his voice. “If we were just left to find our way back—we—we just couldn’t.”
Rita finished playing with her hair and turned to him. There was contempt in her grey eyes.
“I wish I’d known you were so yellow when I married you,” she sighed. “Unfortunately, the only yellow I saw was the gold you own. Moon, for all his faults, is tough.”
“Good God, from the way you say that, one would think you prefer him to me!”
Rita shook her head. “I think he’s a beast,” she said deliberately. “And a drunken one too, but I do wonder if that isn’t preferable to being cowardly. That’s the one thing about you, Harry, I just can’t tolerate!”
Perrivale said nothing. He knew she was right, but to a great extent his wealthy parents had been to blame. Whilst they had lived, they had brought him up in cotton wool, under the belief money could buy manhood for him. It had not—and this was the first time he had ever ventured into the merciless jungle. It had frayed his nerves, shortened his temper—
A scream from outside the tent suddenly made Rita start. Perrivale looked up in surprise. Getting to her feet, Rita hurried over to the tent flap and dragged it aside. At that moment she heard the thick, liquor-cracked voice of Caleb Moon shouting:
“You damned louse! I’ll teach you to let the fire go down—!”
There followed the crack of a rhino-lash and a desperate scream.
“Bwana, I slept—I—” But the lash cut off the rest of the words.
“Blasted scum!” Moon screamed, obviously inflamed with liquor. “The more that fire goes down, the more we stand to get attacked by jungle beasts! Sleeping? I’ll show you—”
Again and again the lash came down, and in the light of the subdued fire Rita could see a black figure squirming under the onslaught of Moon’s flashing arm. She also saw other black figures darting off like shadows into the jungle, scared of the white boss’s fury. Rita looked after them helplessly, unable to call since she did not know the mongrel tongue they used.
“Mr. Moon!” she cried angrily, striding towards him. “Stop it! Do you hear me? Stop it!”
In his frenzy Moon took no notice. Rita strode on towards him and finally grasped his arm. He paused for a split second, and then swept his arm back and round, flinging Rita from her feet and sending her stumbling into the undergrowth. Dazed, she lay there, her shoulder throbbing from the blow.
The interval had been enough for the hapless black to make an effort to escape, but the vicious whip brought him down on his knees again. He chattered desperately for mercy, and did not get it. His chattering broke in screams again as the lash flayed across his naked back.
“Next time you’ll keep a fire going!” Moon roared at him.
From his own tent Perrivale stood watching, then he suddenly yanked out the .38 at his hip and took aim. At exactly the same moment Moon caught sight of him in the firelight. Drunk though he was, he was not so confused that he could not act fast. He dropped his whip and aimed his own revolver instead. Flame bit across the dimness, and with a cry Perrivale dropped his weapon and fell, clasping his leg tightly. He remained as he had fallen, his features contorted.
“Harry!” Rita cried in anguish, leaping up from where she had fallen. “Oh, Harry—”
Moon blocked her path, his thick arm encircling her shoulders from the front.
“No you don’t!” he breathed, clutching her. “If that scared louse of a husband of yours has a parked bullet in him, it’s no more than he deserves. I’ve been waiting for this—a legitimate reason for shooting him. You and me will keep going—”
“Let me go!” Rita kicked at him savagely, and the sharp points of her half-boots made him wince—but he did not release her. She struggled vainly to tear free, but only succeeded in being dragged all the closer to the trader.
Then something else happened. Moon saw it first and blinked. A second later he felt it. Something that seemed to be too hard for flesh and bone crashed straight into his face and sent him flying backwards. Half stunned, he flattened in the loam, sparks bursting through his brain.
It took him a second or two to recover. He twisted round and stared on something he could not believe. There was a newcomer in the clearing, white-skinned in the dim firelight, his only attire a leopard-pelt about his loins.
“What the hell?” Moon whispered to himself, sobering—then he staggered up and came floundering across the clearing. The newcomer, behind whom Rita was crouching, waited—but he did not strike out.
He was tall beyond the average, possibly six feet four, with power-packed shoulders and chest. His hair, roughly cut, was flung back from his broad forehead, secured with a thong, and was the colour of honey. The hilt of a crude-looking knife projected from the leopard-pelt.
Still Moon stared, unable to credit his senses. Rita backed away and hurried over to her groaning husband. Moon made a half move to follow her but the white giant moved also with one foot, barring the way. Moon peered at him, studying the well-cut features—then as fast as thought his hand blurred down to his gun, and he yanked it out.
Before he could fire the stranger’s right hand shot out and closed round his wrist. The trader gasped as steel fingers tightened relentlessly and all but broke the bone. Then, heavy man though he was, he was lifted in the air and flung with savage force. He struck the bole of a baobab tree on the edge of the clearing, and dropped with half the senses knocked out of him. His gun had gone—so he did the only thing he could. He crept into the jungle and kept on going, completely unable to understand what had happened.
The white stranger turned at last to where Rita was making ineffectual efforts to drag her husband into the tent. With perfect ease the giant lifted the wounded Perrivale in his mighty arms and bore him to the camp bed, laying him down. Rita was too intent on trying to ease her husband’s pain to pay any attention to the white man who now stood with folded arms, watching impassively.
“He—he got me—in the leg,” Perrivale panted, his face sweating. “I don’t know if the bullet’s still there. Take a look.”
He relaxed again on the bed, setting his teeth. Rita looked at him helplessly, her knowledge of first-aid and anatomy practically negligible. Then she seemed to become aware of the silent white man watching her. His advent should have startled her, and indeed it had at the time, but just at the moment her whole attention was given over to her husband.
“Can’t you do something?” she entreated. “He’s been hit in the leg. Look at it.”
The finger pointing towards Perrivale’s blood-soaked trouser leg was enough to get the white giant on the move. He went down on his knees beside the camp bed and tore Perrivale’s trouser leg up the side, then he examined the leg itself, wiping away the blood with a piece of trouser leg. The injury looked worse than it was really, but even so Perrivale had suffered a wound that had gouged deep into the calf and only just missed the bone. The bullet itself had apparently passed on.
Rita, seeing the extent of the damage, turned aside, and heated water on the oil cooker. Then she bathed the wound and bound it up with wadding from the medical kit. Perrivale gave a taut little nod of thanks, the pain of the injury still pretty considerable.
“Thanks, Rita,” he said—and, glancing up at the white giant, “and thanks to you, too. Just who are you, anyway? You’re white.”
Rita eyed the giant with his rippling muscles, keen blue eyes, and finely cut chin. He had blond hair tied back with a thong.
“He’s wonderfully developed,” Rita murmured, admiringly.
The giant made no comment and turned to go, but Rita caught his arm.
“Please—don’t go yet! We want to learn more about you. And besides, Moon might return. If he does, I don’t want to be left to tackle him by myself, as I should be with my husband