking sight of a cheetah stalking its prey.

  There were birds in abundance: spoonbills, stilts, herons, marabou storks, white storks, black storks. So much wild life that they were satiated with it, and Harriet sketched maniacally, reluctant to let even one species escape her pen.

  Natives on the banks changed from light-skinned Nubians to ebony-black Africans, their villages clusters of cane and reed-woven huts. Wilfred Frome was eager to put ashore to study the inhabitants as closely as he was studying the flora and fauna. Raoul refused. Their journey back would be the time for Wilfred to collect extraneous data for the Royal Geographical Society. Their chief objective was the Nile’s source and they had still not reached Gondokoro, the furthest place ever recorded by white men. Malaria had struck down one of their party: there was no telling when another would succumb. They had plentiful supplies of quinine in which he put much faith. Dr Walther had believed that four bottles of claret a day were ample protection, and had been proved sadly mistaken.

  They had sufficient supplies and were able to shoot fresh meat. Delays investigating the native population were unnecessary and potentially dangerous. Every hour of every day mattered. Not until Gondokoro had been reached were they in uncharted territory.

  There were times when Harriet wondered when he slept. He captained the dahabiah; he kept control over a crew of unhappy and often frightened Sudanese; he mapped the country as meticulously as Wilfred Frome, and his eyes rested on her with increasing and disturbing frequency.

  ‘Visitors!’ Sebastian suddenly shouted, grabbing his rifle and running to the prow.

  Wilfred Frome dropped his pen to the deck as he rose hastily from his notes.

  Raoul strode past a startled Harriet, moving with easy strength and confidence. Her sudden fear died; whatever the situation, Raoul would be in control of it. She put down her sketch pad and followed curiously. Canoes full of natives were converging upon them from all sides, their bodies glistening with oil, strips of ochre-coloured cloth about their loins. Only one wore more garments and he stood at the helm of the swiftest canoe, his feet straddled, his spear held upright in one hand. A toga was fastened on one broad, black shoulder and a cape of antelope skins fell around him, ankle length. His face was expressionless, looking to Harriet more like a magnificent wooden carving than a face of human flesh and blood.

  ‘Put your rifle down,’ Raoul said authoritatively to Sebastian.

  Sebastian hesitated, about to refuse and then, at the expression in Raoul’s eyes, unwillingly complied.

  The silence had been broken the instant Sebastian had given his warning shout. Drums had begun to pound. Drums that Harriet had heard previously only from a safe distance. Then, they had sounded intriguing and romantic: a sign that they were delving deeper and deeper into the heart of unexplored Africa. Now, near to, the sound was terrifying, full of menace and threat. Every warrior was armed with a lance or a spear and as the drums’ rhythm increased, so did their shouts and angry gesticulations.

  Raoul faced the chief, standing at the prow of the dahabiah, his feet straddled, arms akimbo, as fearless as if he had an army at his back and not a handful of men and two defenceless females.

  As the chief’s canoe bobbed precariously against the dahabiah, Raoul moved forward, speaking in Arabic, his hands outstretched. From the canoe the chief regarded him for long moments while the frenzy around them increased. Harriet pressed her hands against her ears to shut out the sound of drums and cries. Narinda had long since fled, and was cowering in her cabin.

  Smoothly Raoul slipped from the obviously uncomprehended Arabic into another tongue. This time there was a faint gleam in the impassive eyes of the chief.

  ‘The beads, Harriet,’ Raoul said without turning his head.

  Harriet moved quickly. Boxes of brilliantly-coloured necklaces and bracelets had been brought with them for bartering with the local chiefs for food. So far, such bartering had not been necessary. Now she scooped up handfuls of the beaded jewellery and hurried to Raoul’s side.

  With a sudden flashing smile Raoul dropped them into the chief’s grasp. They were caught adroitly. A giant hand
was raised and the drums ceased.

  Raoul stretched his hand down over the side of the dahabiah; the chief looped scores of necklaces over his head and threw the rest to his warriors who caught, seized or dived into the water for them. The black hand and the white clasped and then Raoul was helping the chief aboard and Sebastian’s fingers were nervously reaching towards his rifle. Whether Raoul understood what the chief said, and whether the chief understood what Raoul said was unclear. What was clear was that an understanding had been reached and that friendship had been given and received.

  ‘What language is Beauvais speaking?’ Sebastian whispered urgently to Wilfred Frome.

  Frome shook his head. ‘I don’t know, but whatever it is, it’s doing the trick.’ The chief was seated on Raoul’s high-backed cane chair and instinctively Harriet hurried for lime juices and glasses. A handful of warriors had boarded with their chieftain and surrounded him, long spears in their hands, while the others remained standing in their rocking canoes.

  ‘What if it hasn’t?’ Sebastian asked, sweat breaking out on his brow. ‘Even with rifles we’d never survive an attack by such a force!’

  ‘Hush …’ Frome gestured impatiently.

  Harriet was approaching with the tray of drinks. Raoul’s eyes were reluctantly admiring; she had made the right gesture and it had taken courage to do so. As he sat himself opposite the chieftain it had been Mark Lane who had stepped forward, standing to one side of him.

  Raoul curbed a mirthless smile. A priest and a girl had shown more courage than a self-declared hunter. Sebastian Crale was conspicuous only by his absence, as was the other person aboard who had previously been all too eager to meet the natives at close quarters. Raoul dismissed them from his mind. Already he was beginning to feel an almost unquenchable excitement.

  The chief before him had declared himself to be Nbatian and regarded the question as to his knowledge of the river’s source with indifference. ‘ In the Nyanzas,’ he said. ‘It flows from the bowels of the Great Nyanzas.’

  Harriet set the drinks down on the table between the two men. The chief’s eyes flicked over her, narrowing as they rested on her halo of golden hair.

  She heard Raoul use the name Gondokoro and Nyanza, and waited a foot or two from his left-hand side as the chief scored a map on the bottom of the wooden tray with his nails.

  Raoul was leaning forward, his shoulders tense, his eyes gleaming. Harriet bit her bottom lip. Was the chief telling him in what direction to travel once their way on the river became impossible, and they could no longer follow its course?

  She could sense Raoul’s rising excitement and her own began to grow. She had never doubted that he would achieve his objective, but she had begun to doubt if the rest of them had the endurance to share with him the first sight of the Nile’s source. Now, suddenly, it seemed not only a possibility, but a certainty.

  The chief’s fist slammed hard on the table, sending a glass crashing to the floor. Harriet gasped, flooded with fear. He had risen to his feet and was pointing at her, his voice demanding.

  Raoul remained seated, shrugging dismissively. The chief’s anger grew. Harriet saw the hands of the warriors tighten on their spears.

  ‘What is it? What does he want?’ she asked, terrified that Raoul was on the point of death.

  With almost insolent ease Raoul swung round in his chair and regarded Harriet calmly as the chief jabbed his finger in her direction.

  ‘He wants you for a wife.’

  Harriet’s eyes widened, her mouth rounding in horror. ‘What … What have you told him?’ she gasped, backing away in fear.

  ‘I told him,’ he said darkly, ‘that I was sorely tempted to allow him to have you for one.’

  For a second Harriet could not speak because of the pounding of her heart and her stupefying fear. Then anger surged through her.

  ‘Tell your … your … friend,’ she hissed, ‘that I am no man’s wife!’

  Raoul regarded her with infuriating complacency. ‘He seems to think that you are mine,’ he said, and this time there was no mistaking the mocking gleam in his eyes.

  ‘I’d rather be his than yours!’ Harriet spat, her gold-green eyes feral in their fury.

  ‘That can easily be arranged,’ Raoul said, leaning back negligently in his chair.

  Tears of anger and rage stung her eyes and she choked on them as she said, ‘ You wouldn’t care a damn, would you?’

  Black brows rose imperceptibly. ‘ There’s no need for profanities, Miss Latimer.’

  Harriet was shaking. She had known fury in plenty since meeting Raoul Beauvais but nothing to equal the almost manic frenzy that now seized her. She was oblivious of the animal-skinned chief, oblivious of the armed warriors, oblivious of Wilfred Frome’s pale face and desperate pleas for restraint.

  In a blood-red haze she saw only Raoul, lazily mocking her humiliation.

  ‘You are unspeakable!’ she sobbed, swirling round, pushing her way between near-naked muscular warrior’s as if they were no more than a crowd of children. Raoul regarded her retreating back with interest and returned his attention to his dissatisfied guest.

  ‘I’ve never known anyone so arrogant! So insolent! So unforgivably rude!’ With each adjective she punched her fists into her pillows with such viciousness that feathers scattered around the tiny cabin.

  ‘For God’s sake, you nearly got us all killed,’ Sebastian said, panting at the cabin door, his face white. ‘What did you have to react like that for? I thought that old devil was going to have the lot of us speared. He nearly did for Beauvais after you raged off.’

  ‘I’m very sorry that he didn’t!’ Harriet yelled, her face smeared by tears, her hair falling unpinned, her breasts heaving.

  Desire took a firm hold of Sebastian. Calm, Harriet was undeniably beautiful: enraged, she was magnificent. He moved towards her and as he did so Harriet halted in her tirade, listening tensely. From the distant deck there came a roar of bellowing laughter. It was not Raoul’s laugh; or Wilfred’s; or Mark’s. It could only be the chieftain. The Beauvais charm was working once again.

  Sebastian breathed a sigh of relief. ‘He’s got the old devil eating out of the palm of his hand.’

  ‘Oh, get out!’ Harriet shouted exasperatedly, throwing the pillow and its escaping contents at his head. He blinked in surprise, ducked and slammed the door behind him. Lovemaking would have to wait; but not for long. Beauvais had Narinda constantly at his side. He was in no moral position to dictate to other members of the party. Sebastian was filled with fresh resolve. He had been a fool not to continue his assault on Harriet’s affections. He would be a fool no longer. Even his mother could not dismiss as unsuitable a girl of Harriet’s courage and remarkable spirit.

  Raoul, who knew very well where Sebastian had been, regarded him through narrowed eyes, his mouth set in a tight line of pain. Crale was looking uncommonly pleased with himself. No doubt Harriet had thrown herself into his arms in a storm of tears, and been suitably comforted. He had an overwhelming desire to throttle Sebastian Crale. His guest was demanding to be shown the intricate workings of a compass. A pulse ticked angrily at his jaw as he tore his eyes from Crale and obliged.

  The meeting with Chief Nbatian livened up Wilfred Frome’s spirits considerably. He asked that Harriet sketch every detail of the chief’s costume, the canoes, the warriors, the spears. Harriet obliged, keeping as far from Raoul as was humanly possible. On occasions when their eyes did meet she treated him with such withering contempt that it would have shrivelled a lesser man. Raoul merely continued his tasks with indifference.

  Sebastian spent long hours sitting beside her as she worked, cleaning his guns, speculating on the credibility of what Nbatian had told Raoul of the great Nyanzas. Harriet sketched furiously and barely heard a word he said. Narinda was growing increasingly annoyed. She spilled vegetable oil on Harriet’s skirt, declaring profusely that it was an accident, her eyes belying it. She crept into Harriet’s cabin and removed her hai
r brush, tossing it overboard, denying she knew of its whereabouts when Harriet asked. She found snakes in her bed and, on one occasion, when she left her sketchpad, found the drawings torn from it on her return.

  When Harriet accused Narinda of being the perpetrator, Raoul insultingly said that snakes were a hazard they all faced and that no doubt the wind had blown her drawings away. Harriet gritted her teeth and refrained from boxing Narinda’s ears with superhuman effort.

  Raoul became daily more abrasive and unapproachable and soon it was only Mark Lane who was able to converse with him with any degree of civility.

  They stood side by side in early morning light as groves of lemon trees heralded Gondokoro. ‘The trek will be trebly difficult once we leave the boats,’ Mark Lane said quietly. ‘We need to be all of one mind, and journey in friendship, not hostility.’

  Raoul remained silent, his brows pulled together, his mouth a hard line.

  ‘It is days since you spoke at any length with Sebastian or Wilfred,’ Mark Lane continued, his young face concerned, his Bible in his hands. ‘They are becoming restless and disillusioned. I can see no success until the gulf is breached.’

  ‘Neither of them were asked to accompany me,’ Raoul said tersely. ‘Crale hasn’t contributed an ounce of effort to the planning of the expedition or its execution.’

  ‘Then why is he amongst us?’ Mark Lane asked with a puzzled frown.

  ‘Because if he had been left behind I would have been refused permission to leave Khartoum.’

  Mark Lane remembered that Sebastian’s father was the British consul in Khartoum and pursued the subject of Sebastian no further. ‘And Frome?’

  ‘The Royal Geographical Society of London requested that he should travel with me. I agreed. I even thought he might prove useful. I had expected a well-seasoned explorer, not an academic.’