08 Safari Adventure (16 page)

The ant-bear had one more surprise to give Roger. It stopped short as it saw a lion approaching. The ant-bear is a favourite food of the lion.

The lion also stopped. He was in no hurry. Being just a big cat, he acted like other cats. A cat chasing a mouse does not pounce upon it and eat it at once. It plays with it, turns its head away, pretends to take no interest in it, keeps it worrying for a while before finishing it off.

So the lion dilly-dallied, evidently sure that his victim could not escape. It’s true, the ant-bear cannot run as fast as the lion. But the ant-bear is a powerful beast in its own way, equipped with strong curved claws with which it can dig a hole and vanish from sight within one minute. And so, while the lion gazed off into space and thought about the good meal he was about to have, the ant-bear silently and swiftly scooped away the earth. When the lion looked back the bagful of ants had disappeared and nothing was left but a hole.

The lion walked over to it, looked down into it, scratched at it, and then walked off with a disappointed grumble.

Roger slept fitfully. Twice he was roused by the peculiar laugh of hyenas under the plane, probably nibbling at the tyres. He scared them away by stamping on the cabin floor. Then he slept soundly, undisturbed even by the squawling Peeyah! Peeyah! Peeyah! Wah-wah! of the bush-baby, so named because its cry is much like that of a very bad-tempered child.

He dreamed that he was being gored by the horns of a rhino, and woke to find that it was dawn and Hal was prodding him in the ribs.

‘Come alive,’ said his brother. ‘Are you going to sleep all day? Here’s your sandwich.’

With difficulty Roger got his eyes open and saw that with Hal was Warden Crosby, and behind them all the safari men and the cars.

‘Pile out,’ Hal said. ‘We’re on our way to the poachers’ camp.’

‘How about the plane?’

‘Just have to leave it here. The warden telegraphed the Nairobi airport for mechanics. Let’s get going and see what’s under those brush mats.’

It was a little over twenty miles back to the grove of big-bellied hippo trees and the suspicious-looking mats.

Not a soul was to be seen. But the muffled sound of voices came over the morning air.

If the pits were really full of poachers they would be armed with bows and arrows.

‘Just raise one corner of this mat so that we can get a look,’ Hal said.

The men lifted the corner of the brush roof. Hal peered down, half expecting to get an arrow in his face. There was no one in the pit.

And still there was that sound of voices.

The other pits were examined, one by one. There were animals in a few, but no humans.

Hal hushed his men. ‘Keep quiet and listen.’

There was no doubt about it. Somewhere men were talking. The sound seemed to come from the trees. But there were no men among the baobabs. They could not be concealed by foliage, for there was no foliage - the trees were bare.

Hal led the way back among the trees. Again he hushed his men. But now there was no sound of talking. Nothing but a breathless silence. Either there were no poachers here or they had become aware that they were having visitors. Hal looked under the trees, behind the trees, up into the branches. Not a soul. Hal was ready to give it up as a bad job.

‘Wait,’ the warden said. They could be right here - all round us.’

‘How could they be here without our seeing them?’

‘You notice how big these tree-trunks are. The baobab doesn’t grow more than about fifty feet high - but it grows sideways. Like a short fat man, a “five-by-five”. Many of these trees have a waist measurement of sixty feet. That’s a pretty big tummy. They are old trees - anything from five hundred to a thousand years old. Now the peculiar thing about an old baobab is that it gets hollow. Any one of these trees could hold twenty men.’

‘But how would they get in and out? I see no holes.’

‘The opening is usually up there where the tree branches, about twelve feet above the ground.’

‘Joro,’ Hal said. ‘Stand close to this trunk. Give me a hand up.’

He mounted to Joro’s shoulders. There he could just reach the lowest branches. He pulled himself up. Now he could see the hole, just where the branches radiated from the trunk.

He crept to the edge of the hole, very cautiously so as not to invite a shower of arrows. He looked down into the gloom. The trunk was full of men. They stared up at him solemnly but made no move to attack him. They acted more like small boys who have been caught doing something naughty.

He drew back as the poachers began climbing out of the hole and dropping to the ground. They left their weapons behind them. Hal came down. Why weren’t the poachers prepared to fight?

‘Joro, ask them what this is all about.’

Joro spoke in Swahili. When one of the poachers replied Joro translated.

‘They don’t want to fight. They give up»’

‘Why?’

‘Every time they try to make a camp, we spoil it They are tired of following Blackbeard. He isn’t paying them -because he’s getting no trophies. They say if they’re not paid they won’t work.’

Men were now pouring out of the other trees. Among the last was Blackbeard himself. But he was not ready to surrender. He carried a revolver in each hand, his beard bristled, and his face was contorted with rage. He screamed at his men, urging them to fight. He acted as if he had gone stark staring mad. He fired shots into the air, and when that did not terrify his men he levelled his guns upon them and blasted away at them, killing six.

Now the poachers were really stirred into action -against their own leader. They rushed him, losing two more men to his bullets before they pinned him to the earth and took away his guns. They might have killed him if the warden had not stopped them.

‘Get up,’ commanded the warden. Blackbeard, still blustering, rose to his feet.

Chee, who had come along with the safari men, was acting strangely. He sniffed at Blackbeard, then bared his teeth in a savage growl. Why, wondered Hal, should the cheetah behave so towards a man he had never seen or smelled before?

Blackbeard viciously kicked the cheetah in the throat. Hal remembered someone else who had attacked the animal in exactly the same way - Judge Singh.

Chee lunged at Blackbeard but was checked by his young master’s voice. ‘Stop it, Chee,’ Roger commanded, fearing that in a fight between man and beast Chee himself might be killed.

The warden faced Blackbeard. ‘Your game is up,’ he said. ‘We’ve been after you for years. Now we’ve got you - thanks to two boys.’

‘There’s nothing you can do to me,’ said Blackbeard defiantly. ‘I have money.’

‘We’ll see about that in court. You will stand trial for the murder of eight men. Sindar Singh himself will be your judge - and you will find him a pillar of justice. All your money cannot buy him off.’

Blackbeard broke into a loud laugh. At the sound, Chee leaped upon him. His teeth closed on the killer

king’s throat. Not exactly on his throat, but on the beard that covered it.

The false beard came off in the animal’s jaws.

And there, stripped of its disguise, was the face of Sindar Singh. Crosby gazed at it in amazement.

Judge Singh was still laughing. ‘Now you see why I am not afraid of your Judge Singh,’ he said. ‘Ha, ha - it is really too funny. What a fool you have been.’

He changed his tune when he was bound hand and foot, transported to Nairobi, and delivered to the police.

There Singh alias Blackbeard did his best to buy off the judge who was to try him. He failed. When he was sentenced to life imprisonment he realized that not all judges were as corruptible as Judge Sindar Singh.

His wealth was confiscated and turned over to the African Wildlife Society to be devoted to the protection of African animals.

So the boys had been right - and wrong. They had guessed Singh was a crook. They had not guessed he was Blackbeard himself.

As for Warden Mark Crosby, the discovery that the soft-voiced little Judge Singh and the killer Blackbeard were one and the same person was a shock he would never quite get over. He had been fond of Singh. He was still fond of what Singh had seemed to be. He mourned the loss of a friend.

The morning after the capture of Blackbeard, a ranger brought the boys a note from Crosby.

‘Would you drop over to my office? Urgent’

When they entered the warden’s banda they saw that he already had a visitor, a black man in the uniform of a railway official.

Crosby introduced him as Gazi Tanga, station master at near-by Mtito Andei where the Nairobi-Mombasa railway cuts through Tsavo Park.

‘Tanga brings serious news,’ said Crosby. ‘Last night five of his men were killed and eaten by lions.’

The boys were goggle-eyed. ‘I thought man-eating lions were a thing of the past,’ Hal said.

‘Far from it. Every year more than a hundred people are killed by man-eaters in East Africa. Of course that isn’t many, compared with those killed by cars in your country. But if lions kill the Africans the Africans are going to kill the lions. Now we want to protect both the people and the lions. Tanga’s men are out this very morning killing every lion they can find. We can’t allow that. The lions - the innocent ones - have a right to live. Visitors come from all over the world to see our lions. We can’t have them wiped out. Most lions are peaceable. There are just a few bad actors. The thing to do is to find the bad actors and leave the good lions alone.’

‘How can you tell by looking at a lion whether he is good or bad?’

‘It isn’t easy. That’s why I called you in.’ ‘But we’ve had no experience in this sort of thing.’ ‘Perhaps not just this. But you’ve had a lot of experience with animals. And you seem to be good at solving riddles. You’ve done so much for me that I can’t ask you to do anything more. But if you volunteer…’

He looked so hopeful that it was hard to refuse. Hal looked at Roger. Roger nodded.

‘Of course we’ll do what we can,’ Hal said. ‘We’re lucky to have a good crew. Being Africans themselves, they know more about African animals than we could learn in a lifetime.’

‘That may be so,’ admitted the warden. ‘But they’re not inclined to do much about it. Put their know-how along with your energy and I believe you’ll get somewhere.’

Hal turned to Tanga. ‘What do you think? Perhaps you feel we cannot help you.’

‘It is not so, bwana,’ replied Tanga respectfully. ‘We know you stopped poaching in Tsavo. We know you caught Blackbeard. It is all we need to know. We will do as you say.’

‘Good. Then go back and tell your people to kill no more lions. We will come with our crew in an hour. With your help well catch those bad actors.’

And how they failed - and succeeded - is told in another book, Lion adventure.