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"Wait," pleaded Rosa. "Please wait."
"We can't. You know we can't if Fleischer is down there then we'll get him. If he isn't, then waiting any longer isn't going to help us."
"You don't care," she accused. "You have forgotten about Maria already."
"No," said Fly
There was an Askari he had been watching. A big man who moved ahead of the column. Even at this range Fly
Fly
Incredulously Fly
Frantically he worked the bolt of the rifle, but already the Askari had ducked for cover, unslinging his rifle as he disappeared into, a bank of grey thorn bush, and Fly
"Damn it to hell!" howled Fly
For startled seconds the mass of native bearers stood quiescent under the lash of the Mousers, each man frozen in the attitude in which the attack had caught him; bent to the giant wheels, leaning forward against the ropes, pari ga raised to strike at a branch, or merely standing watching while others worked. Every head lifted to stare up at the slopes from which Fly
Without regard for Fly
Then the bearers broke. Flowing back like flood water along the valley, carrying the Askari whose khaki uniforms bobbed with them like driftwood in the torrent.
Beside Fly
"Maria! Maria!" With each shot she said it softly.
As he fumbled a fresh clip of cartridges from his bandolier, Fly
His rifle was loaded and he switched his attention back to the valley. The scene had changed. From the rush of fear-crazed bearers, the German, whom Fly
With him was the big Askari, the one that Fly
"Mohammed! Get that man! The white man get him!" roared Fly
"That's done it," lamented Fly
Of the hundred under his command, there were a dozen whom he could rely on to obey an order to attack. Fly
Now he steeled himself to do it, aware that with every second the battle madness of his men was cooling and being replaced by sanity and caution. He filled his lungs and opened his mouth, but Rosa saved him.
She rolled and lifted her knees, coming on to her feet with one fluid motion whose continuation was a catlike leap that carried her over the shale bank and into the open.
Boyish, big-hipped, but graceful the rifle across her hip, firing. Long hair streaming, long legs flying, she went down the slope.
"RosaV roared Fly
"Fini!" shouted Mohammed, and scampered after his master.
"My goodness!" Sebastian gasped where he lay on the opposite side of the valley. "It's Rosa!" and in a completely reflex response he found himself on his feet and bounding down the rocky slope.
"Akwende!" yelled the man beside him, carried away in his excitement, and before any of them had time to think, fifty of them were up and following. After the first half-dozen paces they were committed, for once they had started to run down the steep incline they could not stop without falling flat on their faces, they could only accelerate.