"There is the river, said Sally' Anne as she eased the throttle closed and began a shallow descending turn towards the glint of waters through the forest-tops.
She flew very low alog the river-bank, and despite the thick cloak of vegetation, picked out herds of game animals, even once', with a squeal of glee, the great rocklike hulk of a black rhinoceros in the ebony d-rickets.
Then suddenly she pointed ahead. "Look at that! In a loop of the river, there was a strip of open land hedged in with tall riverine trees, where the grass had been grazed likea lawn by the zebra herds who were already raising dust as they galloped away in panic from the approaching aircraft.
on a carved wooden tray. As she offered it, her back was turned to Peter Fungabera.
"When the man-eating crocodile knows the hunter is searching for him, he buries himself in the mud at the bottom of the deepest pool," she spoke softly in Sindebele, and when the leopard hunts, he hunts in darkness." Startled, Craig looked into her face. Her eyes were no longer downcast, and there was a fierce and angry glow in their dark depths.
"Fungabera's puppies must have been noisy," she went on just as softly, "they could not feed while you were here.
They would have been hungry. Did you hear them, Kuphela?" she asked, and this time Craig started with surprise. Sarah had used the name that Comrade Lookout had given him. How had she known that? What did she mean by Fungabera's puppies?
Before Craig could reply, Peter Fungabera looked up and saw Craig's face. He rose to his feet easily but swiftly, and crossed the veranda to Sarah's side. Immediately the black girl dropped her gaze from Craig's face, bobbed a little curtsey and retired with the empty tray.
"Do not let your disappointment depress you too much, Craig. Do come and join us." Peter placed a friendly hand on Craig's shoulder.
On the short drive from the mission station to the airstrip Sally-Anne suddenly leaned forward and touched Craig's shoulder.
41 have been thinking, Craig. This place you call Zambezi Waters can only be about half an hour's flying time from here. I found the Chizarira river on the map.
We could make a small detour and fly over it on the way home."
"No point. "Craig shook his head.
"Why not?" she asked, and he passed her the sheet of notepaper with Pickering's message.
4A
"Oh, I am so sorry." It was genuine, Craig realized, and her concern comforted him a little.
"I would like to see the area," Peter Fungabera cut in suddenly, and when Craig shook his head again, his voice hardened. "We will go there," he said with finality, and Craig shrugged his indifference.
Craig and Sally-Anne pored over her map. "The pools should be here, where this stream joins the main river course And she worked swiftly with callipers and her wind-deflection computer.
"Okay," she said. "Twenty-two minutes" flying time with this wind." While they flew, and Sally-Anne studied the terrain and compared it to her map, Craig brooded over the Matabele girl's words. Tungabera's puppies." Somehow it sounded menacing, and her use of the name "Kuphela" troubled him even more. There was only one explanation: she was in touch with, and was probably a member of, the group of dissident guerrillas. What had she meant by the leopard and crocodile Oegory, and Fungabera's puppies?
And whatever it was, just how unbiased and reliable would she be if she were a guerrilla sympathizer?
"There is the river," said Sally' Anne as she eased the throttle closed and began a shallow descending turn towards the glint of waters through the forest-tops.
She flew very low aloig the river-bank, and despite the thick cloak of vegetation, picked out herds of game animals, even once with a squeal of glee, the great rocklike hulk of a black rhinoceros in the ebony thickets.
Then suddenly she pointed ahead. "Look at thad" In a loop of the river, there was a strip of open land hedged in with tall riverine trees, where the grass had been grazed likea lawn by the zebra herds who were already raising dust as they galloped away in panic from the approaching aircraft.
"I bet I could get down there," Sally-Anne said and pulled on the flaps, slowing the Cessna and lowering the nose to give herself better forward vision. Then she let down the landing-gear.
She made a series of slow passes over the open ground, each lower than the previous one, until at the fourth pass her wheels were only two or three feet above the ground and they could see each individual hoof print of the zebra in the dusty earth.
"Firm and clear" she said, and on the next pass touched down, and immediately applied maximum safe braking that pulled the aircraft to a dead stop in less than a hundred and fifty paces.
"Bird lady," Craig grinned at her and she smiled at the compliment.
They left the aircraft and set off across the plain towards the forest wall, passed through it along a game trail and came out on a rocky bluff above the river.
The scene was a perfect African cameo. White sandbanks and water-polished rock glittering like reptiles" scales, trailing branches decked with weaver birds" nests over deep green water, tall trees with white serpentine roots crawling over the rocks and beyond that, open forest.
"It's beautiful," said Sally-Anne, and wandered off with her camera.
"This would be a good site for one of your camps," Peter Fungabera pointed at the great lumpy heaps of elephant dung on the white sandbank below them.
"Grandstand view."
"Yes, it would have been," Peter agreed. "It seems too "A good to pass up at that price. There must be millions of profit in it."