Yesterday's Promise (28 page)

Rogan gave orders to the Bantu workers to start breaking camp now. He went to Mornay, then to Captain Retford to tell him to post a guard, and lastly to Derwent.

“Rhodes's men won't like this none, Mr. Rogan. They're dog-tired, and Mr. Thompson looked nervous and went to sleep using his flask again. It's going to be trouble awakening him.”

“Then pour water on him if all else fails. He'll find that better than facing an army of bloodthirsty impis ready to hack him to pieces.”

Rogan explained to Mornay what Jube had said.

Mornay groaned. “Lotshe? A grief. He is Lobengula's principal induna. He is one of the more noble of the indunas.”

Derwent gulped. “We're sitting on a powder keg, all right. Why, it's a hundred miles or more back to the Limpopo. If the Ndebele are anything like their cousins the Zulu, they can cover more miles trotting than a man in a wagon.”

Mornay's swarthy features showed his knowledge of the imminent danger surrounding them. He glanced quietly about the trees. “Needless to say,
mes amis
, this will not be a place we want to be once the sun sets behind the hills. We have, maybe, two hours.”

“I'll awaken Peter,” Rogan said. “Bring coffee to Thompson, will you, Derwent? Give him a gallon of it if necessary.”

“The news will scare him out of his wits,” Derwent said. “After what happened to his father. Got goose shivers running up my back just thinking about it. The Bantu said something wicked was on the wind when they heard how I was hit last night. Then I found that giant spider in the cooking things this morning. Never saw such a big one. Had legs as long as pencils. The Bantu swore it was a bad omen. Spirits from angry dead indunas are prowling tonight. They don't like us.”

Rogan grinned and shoved his shoulder. “Don't tell me you're back at Rookswood locked inside the vault with Henry Chantry's ghost?”

Derwent looked at him, clearly surprised, as though suddenly remembering Rogan's boyhood pranks. Then he, too, grinned and looked sheepish. “I'd rather be back at Rookswood spooked by that ghost of yours than facing thousands of impis with assegais.”

“I'll get Peter.” Rogan walked away, leaving Derwent to rouse Thompson.

The mission to Bulawayo had ended as Rhodes's delegation had hoped, with a concession to build the road, but at what cost? How would this trek into Mashonaland end? With wealth and satisfaction? A new country for the British Empire called Rhodesia? Or would blood and tragedy border the crooked road leading to the elusive gold?

Over a week had passed since the BSA delegation left Bulawayo. Darinda was reading in her private coach and taking tea when the sound of a rapid exchange between the Bantu and Grandfather Julien alerted her.

“They not far away, Baasa! They all come safe.”

She tossed her book aside, and her heart began thumping with nervous excitement. Soon she would know if Parnell had been able to get the map.

She quickly dressed in her tan riding habit with shiny copper buttons and smoothed her hair back, this time leaving it loose and tying it with a copper-colored ribbon. She hurried to leave her coach and saw the riders entering the camp.

She waited beneath a shade tree, scanning each rider with indifference until her gaze fell on Parnell. His expression would tell—

Uncertain footsteps approached from behind her, and she glanced around to see Arcilla, looking toward the horsemen as they dismounted and walked their mounts into camp to keep the dust down. Several small Bantu boys ran to lead the horses to water, fodder, and grooming.

“Are they all safe?” Arcilla questioned.

“Of course.” Darinda felt impatient. Arcilla had been walking about the camp with the delicacy of a tenderfoot this past week, jumping at every new sound from animal or insect.

Grandfather had come out of the large meeting tent and waited in the shade of an awning.

Dr. Jameson and Frank Thompson walked toward him. Jameson was laughing, an obvious evidence to her of his success with Lobengula. Peter walked to meet Arcilla. Darinda didn't care to see whether they embraced or not. Knowing Peter, he would embrace his wife to make the appropriate impression. Arcilla's tinkling voice rang out, convincing her that Peter had proven himself the adoring husband.

Darinda walked away so she wouldn't need to listen to Arcilla's chatter, concentrating instead on Parnell. He saw her and stopped where he was. His face, she noted, wore a mask of weariness but nothing more. The first flush of disappointment assailed her. He had failed to get the map. She could see it in his stance, the way he did not come immediately toward her.

She felt frustration, then anger. Must he always fail her?

She walked toward him across the yard, so intense on watching him that she ignored her steps—steps too close to some shady rocks and boulders.

A faint movement among the rocks brought a prickle of fear, and she halted. Shock went through her spine when she saw what had caught the corner of her eye. There, not more than six feet from her, a snake coiled and raised itself to an upright striking position while weaving slightly. It was perhaps four feet long, slender, a light gray-brown with black scale edgings. Across its broadly spread neck, she saw a series of irregular dark bands—the deadly spitting cobra.

Darinda froze, while all about her the exchange of talk and laughter mocked the danger she was in. No one noticed her dilemma. At this moment it seemed no one even knew she existed. And she was not armed…but even if had she her pistol, she knew she couldn't draw it. One threatening move, and the cobra would strike, spitting its venom accurately to a distance of eight feet, venom that was ejected straight out of the front of the fangs toward the face of the intruder. Even a drop was
extremely painful and injurious if it struck the eyes. She'd once had her favorite guard dog go blind from such an attack.

Parnell
. Yes, Parnell had been watching her, and he was armed!

“Parnell,” she whispered. Her throat went dry, and the fear sent a trickle of perspiration down her temple. “Do something…” She doubted he could possibly hear her whisper, but he should realize that since she'd stopped dead in her tracks, something was very wrong.

But the moments ticked by, trapping her in fear. She could try to back away an inch at a time, try to fling her hands over her face, but doing all that while the cobra was so close—

She shifted her eyes from the cobra toward Parnell. Why didn't he lift his rifle? Why didn't he save her? He stood staring at the cobra, white faced with a dazed, glassy look in his eyes.

Then she heard a gunshot, and the cobra's head splattered, but not before she felt venom squirt against her face, the warm fluid running down her skin.

Darinda heard Arcilla cry out as she ran across the dusty yard in her direction. Darinda looked and saw that it was Captain Retford who had fired the bullet. In an instant he was at her side, taking her elbow and pulling her quickly toward the barrels of drinking water under the tree.

“Close your eyes and wash it all off,” he ordered. “You'll be all right. Just as long as you've no open scratches. That's right, don't get any in your eyes. All right, now?”

Her hands shaking and dripping with the warm water, the front of her riding habit wet, she leaned against the barrels, breathing hard, and looked up at him. Darinda was surprised to see amusement in the flinty blue eyes that gazed back, not alarm, not even sympathy. His white teeth gleamed against his tanned skin as he smiled, the dust of travel and sweat streaking his handsomely rugged face. The wind stirred the hair across his forehead, hair the color of ripened wheat.

He was amused!

“Next time, Miss Bley, watch where you walk—and keep away from the rocks and tall grass.” His smile deepened as he pointed his chin
back over his shoulder. “I won't always be around to protect you when your future husband freezes.”

She could have spat her own venom into his eyes, but she was speechless from shock.

He was still smiling as he lifted his dusty hat an inch from his head and set it back down again. “Good day, Miss.”

Trembling from both fear and rage, she leaned against the tree and watched him walk away toward the horses.

She was still beside the water when the others came rushing up.

“Darinda, you're all right, my dear?” Julien asked, his voice tremulous with emotion. He put an arm around her shoulders and drew her toward him.

She nodded. “I'm not hurt, Grandfather. It was my fault. I really knew better than to walk near the rocks like that.”

“A cobra…” Arcilla shuddered. “You were brave, Darinda. I should have screamed and screamed.”

“And been struck with venom more than once,” Darinda managed. “It's silly to scream. What good does it do?”

Arcilla lifted her dimpled chin defensively and stepped closer to Peter. “I wouldn't be able to keep myself from screaming. After all, I've never looked into the eyes of a cobra before. It…it was horrid!” she shivered.

“Those filthy rocks.” Julien's anxious voice rose with anger, and he turned sharply toward the Bantu. Several of the younger children and boys huddled together some feet away, looking on and whispering among themselves.

“Omens?” shouted Julien fiercely, turning on them. “You mention omens and spells?”

One of them, the bigger boy of perhaps thirteen, nodded vigorously. “The baasa's daughter was cursed. Someone put a curse on her, and so the spitting cobra waited for her in the rocks.”

The look on Julien's face alarmed Darinda. Did she actually see
fear
of witchcraft?

“Who is to blame for this?” Julien demanded. “Didn't any of you attempt to clear this area of rocks and tall grasses?”

“But Baasa, we—”

“But nothing, you useless brats! I should have you all flogged for laziness. My granddaughter could have died because of you,” he spat in anger.

“Those are my Bantu, Monsieur Julien,” came Mornay's languid voice. He had just walked up with Derwent Brown.

Darinda noticed that Derwent wore a bandage on his head. His face looked pale, as though he'd been sick, and he seemed thinner. What had happened to him? She had always liked the rusty-headed young man because he showed her honest respect, not the feigned kind she was accustomed to from other men.

“They are my children, monsieur,” Mornay said in a voice that bespoke trouble. “No one flogs my little ones as long as I am alive.”

Darinda felt the chilling silence squeeze them in.

“I'll handle this, Julien,” Peter said grimly. “Maybe you'd better get Darinda inside. She's not looking well. That was quite a shock. Arcilla, my dear, will you help your cousin to the large tent?”

“I don't need her help, thank you,” Darinda said. She turned to Julien, who stood there stone-faced, glaring at Mornay. “Grandfather?” She laid her hand on his arm, feeling the tension in his muscles. “I want to go inside and change. It's frightfully hot out here. Help me to my wagon, will you? It's silly I know, but that scare has made my knees weak.”

Julien shifted his attention to her, and together they turned toward the tents and coaches.

As they walked away, Darinda looked over her shoulder and saw Parnell standing by the rocks staring down at the dead cobra, as though mesmerized. A moment later his face turned pale white again, and he dashed behind the rocks to be sick.

She was feeling sick herself, but now it was over more than the ugly episode with the spitting cobra.

Arcilla followed Peter into their day tent, which was large enough to make a tolerable living space. There were horsehair mattresses, a long trestle table, and comfortable camp chairs, but she loathed it all just the same. How she longed for the comforts of Rookswood, where her every need was abundantly cared for.

“This morning I found a spider walking across the rug,” she said, “the biggest one I've ever seen in my life. It was all black and fuzzy with double-jointed legs. I screamed, and one of the Bantu boys came and removed it. Oh, Peter, you're not listening again.”