Part 26 (1/2)

”Once more.”

This was quicker.

Kingozi dropped that bottle into his side pocket with a sigh of relief.

”Evidently the morphine,” he said. ”We'll try it again later to be sure. Wish I didn't scribble such a rotten hand. My capital As and Ps are something alike.”

He had a new idea. For fifteen minutes he tried to get from Cazi Moto at first the number of letters on each label; and later, when the flowing script proved this impractical, an idea of the relative lengths of the words. Neither method was certain enough; another argument for printing your labels, thought Kingozi.

”We'll get it, old sportsman!” he cried aloud in English. ”We'll try for the first letter.”

He bent forward, but the lesson went no further.

For an hour the Leopard Woman had been watching, curious as to what these two were doing so quietly in the shade of the tree. At last she evidently made up her mind she must find out. Quietly she drew near them unnoticed, so that at last she was standing only a few feet to one side. There she witnessed the final triumph as to the morphine, and heard Kingozi's last confident speech. As he leaned forward to place another bottle for Cazi Moto to copy from, she gathered her forces, rushed forward between them, s.n.a.t.c.hed the vial, and dashed it violently against a rock, where it naturally broke into innumerable pieces. Cazi Moto stared up at her, astounded into immobility. Kingozi, without a trace of emotion, leaned back in his chair.

”I think I am losing my wits,” he remarked. ”I have been criminally stupid through this whole affair. I might have foreseen something of the kind.”

She stood there panting excitedly, her hands clinched at her sides.

”I will read your label for you now--the bottle you hold in your hand!

It is atropin--atropin--” She laughed wildly.

”I thank you, madam,” he said ironically.

”Now you must go back!”

”Yes. Now I must go back. I thank you.”

”You may well thank me. I have saved your life!” she cried hysterically, and was gone.

Kingozi did not examine the meaning of this; indeed, it hardly registered at all as it was to him evidently the product of excitement.

He forgot even the scandalized Cazi Moto squatting at his feet. For a long time he stared sightlessly straight ahead. He could not explain this woman. The whole outburst, the complete about-face in what had been their apparent relations, overwhelmed him. He had had no idea of the slow damming back of resentments; in fact, he really had no idea that there were causes for resentment at all! He had done the direct, obvious, efficient thing in a number of instances when naturally her powers or abilities were inadequate. Characteristically, he forgot utterly the night of the full moon!

First of all, it was evident that he must turn back if he was to save his eyesight. As he remembered glaucoma, it ought to be surgically treated within two months, at most.

The second point was whether he could turn back. His mission was a simple one. Would it wait? He could not see why not. He had been sent to gain the friends.h.i.+p and active alliance of M'tela and his spears; and had been given _carte blanche_ in the matters of equipment, methods, and time. Inside a year or so the International Boundary Commission would be running boundary lines through that country. Until then the Kabilagani could very well go on as they probably had gone on for the last five hundred years.

Very well; as far as his job was concerned, he could go back; as far as his eyes were concerned, he must go back.

Remained the problem of Bibi-ya-chui.

Why was she in the country? For the same purpose as himself? It seemed unlikely; she appeared to have slight qualifications for such a task.

Indeed, in the candour of his own inner communings Kingozi acknowledged that he and the German, Winkleman, alone could be held really fitted for that sort of negotiation. But if she were? Why did she not say so?

Their object would be the same. It was as much to Germany's interest to pacify, to make friendly this hinterland before the advent of the Boundary Commission. All this was a puzzle. But there was the indubitable secret map, and the indubitable concealment of purpose; and--to Kingozi's mind--the indubitable attempt to make travelling so tedious that he would split safaris and permit her to go alone.

This led to another conclusion. He could not see the reason for it all, but one thing was clear: she must not even now be allowed to take her own course. Whatever she was up to, she did not intend to let him know about it; ergo it was something inimical to him, either personally or officially. Probably personally, Kingozi thought with a grim smile. He was no fool about women when his mind was sufficiently disengaged from other things; and now he remembered the inhibited promise of the tropic moon. Still he could take no chances. He could turn back; he must turn back; and as a corollary the Leopard Woman must turn back with him!