African Enchantment (22 page)

Descending the platform was far harder than ascending had been. They were pressed in on all sides by gleaming, foetid bodies. Latika was ahead of them, Raoul at his side, his dark head scarcely visible as he was cut off by a mass of warriors.

Mark Lane's hand reached out to steady Harriet and then he cried out in pain, his face contorted as his arms were wrenched behind his back, and a dozen warriors surged between them. Harriet screamed and fought to free herself of the hands that seized her. Between the milling heads she saw Raoul swing round, saw the flash of comprehension on his face and then she could think no further than that she was about to be trampled to death.

The drums reached crescendo pitch. A thong was slipped over her wrists and she was hauled, kicking and screaming like a captive animal, to where Chief Latika stood, a smile of satisfaction on his face, a cloak of animal skins falling from his shoulders to the ground.

Raoul was at his side, his hand on his pistol, a score of warriors surrounding him, spears at his throat.

Sebastian and Mark Lane were held only feet away, their heads wrenched back, knife blades indenting the skin against their jugular veins.

The shouting and clamour ceased as Harriet was thrown before Chief Latika.

Raoul began to speak angrily and urgently. The Chief answered good-naturedly and reached a large hand towards Harriet. She shrank away, but the gnarled fingers touched the pins at the nape of her neck and tugged them free. A buzz of wonderment arose as Harriet's pale gold hair cascaded in a shining mass, waist-long.

Harriet no longer struggled. She remained still, her eyes fixed on Raoul's desperate face. Sweat had broken out on his forehead. He looked like a man demented as he yelled an unmistakable ‘No' to Latika. The elderly chief shrugged.

‘For the love of God,' Sebastian choked, ‘what does the old devil want?'

Raoul's eyes never left Harriet.

‘He wants Harriet,' he said in a voice that was scarcely recognisable. ‘He wants to sell her as a slave to one of the neighbouring chiefs.'

Harriet fought to remain conscious. Raoul's eyes burned into hers. All around them the warriors had begun to dance again, the noise deafening.

Sebastian tried to speak, but the knives cut into his flesh and a trickle of blood ran down his throat, scattering scarlet droplets on to his shirt.

‘What will happen to you?' Harriet gasped. ‘ Will he kill you? Will he kill Sebastian and Reverend Lane?'

Raoul's mouth twisted in a mockery of a smile. ‘If Latika is to be believed, we are still friends and will be set free – if we leave you behind.'

The blood pounded in her ears. Her heart felt as if it would burst with fear. Her legs would no longer support her and without the cruel hands holding her she would have fallen.

‘What will you do?' she whispered through parched lips.

For a long moment their eyes held and then he said tersely, ‘Shoot you.' She cried out and fell, only to be hauled back to her feet by a horde of hands.

Raoul's voice throbbed. ‘I have only one shot before being speared. If I shoot Latika your fate will be unaltered. There is no alternative.'

‘But if you shoot me you will all die! You, and Sebastian and Mark!' She saw his finger tighten on the trigger and knew in a second it would be upraised and that because of her he would sign his own death warrant.

‘No!' she cried and trembling like a leaf in the wind she faced Chief Latika.

‘Free my companions,' she said with a sob. ‘ Free them and sell me.'

The chief grinned, understanding her meaning if not her words.

The veins stood out in knots at Raoul's neck and throat. There was one other way, but if it failed they would all be dead men and he would have no weapon with which to end Harriet's life and save her from a far worse fate.

He spoke to Latika rapidly and the Chief nodded, continuing to smile, well pleased with the turn of events. In a world of nightmare Harriet saw Raoul hand Latika his pistol, saw that Sebastian's and Reverend Lane's pistols had already been taken. Saw the ring of spears lower, moving their dreadful points away from Raoul's throat. Saw Raoul move forwards and not backwards. Forward with Chief Latika at his side.

‘What is it? What is happening?' she cried fearfully. ‘Has he not kept his promise? Are you not free?'

He nodded, his eyes tortured. ‘I am free and I am staying.'

‘But why?' Her voice was a pant of anguish.

‘Because I intend to buy you,' he said and walked with Latika through a mass of warriors who hastily made way for them.

She cried out, but her cries were lost amid the roar and the clamour. She tried to reach him but a swarm of shouting warriors divided them and then she could see him no more. She was seized and as she fought for breath and consciousness she was herded through a mass of glistening, sweating bodies and hurled into darkness.

The pain in her chest was like a knife-wound. She pressed a hand against her heart as if to ease its frenzied beating. She was on her knees on mud-beaten ground. She raised her head. Above her, glimmers of light tried to penetrate the tight thatch of cane and reeds. She was alone in a hut surrounded by hundreds of armed and chanting natives.

And Raoul? Where was Raoul? She leaned back on her heels and tried to conquer her crippling fear with coherent thought. He was only yards away from her. Somewhere, beyond the darkness of the hut into which she had been thrown, he was sitting in friendship with Chief Latika. He was going to save her. He was going to buy her.

The thought sent her springing to her feet and running to the circular walls, searching feverishly with her fingers for a doorway, an opening – anything that would offer her escape. She had entered the village as a free woman. She would leave as one. She would be bought by no man! She would die first!

Her tiny hands hammered against the stout palm trunks, tears streaming down her face. Why had he not shot her? Why had he left her to such a fate? Her nails were broken and bleeding. She could find no doorway and as she covered her face with her hands she knew that even if she had done so, escape would have been impossible. The ground shook with the beating of native feet. The shouting and chanting intensified. Chief Latika was celebrating his new acquisition. She was as captive as the Africans she had seen in the slave markets of Khartoum. Fear could no longer be held at bay. It swept over her in great waves and the name she cried out, time and time again, was not Sebastian's or Mark Lane's – it was Raoul's.

He sat once more on the great ceremonial platform with Chief Latika, a terrified Sebastian and a white-faced Mark Lane at his side. They were not to be allowed back to their camp: not until the neighbouring chiefs had arrived in answer to the summons sent on drums. Not until the white woman had brought Latika great riches.

‘Will Frome help us?' Mark Lane whispered frantically to Raoul as Chief Latika's attention was momentarily diverted from his guests.

‘No,' Raoul retorted tersely. ‘He hasn't the courage, and even if he had, there is no way he could save Harriet except by shooting her.'

Sebastian wiped the sweat from his brow with a trembling hand. ‘Will the old devil keep his word? Will he free us after … After …?' He faltered, unable to meet the contempt in Raoul's fiery eyes.

‘After Harriet has been sold, body and soul? Yes Crale. No doubt Latika will keep his word and free you.' The savagery in his voice made Sebastian wince. ‘But only if my gamble pays off and I am the purchaser. If I am outbid …' He paused, unable to continue, his mouth twisted in pain and anguish.

‘If you are outbid, what will you do?' Mark Lane prompted quietly.

‘Kill her,' he said, his eyes no longer seeing the gloating face of Latika or the swarms of warriors. He could see only Harriet, golden-haired and trembling, offering herself freely to Latika in the mistaken belief that to do so would set himself and his companions free. She had more courage in her slender body than Frome and Crale had in their little fingers.

He had known he loved her before he had left Khartoum. His decision had been made even then. He had told Hashim and he had told Narinda he was going to marry the English girl he had brought into the city. The prospect had amazed even himself. Marriage had never before been a prerequisite for love-making. Previous affairs had been enjoyed without the least notion of satisfying the lady's honour. His reputation was notorious. The most astute gamblers in Cairo and Alexandria would have staked their all against Raoul Beauvais ever marrying. Yet he had been on the verge of doing so. It was Harriet herself who had deflected him, displaying coolness and indifference where she had previously displayed passion and a spirit as adventurous as his own.

His frown deepened so that his winged brows met and even Chief Latika did not intrude on his private thoughts.

What had happened in Khartoum? What had changed? When she had ridden after them he had been beside himself with jealousy, believing that she had done so to be with Sebastian Crale. Yet watching them covertly, day after day, he had known that whatever Crale had believed, it was not so. She was no more in love with Crale than she was with him. She wanted one thing and one thing alone: to stand at the fountains of the Niles and enter the history books of the world.

He groaned. She would never do so now. She would die here, in a nameless native village, and no one would ever know of her bravery.

‘How will you kill her?' Mark Lane asked desperately. ‘We have no weapons, no pistols.'

‘I shall kill her,' Raoul replied with a quiet ferocity that silenced his friend. He would seize a spear from the nearest hand and throw it at her heart. He would kill her because he loved her more than life itself. Her death would mean his own death and the death of Mark Lane and Sebastian Crale. There was no alternative.

Mark Lane, understanding, stilled a momentary terror and then regained control of himself. He had only one way of helping to alleviate Harriet's distress, and that was by praying. He closed his eyes and prayed in silent intensity.

All through the long night Raoul's tortured eyes never left the circular hut into which Harriet had been thrown. It was so well guarded that a battalion of men would have had difficulty in storming it. Certainly there was no opportunity for overcoming his own guard and retrieving his pistol.

Slowly the hours passed and dawn approached. No food or water was taken into the hut. He wondered if she was bound or free and felt himself to be in an inner hell. He had no way of speaking with her; no way of explaining his actions. He could imagine the gold-green eyes that sparkled so easily with fury or laughter, widening in terror as he raised the spear. There would be no last word; no last caress. Her scream would be the only sound he would carry to his grave.

Sleepless, every nerve and muscle in his body taut, he faced Latika the next day with outward ease. One hint of fear and Latika's friendship would deteriorate into contempt and he would not be treated as an equal and allowed to bid for Harriet alongside the arriving chiefs.

They sat in splendour beside Latika; big men dressed in brilliantly-coloured togas with cloaks of leopard skins around their shoulders and retinues of warriors about their heels. As the sun rose higher in the sky, Latika motioned for Raoul to join them on the ceremonial platform. Below, wedged in with the jostling throng of hundreds of warriors and wives, and squalling children, Mark Lane and Sebastian Crale watched fearfully.

Strong sunlight flooded into the darkened hut as the door was flung open and two warriors entered. Momentarily blinded, Harriet lashed out vainly at them, but weakened and exhausted, her blows had no effect. Her arms were wrenched behind her back, the leather thong slipped over her wrists as she was led stumbling into the heat and dust.

Every fibre of Raoul's being cried out in revolt. The muscles in his neck and shoulders stood out in knots as he fought to keep his iron control. One false move now, and they would all be destroyed. He would have to suffer the ordeal as she was suffering it. He saw her chin tilt defiantly upwards, saw the slender shoulders square and knew that when she faced Latika and his fellow chiefs there would be no fear in her eyes. It was a satisfaction she would not give them.

Robbed of its pin, her hair streamed down her back in all its glory, the sun's rays glinting on it so that it looked like gold. Climbing the rough-hewn steps to the platform it fell forward and with her hands bound she could not push it back from her face. She swung her head in an attempt to do so and it swirled in a silken cloud.

Around him Raoul could hear the chiefs draw in their breath and he clenched his jaws. What could he offer Latika in competition with the men at his side? He had only his horse and pack animals; his stores and equipment. Would such possessions be of worth to Latika? It was impossible for him to tell. What was obvious was that the chiefs around him would pay a high price in whatever currency Latika demanded to possess the beautiful woman with hair like the sun.

Harriet's eyes sought Raoul's. Latika was speaking to him and Raoul was smiling, sitting cross-legged on the leopard skins, as at ease as if he were in Khartoum. She choked back a sob. She had thought he had stayed to try and save her, that his agony of mind had been as great as hers. She had been wrong. He was staying because Latika had declared himself to be his friend. Because he could hardly abandon her in front of Sebastian and Mark Lane without making a token effort to save her life.

He raised his head from Latika's and she tore her eyes away, staring steadfastly ahead of her, her heart hammering like a caged bird. She would retain her inner dignity at all costs, no matter how publicly she was humiliated. She would remember who she was. What she was. Harriet Latimer, missionary's daughter.

A heavy-muscled body with many ankle bracelets stepped towards her and she closed her eyes as she felt the sweat of his body and his hands touching her hair, her chin imprisoned between strong fingers and turned from left to right.