African Enchantment (19 page)

‘I've never known anyone so
arrogant!
So
insolent!
So
unforgivably rude!
' With each adjective she punched her fists into her pillows with such viciousness that feathers scattered around the tiny cabin.

‘For God's sake, you nearly got us all killed,' Sebastian said, panting at the cabin door, his face white. ‘What did you have to react like that for? I thought that old devil was going to have the lot of us speared. He nearly did for Beauvais after you raged off.'

‘I'm very sorry that he didn't!' Harriet yelled, her face smeared by tears, her hair falling unpinned, her breasts heaving.

Desire took a firm hold of Sebastian. Calm, Harriet was undeniably beautiful: enraged, she was magnificent. He moved towards her and as he did so Harriet halted in her tirade, listening tensely. From the distant deck there came a roar of bellowing laughter. It was not Raoul's laugh; or Wilfred's; or Mark's. It could only be the chieftain. The Beauvais charm was working once again.

Sebastian breathed a sigh of relief. ‘He's got the old devil eating out of the palm of his hand.'

‘Oh, get out!' Harriet shouted exasperatedly, throwing the pillow and its escaping contents at his head. He blinked in surprise, ducked and slammed the door behind him. Lovemaking would have to wait; but not for long. Beauvais had Narinda constantly at his side. He was in no moral position to dictate to other members of the party. Sebastian was filled with fresh resolve. He had been a fool not to continue his assault on Harriet's affections. He would be a fool no longer. Even his mother could not dismiss as unsuitable a girl of Harriet's courage and remarkable spirit.

Raoul, who knew very well where Sebastian had been, regarded him through narrowed eyes, his mouth set in a tight line of pain. Crale was looking uncommonly pleased with himself. No doubt Harriet had thrown herself into his arms in a storm of tears, and been suitably comforted. He had an overwhelming desire to throttle Sebastian Crale. His guest was demanding to be shown the intricate workings of a compass. A pulse ticked angrily at his jaw as he tore his eyes from Crale and obliged.

The meeting with Chief Nbatian livened up Wilfred Frome's spirits considerably. He asked that Harriet sketch every detail of the chief's costume, the canoes, the warriors, the spears. Harriet obliged, keeping as far from Raoul as was humanly possible. On occasions when their eyes did meet she treated him with such withering contempt that it would have shrivelled a lesser man. Raoul merely continued his tasks with indifference.

Sebastian spent long hours sitting beside her as she worked, cleaning his guns, speculating on the credibility of what Nbatian had told Raoul of the great Nyanzas. Harriet sketched furiously and barely heard a word he said. Narinda was growing increasingly annoyed. She spilled vegetable oil on Harriet's skirt, declaring profusely that it was an accident, her eyes belying it. She crept into Harriet's cabin and removed her hair brush, tossing it overboard, denying she knew of its whereabouts when Harriet asked. She found snakes in her bed and, on one occasion, when she left her sketchpad, found the drawings torn from it on her return.

When Harriet accused Narinda of being the perpetrator, Raoul insultingly said that snakes were a hazard they all faced and that no doubt the wind had blown her drawings away. Harriet gritted her teeth and refrained from boxing Narinda's ears with superhuman effort.

Raoul became daily more abrasive and unapproachable and soon it was only Mark Lane who was able to converse with him with any degree of civility.

They stood side by side in early morning light as groves of lemon trees heralded Gondokoro. ‘The trek will be trebly difficult once we leave the boats,' Mark Lane said quietly. ‘We need to be all of one mind, and journey in friendship, not hostility.'

Raoul remained silent, his brows pulled together, his mouth a hard line.

‘It is days since you spoke at any length with Sebastian or Wilfred,' Mark Lane continued, his young face concerned, his Bible in his hands. ‘They are becoming restless and disillusioned. I can see no success until the gulf is breached.'

‘Neither of them were asked to accompany me,' Raoul said tersely. ‘Crale hasn't contributed an ounce of effort to the planning of the expedition or its execution.'

‘Then why is he amongst us?' Mark Lane asked with a puzzled frown.

‘Because if he had been left behind I would have been refused permission to leave Khartoum.'

Mark Lane remembered that Sebastian's father was the British consul in Khartoum and pursued the subject of Sebastian no further. ‘And Frome?'

‘The Royal Geographical Society of London requested that he should travel with me. I agreed. I even thought he might prove useful. I had expected a well-seasoned explorer, not an academic.'

‘And Miss Latimer?' Mark Lane asked tentatively.

The black brows met satanically. ‘Miss Latimer is Sebastian's problem, not mine,' he said and wheeled on his heel, leaving Mark Lane alone as the deserted mission church of Gondokoro came into view.

Harriet shivered as they stepped ashore. There was something eerie about the desolate, crumbling church. Only a giant cross remained intact. What kind of men had forged their way through the swamp of the Sudd to settle here in the hope of converting the heathen? Whoever they had been, they had not survived.

It took three days for the provisions that were to be taken with them to be sorted and packed ready for transport on the camels. The horses were for Raoul, Sebastian and Harriet to ride. The mules had been Wilfred and Reverend Lane's personal choice of transport. Narinda, to her inner fury, had also been allocated a mule and her hatred of Harriet grew. The English girl would ride a horse, as would her master. She, Narinda, would not be accorded such an honour.

As scientific books and instruments were separated from spices and oils, she saw her master's eyes return again and again to the English girl. The English girl pretended not to notice, working feverishly, but Narinda was not deceived. She knew that Harriet was as aware of Raoul's burning glances as she herself was.

Though the church was deserted, Gondokoro was not. There was a handful of slave traders, men so bestial that Harriet felt physically sick at the sight of them. On the day before they were to leave, a convoy of slaves was brought in for shipment to Khartoum. Their chief had sold them willingly and accompanied the heavily-bearded traders as they rode into the collection of miserable dwellings that had arisen around the church.

‘If I were a man,' Harriet said passionately to Sebastian, ‘I'd shoot those traders myself!'

Sebastian shifted uncomfortably, in no doubt that she would. As in Khartoum she had demanded that he intervene and set the hapless captives free. Sebastian, knowing that any such attempt on his part would result in his death, had refused with as good a grace as possible. Harriet had not been understanding.

‘If you will not free them then I will!'

The slaves stood by the river bank, wooden yokes around their necks, their hands and feet cruelly shackled.

‘Harriet, please be reasonable.'

Harriet had no intention of being reasonable. To Sebastian's alarm she marched furiously to where the half-drunk and blaspheming traders sat on up-turned water casks, congratulating themselves on their human acquisitions.

Sebastian was not a fool. He knew his limitations. He alone could not rescue her from her headstrong folly. He ran to where the
dahabiah
was berthed, shouting frantically to Raoul as he checked stocks of quinine and morphia. Raoul raised his head, regarding him without interest.

‘Harriet is intent on freeing the slaves,' Sebastian yelled from the bank. Raoul's disinterest fled. He slammed down the lid of the medicine chest and vaulted over the side of the
dahabiah
, wading through the water and reeds. As he marched across the wilderness that separated him from Harriet and the traders he checked his pistol. The men Harriet had gone to do battle with were men who regarded rape as a mere diversion and murder as a sport. On their arrival he had silently thanked his Maker that no slaves had been present and on this, their last day, when more traders had entered Gondokoro with their victims, he had ordered that none of his party should have anything to do with them. It was a warning that everyone had heeded. Even Mark Lane had thought only to pray for the souls of those who had perpetrated such crimes and for their abject victims. He should have known, he thought grimly, as he approached the odour of stale sweat and brandy, that Harriet would not be content with mere prayers.

The traders surrounded her, huge bull-necked men with bristly beards and rhino whips at their hips. Harriet's pale gold hair barely reached their chests. Her eyes were blazing, her small body consumed with a fury that freed her from fear.

‘There are women and children over there who are being kept shackled, unable to move for hours! They have had no food, no water, no shade! I demand that you free them!'

The roar of laughter was deafening as she stamped her foot, her meaning clear, her eyes brilliant with tears of anger and frustration.

‘Have you no Christian conscience? Half of those you intend to sell in Khartoum will never survive the voyage. They are half dead already! Free them. You have ivory in plenty.' She gestured towards the huge pile of tusks that lay a little way from them.

The men were Dutch and their salacious remarks as they ignored her protests, their eyes roving her body, were lost on Harriet. They were not lost on Raoul.

‘Return to the boat,' he said tersely to her.

A dozen pairs of blood-red eyes and a pair of flashing gold-green ones swung in his direction.

‘I will not! Not until those slaves are freed!'

‘No one demands of us,' a guttural voice said in broken English. ‘Especially not a woman.'

‘Then I
ask
you,' she said vehemently. ‘Free the women and children at least!'

‘The women bring in as much money as the men,' the Dutchman said lazily. There were warts on his lips and flies crawled unheedingly across his giant bull-head.

Harriet struggled to control her breaking voice. ‘I beg you! Free the women and children,
please!
'

‘You must forgive my wife,' Raoul said easily, taking out cigars from his shirt pocket and handing them around. ‘She is the daughter of a missionary and her ideals make life tedious.'

Harriet gasped. ‘How
dare
you …'

He seized her wrist, silencing her in mid-sentence. ‘ Return to the boat,' he said, and at the menace in his voice, the ferocious expression in his eyes, Harriet felt sick.

‘I hate you!' she hurled at him. ‘ You are no better than the traders! And you …!' She whirled to face the amused men, ‘… you are scum! Lower than the lowest animal!'

Wrenching her wrist away from Raoul's grasp, she treated him to such a look of contempt that even the hardened traders flinched and then she marched back towards the
dahabiah
, her skirts whipping around her ankles, her head held high.

‘My wife,' Raoul said carelessly, sitting down and accepting the brandy bottle that was offered to him, ‘is as hot in temper as she is in sex.'

The ensuing laughter succeeded in diffusing the situation. Raoul discussed ivory tusks and his own hopes of procuring a large shipment to take back to Khartoum. The traders complained of the lack of cooperation from local chiefs, apart from the one who stood silently in their midst, regarding Harriet's retreating back with speculative eyes.

‘I lost over half my crew in the Sudd,' Raoul lied, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and passing the bottle to the man beside him. The eyes around him sharpened. ‘ I'll take some of the slaves off your hands, if you are agreeable.'

‘They are fit and strong,' the Dutchman lied. ‘They will sell well in Khartoum.'

Raoul regarded the semi-conscious negroes disbelievingly. ‘They are dying on their feet.' He leaned forward, his face speculative. ‘I'll give you thirty Maria Theresa sovereigns for the lot.'

‘What use are the women and children to you?' a voice asked suspiciously.

Raoul shrugged. ‘I have a wife. The men in my party do not. Of what use do you think they should be?'

There was more laughter.

‘As for the children, it's not worth your while to ship them to Khartoum alone. Your time would be better spent gathering a fresh shipment.'

‘A hundred sovereigns.'

‘Fifty.'

‘Seventy-five.'

‘No.' Raoul rose to his feet. ‘They're most likely ridden with disease anyway.'

‘Sixty,' the wart-faced man said.

Raoul nodded, and shook the outstretched hand. The bargain was sealed. It had cost him a fortune and even as the bewildered negroes were herded on to the provision barges, he was not sure why he had done it. Certainly he had to silence Harriet before the situation grew ugly, but he could have done that and still spared himself the expense of buying every last one of the abject human beings who regarded him from frightened eyes.

‘It's unspeakable of him,' Harriet said chokingly to Mark Lane.

Mark Lane laid a restraining hand on her arm. ‘Raoul has bought them only to free them.'

She stared up at him.

He smiled. ‘Surely you did not think otherwise? What use would three score men, women and children be? When the traders have left Gondokoro the boats will sail the few miles from Gondokoro to the rapids and then they will be set ashore. As for the other calumny that you refer to, he called you his wife in order to afford you protection. As such you would be far less likely to be molested than if you were a single woman with no legal protector.'

Harriet continued to stare. Mark Lane laughed. ‘I do not understand you, Harriet. You think only the worst of Mr Beauvais. His intentions are always honourable.'