Killers Kraal By James Anson Buck, A(1)

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Killer's Kraal
1
Killer's Kraal
By James Anson Buck
Fierce and unswerving was the Jungle's allegiance to the wing-footed white goddess--all but Yamo Galagi,
famed earth-shaker of the ancient Kalundas, who bowed to no law but his own insidious ju ju.
I
SHEENA dropped from the branches of a gigantic, spreading baobab and started to climb the rocky krantz,
leaping lightly from boulder to boulder. She was so well balanced that she appeared to flow, without
particularized motion, in whatever direction her energy proposed; and she moved with incredible swiftness,
her bronzed limbs flashing in the sun, her golden hair streaming behind.
On the top of the hill she unslung her bow and quiver, looking around for a place to rest. She selected a spot
where a mimosa grew out of a grassy cleft and, with feline grace, stretched out flat on her belly in the black
 By James Anson Buck
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pool of its shadow. With her chin cupped in her hand she looked toward the first bend in the river.
The jungle was the same, standing dark and endless across the river. The river was the same, sweeping its
mass of reddish waters westward toward Sao Vincente and its final tryst with the Father-of-all-Rivers, as her
people, the Abamas, called the Congo. Beyond the green expanse of the jungle Tula Mbogo, the Buffalo
Mountain, lifted its horned peaks, and a cushion of white clouds made of it a seat for a lazy god. Truly, the
jungle and the river were as they must have been for a thousand years. Only people changed, outwardly and
inwardly, and these subtle changes made them see things differently, even act foolishly.
It must be so. If it were otherwise she would not be here, daydreaming beside the river. Why, when the drums
had told her that Rick Thorne was on the river, had she come so far to meet him? Why had she not remained
in her forest sanctuary and sent Ekoti, the Abama chief, to turn him back? Such had been her first impulse but
she had not obeyed it. Why not?
Frowning, she communed with herself and soon found an answer less disturbing in its implications. She was
here because she knew that he would not turn back at Ekoti's bidding. He was a reckless fool. He might even
venture to set foot on the forbidden trail to her sanctuary, and pursue his folly to his death. Oh yes, it was
because she felt sorry for him. It was a great pity that one so young and brave should waste his manhood in
searching and straining for fruit beyond his reach. Somehow he had to be made to understand that, thought her
skin was white, she belonged to the jungle and the Abamas; while he belonged to the mysterious world of
white men which she had never seen, and had no wish to see. He must be made to understand that she was not
for him. Her kiss was the kiss of death for any man who dared to defy the strong taboo of her foster-mother,
Ebid Ela--a taboo made inviolate by a bristling boma of Abama spears.
So, here she was, listening to the drums--a pulsing now near and now far, but always articulate, incredibly
accurate. But nothing now, just the gossip of the jungle. She let her mind idle. Her mood changed again, and
her thoughts became less definite and merged with the blue haze. Across her line of vision birds flew with
tails like a burst of flame; others, over-balanced by huge red beaks, flapped awkwardly from tree to tree. A
tall, grey heron stood in the shallows and, when gorged, rose heavily to light on a bough above her head--only
to rise again with a squawk of panic as Chim, her pet ape, sleeping on the bough, suddenly awoke to scold the
intruder.
As the blue-toned view faded, and the sun melted into the clouds and brought them to a glow, the distance
became more intimate, more revealing. She was vaguely aware of the tension building up within her.
It stirred up memories of her last meeting with Rick and suddenly she was re-living it all again, every work,
every gesture as if it had happened yesterday. And with the vision came poignant yearnings which half
expressed themselves to her awareness, and then were overwhelmed by the strong excitement which had been
the core and magic of that hour.
And suddenly she was afraid. For her there was danger in this meeting. He would not listen to her. No! He
would look at her with that disconcerting gleam in his eyes. He would smile that slow slow smile, and he
would dare--. She would not stay! She would send Ekoti. She sprang to her feet.
And just then the booming notes of a drum broke the silence--"Boom-tack-tack-boom!
Tack-tack-boom-tack--"
The Jungle Queen stood tense, listening, her expression changing rapidly from concentrated interest to
annoyance, and finally to settle into one of profound puzzlement. She never failed to locate a drum by its tone,
but the voice of this one was as elusive as the code was strange to her ears.
"Boom-tack-boom-tack-boom-tack--" The indecipherable message came from everywhere at once--far off,
By James Anson Buck
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diffused, a rippling cascade of sound seeming to spill out of the clouds immediately above her head, and yet
each note distinct.
And then silence, with not a twig or a leaf in motion. For at sundown the wind dies and a moment of absolute
quiet comes to the jungle. The reed-buck stands spellbound beside a pool. The cruel claws of the leopard are
sheathed, its spring arrested as if by magic. The song of the birds is hushed, and the melody of running water
swells like an organ in fortissimo, and a paen rises to the high mountain-seats of pagan gods.
No village drum answered the mysterious call. It was as if the booming notes had filled the jungle with evil
tidings, shocking all to awful silence. The effect of all this was so strong that the Jungle Queen stood utterly
motionless, her gaze fixed upon the Buffalo Mountain, her sudden impulse to flight forgotten.
Slowly the sky lost its blood-red glow. A thunder-mutter rolled behind the mountains. A cool breeze came
sliding down their slopes, and the tall reeds along the river banks whispered and quivered in sudden
trepidation.. And it seemed to Sheena, as the area of shadows deepened, that the mountains became phantom
shapes whose aspect took on something of aloof secretiveness, and something of menace.
A whimper from Chim broke the spell. She looked up and spoke softly to him, as was her habit:
"So, you do not like this strange voice in the jungle, little one?" Chim grimaced at her, and swung to a higher
branch. But she clapped her hands, calling him down. "Come!" she called. "We must cross the river before
dark."
A short distance below the krantz the river entered a gorge, roared for a mile between rocky pinnacles, and
came out to spill, feather-white, over steep terraces of rock. A native tie-tie bridge, as delicate-looking as a
spider's web, spanned the gorge at its narrowest point. Sheena knew that Rick would camp below the rapids.
Also she knew that he would abandon his heavy dugout there and push on to the first Abama village above the
gorge to trade for another canoe. It occured to her that she could block his further progress into Abama
country by simply telling the villagers not to trade with him. And the more she thought of this new idea the
better she liked it. She could avoid meeting him face to face, and yet, if he attempted to force a path through
the jungle on foot, she could put all manner of obstacles in his way. Truly, she thought with an amused smile,
such a trek would test the strength of his desire. Oh yes, he would soon come to cursing the day that he had set
eyes upon Sheena, Golden Goddess of all the Jungles.
As sure footed as an ape she started across the lagging bridge. She was swaying fifty feet above the rapids,
when, faintly above the roar of the water, she heard a shot, then another, and another. The echos were still
bouncing from one side of the gorge to the other, when she reached the opposite shore, and went flashing
down the steep trail like a golden streak.
Around the first limit of sight she saw the peak of a tent, gleaming white amid the low bush of a small
clearing. Without pausing in her stride she leaped for the low branch of a tree. Then, with the effortless ease
of a monkey, she went through the close-packed foliage which surrounded the clearing, sometimes leaping
from the branch of one tree to another, sometimes swinging through the air on vines as thick as her wrist and
as tough as a wire cable. She heard shouts as she came to stand on the gnarled limb of an ajap tree. Her lofty
perch gave her a clear view of the camp, and her eyes took in the scene below in one swift, all-inclusive
glance.
Rick Thorne was fighting for his life, beating off the attack of a half-dozen natives who kept circling around
him and rushing at him, now one, now another, to thrust with a spear, or to strike with a heavy knobkerry. He
was armed only with a club, which he evidently had wrested from one of his attackers, and he was fighting
with the last-ditch ferocity of a wounded leopard. But they were slowly forcing him back to the high river
bank. There were three tents in the clearing, but none of his servants were there to help him. Soon he would be
By James Anson Buck
4
driven over the bank to plunge to his death on the rocks below.
The Jungle Queen unslung her bow. But even as she notched the arrow she saw Rick go down under a terrific
blow from a club that smashed through his pith-helmet with a dull, sickening sound. The striker, a squat,
powerful-looking fellow with a queer headdress of turcan feathers, uttered a yell of triumph, and whirled his
club around his head to strike again. And then Sheena's bow twanged, and the strange warrior fell across
Rick's body with the arrow between his shoulders up to the feather. His companions, yelping and rushing in
for the kill like wild dogs of the veldt, were suddenly silent and motionless, like wooden men holding
weapons poised to strike. There was a moment of gaping wonderment, then the deadly twang of the bow
again, and another of their number gasped, clutched at the shaft in his breast, staggered back and fell over the
bank with a long-drawn shriek.
For a short time the others stood, half crouched, looking around with their mouths agape, their eyes roiling
like white balls in their sockets. They could see no enemy; and, as winged death out of nowhere struck a third
man, they made a frantic rush for the cover of the bush.
Wise in the ways of the forest people, Sheena did not come down at once. Long ago she had learned that when
danger stalks in the jungle no creature is ever caught off guard twice. She waited until she saw a dugout shoot
out from the river bank and go lurching dangerously downstream to the uneven paddle strokes of its
panic-stricken occupants. Then she dropped to the ground and ran across the clearing to Rick. She dragged the
dead native from his back with an amazing display of strength, then rolled Rick over and fell to her knees
beside him.
II
HIS DARK curls were matted with blood, his breathing so faint that at first she was sure that he could not live
for more than a few minutes. But when she put her ear to his breast and heard the strong beat of his heart, she
knew that his helmet had absorbed the shock of the blow, and that his skull was not broken. She deemed it
safe to move him, and soon had him under the mosquito netting on his canvas cot.
Leaving Chim to watch Rick she went to gather the leaves of the baobab, the root of the mebila and other
herbs. Back in the camp, she made a paste of these as Ebid Ela had taught her to do, omitting only the
incantations the old woman had been wont to mutter over her bubbling pots. Rick did not open his eyes as she
cleansed and poulticed his wound. When she had finished it was dark, and she went out to look around the
deserted camp.
The half-cooked food in the pots, and the fact that everything had been left behind, told her that Rick's
servants had left in a great hurry, probably at the first sight of trouble; and, since they were sure to be men
from one of the coast villages, that did not surprise her. She shared the Abamas' contempt for the cowardly
coast people. Uppermost in her mind was the question: Who were these warriors who had dared to attack a
safari on her side of the Kwango? Whence had they come? Certainly they were not neighbors of the Abamas.
They had looked like Kalundas, a once powerful people who lived beyond the mountains, but whose stock
was now debased by cross-breeding with the dwarf-people who ranged the jungles between the Kwango and
the Buffalo Mountain. But she could not be sure of this, because only once had she ventured into the Kalunda
and seen one of their villages, and that from a great distance. Their huts, she remembered, were not placed in a
circle as was the style among the Bantu-speaking people, but in long, straight aisles, and it was said that they
were maneaters, sometimes even eating their own dead. For this reason the Abamas would have nothing to do
with them.
A snarl and a sudden flurry of sound out in the bush sent a tingle down her spine. Jackals, with the smell of
the dead in their nostrils. She did not want them howling around the camp all night, and went to roll the
bodies over the bank and into the river. She was moving back to Rick's tent when her eye was caught by the
By James Anson Buck
5
glint of steel amid the grass. She bent to pick up a knife which evidently had been dropped by one of the men
who had attacked the camp. The blade was double-edged, curved, and twice the span of her hand in length. It
had an ivory handle, most cunningly carved, and she took it over to the fire to examine it more closely.
Figures were carved on the handle, men dressed like Rick, but with funny, thin legs. And there was a strange,
prancing buck, with a beard like a goat and a single horn sticking straight out from between its eyes. And
something that looked like a canoe with tall trees growing out of it--strange trees, becatise all the branches
grew across the trunks without a twist or a downward bend. She thought it was strange that one who could
carve men with such skill should make such a poor likeness of a tree. Any child could do better. But it was a
good knife.
She was sliding it into the band of leopard skin about her waist when Rick called her by name. But when she
ran into the tent and bent over him, he did not know her. He kept shouting her name, and then tried to get up,
and it took all her strength to hold him down. She spoke softly to him. Her voice seemed to reach into the
darkened chambers of his mind; for he ceased to struggle and lay quiet again.
She did not know what else she could do to help him, and she rose and looked down on his handsome face
with troubled eyes. Her foster-mother would have said that he was possessed of a devil, and she would have
made a magic to cast it out. But long ago something deep in Sheena's nature had rebelled against the darker
practices of her people. She had faith in their simple remedies, because she had seen them heal; but she had no
faith in witchcraft, because too often she had seen it fail. And besides, Ebid Ela had taught her many a
fraudulent trick.
On the following day at sundown, as before, she heard the drum again; but she was too concerned over Rick
to be more than vaguely aware of it. It spoke again on the third day, and again the Abama villages gave ear in
silence. No answering call, no clue to the message the great drum cried out to the rim of the horizon. And it
flashed into her mind that the drummer must be using some fetish-code, known only to the witchdoctors.
Minutes later when she went into the tent it was to look deeply into the gray eyes of Rick. They were very
bright, and it was not only the effects of his fever that made them so; for he lifted himself on his elbow, and
the slow smile came to his lips.
"It's been a long trek--mbali sana, sana!" he said in Swahili. "But I did fight my way through all those black
devils. I did get through to you."
"Truly," she said softly. "It was a hard fight, and now you must rest."
He passed his hand over his eyes. "A little dizzy yet," he muttered; then: "You did not send your Abamas
against me, Sheena?"
"No--no!" She was startled into a too vehement denial.
"Ah" His eyes probed her. "But you knew I was coming, the drums would tell you that You came to meet me,
Sheena!"
"I have not said so! And you must go back to the coast when you are well again."
He made as if to rise, then fell back with a sharp intake of breath. In a moment she was on her knees beside
him. "Be still! Be still!" she pleaded. His hand wound her hair into a golden twist, and drew her lips down to
his. His weakness was his strength. She dared not pull away for fear of hurting him, and it was neither
unpleasant, nor dangerous to yield just for a moment when there was no strength in him.
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