Читать книгу Anjani the Mighty - John Russell Fearn - Страница 5

CHAPTER ONE

REUNION

The slim, blonde-headed girl in a tropical white costume looked with more than normal interest towards the approaching coastline of West Africa. It was the middle of the afternoon, sizzling hot, with only the molten brass of the sun in the startling blue of the sky. The millionaire’s yacht, at the rail of which Rita Perrivale stood, hardly made any breeze as it coursed in gently towards the coastline of lower southern Equatorial Africa. And behind the yacht, at a distance of perhaps a mile, a much larger vessel moved—a tramp steamer.

“You want us to draw in at Loango, Mrs. Perrivale?”

The girl turned quickly at the voice, her grey eyes alight with eagerness. The First Mate was standing respectfully nearby in his white drill suit.

“No, not into Loango itself, Mr. Crespin. Preferably northwards in the direction of Mayumba. It will make it easier for me. There’s a military outpost there from which I can get my bearings.”

“Very good. I’ll inform the captain—”

“I think I’d better do it myself. Ask him to come and have a word with me, will you?”

The First Mate saluted and departed. Rita took another look at the verdure of the distances, then at the coastline itself, and finally turned away. By the time she had walked the deck to the captain’s cabin, he had just arrived from the bridge. He opened the door of his cabin and motioned the girl inside to a chair. Then he began to pour out drinks.

“Naturally you’ll join me, Mrs. Perrivale?” he asked.

The girl smiled languidly. “Try and stop me, Captain! I think Africa gets hotter every time I come to it.”

Captain Hart handed over the filled glass and then regarded the girl seriously.

“Of course, madam, it is not really any business of mine, but are you sure you know what you are doing?”

“Quite sure!” Rita’s grey eyes met his.

“Forgive me, but it all sounds remarkably fantastic. This story of two white men of immense stature loose in the jungle, twin brothers, and both of them contesting the other for the supremacy of the Dark Continent! Then there is this almost legendary city of Akada with its fabulous treasure of gold and ivory.…”

“It is all fact, Captain Hart: please realise that!” There was a sharpness in Rita’s voice. “How do you suppose I got from one side of Africa to the other, from Zanzibar to Loango, straight across the Congo, without help of some kind? That help came from Anjani, a white man, but matured in the jungle. I have returned to Africa because I promised him I would, and because I am going to take on board that tramp steamer we have chartered all the gold and ivory it will carry. My husband would have wished it that way.”

“Quite so,” the captain agreed, subdued. It was by no means the first trip he had made to Africa in the Perrivale luxury yacht, but it was the first time Rita had made it without her husband. A gorilla had slain him in the midst of the earlier ghastly journey to fabulous Akada.

“I am using the millions I have inherited to further the ‘hobby’ my husband loved,” Rita added simply. “We will pull in further up the coast between Loango and Mayumba. From there I can soon find the military outpost I want. After that it will not be far to the ‘Y’-shaped rock where Anjani promised he would meet me when I returned.”

“And you believe he will, having not the least warning that you are nearing Africa?”

“He will be watching for me. I shall require several men to go ashore with me to the ‘Y’-rock. Anjani promised to bring many members of the Untani tribe—by which he was reared—to help move the treasure. In return I am granting the Untani trading rights.”

“I see,” Hart said quietly. “Very well, madam, I will see to it that we anchor as near as possible to the military post you require. I expect that to be in about two hours.”

And, being a good seaman, the captain had calculated correctly. A little under two hours later the yacht dropped anchor in an inlet. Before long Rita was seated in a boat, the crew pulling powerfully on the oars.

Once she set foot on the sand, Rita looked about her and smiled. It felt good to be back again on the Dark Continent. Not because she had any particular love for the jungle with its myriad terrors and crushing heat, but because it meant she would not now be long separated from Anjani. The nine months she had been absent making preparations for this return had seemed interminable—yet, here she was, with the military outpost only a matter of two miles inshore.

With the members of the crew to protect her, she stayed only long enough to identify herself to the outpost’s commanding officer, then she continued her journey northwards across flat and dusty terrain. Behind her, motionless in the purple of gathering evening, stood the yacht and the tramp steamer, anchored.

“There,” she said presently, nodding ahead, and first-mate Crespin in charge of the party looked towards a rock with upthrust arms which made it the shape of a ‘Y’.

“And that is where you will meet this—white man?” Crespin asked in some amazement.

“If he keeps his promise—and only death would stop him—yes.”

Despite the distance already covered and the flogging heat, Rita began to move more swiftly and in another thirty minutes the rock had been gained. Beyond it stretched desert, and beyond that again the wilderness of the mighty jungle.

“Apparently,” Crespin said dryly, looking around him, “your white friend has forgotten his date, Mrs. Perrivale—”

He broke off, his hand flying to his gun. The men around him also whipped out their weapons and stood tensed and ready. Rita put her hand on the revolver strapped to her waist and then smiled.

Emerging from the cover of the rocks near the dominant ‘Y’ spur there came a party of ebon-skinned warriors, spears in their hands. But they carried them in an entirely unwarlike fashion, some of them even laid across one shoulder in rifle-style. There were perhaps twenty of them, magnificently muscled, but even so they fell short by several inches of the stature of the white man who came up behind them.

Blankly the members of the yacht’s crew stared at him, then mechanically put their guns back in their holsters. He stood a good six-feet-four, with muscle-packed chest and shoulders. Physical strength radiated from every movement he made—yet it was not strength at the expense of looks or intelligence. He was ruggedly handsome, thick blond hair tied back from his powerful features with a thong. Except for a leopard skin loincloth, in which a knife was thrust, he was naked and unarmed, his skin burned to the colour of a Barcelona nut from constant exposure to the African outdoors.

“Anjani!” Rita whispered, scarcely believing. “Anjani, you kept your promise!”

She hurried forward and the sailors watched in grave interest as the giant swept her from her feet in his great hands, kissed her gently, then set her down again.

“Rita,” he murmured, smiling, his blue eyes bright, “it has been many moons—too many. I have waited, and waited, but do you not think I speak English well now?”

Rita looked at him in amazement. “Well? Why, it’s—it’s uncanny! I gave you the rudiments, I know, but those alone couldn’t account for the way you speak now.”

“I found a white man,” he explained simply. “He was ill—near death. He had sought solitude in the jungle and I came on him by accident. He taught me—all day. Every day.… Now he is dead.”

“Which makes it so much easier for us to talk,” Rita said. Then she returned to the business on hand, and pointed. “Those two ships in the distance are mine, the big one to carry the Akada treasure. These men belong to your tribe, I suppose?”

“Yes. All we have to do now is trek to Akada.”

“But not tonight! I have done a lot of walking and I’m tired. The men here have all the equipment for a camp.”

“Of course,” Anjani smiled. “I never shall remember that you have not my strength and endurance.”

“Well, I should think not!” First Mate Crespin exclaimed. Then be held out his hand, “Glad to know you, Anjani. Mrs. Perrivale has told all of us a good deal about you.”

Anjani returned the handshake, and then turned to the black warriors of the Untani gathered around him.

“Help these men prepare camp,” he ordered, in their own tongue, and without hesitation they obeyed.

They were in the midst of it when the last rays of the sun vanished and the quick tropical night descended. Whilst the camp preparations were going ahead, Rita took Anjani on one side in the misty starlight,

“Have you thought any more about my suggestion that you should come to civilization and establish your real identity?” she asked.

“Yes.” Anjani was silent for a while, a massive silhouette against the stars as he sat beside the girl. “For the sake of being near you, Rita, I would willingly come to civilization—but it is not as simple as that. My twin, Tocoto, is still abroad somewhere, and with the jewel of Akada in his possession he can gain mastery over everyone in the jungle. He can do that because the natives are naturally superstitious, and Tocoto is wily enough to know it.”

“But what does it matter if he does gain the mastery of the tribes? It won’t concern you if you are in civilization, will it?”

“All the tribes include my own, the Untani,” Anjani answered. “I cannot allow them to be ruled by Tocoto. I must stay until he is vanquished. I have tried to locate him, but it would have taken too long to do it properly, so I returned here with the Untani warriors to await your return.”

After a brief silence Rita said, “In a matter of a month, at the longest, I shall be on my way back to England with the tramp steamer loaded. It will seem a pretty empty accomplishment without you beside me. You have no way of dealing with Tocoto in that time and making yourself free to come back with me? It won’t be for all time, of course. We’ll often come back to Africa to collect more treasure. I don’t expect to be able to remove everything at one journey.”

Anjani did not reply. Apparently he was thinking out the matter.

“I think I have a clue as to your identity,” Rita continued. “When I returned to England I had a detective agency at work tracing an expedition to Africa some twenty years ago. Without going into the details they finally unearthed the fact that a Mark Hardnell and his wife, Ruth, left Zanzibar for the interior about twenty years ago. The woman had been warned by a doctor in Zanzibar not to make the trip, as she was due shortly to have a child. There the story ends—but my guess is that twins were born, and that you and Tocoto are those twins. Since that expedition was the only one about that time, it seems to tie up.”

“Mmmm,” Anjani responded, apparently not very interested. “I have made my own life, Rita. How it began does not signify—though possibly you are right. Maybe the parents of Tocoto and myself were overtaken by savage tribes and killed, whilst we survived. What does—?”

Anjani broke off, his animal senses suddenly alert. He turned his head sharply and looked into the waste of darkness that was the desert. His hand dropped to his knife.

“What’s the matter?” Rita asked in surprise, looking about her.

“I heard sounds, not of the night.”

Anjani rose to his feet and stood tensed, like a gigantic statue, Rita still lounging at his feet. Then she gasped in surprise as the—to her—inaudible noise Anjani had detected abruptly took shape in a chorus of war-like yells. Out of the darkness from amidst the scattered rocks at the edge of the desert black figures came hurtling, spears upraised.

“We’re being attacked!” Rita shouted hoarsely, clutching hold of Anjani’s arm. “A savage tribe from somewhere.…”

Anjani hardly needed telling. He flung her down quickly on her face so that the suddenly hurtling spears were not likely to strike her. Chaos hit the camp as, completely outnumbered, the Untani warriors and the yacht’s crew fought frantically with the oncoming hordes. It seemed pretty obvious they had been concealed behind the rocks, watching their chance.

Anjani crouched, swaying his body from side to side to dodge the spears that hurtled towards him, and so perfectly coordinated were his actions, and so keen his night-sight, he escaped harm. Then he leapt into action as the Untani and ship’s crew battled savagely, guns exploding and spears whizzing through the darkness.

Leaping suddenly, Anjani brought down the nearest black and drove his knife clean through the warrior’s jugular. In an instant he was up again, slamming a steel-hard fist straight into the face of the tribesman bearing down on the recumbent Rita. The native staggered backwards, his neck broken with the terrific impact of the blow.

So far Anjani got, then he realised he had been seized from behind, a forearm under his chin and vice-like fingers striving to tear the knife from his grip. It only took Anjani a moment to discover that his attacker was white, and about the same size as himself.

“Tocoto!” he gasped, and found his knife twisted out of his grip.

Rita, afraid to move, stared fixedly at the two giant white men in the starlight. The mêlée going on in the half-destroyed camp no longer interested her; even the explosion of guns did not startle her. Her whole interest at the moment was centred on the outcome of this meeting of the twins, the first time they had ever locked in combat.

The moment his knife was snatched from him, Anjani bent forward suddenly, flinging Tocoto’s huge body over his head and crashing him to the ground. Then they were at each other’s throats, muscles straining to the limit, each striving desperately to crush the life out of the other.

Rita watched for a moment or two, wincing at the thuds of fists on bone and flesh—then she remembered her revolver and dragged it from its holster. Twisting round so that she was flat on her face, her firing elbow supported on the ground, she waited for an opportunity—only it never came. Before she could fire a warrior came out of the darkness, tore the gun from her hand, and whirled her to her feet.

She fought frantically to free herself from the black, steel-strong body, but without avail.

“Anjani!” she screamed, as a black hand strove to smother her mouth. “Anj—”

Anjani heaved, goaded by her cries. He whipped up a blinding uppercut that took his twin clean on the nose and pulped blood out of it. A terrific right to the jaw followed, and another piston blow into the stomach. Without realising it, he had given three punches that Joe Louis might have envied. Tocoto gulped and slewed round drunkenly—and in those seconds Anjani tore free of him and hurtled to the warrior bearing Rita away.

The warrior had to drop the girl to battle with his enemy, but he hardly stood a chance. His head exploded in sparks as a fist crashed into his eye. Another blow flayed a deep cut across his cheek, a third swung him clean off his feet and dropped him six yards away, dazed and helpless. Anjani picked up the warrior’s spear, swung it round, then found himself borne to the ground by six warriors in a sudden vengeful rush. There was just nothing he could do against superior numbers, and he had to submit as he was bound tightly with thongs about the wrists and ankles. In dumb fury he watched Rita being similarly pinioned, and he growled in animal fury as she was flung unceremoniously beside him.

Tocoto came up in the starlight, rubbing his blood-smeared nose with the back of his hand. With a simple call he withdrew the rest of his warriors from the camp, leaving behind many dead and mortally injured white men, and the scattered survivors of the Untani, far too battered to fight any more.

“If you doubt, Anjani, who is lord of jungle, you now know,” Tocoto said, in the tribal tongue. “Tocoto lord because I have jewel of Akada. The drums have told all the tribes that I am Tocoto the Mighty.”

“Not while I live,” Anjani snarled back.

“Anjani and white woman soon die,” Tocoto retorted. “Die as sacrifices to the Banwui tribe—Tocoto’s tribe! Mantamiza cheated once, but not again. Tribal god demands vengeance, and shall have it. Tocoto watch what you do and gather tribes to aid him. When time was ripe, Tocoto struck—and destroyed those who help you. Only one lord of jungle, Anjani, and that is Tocoto the Mighty.”

Rita, not understanding the jargon, looked from one to the other in the tropical starlight, trying vainly to gather what was going to happen. She found out quickly enough when a warrior, at Tocoto’s command, picked her up like a child and slung her over his shoulder. Four more warriors lifted Anjani’s great body between them, then the victorious tribesmen began marching with Tocoto at their head.

Just what had been left behind at the camp neither Anjani nor Rita knew. Certainly few who could be of help. The score of Untani warriors had been sadly depleted, and the white men had all but been wiped out. For Anjani and Rita, the journey on which they were carried seemed endless, and filled with torture. The only liberty Tocoto permitted in the few halts which were made were for the rope-thongs to be loosened a little and food and water, in meagre supply provided—but in the main it was a jolting journey on the shoulders of the warriors, through the desert first, then in the midst of the jungle with its myriad dangers and saturating heat.

It was a trip that took nearly a week, and at the end of it Rita was more dead than alive. Anjani was blond-bearded and grim, his daily shave with his hunting knife having been prevented. At the journey’s end, Rita looked with bleared eyes at the stockade gateway of the Banwui tribe’s village with the hideous effigy of Mantamiza, the tribal god, rearing at its far end amidst the mud-huts. She licked her parched lips and gave Anjani a hopeless look.

He was not looking at her, or the village; instead, he was viewing the sky where it peeped through the lofty treetops. The air was leaden with heat and stiflingly still. Yet the sun was not shining. There was a leaden yellow haze over the blueness.

Anjani did not say what thought had crossed his mind, but Rita fancied she saw the ghost of a smile amidst his magnificent yellow beard and moustache; then her arms were seized again, and she was bundled forward across the dusty centre of the village, and finally into a mud-hut. Anjani was flung after her and the wood and raffia door closed. But outside it remained the shadows of three natives on guard.

“Won’t they even give us water?” Rita whispered, her tongue nearly too swollen to permit of speech.

“I doubt it,” Anjani muttered. “They have no reason to be merciful, since they mean to burn us to death at nightfall. It would not be sensible to make the victim comfortable, would it?”

Rita did not answer. Half-sobbing, she flung herself down on the filthy dry grass of the hut. Anjani crouched and looked at her. Her once trim white costume was torn to shreds with thorns and undergrowth. Scratched white flesh showed here and there, and her blonde hair was an unkempt tangle.

Anjani reached down, cupped a huge arm underneath her shoulders, then raised her. Her head lolled against his broad chest.

“Do not give in too soon, little one,” he murmured. “There may yet be a chance.”

“Such as?” Rita asked hopelessly.

“We shall see. Anjani, jungle-wise, can read signs that may come to pass. Tocoto is master because he has a jewel, but if natives are superstitious in one thing, then they are in another. I shall try my last trick tonight.…”

Rita did not answer. She was too bone-weary and thirsty to even think.

“Tocoto must have kept close track of me and gathered tribes to aid him,” Anjani mused presently. “It is only to be expected. There will never be room for both of us in the jungle.”

Rita was hardly listening. Finally she took refuge in sleep, still with her head on Anjani’s shoulder. He remained motionless lest he disturb her. As he had expected, no water or nourishment was brought, and the guards remained outside the doorway. Once or twice Anjani speculated on the possibilities of attacking them, and then changed his mind. Single-handed, nimble, and powerful as he was, he could probably have made his escape, but not with Rita to look after as well. So he licked his parched lips and waited—and waited.

Towards the close of the hot, sultry afternoon, preparations began for the festival of nightfall. Anjani could see part of the proceedings through a crack in the ancient wall of the hut, and they followed the usual pattern. Two stakes set near to the ever-growing pile of brushwood, the effigy of Mantamiza near at hand, and, behind it, a tall stump on which reposed something dull red and faceted. It was not particularly big, and Anjani recognised it as the jewel of Akada, set in a place of honour.

Rita awoke at nightfall, her voice failing her through lack of water. She remained in Anjani’s grasp, staring dully through the crack in the wall and listening to the gathering rumble of the drums. The way she felt, she did not particularly care if she did die. Thirst was fast killing her in any case.

Night itself seemed to come sooner than usual with heavy lowering clouds. The air remained motionless, so that not a leaf stirred, and the maddening beat of the drums was carried with reverberating echoes. Outside the warriors were dancing. Directly underneath the jewel of Akada and Mantamiza, Tocoto was seated in a rush chair, surveying the proceedings, a grim-faced white giant amidst his black followers.

Then, suddenly, the door of the prison hut flew open and Anjani found himself seized by four massive warriors. He stood little chance against them and was bundled fiercely outside. Two remaining warriors grabbed the half unconscious Rita between them and dragged her to her feet. Stumbling, dazed, she was forced across the dusty clearing in the centre of the village, until one of the stakes had been reached. She drew back in horror before the naked blaze of the crackling fire, only to be forced onwards again, her back finally coming up hard against the stake assigned to her. In a matter of moments she had been bound to it, her head lolling. Near to her, Anjani was bound to his own pillar, but he remained erect, looking bitterly towards his twin on the seat beneath the effigy.

Presently Tocoto rose and held up his hand. The noise of the drums and the m’deup dance faded into silence. The quiet was uncanny, resting on both the village and the surrounding jungle. Nothing moved for a while and there was a vast oppression in the air.

“Tocoto speak few words before sacrifice!” Tocoto looked about him and at the sound of his voice, though she could not understand what he was saying, Rita raised her head. Her face was greasy from the heat of the fire, her hair tangled about her head. Her cracked lips and tongue showed just how much thirst was corroding the life out of her.

“Anjani great danger to all tribes,” Tocoto continued. “Tocoto rule, not Anjani, because I have the power of the jewel which gives us lordship over our enemies—”

“I challenge that!” Anjani interrupted, and immediately the warriors and their mates looked at him in surprise.

“You dare to challenge Tocoto the Mighty?” Tocoto roared.

“I do. Jewel of Akada gives you great power, you say—power over the gods of evil, power even over Mantamiza. I have greater power and can command the gods of rain to come to my aid if need be!”

“You have no power,” Tocoto shouted back. “Tocoto alone is master—”

“Try and burn me and the white woman as sacrifices to Mantamiza, and the rain gods will destroy you,” Anjani cried.

There was a momentary hesitation amongst the natives, and the fuming of Tocoto did not budge them either. Inherently superstitious, they were faced with two masters—the one who claimed absolute authority because of the jewel he possessed, and the other who swore he could bring the rain gods to his aid.

In the pause Anjani looked hopefully above him. He had known from the very start that a violent tropical storm was threatening: all the signs had been there ever since arriving in the village. The point was, how soon would it reach flashpoint?

“On with the dance!” Tocoto roared. “Mantamiza grows impatient! Into the fire with them! First the woman and then the man.… But not too quickly. Let them taste the flames first. Remember, Mantamiza was cheated last time. This time he will like to play with his victims!”

Immediately there was a rush of warriors to the stake holding Rita. She screamed helplessly for Anjani to aid her as the stake began to rock back and forth, then at last it was lifted out of its socket and on to the shoulders of four of the warriors. Face down, held by the ropes, Rita felt herself being carried to the flames.

“Hold!” Anjani thundered. “The rain gods forbid! Look up, you misguided fools—look up!”

The warriors hesitated, then they obeyed, which was one sure way of making them feel raindrops spattering onto their faces. At almost the same instant, to Anjani’s profound thankfulness, a fork of lightning ripped the sky and thunder exploded with shattering violence over the village.

“The rain gods will destroy you if you dare burn me or the white woman!” Anjani yelled, rain now pelting down hard. “Put the woman down. Release her!”

“Do not obey him—!” Tocoto waved his arms frantically.

But at the moment the signs were all on the side of the rain gods, which was the only thing the natives understood. With rain sweeping down in clouds and thunder cannonading overhead, they were quite convinced that Anjani, not Tocoto, was the man to be feared. Hastily they put Rita down and cut her free, dragging her to her feet. She turned her face to the sky and drank in the precious drops that poured down her face.

Then the warriors turned to Anjani, their keen knives cutting at his thongs. Tocoto watched in impotent fury for a moment or two, then realising that he had lost the battle—and that it might go ill for him too if the natives were so minded—he turned, grabbed the great Jewel of Akada, and vanished in the darkness away from the rapidly extinguishing fire. But Anjani saw him go, illumined by the flashes of lightning, and the moment he was released he dashed across to where Rita was still on her knees, drinking in the rain.

“Come—quickly,” Anjani told her, and with a hand under her arm he pulled her along beside him. This time she moved more quickly, already revived by the water, the coolness, and the fact that she had escaped death.

In a moment or two she and Anjani were in the jungle. The lightning blazed eerily for a moment, then thunder crashed down on the darkness that followed. There was a wind now, bending the treetops and sending clouds of water downwards, feeding the baked earth and vegetation. Jungle dwellers, startled by the storm, were keeping up a ceaseless commotion and scurrying.

Finally, after travelling perhaps a quarter of a mile into the forest with Rita stumbling beside him, Anjani came to a halt. Rita looked at him as a more distant flash of lightning penetrated the foliage for a moment.

“Where are we going?” she questioned. “Following a trail back to—to where we came from?” Her voice quieted as she remembered the great distance that lay between them and the ships at anchor on the coastline.

“I was trying to follow Tocoto and settle things between us once and for all,” Anjani answered. “The storm has upset things, though, and everything is lost. I can’t follow a trail in this, and by night. We must shelter and try again by daylight.”

“But what about the natives? Won’t they follow us?”

“I don’t think so. They believe that I am the master to be obeyed because the storm broke just in time to make my threats come true. So they won’t follow because they won’t dare. Later, though, Tocoto will talk them round again. He will have to, or completely lose all the authority he has gained. As for us, we may as well find somewhere to rest for the night.”

It did not take him long to discover a comparative dry spot in the undergrowth, to which he helped Rita and bade her lie down. Then above her he constructed a roof of broad and dripping leaves that broke the full force of the still pelting rain. Not that the water mattered. It was a relief from the crushing heat that normally reigned in this wilderness.

Even with the shelter constructed, Anjani was not satisfied. He departed on a brief investigation of his own, to Rita’s horror, then when he returned, he had an armful of coconuts. The milk from them and the solid interior was sufficient to provide a temporary meal.

Almost immediately afterwards, secure again in the thought that Anjani was beside her, Rita fell asleep once more. When she awakened again she was alone, the hot sun glinting through the treetops, and her remnants of clothes dried to her mud-caked body. She stirred stiffly and looked about her in alarm.

“Anjani!” she cried frantically. “Anjani!”

She scrambled to her feet and blundered out of the leaf-shelter, then to her relief she beheld Anjani in the centre of the little clearing, busy cooking some small animal over a fire. He had even prepared plates made of leaves and had poured fruit juice into the hollow coconut shells. In fact, quite an appetising breakfast was at hand,

Smiling with relief, Rita settled down and watched him at work, the sunlight gleaming from his mighty shoulders, his muscles rippling with every move he made. He took a glance at her and then grinned, rubbing his ill-shaven chin. His beard he had removed by singeing.

“White people are not supposed, so you say, to wear as little as the natives,” he commented.

Rita looked down at herself and sighed. She barely had enough clothes left to cover her, but somehow it did not seem to matter. The sun was warm to her still-tired body, and its return after the wet of the night seemed to be bringing new life back to her.

“Only one thing for it,” she decided, as she started upon the meal he had prepared. “Another vegetable dress. When I get back to civilization, if ever, I should think I might start a fashion in wearing leaves instead of cloth.”

Anjani smiled broadly once again. “When we get back to civilization,” he corrected.

Rita looked at him quickly, her grey eyes wide. “You mean you’ve actually decided to come back with me?”

“I have. The more I am with you, the more I know I can never do without you. My life and yours are bound up in each other.”

“But what about Tocoto?”

“Before I go I shall destroy him. It will not be difficult, now he is abroad in the jungle and afraid of those he formerly ruled. I shall find him this very day.”

“Unarmed?” Rita asked quietly,

Anjani glanced down at the blank space upon his loincloth where his knife usually rested. He shrugged his broad shoulders.

“I have fingers and muscles, and I shall be fighting a man and not an animal. I shall win—because I must.”

“Then when that is done, all we have to do is go back to Akada, get the treasure, and then—sail for home?”

“Just that.”

Rita forgot her meal for the moment and leaned forward, bringing her arms about Anjani’s neck. His arm encircled her slim waist, and for a moment they were silent. These were the moments Rita loved best, with his mighty frame so close to her, always there to protect her—

A sound made Anjani glance up. Rita did not trouble because she was quite happy where she was, but as she felt Anjani’s muscles tense, she too looked across the clearing. And paradise seemed to evaporate instantly.

Tocoto was standing only a few yards away, his knife in his hand, frozen hatred in his handsome face.