O'Grady scratched his head. "I guess you're right, Tom."
"Sure I'm right. You are in charge of the outfit while I'm away. Get it to the Omwamwi Falls, and wait there for me. You'll be able to hire natives there. Send a runner back to Jinja by the southern route with a message for the studio telling what's happened and asking for orders if I don't show up again in thirty days."
"You're not going without breakfast!" demanded Marcus.
"No, I'll eat first," replied Orman.
"How about grub?" shouted O'Grady.
"Comin' right up!" yelled back Shorty from the cook tent.
Orman ate hurriedly, giving final instructions to O'Grady between mouthfuls. When he had finished he got up, shouldered his pack, and picked up his rifle.
"So long, boys!" he said.
They crowded up to shake his hand and wish him luck. Bill West was adjusting the straps of a pack that he had slung to his back. Orman eyed him.
"You can't come, Bill," he said. "This is my job."
"I'm coming along," replied West.
"I won't let you."
"You and who else?" demanded West, and then added in a voice that he tried hard to control, "Rhonda's out there somewhere."
The hard lines of grim stubbornness on Orman's face softened. "Come on then," he said; "I hadn't thought of it that way, Bill."
The two men crossed the camp and picked up the plain trail of the horsemen moving northward.
Chapter Ten
Torture
Stanley Obroski had never before welcomed a dawn with such enthusiasm. The new day might bring him death, but almost anything would be preferable to the hideous discomforts of the long night that had finally dragged its pain-racked length into the past.
His bonds had hurt him; his joints ached from long inaction and from cold; he was hungry, but he suffered more from thirst; vermin crawled over him at will and bit him; they and the cold and the hideous noises of the mourners and the dancers and the drums had combined to deny him sleep.
All these things had sapped his strength, both physical and nervous, leaving him exhausted. He felt like a little child who was afraid and wanted to cry. The urge to cry was almost irresistible. It seemed to offer relief from the maddening tension.
A vague half-conviction forced its way into the muddy chaos of his numb brain—crying would be a sign of fear, and fear meant cowardice! Obroski did not cry. Instead, he found partial relief in swearing. He had never been given to profanity, but even though he lacked practice he acquitted himself nobly.
His efforts awoke Kwamudi who had slept peacefully in this familiar environment. The two men conversed haltingly—mostly about their hunger and thirst.
"Yell for water and food," suggested Obroski, "and keep on yelling until they bring it."
Kwamudi thought that might be a good plan, and put It into execution. After five minutes it brought results. One of the guards outside the hut was awakened. He came in saying things.
In the meantime both the other prisoners had awakened and were sitting up. One of these was nearer the hut doorway than his fellows. He therefore chanced to be the first in the path of the guard, who commenced to belabor him over the head and shoulders with the haft of his spear.
"If you make any more noise like that," said the guard, "I'll cut out the tongues of all of you." Then he went outside and fell asleep again.
"That idea," observed Obroski, "was not so hot."
"What, Bwana?" inquired Kwamudi.
The morning dragged on until almost noon, and still the village slept. It was sleeping off the effects of the previous night's orgy. But at last the women commenced to move about, making preparations for breakfast.
Fully an hour later warriors came to the hut. They dragged and kicked the prisoners into the open and jerked them to their feet after removing the bonds from their ankles; then they led them to a large hut near the center of the village. It was the hut of Rungula, chief of the Bansutos.
Rungula sat on a low stool before the doorway. Behind him were ranged the more important subchiefs; and on the flanks, forming a wide semicircle, were grouped the remainder of the warriors—a thousand savage fighting men from many a far-flung Bansuto village.
From the doorway of the chief's hut several of his wives watched the proceedings, while a brood of children spewed out between their feet into the open sunshine.
Rungula eyed the white prisoner with scowling brows; then he spoke to him.
"What is he saying, Kwamudi?" asked Obroski.
"He is asking what you were doing in his country."
"Tell him that we were only passing through—that we are friends—that he must let us go."
When Kwamudi interpreted Obroski's speech Rungula laughed. "Tell the white man that only a chief who is greater than Rungula can say must to Rungula and that there is no chief greater than Rungula.
"The white man will be killed and so will all his people. He would have been killed yesterday had he not been so big and strong."
"He will not stay strong if he does not have food and water," replied Kwamudi. "None of us will do you any good if you starve us and keep us tied up."
Rungula thought this over and discussed it with some of his lieutenants; then he stood up and approached Obroski. He fingered the white man's shirt, jabbering incessantly. He appeared much impressed also by Obroski's breeches and boots.
"He says for you to take off your clothes, Bwana," said Kwamudi; "he wants them."
"All of them?" inquired Obroski.
"All of them, Bwana."
Exhausted by sleeplessness, discomfort, and terror, Obroski had felt that nothing but torture and death could add to his misery, but now the thought of nakedness awoke him to new horrors. To the civilized man clothing imparts a self-confidence that is stripped away with his garments. But Obroski dared not refuse.
"Tell him I can't take my clothes off with my hands tied behind my back."
When Kwamudi had interpreted this last, Rungula directed that Obroski's hands be released.
The white man removed his shirt and tossed it to Rungula. Then the chief pointed at his boots. Slowly Obroski unlaced and removed them, sitting on the ground to do so. Rungula became intrigued by the white man's socks and jerked these off, himself.
Obroski rose and waited. Rungula felt of his great muscles and jabbered some more with his fellows. Then he called his tallest warrior and stood him beside the prisoner. Obroski towered above the man. The blacks jabbered excitedly.
Rungula touched Obroski's breeches and grunted.
"He want them," said Kwamudi.
"Oh, for Pete's sake, tell him to have a heart," exclaimed Obroski. "Tell him I got to have something to wear."
Kwamudi and the chief spoke together briefly, with many gesticulations.
"Take them off, Bwana," said the former. "There is nothing else you can do. He says he will give you something to wear."
As he unbuttoned his breeches and slipped them off, Obroski was painfully aware of giggling girls and women in the background. But the worst was yet to come—Rungula was greatly delighted by the gay silk shorts that the removal of the breeches revealed.
When these had passed to the ownership of Rungula, Obroski could feel the hot flush beneath the heavy coat of tan he had acquired on the beach at Malibu.
"Tell him to give me something to wear," he begged.
Rungula laughed uproariously when the demand was made known to him; but he turned and called something to the women in his hut, and a moment later a little pickaninny came running out with a very dirty G string which he threw at Obroski's feet.
Shortly after, the prisoners were returned to their hut; but their ankles were not bound again, nor were Obroski's wrists. While he was removing the bonds from the wrists of his fellow prisoners a woman came with food and water for them. Thereafter they were fed with reasonable regularity.