Shout at the Devil - Smith Wilbur - Страница 34

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Then his thoughts kicked off at a tangent. Soon, the day after tomorrow, if all went well, he would be back with Rosa. The deep yearning that had been his constant companion these last three months throbbed through Sebastian's whole body. Staring into the wood-fire on the hearth of the hut, it seemed as though the embers formed a picture of her face, and in his memory he heard her voice again.

"Come back, Sebastian. Come back soon."

And he whispered the words aloud, watching her face in the fire. Gloating on each detail of it. He saw her smile, and her nose wrinkled a little, the dark eyes slanted upwards at the corners.

"Come back, Sebastian."

The need of her was a physical pain so intense that he could hardly breathe, and his imagination reconstructed every detail of their parting beside the waterfall. Each subtle change and inflection of her voice, the very sound of her breathing, and the bitter salt taste of her tears upon his lips.

He felt again the touch of her hands, her mouth and through the wood-smoke that filled the hut, his nostrils flared at the warm woman smell of her body.

"I'm coming, Rosa. I'm coming back, he whispered, and stood up restlessly from beside the fire. At that moment his attention was jerked back to the present by a soft scratching at the door of the hut.

"Lord. Lord. "He recognized old M'tapa's hoarse croaking.

"What is it?"

"We seek your protection."

"What is the trouble?" Sebastian crossed to the door and lifted the cross-bar. "What is it?"

In the Moonlight M'tapa stood with a skin blanket draped -around his frail shoulders. Behind him a dozen of the villagers huddled in trepidation.

"The elephant are in our gardens. They will destroy them before morning. There will be nothing, not a single stalk of millet left standing." He swung away and stood with his head cocked. "Listen, you may hear them now."

It was an eerie sound in the night, the high-pitched elephant squeal, and Sebastian's skin crawled. He could feel the hair on his forearms become erect.

"There are two of them." M'tapa's voice was a scratchy whisper. "Two old bulls. We know them well. They came last season and laid waste our corn. They killed one of my sons who tried to drive them off." In entreaty, the old man clawed hold of Sebastian's arm and tugged at it. "Avenge my son, lord. Avenge my son for me, and save our millet that the children will not go hungry again this year."

Sebastian responded to the appeal in the same manner that St. George would have done.

In haste he buttoned his tunic and went to fetch his rifle.

On his return he found his entire command armed to the teeth, and as eager for the hunt as a pack of foxhounds.

Mohammed waited at their head.

"Lord Manali, we are ready."

"Now, steady on, old chap." Sebastian had no intention of sharing the glory. "This is my show. Too many cooks, what?"

M'tapa stood by, wringing his hands with impatience, listening alternately first to the distant sounds of the garden raiders feeding contentedly in his lands, and then to the undignified wrangling between Sebastian and his Askari, until at last he could bear it no longer. "Lord, already half the millet is eaten. In an hour it will all be gone."

"You're right," Sebastian agreed, and turned angrily on his men. "Shut up, all of you. Shut up!"

They were unaccustomed to this tone of command from Sebastian, and it surprised them into silence.

"Only Mohamed shall accompany me. The rest of you go to your huts and stay there."

It was a working compromise, Sebastian now had Mohamed as ally. Mohammed turned on his comrades and scattered them before falling in beside Sebastian.

"Let us go."

At the head of the main gardens, high on its stilts of poles, stood a rickety platform. This was the watch-tower from which, night and day, a guard was kept over the ripening millet. It was now deserted, the two young guards had left hurriedly at the first sight of the garden raiders. Kudu or waterbuck were one thing, a pair of bad-tempered old elephant bulls were another matter entirely.

Sebastian and Mohammed reached the watch-tower and paused beneath it. Quite clearly now they could hear the rustling and ripping sound of the millet stalks being torn up and trampled.

"Wait here, whispered Sebastian, slinging his rifle over his shoulder, as he turned to the ladder beside him. He climbed slowly and silently to the platform, and from it, looked out over the gardens.

The moon was so brilliant as to throw sharply defined shadows below the tower and the trees. Its light was a soft silver that distorted distance and size, reducing all things to a cold, homogeneous grey.

Beyond the clearing the forest rose like frozen smoke clouds, while the field of standing millet moved in the small night wind, rippling like the surface of a lake.

Humped big and darker grey, standing high above the millet, two great islands in the soft sea of vegetation, the old bulls grazed slowly. Although the nearest elephant was two hundred paces from the tower, the moon was so bright that Sebastian could see clearly as he reached forward with his trunk, coiled it about a clump of the leafy stalks and plucked them easily. Then swaying gently, rocking his massive bulk lazily from side to side, he beat the millet against his lifted foreleg to shake the clinging earth from the roots before lifting it and stuffing it into his mouth. The tattered banners of his ears flapped gently, an untidy tangle of millet leaves hanging from his lips between the long curved shafts of ivory, he moved on, feeding and trampling so that behind him he left a wide path of devastation.

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