Into the fire. They never had a chance. One minute they were sleeping

and the next you were ripping them with bullets the way the hounds

ripped that fox. They didn't have a chance. But, Duff, it wasn't meant

to be a contest. Yes, I know, my father explained that to me. It's a

ritual, a sacred rite to Diana. He should have explained it to the fox

as well Sean was getting angry now. We came out here to hunt ivory, and

that's what I'm doing. Tell me that you killed those elephant only for

their teeth, laddie, and I'll call you a liar. You loved it. Christ!

You should have seen your face and the face of your damned heathen. All

right! I like hunting and the only other man I ever met who didn't was

a coward, Sean shouted at him.

Duff's face paled and he looked up at Sean. What are you trying to say?

he whispered. They stared at each other and in the silence Sean had to

choose between letting his temper run or keeping Duffs friendship, for

the words that would spoil it for ever were crowding into his mouth. He

made his hands relax their grip on the arms of his chair.

I didn't mean that, he said. I hoped you didn't, Duff's grin came

precariously back onto his face. Tell me why you like hunting, laddie.

I'll try and understand but don't expect me to hunt with you again. It

was like explaining colour to a blind man, describing the lust of the

hunter to someone who was born without it. Duff listened in agonized

silence as Sean tried to find the words for the excitement that makes a

man's blood sing through his body, that heightens his senses and allows

him to lose himself in an emotion as old as the urge to mate. Sean

tried to show him how the nobler and more beautiful was the quarry, the

stronger was the compulsion to hunt and kill it, that it had no

conscious cruelty in it but was rather an expression of love: a fierce

possessive love. A devouring love that needed the complete and

irrevocable act of death for its consummation.

By destroying something, a man could have it always as his own: selfish

perhaps, but then instinct knows no ethics. It was all very clear to

Sean, so much a part of him that he had never tried to voice it before

and now he stumbled over the words, gesticulating in helpless

inarticulateness, repeating himself, coming at last to the end and

knowing by the look on Duff's face that he had failed to show it -to

him. And you were the gentleman who fought Hradsky for the rights of

men, Duff said softly, the one who always talked about not hurting

people.

Sean opened his mouth to protest but Duff went on. You get ivory for us

and I'll look for gold, each of us to what he is best suited. I'll

forgive you your elephants as you forgave me my Candy, still equal

partners. Agreed?

Sean nodded and- Duff held up his glass. It's empty, he said. Do me a

favour, laddie. There was never any after-taste to their disputes, no

rankling of unspoken words or lingering of doubt. What they had in

common they enjoyed, where there were differences they accepted them. So

when after each hunt the packhorses brought the tusks into the camp

there was no trace of censure in Duffs fare or voice; there was only the

genuine pleasure of having Sean back from the bush.

Sometimes it was a good day and Sean would cut the spoor, follow, kill

and be back in the laager the same night. But more often, when the herd

was moving fast or the ground was hard or he could not kill at the first

approach, he would be gone for a week or more. Each time he returned

they celebrated, drinking and laughing far into the night, lying late in

bed the next morning, playing Klabejas on the floor of the wagon between

their cots or reading aloud out of the books that Duff had brought with

him from Pretoria. Then a day or two later Sean would be gone again,

with his dogs and his gunboys trotting behind him.

This was a different Sean from the one who had whored it up at the Opera

House and presided over the panelled offices in Eloff Street. His

beard, no longer groomed and shaped by a barber, curled onto his chest.

The doughy colour of his face and arms had been turned by the sun to the

rich brown of a newly-baked loaf. The seat of his pants that had been

stretched to danger point across his rump now hung loosely; his arms

were thicker and the soft swell of fat had given way to the flatness and

bulge of hard muscle. He walked straighter, moved quicker and laughed

more easily.