Birds of Prey - Smith Wilbur - Страница 137

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"I am here, Gundwane." Sukeena stepped out from behind the guard hut. "And I need no mollycoddling. I will walk like the rest of you."

Hal saw that she had shed her long skirts and that she now wore a pair of baggy Balinese breeches and a loose cotton shift that reached to her knees. She had tied a cotton head cloth over her hair, and on her feet were sturdy leather sandals that would be comfortable for walking. The men ogled the shape of her calves in the breeches, but she ignored their rude stares, took the lead rein of the nearest horse and led it towards the gap in the bitter-almond hedge.

"Sukeena!" Hal would have stopped her, but she recognized his censorious tone and ignored it. He realized the folly of persisting, and wisely tempered his next command. "Ald-tuda, you are the only one who knows the path from here. Go ahead with your sister." Althuda ran to catch up with her, and brother and sister led them into the uncharted wilderness beyond the hedge.

Hal and Aboli brought up the rear of the column as it wound through the dense scrub and bush. No men had trodden this path recently. It had been made by wild animals. the marks of their hoofs and paws were plain to see in the soft sandy soil, and their dung littered the track.

Aboli could recognize each animal by these signs, and as they moved along at a forced pace, he pointed them out to Hal. "That is leopard and there is the spoor of the antelope with the twisted horns we call kudu. At least we shall not starve," he promised. "There is a great plenty of game in this land."

This was the first opportunity since the escape that they had had to talk, and Hal asked quietly, "This Sabah, the friend of Althuda, what do you know of him?"

"Only the messages he sent."

"Should he not have met us at the hedge?"

"He said only that he would lead us into the mountains. I expected him to be waiting at the hedge," Aboli shrugged, "but with Althuda to guide us we do not need him."

They made good progress, the grey mare trotting easily with them hanging onto her traces and running beside her. Whenever they passed a tree that would bear Aboli's weight he shinned up it and looked back for signs of pursuit. Each time he came down and shook his head.

"Schreuder will come," Hal told him. "I have heard men say that those green-jackets of his can run down a mounted man. They will come."

They moved on steadily across the plain, stopping only at the swampy waterholes they passed. Hal hung onto the horse to ease his injured leg and, as he limped along, Aboli recounted all that had happened in the months since they had last been together. Hal was silent as he described, in his own language, how he had retrieved Sir Francis's body from the gibbet and the funeral he had given him. "It was the burial of a great chief. I dressed -him in the hide of a black bull and placed his ship and his weapons within his reach. I left food and water for his journey, and before his eyes I set the cross of his God." Hal's throat was too choked for him to thank Aboli for what he had done.

The day wore on, and their progress slowed as men and horses tired in the soft sandy footing. At the next marshy swamp where they stopped for a few minutes" rest, Hal took Sukeena aside.

"You have been strong and brave but your legs are not as long as ours, and I have watched you stumble with fatigue. From now on you must ride." When she started to protest he stopped her firmly. "I obeyed you in the matters of my wounds, but in all else I am captain and you must do as I say. From here on you will ride."

Her eyes twinkled. She made a pretty little gesture of submission, placing her fingertips together and touching them to her lips, "As you command, master," and allowed him to boost her up on top of the saddle-bags on the leading grey.

They skirted the swamp and went on a little faster now. Twice more Aboli climbed a tree to look back and saw no sign of pursuit. Against his natural instincts Hal began to hope that they might have eluded their pursuers, that they might reach the mountains that loomed ever closer and taller without being further molested.

In the middle of the afternoon they crossed a broad -open vlei, a meadow of short green grass where herds of wild antelope with scimitar-curved horns were grazing. They looked up at the approach of the caravan of horses and men, standing frozen in wide-eyed astonishment! their coats a metallic blue-grey hue in the afternoon sunlight.

"Even I have never seen beasts of that ilk Aboli admitted.

As the herds fled before them, wreathed in their own dust, Althuda. called back, "Those are the animals the Dutch call blaauwbok, the blue buck. I have seen great herds of them on the plains beyond the mountains."

Beyond the vlei the ground began to rise in a series of undulating ridges towards the foothills of the range. They climbed towards the first ridge, with Hal toiling along at the rear of the column. By now he was moving heavily, in obvious pain. Aboli saw that his face was flushed with fever, and that blood and watery fluid had seeped through the bandage that Sukeena had placed on his leg.

At the top of the ridge Aboli forced a halt. They looked back at the great Table Mountain, which dominated the western horizon. To their left, the wide blue curve of False Bay opened. However, they were all too exhausted to spend long admiring their surroundings. The horses stood, heads hanging, and the men threw themselves down in any shade they could find. Sukeena slid off her mount and hurried to where Hal had slumped with his back to a small tree-trunk. She knelt in front of him, unwrapped the bandage from his leg and drew a sharp breath when she saw how swollen and inflamed it was. She leaned closer and sniffed the oozing punctures. When she spoke her voice was stern.

"You cannot walk further on this. You must ride as you force me to do." Then she looked up at Aboli. "Make a fire to boil water," she ordered him. , "We have no time for such tomfoolery," Hal murmured halfheartedly, but they ignored him. Aboli lit a small fire with a slow-match and placed over it a tin mug of water. As soon as it boiled, Sukeena prepared a paste with the herbs she had in her saddle-bag, and spread it on a folded cloth. While it still steamed with heat she clapped the cloth over Hal's wounds. He moaned and said, "I swear I would rather Aboli pissed on my leg, than you burned it off with your devilish concoctions."

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