The Leopard Woman | Page 2

Stewart Edward White

safari, comprising not over thirty men all told. The single white man
walked fifty yards or so ahead of the main body. He was evidently tired,
for his shoulders drooped, and his shuffling, slow-swinging gait would
anywhere have been recognized by children of the wilderness as that
which gets the greatest result from the least effort. Dressed in the
brown cork helmet, the brown flannel shirt with spine-pad, the khaki
trousers, and the light boots of the African traveller little was to be
made of either his face or figure. The former was fully bearded, the
latter powerful across the shoulders. His belt was heavy with little
leather pockets; a pair of prismatic field-glasses, suspended from a
strap around his neck, swung across his chest; in the crook of his left
arm he carried a light rifle.
Immediately at his heels followed a native. This man's face was in
conformation that of the typical negro; but there the resemblance
ceased. Behind the features glowed a proud, fierce spirit that
transformed them. His head was high but his eyes roved from right to
left restlessly, never still save when they paused for a flickering instant
to examine some gazelle, some distant herd of zebra or wildebeeste
standing in the vista of the flat-topped trees. His nostrils slowly
expanded and contracted with his breathing, as do those of a spirited
horse. In contrast to the gait of the white man he stepped vigorously
and proudly as though the long day had not touched his strength. He
wore a battered old felt hat, a tattered flannel shirt, a ragged pair of
shorts, and the blue puttees issued by the British to their native troops.
The straps of two canteens crossed on his breast; a full cartridge belt
encircled his waist; he carried lightly and easily one of those

twelve-pound double cordite rifles that constitute the only African life
insurance.
Fifty yards in the rear marched the carriers. They were a straight, strong
lot, dressed according to their fancy or opportunity in the cast-off
garments of the coast; comical in the ensemble, perhaps, but worthy of
respect in that all day each had carried a seventy-pound load under a
tropical sun, and that they were coming in strong.
And finally, bringing up the rear, marched a small, lively, wizened little
fellow, dressed as nearly as possible like the white man, and carrying as
the badge of his office a bulging cotton umbrella and the _kiboko_--the
slender, limber, stinging rhinoceros-hide whip.
It was the end of a long march. This could be guessed by the hour, by
the wearied slouch of the white man, above all by the conduct of the
safari. The men were walking one on the heels of the other. Their
burdens, carried on their heads, held them erect. They stepped out
freely. But against the wooden chop boxes, the bags of cornmeal potio,
the bundles of canvas that made up some of the loads, the long safari
sticks went _tap, tap, tap_, in rhythm. This tapping was a steady
undertone to the volume of noise that arose from thirty throats. Every
man was singing or shouting at the full strength of his lungs. A little
file of Wakamba sung in unison one of the weird wavering minor
chants peculiar to savage peoples everywhere; some Kavirondos simply
howled in staccato barks like beasts. Between the extremes were many
variations; but every man contributed to the uproar, and tapped his load
rhythmically with his long stick. By this the experienced traveller
would have known that the men were very tired, tired to the point of
exhaustion; for the more wearied the Central African native, or the
steeper the hill he, laden, must surmount, the louder he sings or yells.
"_Maji hapana m'bale, bwana_," observed the gun bearer to the white
man. "Water is not far, master."
The white man merely nodded. These two had been together many
years, and explanations were not necessary between them. He, as well
as Simba, had noticed the gradual convergence of the game trails, the

presence of small grass birds that flushed under their feet, the sing-sing
buck behind the aloes, the increasing numbers of game animals that
stared or fled at the sight and sound of the safari.
Nothing more was said. The way led to the top of one of those low
transverse swells that conceal the middle distance without actually
breaking the surface of the veldt. In the corresponding depression
beyond now could be discerned a wandering slender line of green.
"_Maji huko!_" murmured Simba. "There is the water."
Suddenly he stooped low, uttering a peculiar hissing sound. The white
man, too, dropped to the ground, throwing his rifle forward.
"_Nyama, bwana!_" he whispered fiercely, "_karibu sana!_"
He pointed cautiously over the white man's shoulder. The safari,
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