Part 25 (1/2)

Then the fat canvas bag was in his hands, the contents crunched nuttily as he tore at the drawstring Nothing else in the world felt like that

”Such a dia was knotted tightly Johnny ran back to the Land-Rover Frantically he scrabbled in the seat locker an with the nilehe cut the rawstring an du on to the bonnet of the Land-Rover

”Oh God! Oh sweet God!” he whispered through cracked lips His eyesight blurred, and the big blue dialowed mistily, distorted by the tears that flooded his vision

It was a fullhih it were a sacred relic

Johnny Lance had worked all his life to take a stone such as this

He held it in both hands and sank down into the scrap of shade beside the body of the Land-Rover

It was another five ine oil reached the conscious level of hispool of it beneath the Land-Rover chassis Quickly he rolled on to his sto the diamond, crawled under the vehicle The ironstone boulder had shattered the engine sump The Land-Rover had bled its lifeblood into the hot sand of the river bed

He wriggled out froainst the front tyre He looked at his wrist watch and was surprised to see it was already a few minutes after two o'clock in the afternoon

He was surprised also at the conscious effort it required to focus his eyes on the dial of the watch Two days and two nights without sleep, the unrehts, the battering his body had taken, the long hours in the heat and the soul-corroding desolation of this lunar landscape - all these had taken their toll He kneas as light-headed as in the first stages of inebriation, he was beginning to act irrationally That sudden reckless charge down the boulder-strewn river bed, which had wrecked the Land-Rover, was a syreat dia it softly between thu it from hand to hand, while every fibre of his muscles and the very marrow of his bones cried out for rest

A soft and treacherous lethargy spread through his body and reached out to numb his brain He closed his eyes for a ain with an effort the time was four o'clock He scraer, the breeze had dropped

Although he moved with the stiffness of an old man, the sleep had cleared his mind and while he wolfed a packet of biscuits spread with ful of lukeater he h diamonds in the sand beneath the Land-Rover, but he could not bring hi blue

He buttoned it securely into the back pocket of his slacks Into the light knapsack from the seat locker he packed the two-pint water bottle, the first aid kit, a s compass, two of the sarette lighter and case

Then without another glance at the radio set on the dashboard of the Land-Rover he turned away and hobbled up the gully on the spoor of Benedict van der Byl

Within half a thened his stride, going well now The hatred and hunger for vengeance which had died to s ash since he had found the dias and sharpened his senses

The spoor turned abruptly up the side of the gully and he lost it on the black rock of the ridge, but found it again on his first cast

He was closing fast now The spoor was running across the grain of the land, and Benedict was clearly weakening rapidly He had fallen repeatedly, crawled on bloody knees over cruel gravel and rock, he had blundered into the scrub bushes and left threads of his clothing on the hooked redtipped thorns

Then the spoor led out of the ridges and scrub into another area of low orange-coloured sandhills and Johnny broke into a jog trot The sun was sliding down the sky, throwing blue shades in the hollows of the dunes and the heat abated so that Johnny's sas able to cool hi footprints, beginning to worry now that he would find Benedict already dead The signs were those of ahimself on

Johnny did not notice the other prints that angled in from the dunes and ran parallel to those of Benedict, until they closed in again and began overlaying the human prints

Johnny stopped and went down on one knee to exa marks

”Hyena!” He felt the sick little flutter of revulsion in his stolanced around quickly and saw the other set of prints out on the left

”A pair of thean to run on the spoor now His skin crahat he knew could happen when they caught up with a helpless man The filthiest and most cowardly animals in Africa, but with jaws that could crunch to splinters the thigh bone of a full-grown buffalo, and their thick stubby fangs were coated with such a slime of bacteria from a diet of putrid carrion that their bite was as deadly as that of a black mamba

”Let me be in time; please God, let me find him in time” He heard it then From beyond the crest of the next dune The horror of the sound stopped hi cry that sobbed into silence

Johnny stood listening, panting wildly frohter of deot hi himself at the soft slope of sand

He reached the crest and looked down into the saucer-shaped arena formed by the crescent of the dune

Benedict lay on his back His white shi+rt was open to the waist

The blue trousers of his suit were ripped and shredded, exposing his knees One foot was a bloody luealed dirt

The pair of hyenas had trampled a path in the sand around his body They had been circling hireed overcame their cowardice

One hyena sat ten feet fro obscenely with its flat snakelike head lowered between huy, spotted with darker brown, its round ears pricked forward, its black eyes sparkling with greed and excitement as it watched its mate

The other hyena stood with its front paws on Benedict's chest

Its head was lowered, and its jaere locked into Benedict's face

It was leaning back, bracing its paws on his chest, tugging viciously as it sought to tear off aas the hyena worried it His legs were kicking weakly, and his hands fluttered on the sand like maimed white birds

The flesh of his face tore Johnny heard it distinctly in the utter silence of the desert evening It tore with the soft sound of silk - and Johnny screa over the far crest of the dune in horrible clownish panic, leaving Benedict lying with a bloodydown at that face Johnny knew he could not kill him now, perhaps could never have killed hi with its ruined face and twisted mind

He dropped on to his knees beside hiers

Benedict's one ear and cheek were hanging over his mouth in a thick flap of torn flesh The teeth in the side of his jaere exposed and the blood dribbled and spurted in fine needle jets

Johnny tore the paper packaging off an absorbent dressing and with it pressed the flap back into place Holding it there with the full pressure of his spread fingers The blood soaked through the dressing, but it was slowing at the pressure

”It's all right, Benedict I'ht, he whispered hoarsely as he worked With his free hand he stripped the packaging off another dressing, and substituted it neatly for the sodden one Hewhile he lifted Benedict's head and cradled it in his lap

”We'll just dry this bleeding up, then we'll give you a drink” He reached into the first aid kit for a piece of cotton wool and tenderly began to clean the blood and sand froled breathing eased a little but still whistled through the black lips His tongue ollen, filling his e

”That's better,” Johnnypressure on the coot the screw top off the water bottle

Holding his thuulate the flow, he let a drop of water fall into the dark dry pit of a mouth

After another ten drops he propped the water bottle in the sand, andreflex

The unconscious ed hi softly as he did it