moving on her skin and the image was so clear and voluptuous that she
shuddered and drew in her breath sharply.
Immediately Jake looked up at her, the surprise in his eyes changing
instantly to pleasure, and that slow warm smile spreading over his face
as he ran his eyes swiftly from the top of her silken head down to the
silken ankles.
"Hello, haven't I met you somewhere before?" he asked, and she laughed
and pirouetted, flaring the dress.
"Do you like it?" she asked. He nodded silently and then asked,
"Are we going somewhere special?"
"The Ras's feast, didn't you know?"
not sure I can stan another of his feasts, don't know which is more
dangerous an Italian attack or that liquid dynamite he serves."
"You'll have to be there you're one of the heroes of the great victory,
and Jake grunted and returned his attention to Priscilla the Pig's
internal processes.
"Have you found the trouble?"
"No." Jake sighed with resignation.
"I've taken her to pieces and put her together again and I can't find a
thing." He stood back, shaking his head and wiping his greasy hands on
a wad of cotton waste. "I don't know. I just don't know."
"Have you tried starting her again?"
"No point in that not until I find and cure the trouble."
"Try,"said Vicky, and he grinned at her.
"It's no use but to humour you." He stooped to the crank handle,
and Priscilla fired at the first swing, caught and ran smoothly,
purring like a great hump-backed cat in front of the fire.
"My God." Jake stepped back and stared in amazement.
"There's just no logic to it."
"She's a lady," Vicky explained.
"You know that and there isn't necessarily logic in the way a lady
behaves." He turned to face her directly and grinned at her, such a
knowing expression in his eyes that she felt herself flushing.
"I'm beginning to find that out," he said, and stepped towards her, but
she raised both hands protectively.
"You'll put grease on this dress-"
"If I were to bath first?"
"Bath," she ordered. "And then we'll talk again, mister."
In the last few minutes of daylight, a rider had come down the gorge,
clattering and sliding on the rough footing, and then hitting the level
ground and galloping into the Ras's camp on a blown and lathered
horse.
Sara Sagud took the message he carried, came flying up to the cluster
of tents under the flat-topped camel-thorn trees and burst into
Vicky Camberwell's tent waving the folded cablegram, without dreaming
of announcing her entrance.
Vicky was deep in a bearlike enfolding embrace into which Jake
Barton had taken her moments before, and the interruption came just
as
Vicky was abandoning herself to the pleasure of the moment. Jake
towered over her, freshly scrubbed and smelling of carbolic soap, with
his hair still wet and newly combed. Vicky broke out of his arms and
turned furiously to the girl.
"Oh!" exclaimed Sara, with the natural interest and fascination of a
born conspirator discovering a fresh intrigue.
"You are busy."
"Yes, I am, "snapped Vicky, cheeks aflame with embarrassment and
confusion.
"I'm sorry, Miss Camberwell. But I thought this message must be
important-" and Vicky's irritation faded, as she saw the cablegram.
"I
thought you would want it." Vicky snatched it from her, broke the seal
and read avidly. Her anger faded as she read, and she looked up with
shining eyes at Sara.
"You were right thank you, my dear," and she spun back to Jake,
dancing up to him and flinging both arms around his neck, laughing and
gay.
"Hey," Jake laughed with her, holding her awkwardly in front of the
girl, "What's this all about?"
"It's from my editor," she told him.
"My story about the attack at the Wells was an international scoop.
Headlines around the world and there is to be an emergency session of
the League of Nations." Sara snatched the cable form back from her,
and read it as though by right.
"This is what my father believed you could do for us, Miss
Camberwell for our land and our people." Sara was weeping, fat oily
tears breaking from the dark gazelle eyes and clinging in her long
lashes. "Now the world knows. Now they will come to save us from the
tyranny." The girl's faith in the triumph of good over evil was
childlike, and she pulled Vicky from Jake's arms and embraced her
instead.
"Oh, you have given us a chance again. We will always be grateful to
you." Her tears smeared Vicky's cheek, and she drew back, sniffing
wetly, and wiped her own tears from Vicky's face with the palm of her
hand. "We will never forget you," she said, and then smiled through
the tears. "We must go and tell my grandfather." They found it
impossible to convey to the Ras the exact nature of this new
advancement of the Ethiopian cause. He was very hazy in his exact
understanding of the role and importance of the League of Nations, or
the power and influence of the international press. After the first
few pints of tej he had made sure in his own mind that in some
miraculous fashion the great Queen of England had espoused their
cause,
and that the armies of Great Britain would soon join him in the
field.
