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“If you wouldn't mind,” the other man answered. “It's my bloody arm. The spear wound still hurts like blazes when I move it. So are you suggesting that something is having an adverse influence on us?”
Trounce stuck out his chin. Burton stood, took the scissors, and attacked his friend's facial hair.
“Perhaps. But the Mountains of the Moon are still at least two hundred miles away, so if the Eye of Naga is responsible, then its emanations are reaching a damned long way.”
“If it didn't affect your timekeeping back in fifty-seven,” Trounce said, “then why would it be doing so now?”
“The only explanation I can think of is that there's an intelligence directing it.”
“Which knows we're here? I don't like the sound of that.”
“Nor I.”
A few minutes later, Burton finished his hacking and held up a small round mirror so Trounce could examine the results.
“By Jove!” the detective exclaimed. “It's made no difference at all! I still look like a confounded Robinson Crusoe!”
Burton smiled, turned away, and watched as the Daughters of Al-Manat rolled out their prayer mats and began to praise Allah. He looked at Mirambo's warriors, sitting in a group on small portable stools, sharpening their weapons and cleaning their matchlocks. He observed Said redistributing the baggage among the remaining porters. He examined the horses and mules and saw that many were covered in tsetse bites. They wouldn't survive much longer.
A commotion over to his left attracted his attention. It was Swinburne, leaping around like a possessed forest sprite.
“Look! Look!” the poet cried, jabbing his finger in Herbert Spencer's direction.
Burton turned his eyes toward the robe-wrapped clockwork philosopher and saw that he was approaching with Isabella Mayson at his side. He had a colourful parakeet on each shoulder.
“Pox is back!” Swinburne cheered.
“Slippery sewer-sniffer!” Pox cawed.
“And he's been courting!”
“She'sbeen courting,” Isabella corrected.
Swinburne gave a screech. “What? What? You mean Pox is-is-?”
“Is a girl, yes. She always has been. I believe I pointed that out when I first introduced you to her.”
Swinburne looked flummoxed. “I–I-I suppose the bad language caused me to assume the reverse.”
“Danglies-clutcher!” Pox added.
The other bird let loose a piercing squawk.
“Parakeets usually mate for life,” Isabella told Burton, “so perhaps you'd like to give a name to the new member of your family.”
The king's agent groaned. “You don't mean to say I'll have to accommodate two of the beastly things when we return to London?”
Spencer piped, “At least only one of 'em will insult you, Boss.”
“Sheep-squeezing degenerate!” Pox crowed.
“Monkey cuddler!” her mate added.
“Oh no!” Burton moaned.
“My mistake,” Spencer admitted.
“Hah!” Swinburne cried out. “Malady is learning!”
They all looked at him.
“It's the perfect name,” he said. “Don't you think Pox and Malady sound like they belong together?”
There was a pause, then William Trounce threw his head back and let loose a roar of laughter. “On the button, Algernon!” he guffawed. “On the blessed button! Oh my word! What more fitting remembrance of this endeavour could you have, Richard, than to leave Africa with a Pox and a Malady? Ha ha ha!”
Burton shook his head despairingly.
“Cheer up!” Swinburne gri
Trounce doubled over and bellowed his mirth.
“Algy, there are ladies present,” Burton said, glowering at his assistant.
Isabella made a dismissive gesture. “I rather think Africa has stripped me of all the social niceties, Richard. Try as any of you might, you'll not induce a fit of moral outrage in me!”
“I say! Could we make an attempt anyway?” Swinburne enthused.
“Certainly not.”
Krishnamurthy came ru
They did so, and heard gunfire snapping and popping faintly in the far distance.
“Speke,” Swinburne whispered.
“How far?” Trounce asked.
“It's difficult to say,” Burton responded, “but we'd better stay on our toes.”
The next morning, they proceeded with caution and with four Wanyamwezi scouting a little way ahead. Gunfire continued to crackle faintly from the west. It sounded like a battle was being fought. Burton unpacked all the spare rifles and distributed them among Mirambo's warriors, replacing the ancient matchlocks. He and the rest of his expedition kept their own guns cleaned, oiled, and loaded.
The forest was fairly easy going, its canopy high and the undergrowth light. Nevertheless, it required two more marches to traverse. When they finally emerged from it, they found themselves in a long valley through which sweet water bubbled in a wide stream. The hills to either side were swathed in bright-yellow grain, blazing so brightly that the travellers were forced to walk through it with eyes slitted, and the heat was so ferocious that Herbert Spencer compared this part of their trek to “walkin' on the surface of the bloomin' sun itself!”
The terrain gradually opened onto a flat plain, empty but for stunted trees. On the horizon ahead, low forested hills could be seen, though they folded and jumped in the distorting atmosphere. From the other side of them, the noise of battle raged on. The sound was carrying a long way.
They walked and walked and yet felt as if they made no progress.
“I can't judge the distance,” Trounce muttered. “Those hills are like the mirages we saw back in Arabia. One minute they spring up right in front of us, the next they're not there at all.”
“They're fairly close,” Burton advised.
“And so is one heck of a scrap by the sound of it!”
“Wow! It is from Kazeh!” Sidi Bombay noted.
Burton walked back along the line of porters and mules to where Swinburne was striding along. The poet had a rifle slung across his shoulder and was holding an umbrella over his head.
“I'm going to gallop ahead to take a peek over those hills, Algy. Will you join me? Can you bear it during the hottest part of the day?”
“Rather! Anything to break the monotony of this flatland.”
They stopped and waited for Isabel Arundell, who was riding near the middle of the column, to catch them up.
“I need two of your fittest horses,” Burton said as she drew abreast of them. “Algy and I are going to reco
“Very well, but I'm coming with you. If we're joining a battle, I want to see for myself how best to deploy my women.”
“Very well.”
Mounts were selected, supplies were packed into saddlebags, and the threesome rode back to the head of the safari.
Burton took the field glasses from Trounce and informed him of their intentions. “You're in charge while we're gone. Keep going until the heat gets too much. You'll not make Kazeh in a single march, or even the base of the hills, so stop when you must but don't erect the tents. Get what rest you can.”
They kicked their heels into the sides of their mounts and raced away, leaving a cloud of dust rolling in their wake.
It took them an hour to catch up with one of Mirambo's scouts. They stopped to greet him and offer water but he ignored them, as if by doing so he could make the muzungo mbayacease to exist.
The entire afternoon was spent pushing the horses to their limits until, with the sun swelling and melting in front of their eyes, they arrived at the edge of the plain and threw themselves down beside a narrow stream. They drank deeply and washed the dust from their faces, splashed their steeds to cool them, then left them reined to trees but with enough slack to be able to reach the water.
Gunfire stammered and echoed around them.