“Strike, strike here! In any case I won’t let you out of here other than over my dead body! Kill me and then go!” shouted the infuriated Cavius.
This was the first time Pandion had seen his morose and wise friend in such a state. He turned away, groaned helplessly, staggered over to his own bed, fell on it and turned his back on his comrades.
Cavius was breathing heavily as he wiped the sweat from his brow and returned the knife to its place.
“We must watch him all night and leave as quickly as possible,” he said to Kidogo, who was quite frightened. “At dawn you’ll warn all the others to make ready.”
Pandion heard the Etruscan’s words quite clearly and realized that they meant him to have no opportunity of seeing Iruma. lie felt that he was being asphyxiated, there was an almost physical sense of being in a confined space. He struggled with himself, mustering all his will power, and gradually the violent despair, that was almost madness, gave way to calm sorrow.
Once more the hot plains of Africa opened up before twenty-seven stubborn men who were determined to reach their homes, come what might.
After the rains the twelve-cubit-high elephant grass had formed ears and stood so dense that even the huge elephant was hidden in its stiflingly hot thickets. Kidogo explained to Pandion why they must hurry: soon the period of the rains would be over and the plain would begin to burn up and would turn into a lifeless, ash-covered expanse where they would find no food.
Pandion agreed in silence. His sorrow was still too fresh. Once amongst those to whom he owed so much, he felt that the bonds of male friendship were again binding him, that the urge to go forward, the thirst of battle, were growing in him and that the desire to reach Oeniadae as soon as possible was becoming more powerful.
Despite his great longing for Iruma, it was only now that Pandion felt his former self, stepping out firmly on the chosen path without further alarm. The artist’s former hungry attention to the forms and colours of nature had returned, and he was filled with the wish to create.
The twenty-seven strong men were armed with spears, assegais, knives and a few shields. The former slaves, tried and tested in battle and misfortunes, constituted a considerable force and need have no fear of the numerous wild beasts.
The road through the high elephant grass was beset with dangers. They were forced to march in single file, keeping to the narrow paths made by animals and seeing before them nothing but the back of the man in front. Danger threatened them every minute in the high walls of rustling grass to the right and left. At any moment the grass might part and make way for a lurking lion, an infuriated rhinoceros or the huge towering body of a malicious lone elephant. The grass separated the men; it was worse for those who brought up the rear since they could be attacked by an animal that had been aroused by those in front. In the mornings the grass was covered with a cold dew and a glittering haze of water dust hung over men whose bodies were wet as though from rain. At the hottest part of the day the dew disappeared completely and dry dust, falling from the tops of the grass-stalks, irritated their throats; it was stifling in the narrow corridors through which they passed.
On the third day of the march a leopard pounced on the bold Libyan Takel who brought up the rear; it was only by a lucky chance that the young man escaped with a few scratches. Next day a huge clark-maned lion attacked Pandion and his Negro neighbour. The spear given him by Iruma’s father stopped the lion; his companion, picking up the shield Pandion had dropped in his surprise at the sudden attack, fell on the lion from behind. The animal turned to face its new attacker and fell, pierced by three spears. Kidogo came running up, panting with excitement, when all was over and the warriors, breathing heavily, were wiping the already coagulating blood of the lion from their spears. The beast lay almost imperceptible in the matted brown grass. The others all came running up and loud shouts rose over the scene of the conflict. All the former slaves were trying to convince two squat Negroes, Dhlomo and Mpafu, who, together with Kidogo, were leading the party, that before much longer the beasts would kill somebody. They had to find a way round the tall grass of the plain. The guides did not think of contradicting them. The party turned due south and by evening approached a long strip of forest that led in the required direction. Pandion was already acquainted with this type of forest, a green, vaulted corridor over the narrow stream of a plains river. Such forest galleries cut across the plains in various directions, following the course of the rivers.
The travellers were lucky: there were no thorn-bushes under the trees and no lianas to make impenetrable barriers between the trees; the party was able to make good time winding its way amongst the trees to avoid their giant roots. The rustling of the grass in the stifling atmosphere of glaring sunlight gave way to profound silence and cool semi-darkness. The forest stretched for a long way. Day after day the party marched under trees, going out occasionally into the grass for game or climbing the lower trees on the verge of the forest to check the direction they were taking.
Although it was easier and less dangerous under cover of the trees, Pandion was oppressed by the darkness and silence of the mysterious forest. Memories of his meeting with Iruma returned to him. He felt that he had suffered an enormous loss, and his sorrow veiled the whole world in a grey haze; the unknown future was as gloomy and silent and dark as the forest they were travelling through.
Pandion felt that the dark road through the monotonous colonnade of huge trees, the alternate patches of darkness and sunlight, the alternate depressions and hillocks, must be endless. It led into the unknown distance, striking still deeper into the heart of a strange, alien land, where everything was unfamiliar, and only a group of faithful friends saved him from certain death.
The sea, towards which he was hurrying, had seemed near and easily attainable when he had been a captive, but now seemed immeasurably far away, separated from him by thousands of obstacles, by months of difficult journeying. The sea had taken him from Iruma and was itself unattainable…
The forest path led the travellers into a swamp, that stretched away to the horizon on all sides, hidden in the distance by the green gloom of excessive humidity and in the mornings encircled by a low blanket of white mist. Flocks of white egrets sailed over the sea of rushes.
Cavius, Pandion and the Libyans, puzzled by this great barrier, gazed in perplexity at the bright green thicket of swamp plants with patches of water that seemed to be burning in the sun. The guides were exchanging satisfied glances — they were on the right road, their fortnight’s journey had not been made in vain.
Next day the whole party set about binding the light porous ambag* rushes, whose angular stalks grew ten cubits high, into rafts. (Ambag — Herminera elaphroxylon, a water reed that grows to well over 20 feet in height.)After that they sailed past dense jungles of brush-headed papyrus grass, winding their way between floating islands of grass piled up with reddish-brown masses of dried, broken reeds. There were two or three men on each raft who cautiously punted them along with long poles that plunged rhythmically into the silt of the swamp.
The stinking, dark water seemed like thick oil. Bubbles of marsh-gas rose to the surface where the poles dug into the bottom and sticky mildew made a rusty-brown, lacy border along the green walls of the reeds. Not a dry place was to be seen all round them, the humid heat was exhausting and a merciless sun beat down on their perspiring bodies. In the evening myriads of midges came to torment them. It was the greatest good fortune to find a hillock that was still above water where they <could light a smoking fire to drive off the insects. When the wind began to blow, life was made easier; the wind blew away the insects and enabled the men to sleep after days and nights of toil. The reeds bowed before the wind and wave after wave passed over that sea of green.