African Enchantment (18 page)

Narinda looked up at his grim profile and across to where his eyes rested. The English girl. His thoughts were constantly on the English girl. Tiny teeth bit deeply into her lower lip. She had heard of slavers who had ventured through the swamp in search of victims. Soon they would be in the country of chiefs accustomed to selling their people as slaves: and buying them. The English girl's rarity would ensure that any chief would pay a great price for her. Her eyes gleamed in the darkness. She had acted once on impulse and had failed. The next time she would act with forethought and cunning and would succeed.

The unpleasantness of the voyage increased; the climate almost insupportable. The large maps that were constantly spread on the cane table were inked in with strange names. The whole vast area was ringed with the same Sudd and the rivers diverging from it bore enchanting names that gave little indication of their hideousness. Bahr-el-Zeraf, the river of the giraffes: Bahr-el-Ghazal, the river of the antelope. Raoul worked with grim determination, charting their course meticulously, charting their latitude point nightly with the aid of his sextant. Often the natives were reduced to scything the vast banks of reed to enable the
dahabiah
to cut its way inexorably forward. To Sebastian's distaste, Raoul stripped to the waist, and with Reverend Lane helping manfully, joined his natives in hacking a waterway through the dense mass of vegetation.

The sweat poured down his broad back, the muscles rippling as he wielded an axe with demonic ferocity. Sebastian and Wilfred Frome watched from cane chairs, their enthusiasm for the adventure a thing of the past. Harriet watched despairingly. There was nothing she could do to help him. When he staggered back on to the
dahabiah
it was Narinda who ran hastily towards him with towels to wipe the sweat from his face and body. It was almost, Harriet thought as she watched Narinda sponge his forehead with a damp cloth, as if they were man and wife. A humourless smile curved her lips. Almost the first thing Raoul Beauvais had said to her had been that he was not a marrying man. No doubt his present arrangement suited him admirably.

‘Is there any possibility of persuading Beauvais to turn back?' Harriet heard Wilfred Frome ask Sebastian.

Sebastian laughed tersely. ‘None. He and Walther planned this expedition long ago. He'll continue until he's killed us all.'

Harriet looked ahead to where Raoul worked, waist deep in mosquito-ridden water. He would not kill them. He would succeed – whatever the cost.

Since the undignified incident when she had slapped Narinda's face the girl had made no secret of her hostility towards Harriet but had been careful to cultivate the good humour of the men. Now she moved towards them gracefully, gossamer-light robes fluttering around her as she brought a tray of refreshments for them. Frome blushed slightly, patently overcome by Narinda's obvious charms. Even Sebastian regarded her with appraising eyes. Slowly but surely she was estranging Harriet from everyone aboard. Harriet knew that no one believed Narinda had pushed her overboard. Her slapping of the girl's face had only made matters worse. Raoul saw it as the typical behaviour of a girl of her class to a native, and despised her accordingly. Sebastian and Wilfred Frome's protective instincts had been aroused by the girl's tears. Only Mark Lane remained neutral. Harriet Latimer was not a girl to make wild accusations with no foundation. Neither was she so foolish as to fall over a two-foot rail into water swarming with crocodiles. Though Harriet was unaware of it he kept a close eye on her. Accidents that had happened once could happen again.

Just when it seemed that survival was impossible, Raoul struggled back aboard the
dahabiah
with the natives and said exhaustedly, ‘There is a channel ahead. I've been correct in my judgment. We've reached navigable water once more.'

‘Thank the Lord,' Mark Lane said sincerely, reaching for his Bible.

‘Thank God,' Sebastian said less piously, reaching for a bottle of brandy.

‘Thank Raoul,' Harriet said dryly.

He was in the process of washing dried blood from the cuts on his hands. He raised his eyes, giving her a piercing glance that obliged her to turn swiftly before he saw how much it had disconcerted her.

As the river once more became recognisable as such, everyone's spirits lifted, even those of Wilfred Frome. The banks were no longer desolate and deserted. There was wild life in plenty to record and draw: monkeys and beautifully sleek red and white waterbuck, zebras and elephants and once, at early dawn, the breathtaking sight of a cheetah stalking its prey.

There were birds in abundance: spoonbills, stilts, herons, marabou storks, white storks, black storks. So much wild life that they were satiated with it, and Harriet sketched maniacally, reluctant to let even one species escape her pen.

Natives on the banks changed from light-skinned Nubians to ebony-black Africans, their villages clusters of cane and reed-woven huts. Wilfred Frome was eager to put ashore to study the inhabitants as closely as he was studying the flora and fauna. Raoul refused. Their journey back would be the time for Wilfred to collect extraneous data for the Royal Geographical Society. Their chief objective was the Nile's source and they had still not reached Gondokoro, the furthest place ever recorded by white men. Malaria had struck down one of their party: there was no telling when another would succumb. They had plentiful supplies of quinine in which he put much faith. Dr Walther had believed that four bottles of claret a day were ample protection, and had been proved sadly mistaken.

They had sufficient supplies and were able to shoot fresh meat. Delays investigating the native population were unnecessary and potentially dangerous. Every hour of every day mattered. Not until Gondokoro had been reached were they in uncharted territory.

There were times when Harriet wondered when he slept. He captained the
dahabiah;
he kept control over a crew of unhappy and often frightened Sudanese; he mapped the country as meticulously as Wilfred Frome, and his eyes rested on her with increasing and disturbing frequency.

‘
Visitors!
' Sebastian suddenly shouted, grabbing his rifle and running to the prow.

Wilfred Frome dropped his pen to the deck as he rose hastily from his notes.

Raoul strode past a startled Harriet, moving with easy strength and confidence. Her sudden fear died; whatever the situation, Raoul would be in control of it. She put down her sketch pad and followed curiously. Canoes full of natives were converging upon them from all sides, their bodies glistening with oil, strips of ochre-coloured cloth about their loins. Only one wore more garments and he stood at the helm of the swiftest canoe, his feet straddled, his spear held upright in one hand. A toga was fastened on one broad, black shoulder and a cape of antelope skins fell around him, ankle length. His face was expressionless, looking to Harriet more like a magnificent wooden carving than a face of human flesh and blood.

‘Put your rifle down,' Raoul said authoritatively to Sebastian.

Sebastian hesitated, about to refuse and then, at the expression in Raoul's eyes, unwillingly complied.

The silence had been broken the instant Sebastian had given his warning shout. Drums had begun to pound. Drums that Harriet had heard previously only from a safe distance. Then, they had sounded intriguing and romantic: a sign that they were delving deeper and deeper into the heart of unexplored Africa. Now, near to, the sound was terrifying, full of menace and threat. Every warrior was armed with a lance or a spear and as the drums' rhythm increased, so did their shouts and angry gesticulations.

Raoul faced the chief, standing at the prow of the
dahabiah
, his feet straddled, arms akimbo, as fearless as if he had an army at his back and not a handful of men and two defenceless females.

As the chief's canoe bobbed precariously against the
dahabiah
, Raoul moved forward, speaking in Arabic, his hands outstretched. From the canoe the chief regarded him for long moments while the frenzy around them increased. Harriet pressed her hands against her ears to shut out the sound of drums and cries. Narinda had long since fled, and was cowering in her cabin.

Smoothly Raoul slipped from the obviously uncomprehended Arabic into another tongue. This time there was a faint gleam in the impassive eyes of the chief.

‘The beads, Harriet,' Raoul said without turning his head.

Harriet moved quickly. Boxes of brilliantly-coloured necklaces and bracelets had been brought with them for bartering with the local chiefs for food. So far, such bartering had not been necessary. Now she scooped up handfuls of the beaded jewellery and hurried to Raoul's side.

With a sudden flashing smile Raoul dropped them into the chief's grasp. They were caught adroitly. A giant hand was raised and the drums ceased.

Raoul stretched his hand down over the side of the
dahabiah;
the chief looped scores of necklaces over his head and threw the rest to his warriors who caught, seized or dived into the water for them. The black hand and the white clasped and then Raoul was helping the chief aboard and Sebastian's fingers were nervously reaching towards his rifle. Whether Raoul understood what the chief said, and whether the chief understood what Raoul said was unclear. What was clear was that an understanding had been reached and that friendship had been given and received.

‘What language is Beauvais speaking?' Sebastian whispered urgently to Wilfred Frome.

Frome shook his head. ‘I don't know, but whatever it is, it's doing the trick.' The chief was seated on Raoul's high-backed cane chair and instinctively Harriet hurried for lime juices and glasses. A handful of warriors had boarded with their chieftain and surrounded him, long spears in their hands, while the others remained standing in their rocking canoes.

‘What if it hasn't?' Sebastian asked, sweat breaking out on his brow. ‘Even with rifles we'd never survive an attack by such a force!'

‘Hush …' Frome gestured impatiently.

Harriet was approaching with the tray of drinks. Raoul's eyes were reluctantly admiring; she had made the right gesture and it had taken courage to do so. As he sat himself opposite the chieftain it had been Mark Lane who had stepped forward, standing to one side of him.

Raoul curbed a mirthless smile. A priest and a girl had shown more courage than a self-declared hunter. Sebastian Crale was conspicuous only by his absence, as was the other person aboard who had previously been all too eager to meet the natives at close quarters. Raoul dismissed them from his mind. Already he was beginning to feel an almost unquenchable excitement.

The chief before him had declared himself to be Nbatian and regarded the question as to his knowledge of the river's source with indifference. ‘ In the Nyanzas,' he said. ‘It flows from the bowels of the Great Nyanzas.'

Harriet set the drinks down on the table between the two men. The chief's eyes flicked over her, narrowing as they rested on her halo of golden hair.

She heard Raoul use the name Gondokoro and Nyanza, and waited a foot or two from his left-hand side as the chief scored a map on the bottom of the wooden tray with his nails.

Raoul was leaning forward, his shoulders tense, his eyes gleaming. Harriet bit her bottom lip. Was the chief telling him in what direction to travel once their way on the river became impossible, and they could no longer follow its course?

She could sense Raoul's rising excitement and her own began to grow. She had never doubted that he would achieve his objective, but she had begun to doubt if the rest of them had the endurance to share with him the first sight of the Nile's source. Now, suddenly, it seemed not only a possibility, but a certainty.

The chief's fist slammed hard on the table, sending a glass crashing to the floor. Harriet gasped, flooded with fear. He had risen to his feet and was pointing at her, his voice demanding.

Raoul remained seated, shrugging dismissively. The chief's anger grew. Harriet saw the hands of the warriors tighten on their spears.

‘What is it? What does he want?' she asked, terrified that Raoul was on the point of death.

With almost insolent ease Raoul swung round in his chair and regarded Harriet calmly as the chief jabbed his finger in her direction.

‘He wants you for a wife.'

Harriet's eyes widened, her mouth rounding in horror. ‘What … What have you told him?' she gasped, backing away in fear.

‘I told him,' he said darkly, ‘that I was sorely tempted to allow him to have you for one.'

For a second Harriet could not speak because of the pounding of her heart and her stupefying fear. Then anger surged through her.

‘Tell your … your …
friend
,' she hissed, ‘that I am no man's wife!'

Raoul regarded her with infuriating complacency. ‘He seems to think that you are mine,' he said, and this time there was no mistaking the mocking gleam in his eyes.

‘I'd rather be his than yours!' Harriet spat, her gold-green eyes feral in their fury.

‘That can easily be arranged,' Raoul said, leaning back negligently in his chair.

Tears of anger and rage stung her eyes and she choked on them as she said, ‘ You wouldn't care a damn, would you?'

Black brows rose imperceptibly. ‘ There's no need for profanities, Miss Latimer.'

Harriet was shaking. She had known fury in plenty since meeting Raoul Beauvais but nothing to equal the almost manic frenzy that now seized her. She was oblivious of the animal-skinned chief, oblivious of the armed warriors, oblivious of Wilfred Frome's pale face and desperate pleas for restraint.

In a blood-red haze she saw only Raoul, lazily mocking her humiliation.

‘You are unspeakable!' she sobbed, swirling round, pushing her way between near-naked muscular warrior's as if they were no more than a crowd of children. Raoul regarded her retreating back with interest and returned his attention to his dissatisfied guest.