The Leopard Woman

Two hours into the night Kingozi, following in the rear, saw a cluster of lights, and shortly came to a compact group of those who had gone before him. They were drinking eagerl...

They set off through the beautiful country in their usual order of march. The warriors of M'tela accompanied them, walking ahead, behind, and on either flank. The drums roared i...

The little safari made the distance to Simba's guarded water in a trifle over the four hours. Camp was made high up on the kopje whence the eye could carry to immense distances....

For several nights the plain below the plateau had been a sea of moonlight, white, ethereal, fragile as spun glass. Each evening the shadow of the mountains had shortened, drawi...

In the course of the evening Winkleman, conceiving that the right moment had come, set himself seriously to establishing a dominance over these members of an inferior race. He w...

A seasoned African traveller in ordinary circumstances sleeps very soundly, his ear attuned only to certain things. So Kingozi hardly stirred on his cork mattress, although the...

With the riches thus unexpectedly placed at his disposal, and legitimately his by the fortunes of war, Kingozi was enabled to proceed to the final grand exchange of gifts that a...

The Leopard Woman, emerging from her tent shortly after sunup the next morning, saw across the opening her own _askaris_ being drilled by Kingozi, Simba, and Cazi Moto. Evidentl...

Six hours later the Leopard Woman's camp had arrived, had been pitched, and everything was running again as usual. The new _askari_ headman, Jack, had reported pridefully to Kin...

To the bewilderment of the Leopard Woman the pace of the safari now slackened. Heretofore the marches had been stretched to the limit of endurance; now the day's journey was as...

In the early darkness of equatorial Africa Kingozi, accompanied by Mali-ya-bwana with a lantern, crossed over to the other camp. Simba and Cazi Moto had come in almost at dusk;...

"Good luck I gave some attention to your shooting, old sportsman," he remarked to Simba in English, then in Swahili: "Here are five cartridges. Go get me a zebra and a kongoni."

By the time the two men had gained the top of the hill the worst heat of the day had passed. Kingozi seated himself on a flat rock and at once began to take sights through a pri...

Kingozi washed, dressed, had his breakfast, and sat quietly in his chair. In the open he found that he had a dim consciousness of light, but that was all. There was no pain.

The game trails converged at a point where the steep, eroded bank had been broken down into an approach to a pool. The dust was deep here, and arose in a cloud as a little band...

It was the close of the day. Over the baked veldt of Equatorial Africa a safari marched. The men, in single file, were reduced to the unimportance of moving black dots by the tr...

The _sultani_ duly appeared the next morning; women brought in firewood and products of the country to trade; all was well. The entire day, and the succeeding days for over a we...

Thus passed six weeks. By the end of this time the combined safaris had progressed out into the unknown country about a normal three weeks' journey. The rest was delay.

When the day came for departure the Leopard Woman was indisposed, and could not travel. At the end of that period eight bags of _potio_ disappeared. They had to be replaced. Kin...

They started off across the veldt at about four o'clock of the afternoon and travelled rapidly until dark. The gait they took was not a run, but it got them over the ground at f...

The return journey began. A remarkable tribute to Kingozi's influence, not only over his own men, but over those of the new safari, might have been read from the fact that there...

The sun was setting. In a few minutes more the swift darkness would fall. After delivering the astonishing volley the troops wheeled and under Kingozi's guidance proceeded down...

Kingozi saw a tall figure without a coat, dressed in brown shirt, riding breeches, and puttees. The Nubian had retrieved a spilled sun helmet even before the stranger had scramb...

The whole camp was gathered about a number of M'tela's people, who were all talking at once. The din was something prodigious. Kingozi pushed his way rather angrily to the centr...

That night Kingozi was restless and could not sleep. His vision had been blurring badly during the day, and now his eyeballs ached as though they had been seared. After his soli...

"Listen well to me. She has destroyed the medicine. Now we must go back to where _Bwana_ Marefu can come to fix my eyes. We shall go with all the men as far as the people of the...

In the first gray dusk Simba and Cazi Moto slipped away on the errands appointed for them--to find people and to find water, if possible. The cook camp, too, was afoot, dark fig...

Three hours later Kingozi stepped into the open, his vision cleared. Such is often the marvellous--though temporary--effect of the proper remedies in this disease. He looked abo...

"That's as may be," he rejoined. "At least I should have tried how far he would have been faithful to you before telling what he knew--if you had not spoken."

That evening Kingozi called to him Cazi Moto, Simba, and Mali-ya-bwana. He commanded them to build a little fire, and when the light from the leaping flames had penetrated his d...

Two days passed. By the end of that time it had been borne in on the Leopard Woman that Winkleman had not yet arrived. Kingozi and M'tela circled each other warily, like two str...

Kingozi retired again to his cot; but for a long time he could not get to sleep. Little things annoyed him. A fever owl in a thorn tree somewhere nearby called over and over aga...

The Leopard Woman watched the safari file down the distant hill and lose itself beneath the green plumes of the papyrus swamp. By all right she should have rejoiced. Against eve...