Do you feel sad? It was a beautiful aircraft."
"I don't get sentimental over machinery." She shook her head. "Once it was a great little kite, but it's buggered and bent now. I save my sentiments for things that are more cuddly," and she squeezed his hand. "Time to move on, darling." Craig carried the rifle and pointed for them, keeping half a mile ahead and marking the trail. Tungata, lacking stamina, took the drag, with the two girls in the centre.
That evening they dug for water in a dry riverbed and sucked a malt tablet before they rolled into the thermal foil survival blankets.
The girls took the first two sentry goes, while Tungata and Craig spun a coin for the more arduous later watches.
Early the next morning, Craig cut a well-used footpath, and when Sarah came up she recognized it immediately.
Two hours later they were in the cultivated valley below Vusamanzi's hilltop village and while the rest of the party took cover in the standing maize, Sarah climbed up to find her father. When she returned an hour later the old witch doctor was with her.
He came directl u for ata and went down on his arthritically swoIIe'nY1fee'sb7 e him, and he took one of Tungata's feet and placed it upon his silver pate. "Son of kings, I see you," he greeted him. "Sprig of great Mzilikazi, branch of mighty Kurnalo, I am your slave." "Stand up, old man," Tungata lifted him up, and used the respectful term kehla, honoured elder.
"Forgive me that I do not offer refreshment, Vusamanzi apologized, 'but it is not safe here. The Shana soldiers are everywhere. I must lead you to a safe place, and then you can rest and refresh yourselves.
Follow me." He set off at a remarkable pace on his skinny old legs, and they had to lengthen their stride to hold him in view.
They walked for two hours by Craig's wrist-watch, the last hour through dense Thorn thicket and broken to ground. There was no defined footpath, and the heated hush of the bush and the claustrophobic crowding in of the hills was enervating and oppressive.
"I do not like this place," Tungata told Craig softly.
"There are no birds, no animals, there is a feeling here of evil no, not evil, but of mystery and of menace." Craig looked about him. The rocks had the blasted look of slag from the iron furnace and the trees were deformed and crooked, black as charcoal against the sun and leprous silver when the sun's rays struck them full on. Their branches were bearded with trailing lichens, the sickly green of chlorine gas. And Tungata was correct, there were no bird sounds, no rustles of small animals in the undergrowth. Suddenly Craig felt chilled and he shivered in th, sunlight.
"You feel it also," said Tungata, and as he spoke the old man disappeared abruptly, as though he had been swallowed by the black and blasted rock. Craig hurried forward, suppressing a shudder of superstitious dread. He teacher the spot where Vusamanzi had disappeared and looked around, but there was no sign of the old man.
"This way." Vusamanzi's voice was a sepulchral echo.
"Beyond the turn of the rock." The cliff was folded back upon itself, a narrow concealed cleft, just wide enough for a man to squeeze through. Craig stepped round the corner and paused to let his eyes adjust to the poor light.
Vusamanzi had taken a cheap storm lantern from a shelf in the rock above his head and was filling the base with paraffin from the bottle he had carried in his pouch. He struck a match and held it to the wick.
"Come,"he invited, and led them into the passageway.
"These hills are riddled with caves and secret passages," Sarah explained. "They are all dolomite formations." A hundred and fifty yards further on, the passage opened into a large chamber. Soft natural light filtered in through an opening in the domed roof high above their heads.
Vusamanzi extinguished the lantern and set it down on a ledge to one side of a hearth, manmade from blocks of limestone. The rock above the hearth was blackened with soot, and there was a pile of old ash upon the floor. Beside it was a neat stack of firewood.
"This is a sacred place," Vusamanzi told them. "It is here that the apprentice magicians live during the training period. It was here, as a young man, that I served under my own father, and learned the ancient prophecies and the magical arts." He gestured to them to sit down, and all of them slumped thankfully to the rocky floor. "You will be safe here. The soldiers will not find you. In a week or a month, when they grow weary of searching for you, it will be safe for you to leave. Then we will find a man to guide you "It's spooky," Sally-Anne whispered, when Craig translated this for her.
"Some of my women are following us with food. They will come every second &y while you are here, with food and news." Two of Sarah s half-sisters arrived at the cavern before darkness fell. They carried heavy bundles balanced upon their heads, and they set about preparing a meal immedi, lately. Their laughter and merry chatter, the flicker of the flames on the hearth, the smell of woodsmoke and food cooking, partially dispelled the oppressive atmosphere of the cavern.
Craig explained to "You must eat with the women" e old man will be very Sally' Anne "It's the custom- Th unhappy" an old dear, but underneath he turns out "He looks such male chauvinist pig she protested, to be just another passed the beer, pot around their circle, The three men in the centre and the old and ate from the communal bowl man spoke to Tungata between mouthfuls.
"The spirits prevented our first meeting, Nkosi- We waited for you to come that night, but the Shana had taken you. it was a time of sorrow for all of us, but now the spirits have relented they have delivered you from the SP Shana and brought us together at last Vusamanzi looked of great portent that You and I at Craig. "There are things must discuss tribal matters!
"You say that the spirits have arranged my escape from the Shana," Tungata replied. it may be so but if it is, then this white man is their agent. He and his woman have risked their very lives to free me."