"Then why didn't he stay after you came in?" Orman thought he had her there.
"I saw you coming, and I told him to beat it."
"Well, you got to cut it out," snapped Orman. "There's to be no more men in this tent—do your visiting outside."
"That suits me," said Rhonda. "Good-night."
As Orman departed, the Madison sank back on her cot trembling. "Phew!" she whispered after she thought the man was out of hearing. "That was a close shave." She did not thank Rhonda. Her selfish egotism accepted any service as her rightful due.
"Listen," said the other girl. "I'm hired to double for you in pictures, not in your love affairs. After this, watch your step."
Orman saw a light in the tent occupied by West and one of the other cameramen. He walked over to it and went in. West was undressing. "Hello, Tom!" he said. "What brings you around? Anything wrong?"
"There ain't now, but there was. I just run that dirty Polack out of the girls' tent. He was over there with Rhonda."
West paled. "I don't believe it."
"You callin' me a liar?" demanded Orman.
"Yes, you and any one else who says that."
Orman shrugged. "Well, she told me so herself—said she asked him over and made him scram when she saw me coming. That stuff's got to stop, and I told her so. I told the Polack too—the damn pansy."
Then he lurched out and headed for his own tent.
Bill West lay awake until almost morning.
Chapter Five
Death
While the camp slept, a bronzed white giant, naked but for a loin cloth, surveyed it—sometimes from the branches of overhanging trees, again from the ground inside the circle of the sentries. Then, he moved among the tents of the whites and the shelters of the natives as soundlessly as a shadow. He saw everything, he heard much. With the coming of dawn he melted away into the mist that enveloped the forest.
It was long before dawn that the camp commenced to stir. Major White had snatched a few hours sleep after midnight. He was up early routing out the cooks, getting the whites up so that their tents could be struck for an early start, directing the packing and loading by Kwamudi's men. It was then that he learned that fully twenty-five of the porters had deserted during the night.
He questioned the sentries, but none had seen any one leave the camp during the night. He knew that some of them lied. When Orman came out of his tent he told him what had happened.
The director shrugged. "We still got more than we need anyway."
"If we have any more trouble with the Bansutos today, we'll have more desertions tonight," White warned. "They may all leave in spite of Kwamudi, and if we're left in this country without porters I wouldn't give a fig for our chances of ever getting out.
"I still think, Mr. Orman, that the sensible thing would be to turn back and make a detour. Our situation is extremely grave."
"Well, turn back if you want to, and take the rats with you," growled Orman. "I'm going on with the trucks and the company." He turned and walked away.
The whites were gathering at the mess table—a long table that accommodated them all. In the dim light of the coming dawn and the mist rising from the ground, figures at a little distance appeared spectral, and the illusion was accentuated by the silence of the company. Every one was cold and sleepy. They were apprehensive too of what the day held for them. Memory of the black soldiers, pierced by poisoned arrows, writhing on the ground was too starkly present in every mind.
Hot coffee finally thawed them out a bit. It was Pat O'Grady who thawed first. "Good morning, dear teacher, good morning to you," he sang in an attempt to reach a childish treble.
"Ain't we got fun!" exclaimed Rhonda Terry. She glanced down the table and saw Bill West. She wondered a little, because he had always sat beside her before. She tried to catch his eye and smile at him, but he did not look in her direction—he seemed to be trying to avoid her glance.
"Let us eat and drink and be merry; for tomorrow we die," misquoted Gordon Z. Marcus.
"That's not funny," said Baine.
"On second thought I quite agree with you," said Marcus. "I loosed a careless shaft at humor and hit truth "
"Right between the eyes," said Clarence Noice.
"Some of us may not have to wait until tomorrow," offered Obroski; "some of us may get it today." His voice sounded husky.
"Can that line of chatter!" snapped Orman. "If you're cared, keep it to yourself."
"I'm not scared," said Obroski.
"The Lion Man scared? Don't be foolish." Baine winked at Marcus. "I tell you, Tom, what we ought to do now that we're in this bad country. It's funny no one thought of it before."
"What's that?" asked Orman.
"We ought to send the Lion Man out ahead to clear the way for the rest of us; he'd just grab these Bansutos and break 'em in two if they got funny."
"That's not a bad idea," replied Orman grimly. "How about it, Obroski?"
Obroski grinned weakly. "I'd like to have the author of that story here and send him out," he said.
"Some of those porters had good sense anyway," volunteered a truck driver at the foot of the table.
"How come?" asked a neighbor.
"Hadn't you heard? About twenty-five or thirty of 'em pulled their freight out of here—they beat it back for home."
"Those bimbos must know," said another; "this is their country."
"That's what we ought to do," growled another—"get out of here and go back."
"Shut up!" snapped Orman. "You guys make me sick. Who ever picked this outfit for me must have done it in a pansy bed."
Naomi Madison was sitting next to him. She turned her frightened eyes up to him. "Did some of the blacks really run away last night?" she asked.
"For Pete's sake, don't you start in too!" he exclaimed; then he got up and stamped away from the table.
At the foot of the table some one muttered something that sounded like that epithet which should always be accompanied with a smile; but it was not.
By ones and twos they finished their breakfasts and went about their duties. They went in silence without the customary joking that had marked the earlier days of the expedition.
Rhonda and Naomi gathered up the hand baggage that they always took in the car with them and walked over to the machine. Baine was at the wheel warming up the motor. Gordon Z. Marcus was stowing a make-up case in the front of the car.
"Where's Bill?" asked Rhonda.
"He's going with the camera truck today," explained Baine.
"That's funny," commented Rhonda. It suddenly occurred to her that he was avoiding her, and she wondered why. She tried to recall anything that she had said or done that might have offended him, but she could not. She felt strangely sad.
Some of the trucks had commenced to move toward the river. The Arabs and a detachment of askaris had already crossed to guard the passage of the trucks.
"They're going to send the generator truck across first," explained Baine. "If they get her across, the rest will be easy. If they don't, we'll have to turn back."
"I hope it gets stuck so fast they never get it out," said the Madison.
The crossing of the river, which Major White had anticipated with many misgivings, was accomplished with ease; for the bottom was rocky and the banks sloping and firm. There was no sign of the Bansutos, and no attack was made on the column as it wound its way into the forest ahead.
All morning they moved on with comparative ease, retarded only by the ordinary delays consequent upon clearing a road for the big trucks where trees had to be thinned. The underbrush they bore down beneath them, flattening it out into a good road for the lighter cars that followed.
Spirits became lighter as the day progressed without revealing any sign of the Bansutos. There was a noticeable relaxation. Conversation increased and occasionally a laugh was heard. Even the blacks seemed to be returning to normal. Perhaps they had noticed that Orman no longer carried his whip, nor did he take any part in the direction of the march.