huge swollen tongue, the Ras's eyes turned to slits in a mask of happy
wrinkles.
His jaw seemed to unhinge like a python swallowing a goat.
He gulped and an inch of the meat shot into his M(Uthl he gulped again
and another inch disappeared. Gareth stared at him as gulp succeeded
gulp and swiftly the morsel dwindled in size. Within seconds the Ras's
mouth was empty, and he snatched up a bowl of tej and drank half a pint
of the heady liquor, wiped blood and tej from his chin with the skirt
of his sham ma belched like an air-locked geyser, then with a falsetto
cackle-of merriment hit Gareth a resounding crack between the shoulder
blades. In the Ras's view, they were now comrades of the soul both
English aristocrats, renowned warriors, and each had eaten from the
other's hand.
Gregorius Maryam had anticipated exactly what his grandfather's
reaction to his white guests would be. He knew that Gareth's
nationality and undoubted aristocratic background would overshadow all
else in the Ras's estimation.
However, the young prince's feelings for Jake Barton had become close
to adulation and he did not intend that his hero should be ignored. He
chose the one subject which he knew would engage his grandfather's full
attention. He slipped unnoticed from the din of the overcrowded cave,
and when he returned, he carried Jake's stiff crackling lion skin that
had by now completely dried out in the hot, dry desert wind.
Although he held it high above his head, the tail brushed the ground on
one side and the nose on the other. The Ras, one arm still around
Gareth's shoulder, looked up with interest and fired a string of
questions at his grandson, as the boy spread the huge tawny skin before
him.
The replies made the old man so excited that he leaped to his feet and
grabbed his grandson by one arm, shaking him agitatedly as he demanded
details and Gregorius replied with as much animation, his eyes shining
as he mimed the charge of the lion, and the act of hurling the bottle
and the crushing of its skull.
Comparative silence had fallen over the smoky, dimlit cavern, and
hundreds of guests craned forward to hear the details of the hunt. In
that silence, the Ras walked down to where Jake sat. Stepping, without
looking, into various bowls of food and kicking over a jug of tea, he
reached the big curly-headed American and lifted him to his feet.
"How do you do?" he asked, with great emotion, tears of admiration in
his eyes for the man who could kill a lion with his bare hands.
Forty years before, the Ras had broken four broad-bladed spears before
he had put a blade in the heart of his own lion.
"Never better, friend," Jake grunted, clumsy with embarrassment,
and the Ras embraced him fiercely before leading him back to the head
of the board.
Irritably the Ras kicked one of his younger sons in the ribs,
forcing him to vacate the seat on his right hand where he now placed
Jake.
Jake looked across at Vicky and rolled his eyes helplessly as the
Ras began to ladle steaming wat on to a huge white round of bread and
roll it into a torpedo that would have daunted a battle cruiser. Jake
took a deep breath and opened his mouth wide, as the Ras lifted the
dainty morsel the way an executioner lifts his sword.
"How do you do?" he said, and with another hoot of glee thrust it in
to the her.
The Colonel and all the officers of the Third Battalion were exhausted
from long hours of forced march and, by the time they reached the Wells
of Chaldi, were anxious only to see their tents erected and their cots
made up after that they were quite content that the Major be left to
use his own initiative.
Castelani sited his twelve machine guns in the sides of the valley
where they commanded a full arc of fire, and below them he placed his
rifle trenches. The men sank the earthworks swiftly and with little
noise in the loose sandy soil, and they buttressed their trenches and
machine-gun nests with sandbags.
The mortar company he held well back, protected by both rifle trenches
and machine-gun nests, from where they could drop their mortar bombs
across the whole area of the wells with complete impunity.
While his men worked, Castelani personally paced out distances in front
of his de fences and supervised the placing of the painted metal
markers, so that his gunners would be able to fire over accurately
ranged sights. Then he hurried back to chivvy along the ammunition
parties who staggered up in the darkness, slipping in the sandy soil
and cursing softly, but with feeling, under the burden of the heavy
wooden cases.
All that night he was tireless, and any man who laid down his shovel
for a few minutes of rest took the risk of being pounced upon by that
looming figure, the stentorian voice restrained to a husky but
ferocious whisper, and the rolling swagger tense with suppressed
outrage.
At last, the squat machine guns with their thick water jacketed barrels
were lowered down into the new excavaWm and set up on their tripods.
Only after Castelani had checked the traverse of each and sighted down
