"Happy thought," commented Old Timer; "but I hope you're wrong. I think you are, too, for if they had been following us to get you, they would have been on us before. There is no reason why they should have waited."
They moved on slowly through the darkness for about half an hour longer; then the man stopped. "I think we had better rest until morning," he said, "though I don't know just how we are going to accomplish it. There is no place to lie down but the trail, and as that is used by the leopards at night it isn't exactly a safe couch."
"We might try the trees," she suggested.
"It is the only alternative. The underbrush is too thick here-we couldn't find a place large enough to lie down. Can you climb?"
"I may need a little help."
"I'll go up first and reach down and help you up," he suggested.
A moment later he had found a low branch and clambered onto it. "Here," he said, reaching down, "give me your hand." Without difficulty he swung her to his side. "Stay here until I find a more comfortable place."
She heard him climbing about in the tree for a few minutes, and then he returned to her. "I found just the place," he announced. "It couldn't have been better if it had been made to order." He helped her to her feet, and then he put an arm about her and assisted her from branch to branch as they climbed upward toward the retreat he had located.
It was a great crotch where three branches forked, two of them laterally and almost parallel. "I can fix this up like a Pullman," he observed. "Just wait a minute until I cut some small branches. How I ever stumbled on it in the dark gets me."
"Another miracle, perhaps," she suggested.
Growing all about them were small branches, and it did not take Old Timer long to cut as many as he needed. These he laid close together across the two parallel branches. Over them he placed a covering of leaves.
"Try that," he directed. "It may not be a feather bed, but it's better than none."
"It's wonderful." She had stretched out on it in the first utter relaxation she had experienced for days-relaxation of the mind and nerves even more than of the body. For the first time in days she did not lie with terror at her side.
He could see her only dimly in the darkness; but in his mind's eyes he visualized the contours of that perfect form, the firm bosom, the slender waist, the rounded thigh; and again passion swept through him like a racing torrent of molten gold.
"Where are you going to sleep?" she asked.
"I'll find a place," he replied huskily. He was edging closer to her. His desire to take her in his arms was almost maniacal.
"I am so happy," she whispered sleepily. "I didn't expect ever to be happy again. It must be because I feel so safe with you."
The man made no reply. Suddenly he felt very cold, as though his blood had turned to water; then a hot flush suffused him. "What the devil did she say that for?" he soliloquized. It angered him. He felt that it was not fair. What right had she to say it? She was not safe with him. It only made the thing that he contemplated that much harder to do-took some of the pleasure from it. Had he not saved her life at the risk of his own? Did she not owe him something? Did not all women owe him a debt for what one woman had done to him?
"It seems so strange," she said drowsily.
"What?" he asked.
"I was so afraid of you after you came to my camp, and now I should be afraid if you were not here. It just goes to show that I am not a very good judge of character, but really you were not very nice then. You seem to have changed."
He made no comment, but he groped about in the darkness until he had found a place where he could settle himself, not comfortably, but with a minimum of discomfort. He felt that he was weak from hunger and exhaustion. He would wait until tomorrow. He thought that it might be easier then when her confidence in him was not so fresh in his mind, but he did not give up his intention.
He wedged himself into a crotch where a great limb branched from the main bole of the tree. He was very uncomfortable there, but at least there was less danger that he might fall should he doze. The girl was a short distance above him. She seemed to radiate an influence that enveloped him in an aura at once delicious and painful. He was too far from her to touch her, yet always he felt her. Presently he heard the regular breathing that denoted that she slept. Somehow it reminded him of a baby-innocent, trusting, confident. He wished that it did not. Why was she so lovely? Why did she have hair like that? Why had God given her such eyes and lips? Why– Tired nature would be denied no longer. He slept.
Old Timer was very stiff and sore when he awoke. It was daylight. He glanced up toward the girl. She was sitting up looking at him. When their eyes met she smiled. Little things, trivial things often have a tremendous effect upon our lives. Had Kali Bwana not smiled then in just the way that she did, the lives of two people might have been very different.
"Good morning," she called, as Old Timer smiled back at her. "Did you sleep in that awful position all night?"
"It wasn't so bad," he assured her; "at least I slept."
"You fixed such a nice place for me; why didn't you do the same for yourself?"
"You slept well?" he asked.
"All night. I must have been dead tired; but perhaps what counted most was the relief from apprehension. It is the first night since before my men deserted me that I have felt free to sleep."
"I am glad," he said; "and now we must be on the move; we must get out of this district."
"Where can we go?"
"I want to go west first until we are below Bobolo's stamping grounds and then cut across in a northerly direction toward the river. We may have a little difficulty crossing it, but we shall find a way. At present I am more concerned about the Betetes than about Bobolo. His is a river tribe. They hunt and trap only a short distance in from the river, but the Betetes range pretty well through the forest. Fortunately for us they do not go very far to the west."
He helped her to the ground, and presently they found a trail that seemed to run in a westerly direction. Occasionally he saw fruits that he knew to be edible and gathered them; thus they ate as they moved slowly through the forest. They could not make rapid progress because both were physically weak from abstinence from sufficient food; but necessity drove them, and though they were forced to frequent rests they kept going.
Thirst had been troubling them to a considerable extent when they came upon a small stream, and here they drank and rested. Old Timer had been carefully scrutinizing the trail that they had been following for signs of the pygmies; but he had discovered no spoor of human foot and was convinced that this trail was seldom used by the Betetes.
The girl sat with her back against the stem of a small tree, while Old Timer lay where he could gaze at her profile surreptitiously. Since that morning smile he looked upon her out of new eyes from which the scales of selfishness and lust had fallen. He saw now beyond the glittering barrier of her physical charms a beauty of character that far transcended the former. Now he could appreciate the loyalty and the courage that had given her the strength to face the dangers of this savage world for-what?
The question brought his pleasant reveries to an abrupt conclusion with a shock. For what? Why, for Jerry Jerome, of course. Old Timer had never seen Jerry Jerome. All that he knew about him was his name, yet he disliked the man with all the fervor of blind jealousy. Suddenly he sat up.
"Are you married?" He shot the words as though from a pistol.
The girl looked at him in surprise. "'Why, no," she replied.
"Are you engaged?"
"Aren't your questions a little personal?" There was just a suggestion of the total frigidity that had marked her intercourse with him that day that he had come upon her in her camp.
Why shouldn't he be personal, he thought. Had he not saved her life; did she not owe him everything? Then came a realization of the caddishness of his attitude. "I am sorry," he said.