Vaguely he answered the greetings of his servants. He wandered down the

bank into the river bed.

The summer had shrunk the Limpopo into a sparse line of pools strung out

down the centre of the watercourse.

The pools were dark olive green. The sand around them was white,

glaring snowfield white, and the boulders that choked the barely moving

river were black and polished smooth. The banks were steep, half a mile

apart and walled in with trees. Sean walked through the sand, sinking

to his ankles with each step. He reached the water and sat down at the

edge, he dabbled his hand in it and found it warm. as blood. In the

sand next to him was the long slither mark of a crocodile, and a troop

of monkeys were shaking the branches of a tree on the far bank and

chattering at him. A pair of Sean's dogs splashed across the narrow

neck between two Pools and went off to chase the monkeys. They went

halfheartedly with their tongues flapping at the corners of their mouths

for it was very hot in the whiteness of the river-bed. Sean stared into

the green water. It was lonely without Duff; he had only his guilt and

his sorrow for company. One of the dogs that had stayed with him

touched his cheek with its cold nose.

Sean put his arm round its neck and the dog leaned against him. He

heard footsteps in the sand behind him, he turned and looked up. It was

Mbejane. Nkosi, Hlubi has found elephant not an hour's march up stream.

He has counted twenty show good ivory.

Sean looked back at the water. Go away, he said.

Mbejane squatted down beside him with his elbows on his knees. For whom

do you mourn? he asked. Go away, Mbejane, leave me alone. Nkosi Duff

does not need your sorrow, therefore I think that you mourn for yourself

Mhejane picked up a pebble and tossed it into the pool. When a

traveller gets a Thorn in his foot, Mbejane went on softly, and he is

wise he plucks it out, and he is a fool who leaves it and says "I will

keep this thorn to prick me so that I will always remember the road upon

which I have travelled. " Nkosi, it is better to remember with pleasure

than with pain. Mbejane lobbed another pebble into the pool, then he

stood up and walked back to the camp. When Sean followed him ten

minutes later he found a saddle on his horse, his rifle in the scabbard

and Mbejane and Hlubi waiting with their spears. Kandhla handed him his

hat, he held it by the brim, turning it in his hands. Then he clapped

it onto his head and swung up onto the horse.

Lead, he ordered.

During the next weeks Sean hunted with a single-mindedness that left no

time for brooding. His returns to the wagons were short and

intermittent; his only reasons for returning at all were to bring in the

ivory and change his horse. At the end of one of these brief visits to

camp and as Sean was about to mount up for another hunt, even Mbejane

complained. Nkosi, there are better ways to die than working too hard.

You look well enough, Sean assured him, although Mbejane was now as lean

as a greyhound and his skin shone like washed anthracite. Perhaps all

men look healthy to a man on horseback, Mbejane suggested Sean stoppe

with one foot in the stirrup. He looked at Mbejane thoughtfully, then he

lowered his leg again. We hunt on foot now, Mbejane, and the first to

ask for mercy earns the right to be called woman" by the other. Mbejane

grinned; the challenge was to his liking. They crossed the river and

found spoor before midday, a small herd of young bulls. They followed

it until nightfall and slept huddled together under one blanket, then

they went on again next morning. on the third day they lost the spoor

in rocky ground and they cast back towards the river. They picked up

another herd within ten miles of the wagons, went after them and killed

that evening three fine bulls, not a tusk between them under fifty

pounds weight. A night march back to the wagons, four hours sleep and

they were away again. Sean was limping a little now and on the second

day out, during one of their infrequent halts, he pulled off his boot.

The blister on his heel had burst and his sock was stiff with dried

blood.

Mbejane looked at him expressionlessly. How far are we from the wagons?

asked Sean. We can be back before dark, Nkosi. Mbenjane carried Sean's

rifle for him on the return. Not once did his mask of solemnity slip.

Back in camp Kandhla brought a basin of hot water and set it in front of

Sean's chair. While Sean soaked his feet in it his entire following

squatted in a circle about him. Every face wore an expression of

studied concern and the silence was broken only by the clucking sounds

of Bantu sympathy. They were loving every minute of it and Mbejane with

the timing of a natural act or was building up the effect, playing to

his audience.

Sean puffed at a cheroot, scowling to stop himself laughing. Mbejane

cleared his throat and spat into the fire.

Every eye was on him; they waited breathlessly. Nkosi, said Mbejane, I

would set fifty head of oxen as your marriage price, if you were my

daughter.

One instant more of silence, then a shout of laughter.

Sean laughed with them at first, but after a while when Hlubi had nearly

staggered into the fire and Nonga was sobbing loudly on Mbejaae's

shoulder with tears of mirth streaming down his cheeks, Sean's own

laughter stopped.

It wasn't that funny.

He looked at them sourly, at their wide open pink mouths and their white

teeth, at their shaking shoulders and heaving chests and suddenly it

came to him very clearly that they were no longer laughing at him. They

were laughing for the joy of it. They were laughing because they were

alive. A chuckle rattled up Sean's throat and escaped before he could

stop it, another one bounced around inside his chest and he lay back in

his chair, opened his mouth and let it come. The hell with it, he was

alive, too.

In the morning when he climbed out of his wagon and limped across to see

what Kandhla was cooking for breakfast, there was a faint excitement in

him again, the excitement of a new day. He felt good. Duff's memory

was still with him, it always would be, but now it was not a sickening

ache. He had plucked out the thorn.

They moved camp three times in November, keeping to the south bank of

the river, following it back towards the west. Slowly the wagons which

they had emptied of ivory beside the waterhole began to fill again, for

the game was concentrated along the river. The rest of the land was dry

but now each day there was promise of relief.

The clouds that had been scattered across the sky began to crowd

together, gathering into rounded dark-edged masses or rearing proudly

into thunderheads. All of nature seemed impressed by their growing

importance. In the evening the sun dressed them in royal purple and

during the day the whirlwinds did dervish dances for their

entertainment. The rains were coming. Sean had to make a decision,

cross the Limpopo and cut himself off from the south when the river

flooded, or stay where he was and leave the land beyond undisturbed. It

wasn't a difficult decision.

They found a place where the banks flattened out a little on both sides

of the river. They unloaded the first wagon and double-teamed it; then

with everybody shouting encouragement the oxen galloped down the steep

slope into the river-bed. The wagon bounced behind them until it hit

the sand where it came to a halt, tilted at an abandoned angle, with its

wheels sunk axledeep into the sand.

onto the spokes, shouted Sean. They flung themselves on the wheels and

strained to keep them turning, but half the oxen were down on their

knees, powerless in the loose footing.

Damn it to hell. Sean glared at the wagon. Outspan the oxen and take

them back. Get out the axes. It took them three days to lay a bridge

of corduroyed branches across the river and another two to get all the

wagons and ivory to the far bank. Sean declared a holiday when the last

wagon was manhandled into the laager and the whole camp slept late the

next morning. The sun was high by the time Sean descended from his

wagon. He was still muzzy and a little liverish from lying abed. He

yawned wide and stretched like a crucifix. He ran his tongue round his

mouth and gtimaced at the taste, then he scratched his chest and the

hair rasped under his fingers. Kandhla, where's the coffee? Don't you

care that I am near dead from thirst? Nkosi, the water will boil very

soon. Sean grunted and walked across to where Mbejane squatted with the

other servants by the fire watching Kandhla. This is a good camp,

Mbejane. Sean looked up at the roof of leaves above them. It was a

place of green shade, cool in the late morning heat. Christmas beetles

were squealing in the wide stretched branches. There is good grazing

for the cattle, Mbejane agreed;

he stretched out his hand towards Sean. I found this in the grass,

someone else has camped here. Sean took it from him and examined it, a

piece of broken china with a blue fig-leaf pattern. It was a shock to

Sean, that little fragment of civilization in the wilderness; he turned