Through his binoculars he studied the open forest, and then. started as he discerned a horde of moving figures coming headlong on wings of fine pale dust.
"My God," he muttered aloud. "there must be hundreds of them," and he felt a stab of uneasiness. They looked anything but friendly.
At that moment, he was distracted by the sound of galloping hooves close by, and Sara came dashing past him.
She was mounted bareback on the white stallion, her robes streaming and fluttering in the sun-bright wind. She was shouting with almost hysterical excitement as she galloped to meet the oncoming riders and her behaviour reassured Jake a little. He signalled the column forward once again.
The first ranks came swiftly in dust clouds, on running camels and galloping shaggy horses. Fierce, dark-faced men in billowing robes of dirty white, and a motley of other colours. Urging forward their mounts with wild cries, brandishing the small round bronze and iron studded and bossed war shields, they came racing towards the column.
As they approached, they split into two wings and tore headlong past the startled drivers in a solid wall of moving men and animals.
Most of the men were bearded, and here and there some warrior wore proudly a great fluffy headdress of lion mane proclaiming his valour to the world. The manes rippled and waved on the wind as the riders drove by, urging on their mounts with the high "Looloo" ululations so characteristic of the Ethiopians.
The weapons they carried amazed Gareth, who as a professional dealer recognized twenty different types and makes, each one of them a collector's piece from the long muzzle-loading Tower muskets with the fancy hammers over percuss ion caps, through a range of Martini Henry carbines, which fired a heavy lead bullet in a cloud of black powder smoke, to a wide selection of Mousers; and Schneiders, Lee-Metfords, and obsolete models from half the arms-manufacturers of the world.
As the riders swept by, they fired these weapons into the air, long spurts of black powder against the evening sky, and the crackle of musketry blended with the fierce ululations of welcome.
After the first wave of riders came another of those on mules and donkeys moving more slowly but making as much noise and immediately after them came a swarming mob of running, howling foot soldiers, mingled with whom were women and shrieking children, and dozens of yelping dogs, scrawny yellow curs with long whippy tails and ridges of standing hair running down their skeletal backbones.
As the first rank of riders turned, still loolooing and firing into the air, to complete the encirclement of the armoured column, they ran headlong into the following rabble and the entire congregation became a struggling mob of men and animals.
Jake saw a mother with a child under her arm go down under the hooves of a running camel, the child flying from her grip and rolling in the sandy earth. Then he was past, forging ahead through a narrow path in the sea of humanity.
Sara was keeping the path open, leading them in, riding just ahead of Jake's car, laying about her viciously with a long quirt of hippo hide to hold back the mob, while around her wheeled the wildly excited riders still firing their pieces into the air, and dozens of runners pressed in closely, trying to climb aboard the moving cars.
Gradually the press of bodies and animals built up, until at last, following Sara, they moved slowly through the open forest that surrounded the wells into one of the shallow but steeply sided wadis in the broken ground beyond.
Here any further forward movement became impossible.
The wadi was choked solidly with humanity, even the steep earthen sides and the ledges above were crowded so closely that unfortunates, pushed by those behind, could no longer keep their Position and came tumbling down the sheer sides on to the heads of those in the wadi below. The cries of protest were lost in the general hubbub.
From each of the turrets, the heads of the four drivers appeared timidly, like gophers peering out of their holes.
They made helpless signs and expressions at each other, unable to communicate in the uproar.
Sara leaped from the back of the stallion on to the sponson of Jake's car and began raining blows and kicks on those who were still attempting to climb aboard the vehicle. She was enjoying herself immensely, Jake realized, as he noticed the battle lust in her eyes and heard the crack of her whip and the yelps of her victims. He thought of trying to restrain her and then discarded the idea as being highly dangerous. Instead, he looked about distractedly for some other means to subdue the boisterous welcome and noticed for the first time the entrances to numerous caves in the sides of the wadi.
From a number of these dark openings now poured a body of men, wearing a semblance of uniform jodhpurs and baggy khaki tunics, their chests crossed with bandoliers of ammunition, put teed calves and bare feet, high turbans bound around their heads and Mauser rifles swinging heartily, the butts used as clubs. They were every bit as enthusiastic as Sara, but considerably more successful in their attempts to quieten the crowd.
"My grandfather's guards," Sara explained to Jake, still panting and grinning happily from her recent exertions. "I am sorry, Jake, but sometimes my people get excited."
"Yeah," said Jake. "So I noticed."
With gun butts rising and falling the guards cleared a space around the four laden vehicles, and the noise dropped in volume until it was equivalent to a medium-sized avalanche. The four drivers climbed warily down and came together in a defensive group in the small stretch of open ground before the caves. Vicky Camberwell placed herself strategically between Jake and Gareth and behind the lanky robed figure of Gregorius and she felt even more secure when Sara slipped up beside her and took her hand.
"Please do not worry," she whispered. "We are all your friends."
"You could have fooled me, honey." Vicky smiled back at her, and squeezed the slim brown hand. At that moment a procession emerged from the caves, headed by four coal-black priests of the Coptic Christian Church in their gaudy robes, chanting in Amharic, swinging incense and carrying ornate, if crudely wrought bronze crosses.
Immediately after the priests followed a figure so tall and thin as to appear a caricature of the human shape. A long flowing sham ma of yellow and red stripes hung loosely on the gaunt frame. There was the suggestion of legs as long and as thin as those of an ostrich beneath the skirts of the robe as he strode forward, and the man's dark head was completely bald of hair no beard or eyebrows just a round glistening pate.
His eyes were completely enclosed in a web of deep wrinkles and fleshy folds of old dried-out skin. The mouth was utterly toothless, so that the jaw seemed to be collapsible, folding the face in half like the bellows of a concertina.
He gave an impression of vast age that was offset immediately by the youthful spring in his step and the twinkle in the black birdlike eyes, and yet Gareth realized that he could not be less than eighty years old.
Gregorius hurried forward and knelt briefly for the old man's blessing, while Sara whispered to the group.
"This is my grandfather, Ras Golam" she explained. "He speaks no English, but he is a great nobleman and a mighty warrior the bravest in all Ethiopia." The Ras ran a lively eye over the group and selected Gareth Swales, resplendent in Thorn-proof tweeds. He leapt forward and, before Gareth could avoid it, enfolded him in an embrace that was redolent of powerful native tobacco, woodsmoke, and other heady odours.
"How do you do?" shouted the Ras, his only words of English.