Naomi Madison had raised herself to a sitting position. Her hair was disheveled, her eyes wild. She screamed a second time and then fainted again.
"Shut up!" yelled Orman, frantically, his nerves on edge; but she did not hear him.
"If you'll have our tent set up, I'll get her to bed," suggested Rhonda.
Cars, horsemen, black men afoot were crowding into the clearing. No one wished to be left back there in the forest. All was confusion.
Major White, with the assistance of Bill West, tried to restore order from chaos; and when Pat O'Grady came in, he helped.
At last camp was made. Blacks, whites, and horses were crowded close together, the blacks on one side, the whites on the other.
"If the wind changes," remarked Rhonda Terry, "we're sunk."
"What a mess," groaned Baine, "and I thought this was going to be a lovely outing. I was so afraid I wasn't going to get the part that I was almost sick."
"Now you're sick because you did get it."
"I'll tell the world I am."
"You're goin' to be a whole lot sicker before we get out of this Bansuto country," remarked Bill West.
"You're telling me!"
"How's the Madison, Rhonda?" inquired West.
The girl shrugged. "If she wasn't so darned scared she wouldn't be in such a bad way. That last touch of fever's about passed, but she just lies there and shakes—scared stiff."
"You're a wonder, Rhonda. You don't seem to be afraid of anything."
"Well, I'll be seein' yuh," remarked Baine as he walked toward his own tent.
"Afraid!" exclaimed the girl. "Bill, I never knew what it was to be afraid before. Why, I've got goose-pimples inside."
West shook his head. "You're sure a game kid. No one would ever know you were afraid—you don't show it."
"Perhaps I've just enough brains to know that it wouldn't get me anything. It doesn't even get her sympathy." She nodded her head toward the tent.
West grimaced. "She's a—" he hesitated, searching for adequate invective.
The girl placed her fingers against his lips and shook her head. "Don't say it," she admonished. "She can't help it I'm really sorry for her."
"You're a wonder! And she treats you like scum. Gee, kid, but you've got a great disposition. I don't see how you can be decent to her. It's that dog-gone patronizing air of hers toward you that gets my nanny. The great artiste! Why, you can act circles all around her, kid; and as for looks! You got her backed off the boards."
Rhonda laughed. "That's why she's a famous star and I'm a double. Quit your kidding."
"I'm not kidding. The company's all talking about it. You stole the scenes we shot while she was laid up. Even Orman knows it, and he's got a crush on her."
"You're prejudiced—you don't like her."
"She's nothing in my young life, one way or another. But I do like you, Rhonda. I like you a lot. I—oh, pshaw—you know what I mean."
"What are you doing, Bill—making love to me?"
"I'm trying to."
"Well, as a lover you're a great cameraman—and you'd better stick to your camera. This is not exactly the ideal setting for a love scene. I am surprised that a great cameraman like you should have failed to appreciate that. You'd never shoot a love scene against this background."
"I'm shootin' one now, Rhonda. I love you."
"Cut!" laughed the girl.
Chapter Four
Dissension
Kwamudi, the black headman, stood before Orman. "My people go back," he said; "not stay in Bansuto country and be killed."
"You can't go back," growled Orman. "You signed up for the whole trip. You tell 'em they got to stay; or, by George, I'll—"
"We not sign up to go Bansuto country; we not sign up be killed. You go back, we come along. You stay, we go back, We go daylight." He turned and walked away.
Orman started up angrily from his camp chair, seizing his ever ready whip. "I'll teach you, you black!" he yelled.
White, who had been standing beside him, seized him by the shoulder. "Stop!" His voice was low but his tone peremptory. "You can't do that! I haven't interfered before, but now you've got to listen to me. The lives of all of us are at stake."
"Don't you interfere, you meddlin' old fool," snapped Orman. "This is my show, and I'll run it my way."
"You'd better go soak your head, Tom," said O'Grady; "you're full of hootch. The major's right. We're in a tight hole, and we won't ever get out of it on Scotch." He turned to the Englishman. "You handle things, Major. Don't pay any attention to Tom; he's drunk. Tomorrow he'll be sorry—if he sobers up. We're all back of you. Get us out of the mess if you can. How long would it take to get out of this Bansuto country if we kept on in the direction we want to go?"
Orman appeared stunned by this sudden defection of his assistant. It left him speechless.
White considered O'Grady's question. "If we were not too greatly delayed by the trucks, we could make it in two days," he decided finally.
"And how long would it take us to reach the location we're headed for if we have to go back and go around the Bansuto country?" continued O'Grady.
"We couldn't do it under two weeks," replied the major. "We'd be lucky if we made it in that time. We'd have to go way to the south through a beastly rough country."
"The studio's put a lot of money into this already," said O'Grady, "and we haven't got much of anything to show for it. We'd like to get onto location as quick as possible. Don't you suppose you could persuade Kwamudi to go on? If we turn back, we'll have those beggars on our neck for a day at least. If we go ahead, it will only mean one extra day of them. Offer Kwamudi's bunch extra pay if they'll stick—it'll be a whole lot cheaper for us than wastin' another two weeks."
"Will Mr. Orman authorize the bonus?" asked White.
"He'll do whatever I tell him, or I'll punch his fool head," O'Grady assured him.
Orman had sunk back Into his camp chair and was staring at the ground. He made no comment.
"Very well," said White. "I'll see what I can do. I'll talk to Kwamudi over at my tent, if you'll send one of the boys after him."
White walked over to his tent, and O'Grady sent a black boy to summon the headman; then he turned to Orman. "Go to bed, Tom," he ordered, "and lay off that hootch."
Without a word, Orman got up and went into his tent.
"You put the kibosh on him all right, Pat," remarked Noice, with a grin. "How do you get away with it?"
O'Grady did not reply. His eyes were wandering over the camp, and there was a troubled expression on his usually smiling face. He noted the air of constraint, the tenseness, as though all were waiting for something to happen, they knew not what.
He saw his messenger overhaul Kwamudi and the headman turn back toward White's tent. He saw the natives silently making their little cooking fires. They did not sing or laugh, and when they spoke they spoke in whispers.
The Arabs were squatting in the muk'aad of the sheykh's beyt. They were a dour lot at best; and their appearance was little different tonight than ordinarily, yet he sensed a difference.
Even the whites spoke in lower tones than usual and there was less chaffing. And from all the groups constant glances were cast toward the surrounding forest.
Presently he saw Kwamudi leave White and return to his fellows; then O'Grady walked over to where the Englishman was sitting in a camp chair, puffing on a squat briar. "What luck?" he asked.
"The bonus got him," replied White. "They will go on, but on one other condition."
"What is that?"
"His men are not to be whipped."
"That's fair enough," said O'Grady.
"But how are you going to prevent it?"
"For one thing, I'll throw the whip away; for another, I'll tell Orman we'll all quit him if he doesn't lay off. I can't understand him; he never was like this before. I've worked with him a lot during the last five years."