Jake Barton felt his heart go out to the gallant ancient, who stood now
shouting a challenge to a modern military power, prepared to defend to
the death what was his and Jake felt a curious sense of recklessness.
It was a reaction that he knew well and usually it led him into
positions of acute discomfort and danger.
"Forget it," he told himself firmly. "It's their war. Take the money
and run. "Then suddenly he looked across the dimly lit cave to where
Vicky Camberwell sat. She listened to the old Ras with misty eyes, and
her expression was enchanted as she leaned her golden head close to the
dark curly head of Sara Sagud, not wanting to miss a word of the
translation.
Now she saw Jake watching her, and she smiled and nodded vehemently
almost as though she had read his doubts.
"Leave Vicky also?" Jake wondered. "Leave them all and run with the
gold?" He knew that nothing would induce Vicky to leave with them.
For her the story was here, her involvement was complete, and she would
stay to the end the inevitable end.
The smart thing was to go, the dumb thin to stay and fight another
man's war that was already lost before it had begun; the dumb thing was
to stake twenty thousand dollars which was his share of the profits,
and all his future plans, the Barton engine, and the factory to build
it, against the remote chance of winning a lady who promised to be a
lifetime of trouble once she was won.
never was a dab hand at doing the smart thing," Jake thought ruefully,
and smiled back at Vicky.
The Ras was suddenly silent, panting with the force of his feelings and
the effort of voicing them. His listeners were mesmerized also,
staring at the thin-robed figure with its wild lion wig.
The Ras made a commanding gesture and one of his guards handed him the
broad two-handed sword, its blade long and naked. The Ras leaned his
weight upon it and commanded again, and they carried in the war drums.
The Ras's ceremonial drums, passed down to him by his father and his
father before him, drums that had beaten at Magdala against
Napier, at Adowa against the Italians and at a hundred other battles.
They were as tall as a man's shoulder, elaborately carved of hardwood
and covered with rawhide, and the drummers took up their stance with
the barrels of their drums held between their knees.
The drum with the deepest bass tone set the rhythm and the lesser drums
joined in with the variations and counterpoints, a chorus that arred a
man's gut and loosened his brain in his skull.
The old Ras listened to it with his head bowed over the sword,
until the rhythm took a hold on him and his shoulders began to jerk and
his head came up. With a leap like a white bird taking flight, he
landed in the open space before the drummers. The great sword whirled
high above his head, and he began to dance.
Gareth took Mikhael Sagud by the sleeve and lifted his voice in
competition with the drums, and resumed at the point where he had been
interrupted.
"Toffee, you were telling me about the money." Jake heard him and
leaned across to catch the Prince's reply, but the Prince was silent,
watching his father leap and twirl in the intricate and acrobatic
dance.
"We have delivered the goods, old chap. And a deal is a deal."
"fifteen thousand sovereigns," said the Prince thoughtfully.
"That's the exact figure, "Gareth agreed.
"A dangerous sum of money," murmured the PPrince.
"Men have been killed for much less." And they made no reply.
"I think of your safety, of course," the Prince went on.
"Your safety, and my country's chances of survival. Without an
engineer to maintain the cars, and a soldier to teach my men to use the
new weapons we will have wasted fifteen thousand sovereigns."
"I feel very badly for you," Gareth assured him. "I'll eat my heart
out for you while I am having dinner at the Cafe Royal, I really will
but truly, Toffee, you should have thought of this long ago."
"Oh, I did my dear Swales I assure you I gave it much thought." And
the Prince turned to smile at Gareth. "I thought that no one would be
foolish enough to take on his person fifteen thousand gold sovereigns
in the middle of Ethiopia and then try and get out of the country
without the Ras's personal approval and protection." They stared at
him.
"Can you imagine the delight of the shifta, the mountain bandits,
when they learned that such a rich prize was moving unprotected through
their territory?"
"They would know, of course?" murmured Jake.
"I fear that they might be informed." The Prince turned to him.
"And if we tried to go back the way we came?"
"Through the desert on foot?" the Prince smiled.
"We might use a little of the gold to buy camels," Jake suggested.
"I fancy you might find camels hard to come by, and somebody might
inform the Italians and the French of your movements to say nothing of
the Danakil tribesmen who would slit the throats of their own mothers
for a single gold sovereign." They watched the Ras send the great
sword humming six inches over the heads of the bass drummers, and then
turn a grotesque flapping pirouette.
