Assegai

‘Who are you trying to escape from?’

‘Those who own my soul.’

‘Where will you go?’

‘I don’t know. Some secret place where they ca

‘What about him?’ He indicated the blood-smeared body lying on the deck between them. ‘We ca

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Despite my feelings towards him, we ca

‘Freedom? Aren’t you free now?’

‘No. I am the captive of circumstances. You don’t believe that I chose to be what I have become, what they have made me, do you?’

‘What are you? What have you become?’

‘I have become a whore and an impostor, a liar and a cheat. I am caught in the jaws of a monster. Once I was like you, good, honest and i

‘Oh, God, Eva, there’s nothing I want more. I’ve loved you from the first moment I laid eyes on you.’

‘Then no more questions now. I beg you. Hide me here in the wilderness. Take Otto to Nairobi. If anybody there asks about me, and I mean anybody at all, don’t tell them where I am. Tell them simply that I’ve disappeared. Leave Otto at the hospital. If he survives they will send him back to Germany. But as soon as you can, you must return to me. I will explain everything to you then. Will you do it? The Lord knows there’s no reason why you should, but will you trust me?’

‘You know I will,’ he said softly, then he shouted, ‘Manyoro! Loikot!’ They were waiting close at hand. The orders he had for them were short and to the point. It took him less than a minute to issue them. He turned back to Eva. ‘Go with them,’ he told her. ‘Do as they tell you. You can trust them.’

‘I know I can. But where will they take me?’

‘To Lonsonyo Mountain. To Lusima,’ he answered, and watched all the worry disappear from her violet eyes.

‘To our mountain?’ she said. ‘Oh, Leon, from the first moment I saw it I knew Lonsonyo had a special significance for us.’

While they were speaking Manyoro had found the carpet bag in which Eva carried her personal things. He dragged it out of the stowage hatch at the rear of the cockpit and tossed it down to Loikot, who was standing below the fuselage, then vaulted over the side. For the moment Leon and Eva were alone together. They gazed at each other wordlessly. He reached out to touch her, and she came into his arms with a swift, lissom grace. They clung to each other, as though they were trying to meld their bodies into a single entity. Her lips quivered against his cheek as she whispered, ‘Kiss me, my darling. I have waited so long. Kiss me now.’

Their lips came together, as lightly at first as two butterflies touching in flight, then stronger, deeper, so that he could taste her essence and savour the warmth of her tongue and the pink, fragrant recesses of her mouth. That first kiss seemed to last an instant yet all of eternity. Then with an effort, they broke apart and stared at each other in awe.

‘I knew I loved you, but not until this moment did I realize how much,’ he said softly.

‘I know, for I feel it also,’ she replied. ‘Until this moment, I never knew what it would be like to trust and love somebody completely.’

‘You must go,’ he told her. ‘If you stay another minute I ca

She tore her eyes from his and looked out across the pan to where the morani and the villagers were streaming back towards them. Some were carrying the carcasses of the two lions slung on poles, their heads hanging.

‘Gustav and He

He fell on his knees beside Graf Otto’s body. ‘Oh, my God, my good God!’ he cried. ‘He is killed!’ Unaffected tears streamed down his weathered cheeks. ‘Please, God, spare him! He was more than my own father to me.’ Apparently Gustav had forgotten the existence of Eva von Wellberg.

‘He’s not dead,’ Leon told him brusquely, ‘but he soon will be if you don’t get the engines started so I can take him to a doctor.’ Gustav and He

They crouched beside the makeshift stretcher on which Graf Otto lay and took a firm grasp. Leon pushed the throttles forward to the stops. The aircraft roared and rolled forward. As he lifted her over the trees he looked over the side, searching for Eva. He saw her then. She and the Masai had covered the ground, and they were already a quarter of a mile beyond the perimeter of the pan. She was ru

It was late afternoon and the sun was setting when Leon set the Butterfly down on the Nairobi polo ground. It was deserted, for nobody was expecting them. He taxied to the hangar where the hunting car was parked, shut down the engines and, between them, they manhandled the stretcher over the side of the cockpit and lowered Graf Otto to the ground.

Leon examined him briefly. He could detect no breathing, and Graf’s skin was deathly pale, damp and cold to the touch. He showed no signs of life. Leon felt a guilty jolt of relief that his wish for the man’s death had been so swiftly realized. But then he touched Graf Otto’s neck under the ear and felt the carotid artery throbbing feebly and irregularly. Then he placed his ear to the man’s lips and heard the faint hiss of air, in and out of his lungs.

Any normal human being would have been dead long ago, but this bastard is as tough as the skin on an elephant’s backside, he thought bitterly. ‘Bring the hunting car,’ he told Gustav. They placed the litter across the back seat, where Gustav and He

The hospital was a small building of mud-brick and thatch, across the road from the new Anglican church. It comprised a clinic, a rudimentary operating theatre and two small, empty wards. The entire building was deserted and Leon hurried to the cottage at the rear.

He found Doc Thompson and his wife sitting down to their di