06 African Adventure (17 page)

The Land-Rover rolled up, and the big cats that were still able to move crawled away. The giraffe was still watching them warily. That gave Roger his chance. He flung the lasso and the noose settled over the bull giraffe’s neck.

The big bull began to lay about him furiously, and Hal, who had come up in the Bedford, feared for his brother’s safety. He came running with the curare gun and fired the drug into the animal’s thigh.

The medicine was given time to have its quieting effect. Then, without too much difficulty, the animal-was led up into the cage, the cage door was closed, and the car driven back to camp - very slowly so that the hide of the magnificent beast should not be bruised by the iron bars.

The conquest of the female giraffe, the one with the six-foot baby, was more easily accomplished. The baby presented no problem at all. When he saw his mother in the cage, he promptly followed.

So the boys had a good report to make to their father. They not only had the big male and female, but a baby as a bonus.

‘But I suppose it’s not worth much,’ Roger remarked.

‘Don’t you believe it,’ said his father. Tt will bring just as much as a grown-up, perhaps more. I think Rio will be very happy to get the little fellow along with the others. Giraffes are enormously strong, as you found out, but their nerves are very delicate. The adults are apt to be much worried on this long trip to Rio and might even get sick, but the little fellow won’t mind a thing so long as he is with his mother. He’s really the best bet of the three. By the way, while you were gone Toto bagged a python. You’ll see it in the snake cage. It’s a beauty and ought to be worth almost as much as a giraffe, if only we can get it to a zoo alive. We have enough animals now for a shipment. The cargo ship Kangaroo will be arriving in Mombasa at the end of this week. I think that tomorrow morning we should start our animals to the coast, so that they’ll get there in time to be put aboard that ship,’

The boys found the python getting his dinner.

The great snake was nineteen feet long and as big round as Roger. It was as colourful as a rainbow, as graceful as a girl, and as mad as a hornet.

Ten men were with it inside the cage. One held its head, one its neck, and others gripped its body all the way down to the tip of its tail. They tried desperately to keep it straight, and it tried just as hard to whip loose, wrap its body round one of these pestiferous humans, and squeeze the fife out of him.

Facing the big snake was Toto, who was trying to force large chunks of meat down the creature’s throat, using a broom-handle as a poker. A newly captured python is too nervous to eat. He must be force-fed, otherwise he may starve to death.

Toto was performing a dangerous job. True, the python is not poisonous. He does not sting. But he can bite, and his savage teeth slant inwards, so that when they once get locked on your hand or your foot they hang on grimly until the snake is killed.

Therefore Toto, when he slipped a chunk of meat into the mouth, had to be very careful not to get his hand caught between those vicious jaws. Then he poked the meat back into the throat with the broom-handle. Gradually he pushed it farther back through the gullet, while the angry, wriggling snake tried to spit it out.

To prevent it from being thrown out, a rope was tied round the throat just in front of the bulge of meat. Then black hands massaged the food back until it reached the snake’s belly. Another tourniquet was tied just in front of the stomach to prevent the food from shooting out like a ball from a cannon.

The same ticklish business had to be repeated with each chunk of meat. The first tourniquet was opened to let it pass, then closed, the food was stroked down the body, the second tourniquet opened to let it move into the stomach, then the tourniquet was once more pulled tight.

And all the time the men were pushed from one side to the other by the squirming body until it looked as if they were performing some strange, barbaric dance.

When the feeding was completed, the neck tourniquet was removed, but the stomach tourniquet was kept on for another ten minutes, until the powerful gastric juices had begun their work upon the meat and it was no longer likely that the food would be thrown out by the excited snake.

Pythons love water - so the cage was equipped with a large water-trough, and as soon as the men had gone the python slid into it.

There he lay quiet at last, enjoying the cool bath, only his head above water.

The boys went on to inspect the giraffes. They too were having a meal. Their dinner tables were fifteen feet high.

They were not exactly tables but boxes, strapped inside the cage near the top and full of acacia leaves.

Why so high? Giraffes are used to feeding from the top of thorn-trees. They spend much of the day feeding. If they had to bend their necks down all this time to eat, the strain would be too great and they might sicken and die.

The hippo was happy, at least as happy as a hippo can be without a river to wallow in. Palm leaves had been placed over the top of the cage to protect him from the sun. Tick birds had wriggled through the bars into the cage and were busily digging their dinner out of cracks in the hide.

Then there were the three buffalo cages. Two of the buffalo were as savage as ever, but the one Hal had cared for greeted him with friendly grunts.

The hyenas paced back and. forth in their cage with heads down as if deep in thought.

The baby leopards, Chu and Cha, needed no cage and tumbled about the camp head over heels in wild games with the dog, Zulu, and little Bab, the baby baboon.

Mother Bab sat and watched. When her baby played too roughly, or when he got into mischief among the cook’s pans and dishes, she walked in and swatted him and said to him in very plain baboon language:

‘Mind your manners.’

Every day the three hundred baboons of her tribe came to the edge of the camp. They seemed to argue with her.

‘Why don’t you come back with us to the trees and the river?’

But she politely refused. She would stay with the friends who had saved her young one’s life. The other baboons could understand, for they also had come to look upon the men of the camp as friends, and the many bits of food that were thrown to them cemented the friendship.

In smaller cages were many little beasts and birds that the men had caught in their spare time - mongooses, honey badgers, jackals, bush-babies, wart-hogs, pelicans, storks, and secretary-birds.

Altogether it was a good collection. It had meant hard and sometimes dangerous work, but it was worth it.

The boys sat down to dinner with the contented feeling that they and their African friends had really done a job. They were all the more pleased because their father had been able to hobble out of his tent and join them at the table.

As they waited to be served, Hal noticed Joro half hidden behind the tents talking with a black stranger. They seemed to be arguing violently. The stranger drew his knife and made such threatening gestures that Hal almost rose from his seat to go to Joro’s assistance. Then he decided to wait and see what happened.

His father and Roger had their backs turned towards this little drama. Hal alone could witness what was going on.

The stranger seemed to win the argument. Joro at last threw out his hands in a gesture that appeared to mean, ‘Very well. I will do as you say.’

Then he went to the supply wagon and disappeared inside. In a few moments he was out again and wandered over to the open fire, on which a pot of gazelle meat was simmering - the stew that would very soon be brought to the table. The cook was busy preparing other food. Joro stood with his back to the pot and his hands behind him.

Could it be that he was dropping something into the pot?

Presently he wandered away, his head down, his shoulders slumped. Whatever he had done, if he had done anything, he was not happy about it.

The cook had brought fruit to the table. Roger and his father were eagerly devouring bananas and mangoes. Hal did not eat.

‘What’s the matter?’ Roger asked his brother. ‘No appetite?’

‘Something funny is going on,’ Hal said. ‘Don’t look round.’

The cook ladled the gazelle stew out of the pot. He brought the steaming dishes to the table and set them before the three hungry Hunts. Roger was about to dig in when Hal said sharply:

‘Wait!’ Then he turned to his father. ‘Dad, do you see anything wrong with this stew?’

‘Why should there be?’

‘It may be all right. But I thought I saw Joro put something into it.’

‘It certainly smells good,’ John Hunt said. He dipped up a spoonful and examined it carefully. ‘No sign of any poison.’

‘Hal is just imagining things,’ Roger put in. ‘Let’s eat.’

‘Hold it,’ his father warned. ‘What are these tiny bristles? They look like bits of stiff hair - chopped up.’ He studied them for a moment. Then he said unhappily, ‘I would never have believed Joro would do this.’

‘Do what?’ demanded Roger, impatient to get on with his meal.

‘I’ll explain later. Just now, I want to test Joro. I’m sure he’s a leopard-man, but I still can’t believe he would let us die. Act as if nothing was wrong. Pretend to eat - but don’t.’

He stirred the fragrant stew, then took up a generous spoonful and raised it slowly to his lips.

‘Bwana!’ It was a sharp cry, and it came from Joro. He strode over to the table.

‘What is it. Joro?’

Two more hippos! They are on shore - not far away.’

‘Don’t bother me now,’ John Hunt replied. ‘After dinner we’ll take a look at them.’

‘But they will go into the river. Then it will be very hard to get them,’

‘We can do better after we’ve had some food,’ Hunt insisted. This smells mighty good.’ He again made as if about to take some of the stew. Joro stopped him.

‘No, no. It is not good. The cook made a mistake. He used bad meat. It is spoiled. It will make you sick.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Hunt. This gazelle was fresh-killed this morning. It’s perfectly good.’

Joro grew more excited. ‘I beg you - don’t eat it’ But the three ignored him and bent over their dishes. Hysterically, Joro seized Roger’s dish and emptied the contents on the ground. Then he did the same with the other two dishes. The cook came hurrying over to see what was wrong. Joro broke down, shaking and sobbing.

‘I did it,’ he confessed. The cook is not to blame. I did it. I put death in it.’ He was trembling as if attacked by a violent fever.

John Hunt rose and put his hands on the black man’s shaking shoulders.

‘Pull yourself together, Joro. We understand. I know you are a leopard-man. I guessed it that night in the woods. I know how the Leopard Society works. They made you promise to kill us. Now it’s all right - we didn’t swallow any of the whiskers - so stop worrying.’

‘Whiskers?’ exclaimed Roger, staring as if he thought his father had gone off his head.

‘Yes, whiskers. Joro, bring the leopard skin here.’ Joro hesitated. Then he went to the supply wagon and came back carrying the skin of the man-eating leopard that Hal had drowned on that first night of the safari.

John Hunt took the head in his hands and turned it so that the boys could look full into the beast’s face. ‘Do you see anything wrong?’

‘It doesn’t look quite natural,’ Hal muttered, ‘especially round the mouth.’ Roger guessed what made the difference. ‘The hairs,’ he said, ‘the stiff white hairs round its mouth - they’re all

gone.’

‘Exactly. And you notice they weren’t cut off. They were pulled out by the roots. Then they were chopped into small bits and and put into the stew.’

‘But how could a few bits of hair hurt anybody? Are they poisonous?’

‘Not at all. But they kill just the same. They don’t dissolve in the stomach. They pierce the stomach wall and cause cysts. These become inflamed and lead to peritonitis. The Africans don’t know the disease by name, but they do know that people die in terrible agony some time after swallowing leopards’ whiskers.’

Hal saw Joro looking off into the bush. He followed his glance and spotted the black stranger. The man’s face was full of anger and evil. Then he turned and ran.

Hal told his father what he had seen.

John Hunt said, ‘He will probably report to the Leopard Society. He will tell them that Joro failed to carry out his pledge.’

‘Then what will they do?’

‘I don’t know. One thing is certain. They’ll do something, and whatever it is we’re not going to like it. Keep your eyes skinned. If you see any sign of trouble, let me know.’

It was an anxious afternoon.

The boys were busy preparing the cage trucks for the trip to the coast. But no matter how busy, they could not get rid of the uneasy feeling that they were in great danger. They watched warily for any black strangers lurking in the bushes. Roger hunched his shoulders.

‘Any minute I expect to get a poisoned arrow in my back.’

Hour by hour they worked, and waited. The sun finally went down in a blaze of glory. There was a deep quiet over the plain, the woods, and the river. The birds peeped sleepily, a wart-hog sniffled, and the breeze made music in the long grass.

‘Reckon nothing is going to happen after all,’ hoped Roger.

‘All the same,’ Hal said, ‘we’d better keep watch tonight. You bed down in the bushes at that side of the camp, I’ll take the other.’

Roger went outside the ring of tents and made a nest for himself in the long grass. He tuned his ears to catch the slightest sound of approaching footsteps. This was rather exciting. He liked the idea of standing guard - especially if you could stand guard lying down.

An hour went by, and another hour, and he began to get drowsy. Then he slept, and dreamed.

He was standing guard on the battlements of a castle. Poisoned arrows were whizzing by him on all sides. It was not exactly a whizzing sound, more like a crackling - the crackling of fire. Then the castle, though it was built Of solid stone, burst into flames. Roger woke.

There was a crackling. He stood up. There was a fire in the woods. The wind was carrying it towards the camp.