Abele looked perplexed.
'Ben was just with me,' Russell struggled to say when the spasm had subsided. His eyes rolled in their sockets.
'No,' Abele stated. 'I have not seen him for two days. You are ill, Mr Russell. I think you do not know what you are saying.'
Russell pushed his tongue out of his mouth – Abele could see it looked furred and unpleasant – and used it weakly to lick his bloodied lips. 'How do you know Ben is in trouble?'
'I heard Suliman talking. He said his men were tracking him, but I do not know where.'
Suddenly Russell gripped the edge of the bed, and he held on as tightly as his weakened arms would allow. 'The room is spinning,' he muttered. He took some tremulous breaths before continuing his conversation with Abele. 'What else did you hear?'
'They are bringing more men in from the next village to work the mine,' Abele told him. He seemed about to say something else, but was interrupted by Russell's attempts to speak. What came out of his mouth, though, were not words but a garbled sequence of sounds. A blankness came over his expression, and he passed out.
'Mr Russell.' Abele spoke loudly so as to awaken him. 'Mr Russell!' But it was no good.
Abele thought for a moment. Apart from having established that Russell had succumbed to the illness, he was no wiser as a result of the conversation. He had no option but to confront Suliman. And quickly.
But he hesitated to leave.
His fingers reached inside his shirt and toyed for a moment with the shiny metal amulet that hung on the black leather thong round his neck. Almost instinctively, his fingers traced the indentation of the symbol it bore, round and round the shape of the eye as he seemed to be deciding something. Suddenly he clasped the amulet in the palm of his hand and pulled it over his head, before gently putting it round Russell's neck. The Englishman's skin felt burning hot to the touch. Abele muttered something under his breath, a chant of some sort, or a prayer.
And then he turned and left, feeling strangely naked, but knowing what he had to do.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
'Stop running!'
Ben grabbed Halima by the arm and they came to a halt. Both of them were wide-eyed with shock, and Ben could feel Halima's body shaking. 'We can't lose our bearings,' he urged. 'The snake has gone. We have to keep heading east.'
Halima nodded vigorously, her face still displaying signs of panic, and the two of them looked around as they tried to work out where they were. 'This way, I think,' Ben murmured.
The direction in which he pointed was strewn with mossy boulders. There was no natural pathway as such, but it seemed for the moment as though they would be able to walk east without encountering foliage that was too impenetrable. They walked in silence, their encounter with the black mamba encouraging them to pay close attention to where they put their feet. Ben was glad he was wearing his reasonably robust trainers; Halima's worn sandals looked like they would afford her less protection if she put a foot wrong.
The trauma of the snake behind them, Ben realized how desperately thirsty he was. It had been twentyfour hours since he had drunk anything, and his parched mouth felt thick and leathery. 'If only it would start raining,' he observed half to himself.
'No,' said Halima. 'We don't want to get caught in the rains. They can be very fierce.'
Ben thought back to the incessant rains that had preceded the London floods. Something about the greenhouse-humidity of the air in the rainforest forced him to concede that a downpour here could be even worse than that. 'Whatever,' he murmured. 'Anyway, we need to find some water soon.'
Halima nodded, unconsciously licking her lips. 'But even when we find it, we need to be careful about what we use. Not all the water in the forest is drinkable.'
It sounded ominous to Ben, and he felt like changing the subject. 'You all right?' he asked. 'About the snake, I mean.'
'Yes,' Halima replied quietly.
'Pretty scary, huh?'
'Yes,' Halima repeated with an amused smile. 'Pretty scary.' The phrase sounded strange in her African accent. Then her voice became serious. 'The forest is a pretty scary place. How are you feeling?'
Ben understood what she was asking. They both knew that he had every chance of falling ill. Ben himself had tried to ignore that possibility, but it was entirely reasonable for Halima to ask. If Ben succumbed, she'd be on her own. 'I'm fine.' He smiled at her. 'So far.'
'Good.' Halima nodded in satisfaction. 'I think perhaps the ancestors are not angry with us.'
Ben opened his mouth as if to argue, but at the last moment thought better of it. Besides, there was something about what Halima had just said that made him feel a bit better about everything.
They continued to trek through the foliage.
Halima's face was a picture of concentration as they picked their way through the trees; Ben was concentrating too, not only on his surroundings, but on other things. Halima's question had brought to the front of his mind something that he had been trying not to deal with: the image of his father, weak and suffering. Possibly dying. With everything that had happened since he left the village, the horrible reality of his dad's situation had eluded him. Now, though, the facts of the desperate situation came flooding back to him, and it felt as though someone had thumped him in the stomach.
His dad was being so brave. Braver than Ben would have ever expected. He had to keep focused. Do what Russell had implored him to do. He had to make sure it wasn't all for nothing.
Suddenly Halima hissed, 'Stay still!'
Ben froze. He had been so resolutely checking his footing that he had momentarily taken his eyes off what was happening in front of him. Now he stood perfectly still as he took in the scene ahead. There was a clearing – more spacious than the one they had slept in that night, but not much – which at first glance appeared to be empty. Ben quickly saw, however, that it would be unwise to step into it. About five metres away, sitting quite still and eyeing them with a disconcertingly human look in its eyes, was a gorilla. Ben returned its gaze, instantly realizing with something of a shudder that the face he had seen in the dying evening light the night before had been one of these creatures. The same one that was a short stone's throw away from him now? Perhaps, perhaps not. But the fact that one of these beasts had been watching them last night and had left them in peace somehow didn't make him feel much better.
And yet he knew that these were peaceful creatures, as long as you let them be. He instantly suspected that these were eastern lowland gorillas, the endangered animals he had read so much about before coming. They were only to be found in these parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and were herbivores, living mainly off leaves. As if to confirm this information, the gorilla started chewing slowly, all the while keeping his eyes on Ben and Halima. You would be a fool, however, to assume that just because they were endangered herbivores they were not dangerous. These were the largest known primates – the males reaching a weight of up to two hundred and fifty kilograms – and they tended to live in small groups. These normally consisted of a silverback male, a couple of less dominant males and a number of females. With a squint, Ben saw the telltale white markings on the back of this huge mammal that indicated it was indeed the silverback. He would do whatever was necessary to protect the group.
There was a rustling in the bushes. Appearing with a surprising amount of grace for such enormous creatures, two other gorillas appeared, flanking the silverback on either side. Their huge domed heads and flat noses made them look terrifyingly aggressive, and they even seemed to jut their chins out pugnaciously.
Ben knew that he was privileged to be seeing what he was seeing; but somehow it just didn't seem that way at the moment.
As though joined at the hip, Ben and Halima took a step backwards. The silverback continued to chew, seemingly unconcerned by the movement given that it was in the right direction, but keeping his eyes on the duo nonetheless. 'He's letting us go,' Ben breathed to Halima.