Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur - Страница 79

knowing expression in his eyes that she felt herself flushing.

"I'm beginning to find that out," he said, and stepped towards her, but

she raised both hands protectively.

"You'll put grease on this dress-"

"If I were to bath first?"

"Bath," she ordered. "And then we'll talk again, mister."

In the last few minutes of daylight, a rider had come down the gorge,

clattering and sliding on the rough footing, and then hitting the level

ground and galloping into the Ras's camp on a blown and lathered

horse.

Sara Sagud took the message he carried, came flying up to the cluster

of tents under the flat-topped camel-thorn trees and burst into

Vicky Camberwell's tent waving the folded cablegram, without dreaming

of announcing her entrance.

Vicky was deep in a bearlike enfolding embrace into which Jake

Barton had taken her moments before, and the interruption came just

as

Vicky was abandoning herself to the pleasure of the moment. Jake

towered over her, freshly scrubbed and smelling of carbolic soap, with

his hair still wet and newly combed. Vicky broke out of his arms and

turned furiously to the girl.

"Oh!" exclaimed Sara, with the natural interest and fascination of a

born conspirator discovering a fresh intrigue.

"You are busy."

"Yes, I am, "snapped Vicky, cheeks aflame with embarrassment and

confusion.

"I'm sorry, Miss Camberwell. But I thought this message must be

important-" and Vicky's irritation faded, as she saw the cablegram.

"I

thought you would want it." Vicky snatched it from her, broke the seal

and read avidly. Her anger faded as she read, and she looked up with

shining eyes at Sara.

"You were right thank you, my dear," and she spun back to Jake,

dancing up to him and flinging both arms around his neck, laughing and

gay.

"Hey," Jake laughed with her, holding her awkwardly in front of the

girl, "What's this all about?"

"It's from my editor," she told him.

"My story about the attack at the Wells was an international scoop.

Headlines around the world and there is to be an emergency session of

the League of Nations." Sara snatched the cable form back from her,

and read it as though by right.

"This is what my father believed you could do for us, Miss

Camberwell for our land and our people." Sara was weeping, fat oily

tears breaking from the dark gazelle eyes and clinging in her long

lashes. "Now the world knows. Now they will come to save us from the

tyranny." The girl's faith in the triumph of good over evil was

childlike, and she pulled Vicky from Jake's arms and embraced her

instead.

"Oh, you have given us a chance again. We will always be grateful to

you." Her tears smeared Vicky's cheek, and she drew back, sniffing

wetly, and wiped her own tears from Vicky's face with the palm of her

hand. "We will never forget you," she said, and then smiled through

the tears. "We must go and tell my grandfather." They found it

impossible to convey to the Ras the exact nature of this new

advancement of the Ethiopian cause. He was very hazy in his exact

understanding of the role and importance of the League of Nations, or

the power and influence of the international press. After the first

few pints of tej he had made sure in his own mind that in some

miraculous fashion the great Queen of England had espoused their

cause,

and that the armies of Great Britain would soon join him in the

field.

Both Gregorius and Sara spoke to him at great length, trying to explain

his error, and he nodded and grinned benevolently at them but remained

completely unshaken in his conviction, and ended by embracing Gareth

Swales, making a long rambling speech in Amharic, hailing him as an

Englishman and a comrade in arms. Then, before the speech ended, the

Ras fell suddenly and dramatically asleep in mid-sentence, falling face

forward into a large bowl of mutton wat. The day's battle, the

excitement of learning of his new and powerful ally, and the large

quantities of tej were too much for him, and four of his bodyguard

lifted him from the bowl and carried him snoring loudly to his

household tent.

"Do not worry," Sara told his guests. "My grandfather will not be gone

for long after a small rest he will return."

"Tell him not to put himself out," murmured Gareth Swales. "I for one

have seen about enough of him for one day." The glow of the bonfires

turned the sky ruddy and paled the moon that sailed above the mountain

peaks. It shone on the steel and polished wood of the huge pile of

captured weapons, rifles and pistols and ammunition bandoliers, that

were heaped triumphantly in the open space before the royal party.

The sparks from the fires rose straight upwards into the still night

and the laughter and voices of the guests became more unrestrained as

the tej gourds circulated.

Farther along the valley, also within the acacia grove, the Gallas of

Ras Kullah were celebrating the victory also, and there was the

occasional faint outburst of drunken shouts and a fusillade of shots

from captured Italian rifles.

Vicky sat between Gareth and Jake. She had not arranged it so,

and if given the choice would have sat alone with Jake, but Gareth

Swales had not been as easily discouraged as she had believed he

might.

Sara came from her place beside Gregorius. Crossing the squatting

circle of feasting guests, she knelt on the pile of leather cushions

beside Vicky, pushing herself in between Gareth and the girl and she

leaned close to Vicky, an arm around her shoulder and her lips touching

her ear.

"You should have told me," she accused her sadly. "I did not know that

you had decided on Jake first. I would have advised you-" At that

instant a sound carried from the camp of the tance and Gallas to where

they sat. It was muted by ths almost obscured by the closer hubbub of

the feasting Harari filling yet the terrible heart-stopping quality of

it pierced Vicky so that she gasped and clutched Sara's wrist.

Beside her Jake and Gareth had stiffened and were listening also,

their heads turned to catch the sound that rose and died in a

long-drawn-out rending sob.

"You have not handled them correctly, Miss Camberwell." Sara went on

speaking as if she had heard nothing.

"Sara, what is it what was that?" Vicky shook her arm urgently.

"Ah!" Sara made a gesture of disdain and contempt. "That fat pervert

Ras Kullah has come down from his hiding-place.

the victory, he has come to enjoy Now that we have won the booty.

He arrived an hour ago with his fat milch cows and now he feasts and

entertains himself." The sound came again. It was inhuman, a terrible

high pitched screech that tore across Vicky's nerves. It rose higher

and higher, until Vicky wanted to cover her ears with both hands. At

the instant that it seemed her nerves must snap, the sound was cut off

abruptly.

A listening silence had fallen upon the revelling throng around the

bonfires, and the silence persisted for a few then there was a seconds

longer after the scream had ended, murmur of comment and here and there

a burst of careless, cruel laughter.